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Through A Glass, Darkly

Written by David Carrico

Magdeburg
March 1635

Lieutenant Byron Chieske dropped into the visitor's chair in Captain Bill Reilly's office with a grunt. Reilly looked up from his paperwork with his eyebrows raised in a mild question. "The day that bad?"

"No, just long. We had to bring Annie Grimmigwald in on assault charges."

"Old Annie? How come?" Bill was surprised. Annie was normally a quiet woman, content to turn enough tricks to get her evening gin at some dive of a tavern before she stumbled out into the night to find a nook to sleep in.

The two officers had been working with the Magdeburg city watch for over two months now. The nature of that work had made many of the city's streetwalkers known to them. The city council ignored them as long as the women were quiet and kept to certain parts of town. Bill and Byron didn't pay any more attention to them than they had to. There were usually more serious issues to deal with.

"She kicked the slats out of another prostitute. She kept screaming that the other woman had stolen her man."

"Who's got magistrate's duty tomorrow?"

"Otto Gericke, I think."

"Good." Bill was relieved. "Maybe he won't be too hard on her."

"Actually, I'm going to try and get the charges dropped. The other prostitute had a knife, so it might have been a self defense situation."

"Mm, yeah, I could buy that. Annie's usually not mean. Do what you can." Bill saw Byron nod. "Where's your partner?"

"Left him in our office filling out the report. I'll sure be glad when someone develops reliable carbon paper. This having to fill out triplicate reports by hand is a real pain. I keep hearing about typewriters in German, but haven't seen one yet." Bill shook his head at Byron's sidelong glance. They were available, but the city council kept ignoring requests to acquire one for their budding police department. "Speaking of Gotthilf, he reminded me again to see if you've gotten an answer yet from Grantville about the possibility of stolen silverware."

Bill started rummaging through the papers on his desk. "Um, maybe. I thought I did." The rummaging ended with a piece of paper pulled in triumph from the middle of a stack. "Yeah, here it is." He passed it to Byron.

"Okay . . . looks like someone actually dug back into the records for this. Several reports of vacant houses being broken into a week or so after the Ring fell . . . kitchens ransacked . . . pans and glassware left behind, but knives, tableware and plastic stuff taken, including Melmac dishes in some cases." Byron scanned through to the end of the report. "Thefts stopped after a couple of weeks. No known suspects." He looked up with a grimace. "And, of course, since the owners of the homes were left up-time, there's no one who can give any kind of descriptions. Not much to go on."

"You still think that guy you saw selling the stainless silverware was selling hot stuff?"

"Well, he was sure nervous about something when he caught me looking at him. He didn't even know I was a cop, but he was sure spooked." Byron changed the subject. "Any word yet on the guys the kids told us about? The two from Hannover?"

"No, and since their descriptions match half the men in the northlands, I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you." Bill remembered everything surrounding the Vogler case rather well—everyone who had anything to do with it did. He looked down at his desk. "Well, now that you know what you know, go find this peddler. Otherwise, I'm going to trade jobs with you and let you deal with this stuff."

Byron shot to his feet. "On my way." And that quickly he was out of the office.

The threat of the paperwork worked every time, Bill smiled to himself. Then he looked at his desk, and groaned. He had to get an assistant soon. He wondered if he could somehow snaffle Odogar out from under Frank Jackson. It would be worth the grief the general would give him just to get someone who could run this office.

****

Gotthilf set the last copy of the report on top of the stack and wiped the pen nib to clean it. Byron came in the door to their office just as he set the pen aside. The up-timer waved a paper in the air.

"Finally got the answers from Grantville about the silverware questions we asked."

Gotthilf perked up. He'd wanted to grab the street vendor when Byron saw him selling the tableware, but Byron had insisted on waiting for information from Grantville. "So now we go get him?" He bounced to his feet and checked for his pistol.

"So now we go question him, anyway," Byron laughed. "Whether we get him or not depends on his answers. Come on. I want to check on Willi, anyway."

Gotthilf grabbed his jacket, and in moments they were on the street in front of the building that served as the city watch headquarters. As usual, Byron's long legs set the pace, forcing the shorter Gotthilf almost to a trot to keep up. "Slow down, you great lunk," he gasped after they traveled a block.

