“Schuler insisted that we go across that bridge first. We were suspicious and ready.” Lannie didn’t smile but she did pat the fanny pack at her waist. Mike knew she kept an automatic in that pack along with extra clips.
“He kept glancing into the woods along the road. He must have been greatly disappointed,” Rob added.
“Aye, Reichard and Klaus got there first. The three kidnappers were eager to throw themselves on the mercies of the authorities. Hopefully they are equally eager to inform on Uller and Schuler.” Wilf pulled an empty wine glass over and poured himself some wine. He took a careful sip. “Good wine. The stuff they give servants here is horse piss.”
“Our part of the job is done, then.” Lannie took her husband’s hand. “You and I need to get home. We have responsibilities. We have a baby who needs his mother and father at home, not off adventuring. Besides, Grandpa is spoiling him rotten while we’re gone.”
“We can leave early and be back by late afternoon,” Rob said reasonably. “Grandpa Ev can’t spoil Little Ev too badly in that short a time. Can he?”
“Just wait, buster. Just wait and you’ll see how fast Grandpa can spoil a kid.”
“Mike, can you be ready to leave by seven tomorrow?” Rob asked.
Rob’s question interrupted Mike’s thoughts. Finding out that Schuler really was working some kind of a con made him feel like an idiot. He felt like when he was eight and his brother Aaron explained that Santa Claus wasn’t real-unbelievably stupid for having believed for so long. If he couldn’t tell when he was being used then his dad was right and he was just a dumb kid. Maybe he should give up trying to reinvent up-time archaeology-leave it to someone smarter.
Mike sighed and looked up. “Sure, Rob. I’ve got a room at the Black Boar. I’ll meet you here in the morning.” Tonight was not the time to decide anything. He was tired and confused. As Gramps was fond of saying, he’d need to “think on it.”
Dreams stomped through Mike’s head. Weird dreams of jolting, bumps, someone yelling words he couldn’t quite make out. Then there was the nausea. He didn’t think that dreams should include nausea or the bad smells assaulting his nose. The sound of church bells made even less sense.
His eyes opened. He was on a lumpy bed in a small room. There was a single, small, many-paned window on the wall across from the bed. Had he gotten drunk? Had the innkeeper hauled him in here? His pounding head and heaving stomach supported that scenario.
Mike managed to sit up. His right leg felt heavy and he ached all over. Maybe he’d been in a fight or was coming down with the flu. A clanking noise barely registered. He grabbed the empty chamber pot sitting next to the bed as his stomach lurched. After dry heaving a couple of times his stomach settled for on and off protesting in place of open rebellion.
The room was smaller than he’d first thought. The wall the bed was on was little more than six feet long and the brick side walls stretched no more than eight feet to the wall with the window. There was a door in the wall to his right. The bed itself seemed to be a straw-stuffed mattress over a badly strung bed frame. Near the bed sat a small table with a chair under it.
Some of the odors, he discovered, came from the filthy blanket on the bed. The rest of the smell came from him. His clothes were as filthy as the blanket. Smells of sweat, dirt, manure, urine, and blood blended into an indescribable reek. What he could see of his shirt was stained to match the aromas wafting from it.
Mike felt his upper lip and the side of his face. The only places on his face where he could grow hair were his side burns and upper lip and he’d shaved them both yesterday. His stubble said it had been two or three days since the razor’s touch.
Church bells reclaimed his attention. Through the wavy glass panes he could just make out a bell tower. From the bells he guessed that today was Sunday. Damn! He must have gotten massively drunk to lose three days. He dropped his aching head into his hands and tried to think. He remembered having dinner with Rob and Lannie Clark at their inn. That memory brought up another; he’d left them and gone to the Black Boar, a cheaper inn, where he had a room. He must have started drinking there.
Something about that bell tower bothered him. Something wasn’t right. Part of his brain insisted he needed to pay attention. The Black Boar wasn’t on the town square. It was off on a side street two blocks away and there were several taller buildings between it and the town square. There was no way you could see the church’s bell tower from any of the inn’s windows. He must be in a different inn. But that table and chair next to the bed didn’t belong in any inn room Mike had seen. Admittedly, he hadn’t been in that many inns, but he thought that the smelly bed indicated a really cheap inn. The table and chair were too nicely made to fit with a cheap inn.
Mike stood up, intending to get a better look through the window. The clanking sound came again and his right leg stopped abruptly, throwing him to the ground. Stunned, he stared at the iron cuff around his right ankle. A stout chain stretched from the cuff to an eyebolt set in the wall. He tugged the chain but the eyebolt remained securely set. The cuff was held shut by a large brass padlock. Mike giggled in disbelief. This was like a bad movie, one of those really bad horror movies.
Sounds from outside the door resolved into footsteps and someone talking. Not wanting whoever it was to find him sprawled on the floor, Mike stood up. The first man through the door was large, rough looking, and held a flintlock pistol in his hand. That pistol was pointed at Mike.
“Sit on the bed,” the man commanded.
Mike sat, disinclined to argue. Not that there was any way he could dispute the command. His chain leash was too short, his head hurt badly, and his stomach was revolting again. His mind, though, was working overtime.
The second man through the door was Herr Schuler, who carried a large roll of paper. A third man, a servant from his dress and demeanor, slid through the door and put a tray on the table. The tray held a stein, a bowl of what looked to be thin soup, and several slices of bread. When the servant left, Schuler placed the rolled up paper on the table beside the tray. Several things clicked into place in Mike’s mind.
“Let me guess,” Mike said in a sarcastic tone, “You drugged me, kidnapped me, and imprisoned me because I couldn’t tell you were to find vast hordes of gold.”
“Now, Herr Tyler, you should have been less greedy and more reasonable.” Schuler’s mouth was smiling but his eyes looked cold, snakelike. “Here is your ‘site-plan.’ All you need to do is mark on it where items of value will be found.”
“I told you before, I can’t do that. Your site isn’t a Roman villa.” Mike crossed his arms. His hands were shaking and he didn’t want Schuler or his goon to see how scared he was. “Besides, there’s not much information about the Romans in Germany. There is ‘they were here and there and they built these roads,’ not ‘look here for buried treasure.’ The records just aren’t there.”
“Ah, yes, that seems to be true about the books in the main library. However, my sources tell me that you have special knowledge about Roman villas. My partner has verified this. You boasted about it on a private tour of your diggings at New Hope.”
“If your partner actually talked to Herr von Weferling he’d know that I have a pair of brochures about one, count ’em, one, Roman villa in Germany. The one Mrs. Clark mentioned. I showed the brochures to Weferling. He can tell you what was and wasn’t in them. The only thing that came close to your ‘marble statues’ was a broken, crudely carved sandstone head of Athena. Oh, yeah, there were a couple of copper coins from later, much later, around the year 1796. No gold, no statues, no silver. The owners packed up all the valuable stuff when they moved out. Anything that the Romans might have left is long gone, sold or carted off by their German descendents. Anyway, your ‘Roman villa’ is nowhere close to the area the Romans colonized.”