Magdeburg
July 1636
Friedrich von Logau stuck his head into his friend Johann Gronow's office. Hmm. Not here. But his door had been left open, so he must be out for just a moment and should be back soon. So he entered the office to wait for Johann, taking a seat in the visitor's chair that sat in front of the large table that Johann used as a desk.
It amused Friedrich that his friend was the editor in chief of The Black Tomcat magazine. It was primarily dedicated to translating and reprinting the stories of the up-time authors H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, introducing horror fiction to the down-timers. And so far, it was gathering quite a following. It also appeared to be on its way to being a financial success, since it had recently shifted from a quarterly publishing schedule to a bimonthly schedule.
Personally, Friedrich didn't have much use for horror fiction. He was a man of letters himself, but the so-called horror genre raised no excitement in him. However, Johann had started branching out a little, running new stories by down-time writers who were experimenting with some of the up-time styles, and some of those stories were actually pretty good in Friedrich's estimation, given how new some of the styles really were.
Johann's desk was certainly stacked high with envelopes and folders, so it appeared he had no lack of new material to review. Curious, Friedrich reached over and picked up the top folder from a very tall stack, flipped it open, and began reading.
****
DRUMLINE
By Kirby Hoggenboom
Austria
1638
BOOM boom boom boom
BOOM boom boom boom
BOOM boom boom boom
The slow throbbing pulse of what was almost thunder carried to the ears of Ibrahim Pasha. He looked up from his discussions with his generals. "In the name of the Merciful and the Benevolent, what is that noise?"
At that moment, a janissary officer pushed through the crowd. He hurried through the genuflections and salutations, then said, "Your Excellency, you must come see this! Quickly, please, before it changes."
Janissary officers were not given much to excitement or frenzy or panic, yet this man's conduct bordered on all three. And so Ibrahim Pasha, commander of the advance guard of the invading army of the Ottoman Empire, curious now to see what could have evoked such behavior in such a hard man, followed him to the crest of a rise.
Before Ibrahim lay the city of Vienna, capital and erstwhile crown jewel of the Holy Roman Empire. The Turkish advance body had arrived but an hour or so earlier. The light infantry were still spreading across the environs, searching for traps and redoubts.
BOOM boom boom boom
BOOM boom boom boom
BOOM boom boom boom
The slow thunder was coming from the city walls. But the janissary officer and his fellows were pointing at the base of the wall, at the city gate facing them. Troops were issuing from the gate. Ibrahim held his hand out. "Telescope." Abdullah, his chief slave, drew a fine ivory and gold-chased telescope from his satchel and placed it in his master's hand.
Ibrahim extended the telescope, placed it to his eye, and adjusted it with the ease of long practice. He surveyed the scene carefully, from the gate to the banks of huge drums on top of the wall and back again. "Musicians," he grunted. Other officers were now looking through their own scopes and making comments of their own.
"Must be a hundred of them."
"No, more like two hundred."
The pasha let the argument wash around him as he continued to watch. He'd thought at first the leading ranks through the gates were carrying some strange kind of musket. The intelligence from Western Europe indicated many changes in arms were occurring there. But as the succeeding ranks followed he realized the first ranks were carrying strangely formed trumpets. They were followed by other kinds of horns, all larger—some much larger—than the trumpets. The horns marched out and formed a large square. Then they were followed by ranks of drummers, carrying drums of many sizes and types, but all silent, all marching to the beat of the drums on the wall. They split into two companies that formed up on either side of the horns. At the last, two men came out through the ranks. One set up some kind of platform or ladder, and the other, carrying what looked to be something like a half-pike, climbed up on it.
BOOM boom boom boom
BOOM boom boom boom
BOOM boom boom boom
BOOM
The cessation of noise from the wall was so sudden that those around the vizier were still shouting their responses to questions before they noticed the lack. Ibrahim focused on the man with the pike. The pike was raised. When it came down, the music began.