"Sorry." Byron slowed his steps to more of a stroll, which allowed Gotthilf to walk at a more normal speed. "I keep forgetting just how sawed off you are." A fleeting grin crossed his craggy face.

"All the better to cut you off at the kneecaps," Gotthilf growled before he smiled in return.

The two men had been partners now for a few weeks. It was an unlikely match at first glance; the lanky up-timer and the short but strongly built down-timer. The relationship had been a bit testy at first; or at least it had on his side, Gotthilf acknowledged. The city watch of Magdeburg was a proud organization, and they had not taken well to the thought that others could tell them how to fulfill their duties. There had been friction at times between the watch and the military police and NCIS staff at the naval yards. Gotthilf was honest enough to admit that there was as much fault on the side of the watch as there was on the navy's, maybe more. But that hadn't made it any easier to deal with the two up-timer officers when Herr Gericke brought them in to help shape the city watch into something more of a police department in the up-time mold.

Gotthilf still wasn't sure why Herr Gericke had selected him to serve as the partner of the tall and laconic up-timer. The first few days had been pretty strained, particularly after Gotthilf made the mistake of speaking disparagingly about a young beggar child. He found out in a moment that the good-natured lieutenant was capable of anger and passion. But the case they had stumbled on as a result of meeting that child had cemented them together as partners. The young down-timer was wholly converted to Byron's point of view, and in turn began to act as leaven to the whole watch. By this point, only the most hidebound of the watch were continuing to resist the new methods.

"I have a question," Gotthilf announced as they turned a corner. Byron looked at him with one of his quizzical expressions—he had a whole arsenal of them, ranging from innocent to sly to out-and-out sarcastic disbelief. This one was just a simple raised eyebrows indication to go ahead. "Why do you call it silverware, when there is no silver in or on it?"

Byron grinned. "More sloppy up-time speaking. It used to be that tableware was made of silver alloys, but that was pretty expensive for most people's pockets. So then someone started silver plating cheaper metals like brass. Looked as good as silver for a lot less money—until you polished the silver plating off and the brass started shining through. But after a while someone decided to start making it out of stainless steel. No rust, no polish needed, and while it didn't take a shine like silver, it was good enough for most folks. But people had been calling the package of knives, forks and spoons 'silverware' for so long that the name just carried over to the stainless steel version. Anyone who was trying to be really correct would say 'flatware,' but in over ninety-nine percent of the homes in America, if someone said 'Get the silverware out and set the table,' what came out of the drawer was stainless steel."

"So what you saw the man in the green coat selling was not silver?"

"Nope. It was pretty definitely stainless steel—it's got a characteristic look to it—and from the brief glance I got it wasn't even some of the better stuff. But good, bad or ugly, I saw at least three pfennigs change hands, so he was getting a good price for that knife, fork and spoon set."

They were entering that section of town that had become a street vendors' haven. One side of the street had been burned down in 1631 when Tilly's troops had sacked Magdeburg. The resulting spaces where houses and buildings had been had mostly been cleared off, but little reconstruction was under way in this area yet. Every kind of vendor and peddler that could be imagined could be found in these open spaces, including some of the more unsavory types. In fact, this was where they had found the pickpocket that had led them to crack the Vogler case.

"So where was he?" Gotthilf started looking around.

Byron pointed. "There—about half a block down on the left."

They drew closer. "He's not there now," Gotthilf observed.

"No joke. Let's start asking questions."

****

After close to an hour of asking fruitless questions, Byron pulled Gotthilf back into the traffic moving in the street. "Come on. We're not getting anywhere. Let's go check on Willi." They started walking on down the street toward Das Haus Des Brotes, the bakery operated by Herr Anselm Ostermann and his formidable wife, Frau Kreszentia Traugottin. Anselm was the baker, and Frau Zenzi, as she was known to one and all, was the public face of the bakery, ranging from cajoling saleslady to shrewd bargainer to hard-faced punisher of theft in as many breaths. They had become the foster parents of young Willi, the almost totally blind eight-year-old boy who had, all unwittingly on his part, led the two partners to the discovery of the faginy ring operating in Magdeburg under the very noses of the city council and the watch.

