FREE STORIES 2012(61)

The fellow’s stride broke, swerved in the direction of the American. His eyes roved over the group’s gear. “Yes, Herr Hauptman?”

“I wish to speak with either the Burgermeister or the Stadtamtmann. Where will I find them?”

The reply—“upstairs”—earned the fellow the kreutzer: his reaction was a quick smile and a quicker departure.

Progress through the diminishing crowd in the Rathaus was still slow, due to the frenzy of the remaining workers as they redoubled their efforts to wrap up and head home. An outbound scribe descending the northern staircase attempted to dissuade them from ascending, saw that his entreaties were pointless, gesticulated toward their destination, left them to their own devices.

Thomas was content to let Quinn continue to walk point: that way, the American would hit the first political tripwire, and they were deep in what was, for all soldiers, enemy country: the tortuous warrens of bureaucrats.

Quinn knocked on the jamb of an already-open office door. “Herr Burgermeister von Pflummern?”

A youngish, fit man looked up from his pile of books and papers. “Yes?” In the next second he was on his feet, his eyes slightly wider and much more cautious. “And who, may I ask, are you?”

While Quinn presented their bona fides, their papers, and their business, Thomas scanned the room and the hallway surreptitiously. Another man, older and thickly built, emerged from a larger office halfway down the hall, two other men in tow. Brows lowering, they glanced hastily at the strange group around the entrance to von Pflummern’s office, and hurried toward the southern staircase.

Von Pflummern’s office was half chaos, half order, leaving Thomas with the impression that it was being used by two different men. Judging from the way that pristine orderliness seemed to be encroaching on dust-covered layers of entropy, the neatness was logically a characteristic of the newcomer. A glance at von Pflummern himself, and Thomas knew him to be the recent arrival.

It was not just his comparative youth: it was his immaculate dress, hair, and hygiene. The pen he was using was neatly and newly cut, and the ink, quill knives, and blotting paper were arrayed evenly along the margins of his workspace.

Just as Burgermeister von Pflummern was about to correct Larry’s (and therefore, Ed Piazza’s) ostensible misunderstanding of what had, and had not, been offered and promised by the inner council of Biberach’s Rat, Thomas intruded a quick question: “Excuse me, Herr Burgermeister von Pflummern, but how recently did you replace the former Catholic Burgermeister?”

Von Pflummern’s jaw froze, then thawed into a surprised stutter: “How, how do you—? Two months. And a few weeks.”

“So you were not a Burgermeister at the time the aerodrome agreement was made, is that correct?”

“It is, but as the senior Catholic member of the inner council, I was fully aware of all the particulars.”

“I did not mean to imply otherwise. I just noted that your office has—well, has the look of transition.”

Von Pflummern flushed slightly, nodded, looked around: had there been enough space and chairs, Thomas intuited that the man’s innate congeniality would have had him inviting them all to take seats. But then he stood straighter and extended a hand toward the door, back in the direction of the stairs.

“You are correct. We have had many losses, this past winter. My predecessor died of a fever, and the former Protestant Burgermeister, Johann Schoenfeld the Elder, died of the plague late last year. He was one of the few to contract it and he refused to come back within the walls. Now I will thank you gentlemen to see yourselves out; I must close my office and return home.”

North was going to press for one more tidbit of information about the prior Roman Catholic Burgermeister when Quinn stuck out a hand with a slight bow. After a moment’s hesitation, von Pflummern took it. Quinn bowed slightly: “I am sorry we have intruded so late in the day. As you see from my orders, I will need to speak to you at greater length, as well as the town’s other Burgermeister and its Stadtamtmann.”

“The Protestant Burgermeister is Hanss Lay. My brother Christoph is the Stadtamtmann. We will make what time we can for you tomorrow. Good evening, gentlemen.”





***





Before heading back to their beddings of hay and the smell of ordure, Quinn suggested they visit a tavern a few blocks south of the market place that was known as far as Ulm for its beer. Thomas offered no resistance and made a silent footnote to inquire upon returning to Grantville if the up-timer’s modest means had improved in recent days, or if he was on a rather generous operating account. If the latter, that suggested he had garnered an unusual measure of trust from the notoriously frugal (not to say miserly) Ed Piazza.