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Chapter 12

Archie


Jena


As it chanced, it was the third day after our talk that I rode out of Jena. First, after looking at Cortana’s shoes I decided to have him reshod before we left. One of those “pay the piper now or later” things, and finding blacksmiths and farriers while one is traveling can produce dyspepsia, as Colonel Farquhar had been known to observe from time to time. That ended up consuming most of a day. It was a decidedly good thing that Maus, my other horse, proved to be well-shod. The farrier’s price for shoeing Cortana was, shall we say, rather elevated. We had a short conversation between the two of us that featured words like “brigandage on the highway” and “miser and cheapskate” before we settled on terms that left both of us dissatisfied but got the job done. My father would have called it a perfect compromise, master merchant that he was. Myself, if I’d had a pot of beer at hand I’d have been muttering into it.

Second, I took to heart Master Titus’ direction to acquire not another pistol, but an additional pistol. So my viewing of the wares presented by Jena’s two reputable gun vendors took most of the second day, but I entered the evening the proud possessor of another fine pistol—not that my first pistol, a five-shot H&K .38 caliber revolver wasn’t a fine pistol. But this one, a six-shot .40 caliber revolver from Struve-Reardon fit my hand like it was made for it, and it shot very true. Made this old cavalry trooper’s heart glad, it did. So between the two of them, if matters should go down the way of my old line of business, I could fire eleven shots without having to reload. Even more, if I preloaded a couple of extra cylinders and kept them handy. Which, as an old prudent trooper—and prudence being why I was old—I planned on doing. Always assuming there were no misfires, of course. But misfires do keep life interesting in so many ways.

Master Titus had left on the second day, off to the grand city of Magdeburg to pursue some business affair or other, and to have a consult with his brother the attorney, A. N. D. Wulff. I’d not met the man yet, but his renown had stretched as far as Jena, and the university masters were of mixed opinions of him, which spoke well of him to me. The majority seemed inclined to believe that he was well-named as a member of the Wulff family. A few others had a much lower opinion of him than that, while a very few held that he was perhaps the best practicing lawyer in this part of Europe. Certainly none of them, friend or foe, volunteered to face him in court. All things said, he was an appropriate brother for Master Titus, from what I could tell.

So it was that there were none but Ephraim the butler and Estéban the cook to bid farewell as I mounted and rode out. The one was gracious and the other was surly. It warmed my heart, it did, it was so familiar and homey.

One other saluted me as I rode out the main gate—such as it was—of Jena. Heinrich looked up from where he was sitting on a block of wall stone, crutch at hand, watching over the city watchmen on duty. “Where you bound, Soldier?” he shouted.

I touched my right hand to the brim of my hat, and declared loudly and manfully, “That’s for me to know and for you to weasel out of me when I get back. You’re buying.”

I rode away from the city with the watchmen’s laughter ringing in my ears. Almost music, it was, made even sweeter by the knowledge that Heinrich was grinding what teeth he had left at my victorious sally of words. I still smile when I think of it.

I hummed a not too scandalous drinking song as I rode. I could sing well enough if I chose to…my mother’s Scottish blood saw to that. But I had other things in my mind, so I gave off the singing to think of the riding I’d be doing.

I knew some parts of the world rather well. Hamburg and the Isle of Skye I knew, for all that it had been eighteen years since I had last seen either of them. And parts of northern France were like the scars on the backs of my hands. I knew everything there was to know about them, having ridden through and around them for nigh on to a decade and a half. I even knew the warrens of Jena right well after four years there, for all that it wasn’t that large a place. But set me out of eyesight of the walls of Jena, and I could be as lost as a babe.

So, not being from around these parts, I’d had the wisdom to spend an hour of the last night studying a map that Master Titus had of the environs nearby, and to trace out a portion of it that would give me some idea of what was between me and Füssen.

Jena to Bayreuth was a reasonably straight path, it looked to be. No sense in even considering any other route. But from there to Füssen—ah, I’d have a decision to make there. Should I take the east road and go through München, or take the slightly longer west road and go through Augsburg? Ah, well, if I hadn’t decided by the time I was leaving Bayreuth, I’d toss a pfennig in the air.

And so I began to muse…if I was on the run with a large bulky codex under my arm, just where would I be going, and how would I be getting there? Cortana moved easily under me as I rode, all the while considering that, while Maus followed agreeably behind. The sun shone on us all as they clopped along on the road, heading south. It was a good day.



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Framed