The Dreeson Incident(45)

Frankfurt's militia officers were, by order of the council, in full ceremonial uniform. The type of uniform that they normally wore only to awards banquets. With sashes, satin trousers, lace collars, and polished boots. Items that were both difficult and expensive to clean.



The militia captain gave his instructions. He had a loud and booming voice that carried well, too. Not in the Ableidinger league, but plenty loud enough. "One company surrounds each of the target taverns right after the bells toll. Ensure that no one leaves. Those who resist will be shot. Those who surrender will be arrested."



As usual, Nathan Prickett noted a bit cynically, seventeenth century notions of legitimate police work diverged sharply from twentieth. Granted that they were a bunch of loudmouthed anti-Semites, the men in the taverns who were about to be set upon by the city militia hadn't actually done anything illegal. They weren't even drunk and disorderly yet.



Fat lot of good it would do them.



The militia lieutenants nodded firmly at their captain's instructions.



"Ensure it. You have the best of the guns from Blumroder. Your men know how to use them. No one leaves."



The captain looked around. On the average, the militiamen looked more enthusiastic about the evening's proposed project than the lieutenants did. That was Nathan's assessment, anyway, and it seemed the captain shared it.



"If anyone tries to leave a tavern," he bellowed, "the man who shoots him will succeed to the lieutenancy of the company. If more than one man tries to leave at the same time, every man in the company who shoots will receive a substantial reward."



That ought to stiffen everyone's back a bit. Not to mention encouraging the lieutenants to do a little shooting themselves. It wasn't an empty threat. Judging from their own vigorous nodding, the council had already agreed to the provision.





"In the front row with the Bürgermeister." The city council secretary had a list, by which he was lining up the order of march.



"I have never entered some of these neighborhoods in my life," one of the councilmen muttered.



"Maybe it will do you some good. You can learn how the other half lives."



He started to sputter; then decided that sputtering at the grandmother of the "hero of Wismar," right at this moment, was not the best idea.



The Grantville mayor was on the left hand of the Bürgermeister. On his right hand—the unhappy councilman grimaced—was the Danish woman who had disrupted the council hearing. And, behind the civic officials, the orange uniforms of the Fulda Barracks Regiment.



Henry looked around and yelled, "Jeffie?"



Jeffrey Garand looked rather anxiously at Derek Utt. "Derek? Uh? I mean, Major Utt?"



"Go on."



Jeffie ran to the front line.



"Is that your flute, you've got there in your hand?"



"Ah, yeah, Mr. Dreeson. It's not standard, I know, for one of the sergeants to double as a piper, but, well, I've got it, and we're not quite fully staffed, so . . ."



"You were in the marching band, weren't you? In high school?"



'Um-hmmn."



"Can you still play 'Hey, Look Me Over'?"



Jeffie sighed. "In my sleep."



"Then get on up here with the drums. We're stepping out."



The Frankfurt municipal drum corps was good. They caught on to Jeffie's rhythm in no time.





Soubise and Sandrart, watching the preparations, made particular note of the three companies of orange uniforms at the rear of the procession.



"Pour encourager les autres, I presume," the brother of the duke of Rohan remarked.





Nathan Prickett felt obliged to march with one of the militia companies, seeing as how he'd provided the arms for most of them. On the other hand, since he wasn't actually a member of the militia, he didn't feel obliged to march in the front rank. So he more or less hung around in the third rank. Close enough to "show the flag," not close enough to get hurt—well, not likely—in case the would-be pogromists in the taverns decided to fight back.



Some of them did fight, in fact, including the ones in the tavern that Nathan's company marched against. But it was a pretty lame sort of thing. You might almost call it desultory, except there was nothing desultory about the man dying in the doorway of the tavern. He'd been the first one shot, as he came rushing out with an old musket, and it took a while before he stopped howling in agony. He'd been shot three times, all the wounds coming low down in his hips and abdomen. One of the militiamen might have shot him again just to put him out of his misery, but the other anti-Semites in the tavern had chosen to pour out of a side door and that had distracted the company.