Grantville Gazette, Volume 40 (14 page)

"I just did. And Schlinck . . . eh, there's really no point in excommunicating you, is there?
Meine Herren
." Neustatter touched his hat. "Miss Schaubin, you'll be going now."

Astrid shook her head to clear it, then realized Neustatter wanted her back at the doors so she could cover him. Holz and Schlinck were both shouting. Their words didn't register; she was still thinking through the ramifications of her boss excommunicating the pastor—starting with whether that was even allowed. But she pushed the door open—the one on the left, blocking Schlinck's man. Then she stepped right, bumping into Martin Rausch.

Neustatter backed out the door a couple seconds later. He swept the door shut with his left foot and braced his boot against it. Simultaneously he leveled the .45 in his right hand at the mercenary while drawing the mercenary's own pistol with his left. He passed it over his shoulder to Astrid.

"Miss Schaubin,
meine Herren
, please stay clear of the door," Neustatter directed. "I had to excommunicate Holz. Schlinck didn't take it well. He is armed and may do something rash." His words were punctuated by a thud. Neustatter removed his boot from the door and jumped clear. With a second thud, the doors burst open, and Schlinck sprawled onto the ground. Neustatter quickly relieved him of his pistol.

Another man cautiously stuck his head outside.

"Ah, Herr Ziegler," Neustatter said. "Miss Schaubin and I are leaving now. We're going to set these two pistols down . . . say at that pine tree just past the bend in the road. Would you be so kind at to retrieve them for Captain Schlinck and his man? Good day. Miss Schaubin, if you'd watch for cars, I'll watch our backs."

Astrid and Neustatter quickly crossed the street and headed back toward NESS. Neustatter kept an eye on the men at the church, but they showed no inclination to follow. When they reached the pine, Neustatter removed the caps from Schlinck's pistol and laid it at the base of the tree. He set the caps on top of it. Astrid did the same with the other mercenary's pistol. It gave her something to concentrate on.

"Neustatter," she managed, "I think we're in a lot of trouble."

"Possibly."

"I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to excommunicate pastors."

"Well, I already did. But I agree we need to find out all the implications. We will go back to headquarters and tell the men what happened. Then I want you and Hjalmar to go talk to Pastor Kastenmayer, Herr Gary Lambert, and someone in the
Bibelgesellschaft
. Fratscher, if you can find him. Or Dr. Gerhard or Musaeus if either of them are in town for today's meeting."

"I understand."

"Now, what do you think of what I just did?"

"I'm not sure yet," Astrid told him. "I'm Lutheran, Neustatter, but what Pastor Holz just tried to do is unfair."

****

"I thought this sort of nonsense was over," Hjalmar muttered.

"My parents named me for Melanchthon," Phillip pointed out. "I don't really care what a Flacian pastor has to say. Meaning no offense to the rest of you."

Karl Recker was more reserved. "The eight of us who fought together in the war are all Flacian. We just want a quiet church with a pastor who tries to help us. We can adapt. But Wolfram and Stefan have families. Their wives are Flacians, too, and they haven't had to deal with priests and pastors and chaplains all telling them what to do."

Neustatter nodded. "I don't want to make trouble for the families. Hjalmar and Astrid are going to go find out more information for us."

****

A brief visit to St. Martin's in the Fields established that any Lutheran on bad terms with Pankratz Holz was welcome in Pastor Kastenmayer's congregation. Kastenmayer suggested that Holz may have said a good bit more than Tilesius had written. Someone needed to get hold of the exact wording.

"Let's skip Herr Lambert for now," Astrid suggested. "We'll need to hire a Latin translator. We can probably get one from the
Bibelgesellschaft
."

"Do you think Neustatter will be okay with that?"

Astrid looked at her brother. "Did any of you learn Latin during the war?"

"No."

"I didn't learn any at home, either."

"Can we afford it?"

"We can pay cash if we have to," Astrid answered, "but I'm going to offer to credit it against the next time the
Bibelgesellschaft
hires us as security consultants."