****
John Daniels felt the hair on the back of his neck and on his head begin to stand erect as the massed trumpets sang out the opening notes of Copland's “Fanfare for the Common Man.” It never failed to spook him when that piece began. It was the only piece of music that could make him wish he had stayed with trumpet instead of switching to tuba in eighth grade. The "tube" was a great and cool instrument, and he could make it do just about everything except clean the kitchen sink. But for this piece, for these opening notes, only trumpets would do. Copland got that part right.
When Frank Jackson had called him and Steve Smith in for a conference that night in early 1635, who would have thought it would have led to detached duty in Vienna, Austria! Creating a military band, no less. But here he was.
John and Steve had flipped a coin to see who would lead this "performance," and Steve won. That was okay, really. John loved playing this piece, even if this time he was lead tuba over 40 of the beasts, instead of a solo in a small ensemble.
Here came his cue. John sucked in a deep breath and leaned into his mouthpiece.
****
Ibrahim stood, almost transfixed as the horns sounded forth. He had never heard anything like that music before. It was loud, it was brassy, but it sounded so different from the Turkish bands, so…beautiful. That was not a word he would apply to the musicians of the army or their music. He wanted to close his eyes and just soak in the sound. If it was this strong at this distance, what was it like up close? It took some discipline to keep his eye open and viewing through the telescope. Nothing else was happening that he could see. No armed troops had made appearances or were sneaking around while they were distracted by the music.
An officer came up beside him and started to speak. The pasha lowered the telescope long enough to skewer the fool with a glare, then resumed it. His vision was drawn back to the musicians as the music crested, and crested, and crested with the trumpets sounding a very high and clear note that even from where he stood was penetrating.
The man with the pike thrust it straight up, and the great drums on the wall answered with a roll of what could only be deep thunder. He brought his other hand around in a sweeping circle. The horns stopped playing, and the drum groups beside them began. When added to the sound from the wall, it was as if a great thunderhead had come down to ground level.
Ibrahim continued to watch as the horns did an about face and marched off the field. The man with the pike lowered it finally. The drums on the wall stopped sounding, but those on the field began performing the most complicated patterns and sounds he had ever witnessed.
****
Steve hot-footed it off the field between the drum lines. He had been extremely uncomfortable out there with his back to the Turks, but it had been worth it to thumb his nose at them musically.
In retrospect, although the last months had seemed crazy at times, with everything that had to be done in crafting the different kinds of drums, and them teaching people to play them, it had really been a lot of fun. And how many high school graduates ever got to build a band and drum corps from the ground up, like he and John had done? What a trip! He'd even gotten used to the sound of skin heads instead of plastic ones.
Now, if only someone would figure out an easy way to re-tune the heads when the humidity made them stretch a little.
****
The drums were marching off the field after their amazing spectacle. The pasha lowered his telescope as the drums on the wall began a thundering cadence, one almost as intricate as what the field drums had played. He collapsed the telescope and tapped it against the palm of his other hand. The last half an hour had stunned him, and he struggled to regain his thoughts.
One thing came to him almost immediately. "Our bands are to be silent. No music will be played in the camp or in the field. We will not be compared to…that."
Ibrahim looked around. "What are we to draw from this?" He looked around. The generals or subordinate officers wore varying expressions of boredom, distaste, or intrigue, but no one said anything. He looked finally at Abdullah, chief slave of his household and one time tutor to a much younger Ibrahim. Abdullah met his gaze directly, raising an eyebrow, by which he let it be known he did have some comment to make.
"Speak, Abdullah."
"They knew we were coming."
"Of course they knew we were coming. We haven't exactly made a secret of our approach." That was one of the generals, and his voice dripped sarcasm.
Abdullah ignored the general, continuing to focus on Ibrahim. "Think, young master."