At the bloody conclusion of the case, which had ended in the death of one of the children—a girl who was Willi's best friend—and the death of the fagin, one Lubbold Vogler, there had been red faces all around. Otto Gericke, Burghermeister and de facto head of the Magdeburg civic government, had not minced words. Nor had the senior pastor of the city, whose outright horror at what had occurred had turned to rage of Biblical proportions. Clerks had been sent scurrying to find the lists of the children orphaned in the sack of the city in 1631. Assistant pastors had been handed the lists and sent out at a run to verify the whereabouts and condition of each of those children. There was a feeling that thunderbolts were about to strike, and it did not ease for over a week until the last of the children and their foster parents had been located. Broadsheets and newspapers had kept the matter fresh for several days, until the latest news from the imperial court had driven it off the front pages.

The source of it all, young Willi, was up to his elbows in bread dough when Byron and Gotthilf were ushered into the back of the bakery. He had flour on his hair, on the cloth that covered his damaged eyes, on his eyebrows. Bits of dough were stuck to his chin and cheek.

The smile on Willi's face was a welcome sight to the two men. The recent changes in his life had left the boy depressed for some time. To see some happiness in him lifted them both up.

"Willi," Frau Zenzi announced, "your two favorite watchmen are here."

"Hey, Willi," Byron said. "How's it going?"

"Herr Byron, Herr Gotthilf!" Gladness rang in Willi's voice. "I'm learning how to knead the dough. Papa Anselm says that when I learn to do that, then he will teach me how to shape it for the oven."

"That's good," Byron exclaimed. They spent several minutes talking with Willi. He very proudly showed off what he had been taught, and the two men congratulated him profusely.

After a time, they said their farewells. Frau Zenzi followed them outside. "Truly, how does he do?" Gotthilf asked.

"Well enough," she replied. "He smiles more, and even whistles or sings a bit now and then. The voice of a cherub, he has."

"Don't let my sister-in-law, Marla, hear that, or she'll have him in a choir so fast that you wouldn't know what happened." Byron's voice was joking, but then his expression turned thoughtful. "Actually, I might mention it to her after all. If he's good, she might be able to find him a place, give him some training, like that. With singing, his eyes won't hold him back." Frau Zenzi frowned a little. "I'm not saying right now. Maybe never. But it's an option. Something to think about. Give some thought to what kind of future a blind boy can have, Frau Zenzi." She nodded slowly.

"Is he still having the nightmares?" Gotthilf asked.

"Not so much. And he asked to go to her grave, so we took him last Sunday." Her was his friend Erna, the one who had been killed.

"How did that go?" Byron had been wondering when Willi would make that pilgrimage.

"He cried, but it was quiet. He took the cloth off his eyes and tried to look around, but we could tell he saw nothing. My heart, it broke when he asked me to tell him what everything looked like." She wiped a tear from her eye with the corner of her apron.

"It sounds like he's getting better, then." Byron nodded to her in parting. "Take good care of him, Frau Zenzi."

"We will."

****

Harold Baxter set his stein down with a thump and dragged his sleeve across his mouth, then smoothed down his scraggly beard. The seventeenth century's widespread acceptance of full beards was a good thing in his mind; he'd always disliked shaving. He still had the straight razor his grandpa'd given him over forty years ago, though. Push came to shove, it wasn't a bad hideout weapon. It had gotten him out of more than one bar fight alive over the years, both up-time and down.

He let a belch roll out, and gave himself a three for it. Tone was a little dead. Then he looked across the table at the man who was fidgeting with his own stein.

"So, what do you want, Herr Albret?" Harold knew the other guy's name was Albrecht Lang, but he had trouble with the German "ch" sound, especially after a few beers.

"I need more of the Tafelsilber, bitte, Herr Baxter."

"How much more?"

"I can sell three packages tomorrow, if I have them."

Harold nodded. "Show me the money." He watched as Herr Lang counted the pfennigs to the table, one at a time . . . four, five, six . . . and slowly pushed them to Harold's side. His eyes narrowed; he pushed one of the coins back. "You suckered me once with a Halle pfennig, Lang. Not again. Good silver, or you get nothing."

"But that is all I have." Lang's nasal voice turned whiny, sending a shiver down Harold's spine.

