He rose to his feet. "No, hell with that. I'll do it myself."
By the time they arrived at Blumroder's shop, night had fallen. Blumroder himself ushered them into the main room of his living quarters. His wife and children—two sons and a daughter, all of them in their late teens or early twenties—were present, along with all four of his apprentices and the two Jaeger he still kept around as guards.
Once Gretchen, Jeff, Anse and the three CoC members came into the room, it seemed as packed tight as a shipping crate. It didn't help any that Gretchen forced the two CoC culprits—Hennel was the third one—to come to the center of the room.
She got right down to business. Turning to the two chastened CoC members, she pointed a finger at Blumroder.
"You will apologize to Herr Blumroder for trying to kill him."
Apologies babbled forth like a bubbling brook.
Gretchen now faced Blumroder.
"You will accept the apology."
She still looked like a half-frozen bat out of hell, and just as pissed. Blumroder didn't babble, but he did nod his head. He didn't even hesitate, for more than a second.
"That's the end of it, then," Gretchen pronounced. Turning back to the CoC miscreants, she jerked her head toward the door.
"Now, get out. Remember what I told you. From now on, you will listen to Jorg. And I'm leaving two other members of the CoC here also. One from Jena, one from Rudolstadt. Both are experienced, and good organizers. You will listen to them also."
Hastily—eagerly—the two youngsters made for the door.
"Moment," Gretchen growled. "You will also tell those other four idiots to come into Suhl and apologize personally to Herr Blumroder. If they don't, I will come back. You do not want me to come back."
They gave her a nervous nod, and vanished.
Gretchen swiveled to face Blumroder again. "I will leave now, Herr Blumroder. There will be no further misbehavior on the part of the CoC here."
He nodded again. "I accept your reassurance."
"Accept this also, then," she said coldly. "Within a few months, we are likely to be at war again. Many of our soldiers will die. One of them might be my husband. Some of them are certain to be my comrades in the Committees. If it is discovered that their deaths were due to the enemy having weapons that should never have been sold to them, there will be consequences."
Her icy gaze move away from Blumroder to fix on the two Jaeger. "Do not think you are the only ones who know how to shoot," she told them. "Or gut a carcass. And the Thueringerwald is not that big. Never think so."
The gaze came back to Blumroder. "You do not want me to return to Suhl, either."
She straightened a little, jerked the lapels of the parka to shed more snow on the floor, and was gone.
Her husband followed. At the threshhold, he paused, looked at Blumroder over his shoulder, and smiled cheerfully.
"You really don't, Herr Blumroder. Trust me on this one."
There was silence in the room, for a while, after the door was closed. Then Blumroder cleared his throat.
"Herr Hatfield, perhaps we should resume our interrupted conversation. The one concerning railroad work, and its prospects for Suhl."
"What a good idea," Anse said.
Bypass Surgery
Virginia DeMarce
Bamberg, January 1633
Vince Marcantonio looked at the latest communication from headquarters. Grantville, that was; not from Steve Salatto in Würzburg, who was his immediate boss. From Vince's viewpoint, his lot as the N.U.S. administrator in Bamberg was not a happy one. Steve was his formal boss and had been since Grantville sent its teams into Franconia a couple of months before. He sometimes wondered, though, if his real boss wasn't his deputy, Wade Jackson, who was a member of the UMWA. The United Mine Workers of America were still, in a lot of ways, the real backbone of Mike Stearns' administration. Until it was clearer that Stearns would back him if he went against Wade—for that matter, until it was clearer that Stearns would back Steve Salatto if he went against Saunders Wendell, who was the UMWA man in Würzburg—he took the precaution of clearing everything with his deputy.
He shook his head. A "Special Commission on the Establishment of Freedom of Religion in the Franconian Prince-Bishoprics and the Prince-Abbey of Fulda." Which they wanted Walt Miller and Matt Trelli to do, here in Bamberg.
Not that Bamberg couldn't benefit from the activities of such a commission, given the string of six hundred or so witch-burnings that the bishop had enthusiastically fostered during the second half of the 1620s.