The Tangled Web(16)

Harlan Stull raised an eyebrow. "Does that explain why your per diem has gone up, you and Clara? You're feeding six rather than two? Or ten rather than two? How many are there?"

"Well, we felt bad about it. If we hadn't taken away all of the abbot's income-producing property, the provosts on the abbey's farms would be sending them something to eat, at least. And they could fix the roof. It's leaking into the chapel."

"Why the hell do they name girls Salome, anyhow?" Orville Beattie asked. "It seems like a bad omen from the start."

"Not that one," Andrea said. "Not the one with the seven veils and John the Baptist's head. There's another one, who stood next to Mary at the cross. She's a saint. Girls get named for her."

"More than enough room for confusion, if you ask me," Fred said. He was clearly going to be on Andrea's shit list today no matter what he did, so he figured he might as well earn it.

"Where did Mark and the rest of the Special Commission go today?" Wes Jenkins asked.

Andrea looked at his face and shivered.

"Neuenberg," Orville Beattie answered. "That's not far."

"Go get them. Bring them back. Take a dozen guards with you, at least. God, this is sick!"

Orville moved fast.

"Andrea," Wes spit out. "Get your tame lawyer in here this minute. And the mayor and the whole city council."



"We've let you keep your gate guards. Did somebody bring this smut in through one of the gates. If so, which one, and when?" Wes Jenkins glared.

The captain of Fulda's militia shook his head. "There has been no large shipment of printed matter for several weeks, sir. Not to the best of our knowledge. I do have confidence in my men."

"Are you interested in the other option, then?"

"Which other option?" Adam Landau asked rather hesitantly. He was the mayor. It was his job to speak for the others, no matter how dangerous an activity that currently appeared to be.

"That some sick creep brought a manuscript and the woodcuts into Fulda in his private baggage and it was printed here?"

The council members looked at one another. Then at the militia captain. Then back at one another. This possibility was even less pleasant.

The head of the clothmakers' guild cleared his throat. "Ah. Freedom of the press, sir?" Esaias Geyder said tentatively.

Wes blew up. "There are a few little things for you to think about. First, this is a military occupation force, when you come right down to it. Fulda has not adopted the constitution of the New United States. It hasn't even voted on whether or not to adopt it. And if your friendly local collection of imperial knights doesn't manage to get its act together, it's not likely that there will be a vote any time soon, because we won't be able to organize an election. Not that things here are any worse than they are in the rest of Franconia, but that's neither here nor there.

"Second." He looked at the head of the clothmakers' guild. "There are some things that I am simply not having happen in the name of freedom of the press. Andrea's lawyer here can write back to Grantville. He'll have somebody send the information, if you want to footnote me, but there really are court decisions about this stuff. Freedom of speech doesn't extend to yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater. 'Your right to swing your fist ends where it collides with someone else's nose.' That sort of stuff."

"What aren't you going to have happen here?" the militia captain asked.

"Witch hunts, first and foremost. How old are you, Captain Wiegand? Old enough to remember them?" Wes waved at the group. "You have to be old enough, Kaus. You're at least sixty, and they were only thirty years ago. What about you, Rabich? I've never heard that you suffer from memory loss when it comes to your property rights. You're here at city hall hassling Andrea every other day. Has 'burning alive' slipped your mind? Not a few cases, precisely. Somewhere between two hundred fifty and three hundred, from what we've been able to find out."

Otto Kaus swallowed nervously. Eberhard Rabich took a half-step back.

Wiegand stepped forward. "They're old enough, sir. So am I, for that matter. I was ten at the last burning, but for three years, Judge Nuss took the school to watch."

"Took the school," Andrea Hill gasped.

"It was a regular sort of thing, ma'am." He turned back to Wes Jenkins. "Herr Kaus is a bit nervous. Some of his relatives were burned. Some of Frau Rabich's relatives, too. It's hard for families to get away from the taint, somehow."

"Well, and shouldn't it be?" Lorenz Mangold, new head of the butchers' guild, pushed himself to the front. "Think about it. Anna Hahn, old Hans's widow, got away. And then had the gall to come back and live here after Judge Nuss was arrested and put in prison. But there's bound to have been some truth to the accusations, or the bishop of Bamberg wouldn't have burned her son as a witch a few years ago, would he? Not when he had risen as far as chancellor of the diocese. I say that where there's smoke, there's fire."