"Shut up." Lang shut up. Baxter swept four of the pfennigs into his hand and dipped into a pocket of his bush jacket, then pulled bundles wrapped in none-too-clean scraps of cloth out of another of the jacket's many pockets. "Here's two sets. I'll be here tomorrow if you get more money." Lang looked like he wanted to argue or plead, but a glare from the up-timer made him gulp and grab the last two coins off the table top along with the bundle. "And Albret?" The down-timer froze. "You try that trick with a Halle coin again, and your prices will double." Lang jerked his head in a nod, then fled without another word.

Harold sniggered, then spat into the fireplace. He'd always found the fact that Lang meant long in English funny, since Herr Albret was one of the scrawniest people he'd ever met. Nothing about him was long, except maybe his hair and his nose. The thought of hair brought a reflexive scratch of his scalp. He drew his fingers away to look at the louse he'd caught, then cracked it between a fingernail and the table.

No one else looked like they were going to approach him, so Harold decided to call it a day. He drained the last few swallows of beer from his stein, then shoved himself to his feet and walked to the door. Before the Ring fell, Harold had always prided himself on being able to walk a straight line, even when he'd taken on a full load of booze. He could still do it, he thought as he went out the door.

****

Two men across the room watched Baxter leave.

"That him?"

"Yes."

****

Byron looked across the street as they were headed back to the watch station. A young woman held her coat open for a moment to hide the hand that beckoned to him. He nudged Gotthilf with his shoulder. "C'mon." They stepped across the street to meet her.

Byron knew she was a street walker, but what was her name . . . oh, yeah, Leonora. Pretty name, he thought. She'd been pretty at one time, in a pale-skinned sort of way; pretty enough to perhaps live up to her namesake. No longer, however. For all that she was young, there were lines graven in her face that spoke of pain and wastage, lines that turned her visage into a portrait of experience and suffering with eyes full of desolation that wouldn't have been out of place on a woman three times her age.

"Don't smile at me," she said. "Act angry, please." Byron caught on immediately, and pasted a dark frown on his face. Gotthilf took a moment longer to understand, then his expression turned stern.

"You reached out to us," Byron said, shaking his finger in her face for those who watched. "What for?"

"You look for a man in a green coat, one who sells things from the up-time?"

"You know we do." Gotthilf postured by grabbing her shoulder.

"His name is Albrecht Lang."

"Ah." The two men stored the name away.

"Do you want to know who he gets his wares from?" Leonora looked down as if being chastened.

Byron had to struggle to keep his expression in place. "If you know who it is, you bet."

"An up-timer named Harold Baxter."

"How do you know that?"

"Albrecht arranged for me to spend a night with Herr Baxter." Leonora wrapped her arms close around her chest and looked away. "He hurt me."

A flash of rage went through Byron. "So, why are you telling us?"

"You were nice to Annie. And someone needs to stop Baxter. He will kill one of us some day—us or others."

"You're not the only one he's hurt?"

"No."

He wanted to have a talk with Baxter, Byron decided.

"Is there anything else you can tell us?" Gotthilf asked.

"No."

"Okay." Byron started shaking his finger at her again. "Don't do anything stupid, but if you need protection, come to the watch house and tell them my name. We're going to walk off now, so look dejected."

The two men walked away from the streetwalker and resumed their journey to the watch house. "Another victim," Gotthilf muttered.

"Yeah." Byron shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. "You know, I'm not religious, not like my wife and sister-in-law, but the more time I spend in this job, the more it seems like the concept of original sin just has to be true. I mean, look at us." He gestured around. "Every society the world has recorded history about had prostitution. And for every streetwalker who gets rich as a high-level courtesan or finds a loving marriage, a thousand or more die, old before their time, used, abused, diseased and usually wrecked by alcohol or worse. If man is so good and so perfectable, why does this crap happen over and over and over?"

"You had them up-time?"

Byron gave a short bitter laugh. "Oh, yeah, we had them up-time. And we were still arguing about what to do about them. Almost four hundred years later, and we weren't doing any better than your time does."

The rest of the walk occurred in silence. Both men were alone in their thoughts, each in his own way contemplating the difference between what had been and what was now.

****

Gotthilf bounced into the office he shared with Byron. "Good morning!" he exclaimed.

Byron winced, and waved at a chair. "Sit, sit, and be quiet until I finish my coffee."

