FREE STORIES 2012(66)

Prum frowned, then his eyebrows lifted in understanding. “Ah. This is the airship I’ve heard mentioned once or twice?”

“It is.”

Prum shook his head. “I am sorry. I would not be aware of it at all except for some overheard conversations amongst common workers. And the arrangement has come undone? A pity: I should have liked to have seen such a miracle.”

Thomas nodded understanding. “Any advice on what to do?”

Prum seemed surprised. “Me? About getting them to re-accept a balloon? Here?” He shook his head sadly. “If you have a long time to wait, I suppose you could try to use the power of sweet reason. But if you’re in a hurry, I think you’ll be disappointed. The town fathers are most intractable.” Seeing the looks on their faces, Prum hastened to add, “I’m sorry to be discouraging. But now I must see to securing food for my men.” He rose. “If there’s any assistance I can offer, do not hesitate to ask.”

“We won’t,” grumbled Thomas.

Larry stood, put out his hand. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Herr Kapitan Prum.”

“Likewise, Major Quinn, Colonel Thomas.”

Thomas muttered a pleasantry that even he couldn’t hear as the trim young officer exited the taproom. Once he was gone, the Englishman stared up at the American. “Well, your impressions, Major?”

“Only nice guy we’ve met so far.”

“Which is precisely why I’m suspicious of him,” North grumbled.

“There is that,” Quinn conceded with a small smile.





***





One meal, two hours, and three drinks later, Johann Schoenfeld entered with a relative whose family resemblance was unmistakable. However, the newcomer—the artist’s younger brother Ferdinand—spent a great deal of time in a dark distraction, missing bits of the initial conversation in his somber preoccupation.

Granted, Thomas reflected, the evening’s small talk about weather, trade, politics, trade, and oh yes, more trade, hardly made for riveting conversation. But Ferdinand seemed not merely bored or disinterested: he was fretful and barely touched his beer. Even Johann’s good-natured ribbing about his sibling’s second bout with impending fatherhood elicited only wan smiles.

However, Ferdinand became suddenly alert when, with the dinner hour, their server changed and the new one—a slightly older woman who was more concerned with the patrons as customers than potential husbands—clapped a friendly hand down on his shoulder and asked, “So, how is your little Gisela enjoying the new school in Nuremburg? I’ll bet she misses her Vati!”

Ferdinand muttered congenial pleasantries that sounded both pained and evasive. The server smiled and frowned simultaneously and then swept on to the next table.

Thomas watched the brother as Quinn asked. “So, how is your daughter doing in school?”

“Well,” was the brittle answer, “quite well.”

“What made you decide that she start studying so young, and away from home? Are the schools in Nuremburg so much better?”

Ferdinand drew himself up. “Our schools are every bit as good as those in Nuremburg . . .” Then he faltered, became furtive again. “But it’s a bigger town. It’s a city. It’s safer.”

“Safer?” his brother Johann wondered. “Safer than here?”

Ferdinand was openly nervous now. “Ja, safer. At least in the ways that matter most.” He rose quickly and bowed. “You gentlemen will excuse me. I have a pregnant wife and it is getting late.”

Thomas and Quinn rose, returned his bow, saw Johann’s face folded in creases of concern as Ferdinand made for the door. “I think I should see him home. Something has been bothering him.”

Ya think? Thomas wondered silently, cherishing the sassy up-time idiom.

Quinn frowned after the departing brothers. “You know, Thomas, given Ferdinand’s strange answers and jittery nerves, it might be helpful to have a chat with his wife tomorrow.”

And now, with a smile, Thomas got to say it aloud: “Ya think?”





***





The next morning, their ruse to speak with Ferdinand’s wife at home was a dismal failure. Their claim that they were trying to return what might be Herr Schoenfeld’s lost pipe (it actually belonged to Thomas’s batman, Finan) was rebuffed by the a crone-like servant who answered the door and avoided sharing her name. She indicated that her young mistress was indisposed and added the unsolicited observation that men should not come calling to see pregnant women unannounced, and particularly when the husband or another male family member was not present. It did not perturb her sense of indignation in the least that they had started by asking to speak to the husband (whom they knew to be at work), not the wife, and that it was difficult to send word ahead when one was trying to return a lost object as promptly as possible.