* * *
Within a week after he got out of the infirmary, Johnnie F. had pieced together most of the truth. All of it, really, except the identity of the mysterious man who’d come into Bamberg for two or three weeks and somehow engineered what amounted to a political revolution in the city.
Noelle Murphy arrived just a day after Johnnie F. finished his inquiries. She’d been sent there as soon as Ed Piazza got word of the incident in Bamberg. By Mike Stearns himself, Johnnie F. was pretty sure.
“So, who was he?” she asked.
Johnnie F. shook his head. “I think the name he used was a fake. Even if it wasn’t, it doesn’t tell us much. ‘Helmut, speaking for the Ram’.”
Noelle burst into laughter. “You’re kidding!”
“No, I’m not.” He cocked his head, looking at her. “And what’s so funny, anyway?”
She covered her mouth with a hand, stifling the laughter. “It’s a joke. Germans don’t even use ‘Helmut’ as a given name in this time and place. It’s almost got to be a joke. ‘Helmut, speaking for Boskone’ was the villain in one of the Lensman books.”
“The… what?”
She shook her head. “Never mind. If you’ve managed to reach this stage of your life without having your mind rotted by science fiction potboilers, far be it from me to seduce you to the Dark Side.”
They’d been talking in one of the cramped offices in the American headquarters in Bamberg. “Can we get some air?”
“Sure.” Johnnie F. led the way out. “I want to show you something, anyway.”
Once they reached the street outside, Johnnie F. kept walking.
“What does the joke mean, d’you think?” He waved his hand. “I don’t mean the arcane stuff. Like you said, I don’t need my brain rotted. Any more than it is already. I mean politically.”
Noelle pursed her lips. “Well, at a guess, it’s a subtle hint to us.”
“That he’s a villain?”
“No, no. Just…”
But Johnnie F. had already figured it out for himself. “Never mind. Yeah, I can see it. His way of saying he’s been studying us. But that seems like an awfully cryptic way of doing it. I mean… how many people in Grantville could he assume had read that book? Whatever it’s called.”
“Galactic Patrol, if I remember right.”
They’d reached the big town square where the flogging had happened.
“Who knows, Johnnie? Maybe it was just his own private joke. I’ve been piecing together what I can about this guy, from the reports that have come into Grantville. Not all of them, by the way-not even most of them-are from our administrative staff here. Ever since the incident in Suhl, we’ve been on good terms with the Jaeger in the Thueringerwald and they pass bits and pieces on to us. Mostly, I’m pretty sure, whatever they’re told to tell us.”
“Told by who?”
Noelle shrugged. “This ‘Helmut,’ at a guess. Or maybe it’s the gun-makers at Suhl, especially Ruben Blumroder. Pat Johnson-he’s Anse Hatfield’s brother-in-law, the one with a gun shop in Suhl-tells us the Suhl gun-makers aren’t sending guns south to the Bavarians any more. But he says they’re still making more guns than he can account for. He’s pretty sure they’re selling them-at cost, he thinks-to somebody in Franconia.”
Johnnie F. took a deep breath. “Oh, boy.”
“’Oh, boy’ is right. What I think-so does Mr. Stearns-is that there’s a rebellion brewing here. And one that’s already got what amounts to its own armament industry.”
“That’s got to be worrying Mike.”
Noelle seemed to choke a little. “Uh, Johnnie, when I told him my conclusions-just before he sent me here-I thought he’d split his face. Grinning.”
Johnnie F. rolled his eyes. “I keep thinking because his title is ‘President’ that we’re still back up-time. And he’s entertaining dignitaries in the Rose Garden. All of them wearing expensive suits.”
A smile flicked across Noelle’s face. “There’s an image for you.”
The smile was gone almost as soon as it came. “This is the first time I’ve heard the name ‘Helmut,’ but ‘the Ram’ is all over those reports. Something’s coming to the surface here in Franconia-something big-but it’s still mostly invisible. Whoever this ‘Helmut’ is, I think he’s one shrewd cookie.”
Johnnie F. thought about it. “A little on the whimsical side, too, it would appear. But don’t kid yourself.” He made a little nodding gesture with his head, indicating the square in front of them. “Take a look. Take a close, careful look.”
Noelle did so. After about a minute she said, “This town’s under martial law, isn’t it? Not ours.”
“Not… quite.” Johnnie F. studied several of the men who were sitting at a small table outside the entrance to the town hall’s Ratskeller. To all outward appearances, they were simply workmen enjoying a lunch. But the beers in front of them were only being sipped, and there was too much keen observation in the way they kept an eye on the square.
“Not quite,” he repeated. “Not ‘martial law’ so much as civil law. But it’s a very hard hand, and it’s very much in control. That’s become obvious to me over the last week. And the city council’s essentially disappeared. The official one, I mean.”
Again, he gestured with his head. This time, toward the town hall. “There are still men meeting in there. Every evening, in fact. But none of them are on the council.”
“Who are they?”
“Most of them, from what I’ve been able to find out, are from the guilds.” He grinned. “Not a single member of the printers’ guild, which I’ll explain to you later. A lot of men from guilds with ties to the rural areas – fishers, boatmen, carters. More from the craft guilds than you would normally expect to see on the inner council; fewer merchants, but some. The real difference is that they aren’t all masters. It includes some journeymen who never could afford to start their own shops. And a few members of the old Protestant patrician families who were thrown out in the 1620s. Vasold, Dittmayer. Steiner, I think. Getting some of their own back, even if they have to support a revolution to do it.”
“In a word, it’s authoritative.”
“Very. Don’t kid yourself, Noelle. For all practical purposes, Bamberg is already under the control of this ‘Ram’ we keep hearing about. Even if we ordered out the small Swedish garrison we have in Bamberg, I think we’d get flattened. Worse than Suhl, if we were dumb enough to do what Horton did instead of Anse.”
“But they’re taking pains-considerable pains-to avoid clashing with us.”
“Yes. I think it’s more than that, in fact. I think they’re using us as their figurehead. Well, not that, exactly. Brillo is their figurehead. We’re sorta their fig leaf. Official cover, so to speak.”
Noelle was now studying the men sitting at the table. They returned her gaze. Not in an unfriendly way, just…
Impassively. As if they were simply waiting.
“Winter’s coming,” she said abruptly. “The Ram will use those slow months to keep building support. It’ll all come to the surface in the spring and summer of next year.”
“You think?”
“Yes. Is this what you wanted to show me?”
“Part of it. But we’re going somewhere else.”
* * *
A few minutes later, they entered a street that seemed to be Bamberg’s “Printers’ Row.”