Gotthilf grinned and sat. Bill Reilly had explained to him not long ago that Byron was in no way a morning person, and if he wanted to preserve tender portions of his anatomy from being chewed upon, he shouldn't approach Byron in the morning until after he'd had at least one oversized mug of coffee. From the looks of it, Byron was almost done with his first mug.

It wasn't long before Byron set the empty mug down. "Stop smirking at me, and let's go see the boss."

Gotthilf followed him to Captain Reilly's office.

"Hey, Bill."

"Captain Reilly."

The captain looked up from whatever he was reading this time, and groaned theatrically. "Oh, no. Both of you at once. What's happened now? Is the Penguin loose in Magdeburg?"

Byron laughed. Gotthilf, on the other hand, was bewildered, and it showed. His partner caught his expression. "Never mind. More crazy American stuff. I'll explain later." He turned back to the captain. "Bill, you ever had anything to do with a guy named Harold Baxter in Grantville?"

"Baxter . . . Baxter . . . name sounds familiar, but I can't tell you why. Why are you asking?"

"Because it turns out there may be something to this silverware thing after all, and if there is, he's probably involved in it."

"Baxter . . . Baxter . . . Oh, yeah, now I remember. He's Raelene Baxter's brother—she got left up-time. He was married to Sharlyn Douglas for a while, too. I think he's Brandi Dobbs' dad. I remember the divorce . . . pretty nasty. Dad used to say he was a mean cuss, and there was apparently some pretty strong evidence that he was abusive to Sharlyn and Brandi. After that, he moved out of town and raised fighting dogs . . . mostly pit bulls. I'd forgotten he got caught up in the Ring of Fire. He must have been in town to buy something."

"You don't know any more than that?"

"Nope. If it's him, he's about the same age as my dad, so I didn't really know him. Just some of the stuff from the rumor mill, you know. But I remember Dad saying that if it ever came down to a no-holds-barred no-rules fight with anyone, Harold was the one man in town he wanted on his side, 'cause there wasn't anything he wouldn't do in a fight."

Gotthilf swallowed. This Herr Baxter did not sound like anyone he wanted to get involved with. He looked to Byron, and saw that his partner was sober-faced; no funny expressions at all.

"If we need to know more, who should we talk to?"

"Maybe Frank Jackson. Like I said, Baxter's from my dad's generation, so he ought to be around sixty years old. He's maybe just a little older than Frank, so Frank probably knows something more about him."

On their way out of the office, Gotthilf looked at Byron. "The Penguin?"

"Well, before I can tell you about the Penguin, we'll have to talk about Batman first."

"Batman?" Fledermaus? Hieb? All sorts of thoughts went through Gotthilf's mind.

"Batman. See, there's this comic series . . ."

Americans were crazy, Gotthilf decided yet again.

****

Baxter watched his last customer of the day walk away from his table. The backpack he'd brought with him was empty. Six settings of stainless steel, a couple good butchers' knives and two settings of Melmac had all sold. Those who bought from him knew better than to try and bargain any longer. Once he said his price, that was it. Early on a couple of guys had tried to bargain with him, but he'd showed them. Every time they argued, he raised the price. He snickered at the thought of their expressions.

He emptied his stein and waved for another. The thought ran through Baxter's head that he was getting into a rut. Maybe he needed to start looking for the dogs he had planned to buy. From the looks of it, he'd never have much more money than he had now. His stash of "unique up-time wares" was about to run out, and with Grantville bulging at the seams, he'd never be able to scrape up its like again. From what he could tell, even the garage sales in town were a mere shadow of what they used to be like. Seemed like whenever anything was offered for sale nowadays, down-timers would swoop down and carry it off, with only enough bargaining to salve their own pride. Nope, if he wanted to get his kennels started up, he'd have to get started, and right soon.

****

"Now?"

"No." Benedikt Schiffer looked to his younger brother Ebert—half-brother, actually—as the familiar thought ran through his mind that his brother wasn't much brighter than the boar he was named after. Of course, the thought continued, his mother was noted more for being soft and placid than for any great amount of mental strength. Benedikt had inherited their father's brains and his mother's hardness. "No, Eb, we need to wait a bit longer. Make friends with him first."

"Oh." Ebert turned his stein in his fingers. "I wish Lubbold hadn't gone and gotten himself killed."