Ibrahim ignored the muttering behind him. The old slave's reversion to the title he had called his master when they were both much younger cast the pasha's mind back to those lessons in rhetoric, arithmetic, and logic.
Logic. What had Abdullah seen in the presentation that he hadn't? His eyes narrowed as he reviewed the vision through the telescope: the intricacies, the instruments, the movements, the uniforms, the planning…
The planning. It all came together in his mind in that instant. His eyes now widened, and Abdullah nodded as he saw the comprehension dawn in his master's eyes.
"Yes, master. This was not put in train in the mere weeks since we began our gathering and our march. This has been in progress for months, perhaps years, to ripen and culminate at this time."
Ibrahim's thoughts whirled. The expense of the instruments, the uniforms, the training, the manpower, the expense even of the time; Abdullah was right. This was part of a master plan.
He turned and looked at Vienna. If this was what they did for music, what other surprises were contained behind the city walls? What else did that master planner have waiting as his next stratagem?
****
Friedrich turned the page over, ready for the rest of the story, only to discover that it was the last page in the folder. He flipped through the other pages, looking for something he might have overlooked. Nothing else there.
Just at that moment Johann Gronow bustled back into his office. "Friedrich! What are you doing here?"
"I came by to offer to buy a round of coffee at Walcha's Coffee Shop," Friedrich said, "but you weren't here."
"I had to run down to Zopff and Sons, the printers, to look at a second round of proofs for the next issue of Black Tomcat," Johann said as he dropped into his chair behind the table. "It was just supposed to take a few minutes, but old man Zopff got to talking and it took me the longest time to get away.”
"Your office door was open when I got here," Friedrich said.
Johann frowned. "I must not have shut it securely when I walked out." He looked around. "Doesn't look like anything has been bothered."
Friedrich snorted. "How would you tell?" They both chuckled at that, then Friedrich continued with, "No one was here when I arrived, and I've been here a while." He lifted the folder he was holding. "Read this while I was waiting. Not bad, Johann, not bad. But where's the rest of it?"
Johann stood and reached across the table to retrieve the folder, then resumed his seat and opened the folder. His face twisted. "That's all I got. It came in the mail that way. It's not enough to publish, but the author only gave his name. No address information, no contact information, nothing but what you see there. Despite the submission instructions we put on the last page of every issue of the magazine, we get stuff all sorts of ways in all sorts of formats. It's enough to make me pull my hair out some days."
"If this…what's the outlandish name the author gave?"
Johann looked at the first page of the story. "Kirby Hoggenboom. And that's got to be a nom de plume if I ever saw one. Mishmash of an up-time name and a down-time name from the Netherlands, I think."
"So you don't even know if that's the author's real name."
Johann got a sour look on his face. "No, I don't. And anyway, I have a feeling that this is a collaboration."
Friedrich arched one eyebrow in a query.
"The ideas are very up-timer, but the command of the language is very down-timer, and an educated down-timer at that."
"Ah." Friedrich considered what he had read. "Yes, I think I see what you mean."
Before their conversation progressed any farther, their mutual friend Karl Seelbach, another of their writers' circle, burst into Johann's office.
"Johann! Have you heard? Hello, Friedrich." Seelbach was hanging onto the doorframe, almost panting.
"Heard what?"
"The Turks have arrived at Vienna and have begun their assault."
Both Johann and Friedrich sat back, stunned for the moment. Then they both looked at the story folder that Johann was still holding and began to laugh. Seelbach looked at them in disbelief.
"Well, Herr Hoggenboom, whoever and wherever you are, your story has just been rendered unpublishable by the changing tide of current events," Friedrich intoned.
"Ja," Johann agreed. "Too bad. I would have published it, if I could have gotten the rest of the story." He turned and set the folder on the credenza behind him. "Karl, come on in and sit down. We'll talk about politics when we go to Walcha's. For now, tell me what you think of these stories," and he handed two different folders to his two friends.
Friedrich opened his with a sense of anticipation.