Anthem
Buchenland, September 1634
"Through here," the young man said.
"This is quite a track." The hunting parties had recombined and divided once more. Captain Wiegand looked down rather than ahead, careful where he was placing his feet. A half dozen picked men were following him. The rest of the group was heading for Tann openly and frontally.
"Well, as my grandfather said, it's not as if we don't owe him."
"Owe?"
"The man from the Special Commission. The one you're looking for. Irli his name is, I think. He kept the meeting short and snappy when Grandpa reminded him about the hay. They got in the whole winter's supply at Neuenberg that day, before that thunderstorm and hail hit in the night. It would all have been ruined if he'd held them up."
He stopped a minute, then slid between two rocks. Wiegand suddenly understood why his picked men were all very thin men.
"Down this way. They took them out of the castle and into the cave two days ago."
"How did you ever find this?"
"I, ah, I've got a girlfriend who grew up here. On the von der Tann estate."
Orville Beattie and Mark Early were fine. A bit shopworn after two weeks as von der Tann's "guests," but fine.
Actually, they told Andrea after they got back to Fulda, the man had been pretty considerate.
She decided to hand this one off to Saunders Wendell. He could buck it up the chain to Steve Salatto to decide what to do about it. Especially since the rest of the men had seemed a bit uneasy about this call. She wished Gus would let Harlan out of the infirmary. He was Wes's deputy. She wasn't. But Gus was fussing about Harlan's blood pressure.
"Where do you suppose he went?" Clara asked.
"Who?"
"The man who was going to torture us."
"I don't know. But I really prefer not to make a closer acquaintance with him, so to speak," Wes said. "If I have the choice."
"Do you think we're going to get out of here? There hasn't been anybody around. No one at all."
"We'll get out if we ever manage to pry the hinges off this door. Presuming that we manage it before we starve."
"We won't starve for a while yet," Clara said cheerfully. "Consider our good fortune. They locked us in a pantry. Even though we're out of water, we still have a half keg of beer. It even has a slop jar. And a window to throw the slops through, so we don't have to live with them."
Wes put down the garden spade that he was using as a crowbar, sat on the bed, and laughed.
* * *
Karl von Schlitz was protesting bitterly against his rearrest. His lawyer had tried to argue double jeopardy. Andrea's lawyer had rebutted.
Von Schlitz's lawyer protested even more strongly in regard to the arrest of the two sons. There was nothing but suspicion against them, he insisted. At the very least, the government should allow them to sign Urfehden. The administration had no reason not to release them on bond.
"The hell of it," Derek Utt said to Saunders Wendell, "is that we really don't have anything on them except suspicion. And I swear that we have looked through every building on their estates from cellar to attic, more than once. Being sure to make plenty of noise, so that if Wes and Clara were in some kind of priest's hole, they would hear us and yell. If they can, of course."
Wendell looked grim. "I can't stay much longer. We've got to get back to Steve. They're running a crisis over in Bamberg, too."
"Let's put out placards," Andrea said. "All over Fulda. Not asking about Wes and Clara. Asking if anybody knows anything about some other building that von Schlitz has. List the ones we've looked at. Offer a reward for information about any others. Von Schlitz has to have been hiding somewhere between when they took him off the wagon and when he surfaced again."
"All right," her lawyer said. "I'll take care of it. Give me the list and I'll take it to the printer."
"I have it here," Captain Wiegand said. "You can make a copy off this one."
The lawyer took it. Looked down it. Shook his head. "It's not complete."
"Yes it is."
"No." The lawyer turned to Andrea. "Have Louis bring in those duplicate Urbare that we had from the provost over that way."
She frowned. Who was Louis? Oh, the gofer. She sent him.
The duplicate ledger landed on the table with a thunk. The lawyer started leafing through it.
"Here, this page. They've omitted everything on it. It has to do with a small estate that the current owner's great-uncle purchased for the use of his mistress."
* * *
"Someone's coming," Clara said. She listened for a while. "A lot of someones, with horses."
"We'd better get back as far as possible, until we figure out who it is. Why don't you get onto that pantry shelf that we've emptied."