“What? We have to get you a doctor.”
“No. No time!” Leo slurred.
“You need a doctor.”
“Now, God curse you. That’s an order!”
Amadeus knew he should get a doctor, but this was the archduke. He turned to the guards. “You, go find us a doctor. A barber-surgeon, mind, not one of those philosophers from the university. The rest of you, watch the door.”
He led Leopold to the stairs down to the basement. There was a guard at the staircase but Leo bulled through him, stopping only to get a couple of lanterns.
At the bottom of the stairs was an office. It was empty. There would be no deliveries during the wedding.
Leo looked around at the halls and turned to Amadeus. “Which one is the Liechtenstein’s?”
“They’re all the. .”
“No, Gundaker!” Leo said. Then he fainted.
About then there was a clattering on the stairs and three men came down. One of them had the black bag that had become almost a symbol of a barber-surgeon from Race Track City.
While the surgeon worked on Archduke Leopold, Amadeus went through the records, looking for which room or rooms might be leased by Gundaker von Liechtenstein.
* * *
Upstairs, word had reached the chief of protocol for the Habsburgs that Leo had shown up drunk and been taken to the basement to keep him out of trouble. He decided that Ferdinand III should not be informed. Things were tense enough in the royal family and he didn’t want the emperor distracted at such an important occasion attended by so many great nobles. He directed that the lesser staff should handle the matter, whatever it was, without disturbing the guests or the wedding party.
“But. .!”
“You heard me. Handle it, and I don’t want to hear about it till the wedding is over and the guests have left.”
* * *
“Here it is!” Amadeus shouted. He had found it. Gundaker had rented a twenty by twenty room for apples? That didn’t seem right. Then he looked over at Archduke Leopold and began to get a really bad feeling. “Wake the archduke,” he told the doctor.
“I’d rather not, Count von Eisenberg. I’ve taped the ribs, but it would be better if he was kept still.”
Amadeus looked at the record book, and back at the archduke. “Wake him! It’s important.”
The doctor shrugged, reached into his bag, and pulled out a small bottle. He opened the bottle and waved it under the archduke’s nose. Even from where he was, Amadeus got a whiff of ammonia. The archduke’s head came up and he almost made the doctor spill his bottle, but apparently it wasn’t an uncommon reaction. The doctor got the bottle away without spilling any of it.
Archduke Leopold looked around, blearily.
“What’s in Gundaker’s room?” Amadeus asked.
“A bomb, I think.”
“It wouldn’t do them any good,” said one of the guards, pointing at the ceiling. “That’s a foot of concrete up there. No bomb is going to do more than scratch it.”
“Maybe, but I think we’d better have a look.”
“If you want,” said the guard.
The doctor helped Leopold to his feet, and they headed for the room.
* * *
The room was dark and full of barrels. Amadeus, Leo, the guard and the doctor looked around the room, lighting it with Coleman lanterns. The barrels were marked to indicate that they held apples, but Leo didn’t believe that for a moment. He had barely escaped from his guards after Father Lamormaini told him that he was destined to become the Holy Roman Emperor.
“You think these are full of gunpowder?” Amadeus asked.
“Yes. This is the storeroom that Gundaker leased from Karl.”
The guard, who had assured them that they were safe from any sort of bomb, was suddenly looking a lot less confident.
Leo turned to him. “Go upstairs and get everyone out of the building.” The guard nodded and left.
Leo looked at Amadeus. “What time is it?”
Amadeus didn’t own a watch. They were expensive, and though Amadeus was wealthy, he didn’t particularly like them.
The doctor pulled a small clock from his bag. “I have one forty-five. But this thing could be off by five minutes either way. Why?”
“Because Lamormaini said that my brother would be dust by two o’clock.”
The doctor swallowed.
“Be on your way, Doctor. You have done all that you could.”
The doctor looked at Leopold, then turned and left. He was running by the time he was out the door.
With the doctor and the guard gone, Leo could hear a clicking. It wasn’t the same as the grandfather clock, but it was close enough. You hear the ticking?” he asked.
“Over there.” Amadeus pointed. “I think that’s a battery. Like in the emperor’s 240Z.”
Leo followed his gaze and blanched. It was a battery. They went over and looked.
The battery was hooked to something, and that something was hooked with wires to one of the barrels.
“Amadeus, how much do you know about electronics?”
“Very little, Your Grace.”
“I don’t know much, either. Would you mind running up to the first floor and asking Sonny Fortney to come down here?”
While Amadeus was gone, Leo had ample opportunity to examine the device. There were two wires leading from the battery. One of them went straight into the stack of barrels, so there was no way to know where it ended. The other went to a clock. It was an unusual clock. Instead of a face that showed twelve hours, this clock’s face showed twenty-four, half in white and half in black. The thing had three hands, just like the grandfather clock, but two of them were bent out away from the face. To the third was attached a wire, and it was very close to a stud that was over the 14. It was giving off a clicking sound and as he watched, what must be the second hand hit the 24 and the minute hand moved. Leo wasn’t sure, but he thought the hour hand had moved a fraction as well. And at the stud at the 14, an attached wire went off around a barrel. A barrel that Leopold was almost sure was full of gunpowder.
Leo was wondering where Sonny Fortney was as the second hand made its orbit and when the minute hand moved again he began to get really worried. Also he was feeling more than a little woozy and his side hurt a lot. He really didn’t want to be sitting here unconscious when the bomb went off.
* * *
Amadeus ran up the stairs to the first floor and was lost in the milling crowd. The whole first floor of the uncompleted tower was packed with people. The wedding party, the wedding guests and Sonny Fortney would be at the other end of the hall with his family and the Wendells. No one was making any move to leave. He wondered what the hell was going on and where the guard had disappeared to.
* * *
The guard was arguing with the third undercaptain, who had gotten his orders from the steward and wasn’t convinced by the hysterical ramblings of a guard who had probably been paid by the archduke to interrupt the wedding. By now, the guard was almost hoping the place would blow up.
* * *
Amadeus looked around for anyone he knew who might know something about electricity. There was no one. Then he saw Dr. Faust looking at one of the unused light sockets that were built into the columns in the main foyer. “Herr Doctor Faust!”
Amadeus ran up to the man, who was looking confused and a little concerned.
“I need you to come with me.” Amadeus still wondered if he should be shouting at everyone to get out, but he wasn’t sure, so he didn’t.
“Well, all right,” said Dr. Faust, looking back at the light fixture.
“Now, Doctor! It’s urgent.” He grabbed the doctor’s arm and pulled him along toward the staircase leading to the basement.
“What is going on, Count von Eisenberg?”
“What do you know about electrics?”
“You mean electronics. Quite a bit. Why?”
* * *
The minute hand was now getting close to the 24 and the hour hand was almost touching the stud. Leo assumed that bad things would happen when the hour hand reached the stud. He pulled the steel knife out of the scabbard at his side, thinking to place it between the dial and the moving handle, so that they couldn’t touch.