"Think!" Dagmar boomed again. She started reciting in Danish, but Cunz repeated the German after her.
"It is a false, misleading dream
That God his law has given
That sinners can themselves redeem
And by their works gain heaven.
The law is but a mirror bright
To bring the inbred sin to light
That lurks within our nature.
"See!" Dagmar proclaimed. "These men who attack the poor Jews. Like little Riffa's parents, who are the sutlers at Barracktown now. Or her husband, David Kronberg, at the post office. Who has an aunt and uncle who have adopted him…" She paused for effect. "… and who live right here in Frankfurt! " Her voice, deep and stentorian at most times, rose to a shrill dramatic screech. "They are trying to earn heaven by their works, these anti-Semites, as you call them. But, remember-
"Christ came and has God's anger stilled,
Our human nature sharing.
He has for us the law obeyed
And thus the Father's vengeance stayed
Which over us impended.
"It is Christ's atonement that saves us. Not actions such as killing usurers. Which means," she concluded triumphantly, "that these men, these mutterers against the Jews, are doctrinally unsound! "
Cunz would have been struck dumb with admiration if it hadn't been his duty to keep translating. No one could possibly have come up with a condemnation of attacking the ghetto that would have a deeper resonance in a Lutheran city. Anti-Semitism as "doctrinally unsound" work righteousness. How…
Inspired.
Dagmar sat down. He returned to his assigned place at Mayor Dreeson's shoulder.
"What are you planning to do then?" the militia captain asked. "Create what Nathan Prickett would call a 'thin blue line' around the ghetto?"
He hadn't been in the planning meeting. He had been off getting his lieutenants to agree to go along with the program. Whatever the program might prove to be.
" Ach, nein." The Burgermeister gestured expansively. "There are not enough of us in the city government to surround it if there is a coordinated attack. Besides, since the ghetto is armed this time, not to mention reinforced…"
The militia captain nodded. A fair number of Frankfurt's CoC members had somehow managed to be inside the ghetto when the elders of the Jewish community barricaded the gates.
"… we might be caught in crossfire. Which would be stupid of us. Dreeson, the Grantviller, mentioned that his daughter had many favorite words. One of them was proactive. This means that we do not wait for the mutterers to finish getting organized. We will not wait for an attack on the ghetto."
The captain was pretty sure that he would not like what came next. "So, then…"
"We shall be proactive. We march on the taverns where the mutterers gather. Tonight."
"Your cane will slip on a cobblestone wet with this mist. You will break your hip."
Henry Dreeson shook his head. "Nonsense, Ronnie. Anyway, if the hip has to go one of these days, at least it'll be going in a good cause. And 'march' doesn't mean 'be carried along in a litter.' Anyway, there'd be just as much chance that one of the litter bearers would slip on a wet cobblestone, fall, and throw me out. That would be a longer way down and a harder landing than if I trip myself."
Veronica glared at him. "Then," she said, "I am marching with you. Only to hold your other arm, mind you. Only to steady you if your cane should not be enough. Not for some stupid heroic cause such as the one that led Hans to his death."
Frankfurt's militia officers were, by order of the council, in full ceremonial uniform. The type of uniform that they normally wore only to awards banquets. With sashes, satin trousers, lace collars, and polished boots. Items that were both difficult and expensive to clean.
The militia captain gave his instructions. He had a loud and booming voice that carried well, too. Not in the Ableidinger league, but plenty loud enough. "One company surrounds each of the target taverns right after the bells toll. Ensure that no one leaves. Those who resist will be shot. Those who surrender will be arrested."
As usual, Nathan Prickett noted a bit cynically, seventeenth century notions of legitimate police work diverged sharply from twentieth. Granted that they were a bunch of loudmouthed anti-Semites, the men in the taverns who were about to be set upon by the city militia hadn't actually done anything illegal. They weren't even drunk and disorderly yet.
Fat lot of good it would do them.
The militia lieutenants nodded firmly at their captain's instructions.
"Ensure it. You have the best of the guns from Blumroder. Your men know how to use them. No one leaves."
The captain looked around. On the average, the militiamen looked more enthusiastic about the evening's proposed project than the lieutenants did. That was Nathan's assessment, anyway, and it seemed the captain shared it.
"If anyone tries to leave a tavern," he bellowed, "the man who shoots him will succeed to the lieutenancy of the company. If more than one man tries to leave at the same time, every man in the company who shoots will receive a substantial reward."
That ought to stiffen everyone's back a bit. Not to mention encouraging the lieutenants to do a little shooting themselves. It wasn't an empty threat. Judging from their own vigorous nodding, the council had already agreed to the provision.
"In the front row with the Burgermeister." The city council secretary had a list, by which he was lining up the order of march.
"I have never entered some of these neighborhoods in my life," one of the councilmen muttered.
"Maybe it will do you some good. You can learn how the other half lives."
He started to sputter; then decided that sputtering at the grandmother of the "hero of Wismar," right at this moment, was not the best idea.
The Grantville mayor was on the left hand of the Burgermeister. On his right hand-the unhappy councilman grimaced-was the Danish woman who had disrupted the council hearing. And, behind the civic officials, the orange uniforms of the Fulda Barracks Regiment.
Henry looked around and yelled, "Jeffie?"
Jeffrey Garand looked rather anxiously at Derek Utt. "Derek? Uh? I mean, Major Utt?"
"Go on."
Jeffie ran to the front line.
"Is that your flute, you've got there in your hand?"
"Ah, yeah, Mr. Dreeson. It's not standard, I know, for one of the sergeants to double as a piper, but, well, I've got it, and we're not quite fully staffed, so…"
"You were in the marching band, weren't you? In high school?"
'Um-hmmn."
"Can you still play 'Hey, Look Me Over'?"
Jeffie sighed. "In my sleep."
"Then get on up here with the drums. We're stepping out."
The Frankfurt municipal drum corps was good. They caught on to Jeffie's rhythm in no time.
Soubise and Sandrart, watching the preparations, made particular note of the three companies of orange uniforms at the rear of the procession.
"Pour encourager les autres, I presume," the brother of the duke of Rohan remarked.
Nathan Prickett felt obliged to march with one of the militia companies, seeing as how he'd provided the arms for most of them. On the other hand, since he wasn't actually a member of the militia, he didn't feel obliged to march in the front rank. So he more or less hung around in the third rank. Close enough to "show the flag," not close enough to get hurt-well, not likely-in case the would-be pogromists in the taverns decided to fight back.
Some of them did fight, in fact, including the ones in the tavern that Nathan's company marched against. But it was a pretty lame sort of thing. You might almost call it desultory, except there was nothing desultory about the man dying in the doorway of the tavern. He'd been the first one shot, as he came rushing out with an old musket, and it took a while before he stopped howling in agony. He'd been shot three times, all the wounds coming low down in his hips and abdomen. One of the militiamen might have shot him again just to put him out of his misery, but the other anti-Semites in the tavern had chosen to pour out of a side door and that had distracted the company.