The Devil's Opera(150)

Anna held the candle close to his side.

“Yah, you have some bad bruises there. Broken?”

“Probably.”

The one word response was about all Hans could manage at that moment.

“Bide here and I’ll wrap them.” The old woman shuffled over to another bag, and pulled out some lengthy pieces of cloth. “I knew there was a reason I hadn’t taken these to the paper makers yet.” She turned back to Hans. “Put your hands on top of your head.”

An eternity later, a sweating Hans, light-headed, nauseated and holding his gorge down with some small difficulty, nonetheless felt somewhat better as Frau Anna tied off the last of the cloth bindings that wrapped his torso tightly.

“That has it,” she said as she trimmed off the surplus with a pair of scissors. “Take your hands down now.”

Hans lowered his arms, and essayed a deep breath with caution. “Better,” he admitted. “My thanks. Where did you learn to do that?”

She gave a surprisingly girlish chuckle. “Ah, lad, when you’re married to a fisherman, you pick little tricks like this up along the way. I had to wrap my husband Nikolaus’ ribs more than once before the ague took him off.”

A shirt landed in Hans’ lap.

“Put that on, and then we’ll find you a coat.”

He struggled into the shirt. It hurt, but not as much as taking the old one off had.

It took a few more moments, but they finally found a worn baggy coat that would fit over his shoulders and his wrapped torso.

That done, a thought occurred to Hans and he turned back to where his jacket lay. He kicked it over to where he could bend over to pick it up while keeping a hand on the wall to steady himself and help lever himself up again.

From one pocket, he removed the small fold of bills he had taken from the prize purse. He peeled one off and gave it to Frau Anna. She smiled at the sight of multiple zeros in the bill denomination, and it disappeared into one of her own pockets.

From another pocket, he pulled his fighting gloves. They were clammy and stiff with clotted blood, but he still pulled them on over his abused hands, wincing as he did so. He looked up at old Anna.

“Any chance you have some old gloves that might cover these?”

She thought for a moment, then shuffled over to a box in the corner. She dug around in it and finally surfaced with an old pair of leather fishermen’s gloves.

“These belonged to Nikolaus. Might be they will work.”

Nicholas must have had huge hands, as the gloves did cover his hands in the fighting gloves. Extra coverage, extra cushion, and extra disguise, all together.

From another corner, Frau Anna produced a knobby walking stick. “Here, lad. Good oak it is, for all it looks like a piece of rotten driftwood. Lean on that and walk bent over, and the devil himself would overlook you.”

The walking stick had a satisfying heft to it, Hans decided. He gave old Anna a knowing smile, and received one in response.

“My thanks again,” he said, laying a hand on the door. “But you’d best forget you ever knew me, and I was not here tonight.”

“All I saw tonight were bad dreams, lad.”

They shared another grin, then she blew the candle out. A moment later, the bar drew back and the door opened.

Hans slipped out. He headed back into the Neustadt. There was a place or two there he might be able to stay out of the chill until morning.

He had no illusions about his long-term survival prospects. There were enough hard men in the exurb that if Master Schardius wanted to pay a high enough price, he would be eventually be worn down and swarmed under. But—his hand clenched the walking stick and his lips peeled back in a silent snarl—before that happened he would make sure he had plenty of company when he stood at the gates of Heaven.

Plenty of company.





Chapter 58

Miklos Farkas opened the door to his shop not long after the sun appeared above the horizon. He glanced out to make sure that the doorstep was clean and clear, glanced up to see that the sign shaped like a pistol was hanging straight, then closed the door to keep the heat from escaping the shop. It might be spring by the calendar, but winter didn’t seem to have received that message yet.

A Hungarian in the capitol city of the USE, Miklos made no secret of his origin. He couldn’t—his accent would betray it every time he opened his mouth. He could speak the local dialect, and his command of Amideutsch was good enough to chaffer with the up-timers at need, but even they would remark on his accent at times, so, best to make a virtue out of necessity, as it were. He did bow to convenience somewhat, though, and often called himself Michael. That was a name the Germans could say without tying their tongue into knots.