The Ram Rebellion(196)

"Someone is here to speak with you."





"Thank you," he said absentmindedly. "I'm coming now." He wiped his pen, but left the book open.





He did not recognize the men, but they appeared to know him. Scarcely surprising in itself; a pastor was naturally noticed when he went through the streets. "Good afternoon, gentlemen. What is it?"





"If you could come? A difficult birth."





He did not recall that any of those women who had been attending his sermons was expecting a child right now. Possibly, always possibly, someone from one of the families who had fallen away under persecution and were ashamed to come back. In any case, an innocent child in need of baptism.





"Just let me get my case." He hurried back up the stairs for the small case in which he kept his manual and small Bible, the host and wine for the mother, just in case; a little vial of water.





"Frau Thornton."





Emma looked up. The woman standing at the other side of the booth counter looked very upset.





"Please, excuse me many times. I am the landlady for Herr Pastor Meyfarth. I know that your husband is his friend. This is true, isn't it?"





"Why, yes. Willard is out of town this week, though. Can I help you?"





"Men came for the Herr Pastor, yesterday. To bring comfort to a difficult birth, they said. They did not give their names. He went with them, naturally. But he has not returned."





"Couldn't members of his church help you more than I can?"





The woman looked even more distressed. "I have already been to them. They know of no one who would have had need of him, no one expecting a child. We have checked with the two families they know of who expect God to bless them soon with the gift of a child. Both mothers are well; neither sent for the pastor. No one knows."





"Why come to me?"





"It is said that you know the Ram."





Emma smiled. So much for discretion. Gathering up the literature she had on display, she packed it into the tightly woven basket at the rear of the booth; then picked up the basket and put it on top of the three-legged stool on which she sat when no inquirer was there. Just in case of rain; it should stay dry until she got back.





Drat, she had missed a couple. Rather than open the balky catch on the basket again, she dropped them into the big pocket on her work apron. It was a Grantville Home Center special; the pockets were big, and the motto was an attention-getter when she worked the booth.





"Come with me, please."





Constantin Ableidinger sighed. He had had men from the ram watching them for so long. There had been, as far as they could tell, no attempts against them. With everything else that was going on, he needed every reliable, trained man he had at his side. He called the Jaeger back, to be in other places, to do other things.





Now, both Herr Meyfarth and Frau Thornton, gone. And a note on his desk.





Call off the ram, or they die.





As if he could call off the ram, now! What kind of fools could these men be, to think that anyone, even the Ram himself, with a word or gesture, could call back a flood? Find the men who were in Bamberg last spring. Where would they be, now? Thousands in the field. Start asking. Where were they, the Jaeger who had guarded them?





Herr Thornton. He was out of the city. Where was he? Did Ottheinrich leave a list, of the villages they were to visit? Was he safe? The itinerary was here; quickly, he sent out a runner to follow the route.





What tie could there be between Meyfarth and the Thorntons, other than the ram?





"You are sure that you saw this?" Martha Kronacher asked anxiously. "Sure?"





The ewe's little flock of apprentices, Martha's younger brothers and their friends, had been talking to people all over Bamberg for two days.





Her brother Melchior had been pushing them hard. He did not like the look that had come over Martha's face when she heard that Pastor Meyfarth was gone. She was sincerely concerned about Frau Thornton, to be sure, but with Pastor Meyfarth, she appeared to take it personally, so to speak.





"Yes, I am sure," the fishmonger said, in response to a question asked by Stew Hawker. "In the market, speaking to Frau Thornton. At the booth where she has the books and pamphlets. It was Herr Pastor Meyfarth's landlady. I am sure that I recognized her. I don't know her name, but she's a widow who keeps a small boarding house, for working men. Has for several years. Respectable, very respectable. The rooms are cheap."





"Has anyone checked there?" Ableidinger asked.





"The other boarders are coming and going," the Jaeger in the room answered. He was the biggest of the ones whom Ableidinger had brought with him into Bamberg. The scariest one, too, Martha thought. "Complaining that this morning there was no breakfast. The woman is gone."