"Me, too, Eb. And don't talk about him anymore."

"Why, Ben?"

"Because," Benedikt summoned all of his scant patience, "he did something bad. He killed a little girl, and if people find out we were his friends, they might get mad at us."

"Oh. Okay."

That American word was popping up everywhere these days, Benedikt thought, then turned his mind back to Lubbold Vogler. Vogler the mastermind, whose plan to link gangs in different cities so that stolen goods could be transported to different regions for resale died just as it was about to be put into effect. Benedikt had come from Hannover with the final agreement of their folk, which was all that was needed according to Vogler, only to find him dead. Killed in a fight with city watchmen led by up-timers. Called themselves Polizei now, whatever that was supposed to mean. But to have everything—all the plans, all the contacts, all the names—resident only in Vogler's mind meant that it was all fuel for the flames of Hell. If the city men hadn't shot Vogler, Benedikt might well have done it himself. He ground his teeth until his jaw ached.

So now, now Benedikt was trying to find something with which to salvage this trip, and he had stumbled onto Herr Baxter peddling bits and pieces of the up-time. He took another glance at his target out of the corner of his eye.

****

Gotthilf looked to Byron. "Is Herr Lang in sight?"

"No." Byron muttered.

"What was that?"

"I said, you'd think it wouldn't be that hard to find one man."

"Like you told me, if it was easy, they wouldn't need us." Gotthilf smiled.

"Oh, shut up."

****

Harold looked up as two men seated themselves across the table from him. "I don't know you." Harold was a direct man. He didn't see much sense in dancing around—just get to the matter at hand. "What do you want?"

"Ah, but you are well known, Herr Baxter. You are the man with the many up-time things—small things, but things that are so very useful that many people want."

"You want them?" More directness.

"Perhaps, Herr Baxter, perhaps. And there may be other things we want that you might be able to help us get. But I forget myself, talking business before introductions. I am Benedikt Schiffer and this is my brother Ebert."

"Harold Baxter." Harold decided there was nothing lost by being polite, especially since they already knew his name, but he dropped his hand into his pocket to grab his razor just in case. "You boys ain't from around here, are you?"

It appeared to Harold that it took the other man a moment to figure out what he'd said. "No, Herr Baxter, we are from Hannover."

"That's a pretty fair distance from here." Harold spit into the fire. "You all didn't come this far just to talk to me."

Benedikt waved at the waitress, and held up three fingers when she looked his way. "We came to conclude a business agreement, but by the time we got here, the merchant had died. We were seeking some other opportunity, when we happened to see you making your deals with the local peddlers. Your wares would be very welcome in Hannover, so we are interested in buying as much as we can."

Harold's mind began racing. These guys weren't from here . . . they might pay a premium for what stock he had left. There were bits and pieces of stainless and a couple of knives still in the footlocker he had stored at the goldsmith's, but the prize was a full set of stainless and two sets of Melmac that he hadn't had to break up yet. He should be able to hold them up for good money. Maybe his kennel was closer than he thought.

"Well," Harold drew the word out, "we might be able to do business, depending on what you want and how much you want to pay."

Benedikt laid a groschen on the table. "We have money. How much we pay depends on what wares you have."

Harold scratched his chin, thinking. "I'll want some silver—quite a bit of it for some of my stock—but maybe you boys can help me." Benedikt cocked his head and nodded for the up-timer to continue. "I want some breeding stock—dogs—fighting dogs, you understand?"

"Like they use in bear baiting?" Benedikt asked.

"What's bear baiting?"

The two brothers looked at each other with obvious astonishment. Benedikt turned back to Harold. "Bear baiting? Where a bear is chained to a post, and a pack of dogs is loosed upon him? It is good sport."

"Chained?" Harold went beyond astonishment. "Chained how?"

"By the neck, or by a hind leg. There is much cheering, and betting on whether the dogs kill the bear or the bear kills the dog."

Thrills were running up and down Harold's spine. "You're serious? They really do this? Where at?" He swallowed spittle.

"They did not do this in the up-time?"

"Are you kidding? I've seen dog fights and cock fights, but never anything like what you're talking about. The animal rights folks would have had to change their pants, they'd have been so upset. The old ladies in the churches ...