****

Katharina was grateful that Athanasius Kircher restored order. His own Catholics found the story of the excommunication highly amusing. But the Lutherans were getting defensive, and the other Anabaptists looked worried. For that matter, Katharina was worried herself. In her admittedly limited experience, trouble for one or more of the larger denominations inevitably meant even more trouble for Anabaptists. They were theoretically safe in the State of Thuringia-Franconia. That made this intra-Lutheran problem seem that much worse. Illogical, she knew, but it didn't change how she felt.

"Most of you have a bus to catch," Kircher prompted.

Just then someone knocked on the door.

"Astrid!" Katharina exclaimed.

"Good afternoon. May we ask you about excommunication and some Latin translation?"

Katharina knew Georg wanted her to be on the bus. But this . . .

"I think that if it's a, uh, professional matter, rides home could be arranged," Dr. Green observed.

After a couple minutes of discussion, Green started giving directions. "Let's put Richelieu on the back burner. Lutherans of either persuasion, I don't think it would be a good idea if you were seen bringing back this notice to NESS. So you get the analysis work afterwards."

Johannes Musaeus, Guenther Kempf, and Markus Fratscher reluctantly agreed.

Kircher coughed.

"You have a suggestion, Athanasius?" Green asked.

"About Lutherans taking down an announcement from a church door? I have no comment whatsoever," he said absolutely deadpan.

Al Green choked. "You're right. That won't do. And we can hardly stand there and discuss it. We'll have to copy it."

"If I may?" Hjalmar Schaub interrupted. "I believe what we need is a team leader, a couple swift copyists, and a security element."

Katharina wondered how they'd decide who was in charge.

"And a driver," Alicia Rice contributed. "In case you need to make a quick getaway."

Once assured they'd get a blow-by-blow account tomorrow, most of the students caught a bus, Marta with instructions to tell the Meisners and the Engelsbergs that Astrid and Joseph would be dropped off later.

****

Dr. Green had the only car. "I suppose that makes me the getaway driver."

"You can pray, too."

"Great. Getaway driver and the radio man," he grumbled good-naturedly.

Katharina found herself squeezed in the back seat of Dr Green's car between Horst and Astrid. Hjalmar and Joseph were in the back cargo area of the station wagon.

"What if Schlinck still has guards at the church?" Astrid asked her brother.

"If there is more than one of Schlinck's men, we abort the mission," Hjalmar answered. "If there's only one, I can keep him occupied. You're close cover."

"Herr Schaub," Athanasius Kircher said from the front seat, "since the role of team leader seems to have fallen to me, if I decide we need to leave . . ."

"Absolutely," Hjalmar agreed. "If I'm facing down a guard, I won't be in a position to make that decision."

A couple minutes later, Green slowly cruised past the storefront church.

"No guards," Hjalmar observed. "That makes it easy."

Green pulled over to the curb and popped the back hatch. Everyone piled out and hurried toward the door. Hjalmar made sure he got there first and tried the door. It was locked. He took the sidewalk to the right and motioned Astrid to watch down the sidewalk to the left.

"Joseph, you're tallest," Kircher said. "Start at the top." He tapped a paragraph about a third of way down. "Horst, start here." He tapped another paragraph lower down. "Katharina, you have from here to the end."

The three students started hurriedly copying. Fortunately there was a gas streetlight just a few yards from the door. They got in each other's way a bit, and looked around a few times. Katharina shivered—just from the cold, she told herself.

"This is not the time for
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
" Kircher reproved. "Trust your, ah, security element."

"This isn't something I can sight translate," Katharina murmured.

"That's the Lutherans' job," Joseph reminded her.

"Almost done," Horst said. "How are you doing?"

A few minutes later, Katharina heard a car engine.

"That's just Dr. Green," Kircher told them.

"Last line," Katharina said.

A couple minutes later, they all piled into the station wagon.

"I realize it'd be appropriate to burn rubber," the Baptist pastor said, "but as there's no way to replace tires, I trust you'll forgive me."

"That went remarkably well," Kircher stated.

"Yes," Hjalmar agreed. "Astrid, you said Schlinck was there earlier and had one of his men and Martin Rausch standing guard?"

"Yes."

"And they weren't expecting you and Neustatter."

"No, they weren't."

"So why did they need that kind of security then and didn't have anyone around the church tonight?"

Green dropped off Kircher and Horst and drove back to the high school where they handed off their copies to the Lutheran students. Johannes Musaeus promised to make sure they all caught the evening bus back into Grantville. Green then drove Joseph and Katharina home.

Both Frau Meisnerin and Frau Huber were in the kitchen when Katharina came in. The Meisners and the Hubers shared the house.

Katharina's mother was not happy. "Katharina! Where have you been? You were out without a chaperone!"

"I had the pastor and two security guards with me," Katharina protested.

Frau Huber sniffed.

Georg came downstairs. "Katharina! Did you miss the bus? Oh! Astrid! Hjalmar. Dr. Green."

"Hi, Georg," Astrid returned. Enthusiastically, Katharina thought.

"I apologize, Frau Meisnerin," Hjalmar interrupted smoothly. "But our firm needed Latin scribes on very short notice. My sister was assigned to Katharina's protection. You remember her from the Jena and Erfurt trips."

That mollified Katharina's mother to an extent.

"Katharina was very helpful, Frau Meisnerin," Pastor Green said. "But I should get Hjalmar and Astrid home before it gets any colder."

****

Alicia Rice hurried down the hallway. She was curious about what Holz's proclamation said. But she knew she could get the full account from the others in the morning. If she stayed, she was going to spend much of her evening translating Latin. She didn't mind translating in and of itself. Translating the Bible into one of the Native American languages would be really useful, for example. But translating a proclamation from Latin to German when any reasonable person could have and should have written it in German in the first place would just be annoying.

Plus, something was bothering Nona. She'd been really quiet lately. Alicia had tried to sound her out a couple times but it hadn't worked. Nona hadn't even helped tease Kat earlier. And then she'd left the
Bibelgesellschaft
meeting even before Magister Kircher had started shooing people out the door.

So Alicia was trying to catch up. Nona had a head start, but she'd be headed for bus 79. Alicia usually rode bus 68—she lived across town. But not that far away. It'd be a cold walk home, but it was for a good cause. She turned up her jacket collar as she passed through the school doors.

And Nona Dobbs walked right past 79.

Mystified, Alicia kept following. Nona got on 73.

So did Alicia. The older students liked the back of the bus. Alicia found the third seat on the right empty and quickly sat down before Nona could reach the back of the bus and turn around. Alicia pulled out a textbook that she pretended to read while she covertly watched everyone who got off the bus.

As the bus came to a stop near the Presbyterian church, Alicia saw Nona's green coat out of the corner of her eye. She let everyone in the aisle file off first and then stood up at the end of the line. Belatedly she wondered exactly how to go about tailing her friend.

It turned out to be easy. Nona headed straight into the Presbyterian church. That was weird. The Dobbses were Baptists. In fact Nona's aunt was the youth group leader. What was she doing here? Alicia and Nona had met Pastor Enoch Wiley when Dr. Green had brought him to a couple BGS meetings. He struck Alicia as straight-laced, stern, and needing to loosen up a little. She assumed Nona had much the same impression. She couldn't imagine why Nona hadn't asked her to come along. For that matter, she couldn't think of any reason for Nona to go see Wiley.

Alicia opened one of the doors. There was a church service in progress. Late Tuesday afternoon in November? Why was anyone holding a church service now? She frowned. A funeral, maybe? That would explain why Nona had been so quiet. Alicia peeked into the nave.

Those weren't Presbyterians! There was a . . . monk? . . . up front chanting something. Three more monks and a handful of other people were responding. Alicia spotted Nona sitting a few rows behind the others.

What were monks doing in the Presbyterian church? And were these guys really monks? Their robes looked generally monkish, but their heads were shaved except for a ponytail-like thing right on top. Alicia would have pegged them as eastern—Buddhist or maybe somebody out of a kung fu movie—except that they were clearly European. Besides she was pretty sure Enoch Wiley wouldn't allow non-Christian services in his church.

The front door of the church opened, and Alicia jumped. A tough-looking down-timer stepped in. He was wearing a buff coat.

"Guid day tae ye, lass," he said.

"Uh, ah, good afternoon," Alicia stammered.

The Scotsman entered the nave.

Alicia caught the door before it swung shut. She listened closely to the chanting. She could make out enough of the words to realize it was Christian. And it sounded kind of nice.