1635: Music and Murder (4 page)

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and sat motionless for several moments. Then she opened her eyes, raised her hands, and literally attacked the keyboard. Franz was astounded. He had never seen anyone's hands move so fast, and the volume of sound coming from the piano was amazing. The arpeggios of this piece made the Beethoven sound like a child's exercise, and the percussive hammering of chords was incredible.

All too soon it was over. Marla lifted her hands from the keys and sat back, breathing heavily. No one else moved. Friedrich and Anna were both staring wide-eyed at her, Master Riebeck was gazing at the piano through narrowed eyelids, and Thomas stood like a statue with his eyes closed.

She caught her breath, and said, "That was the
Revolutionary Etude
, by Fredric Chopin, a Polish composer and pianist who would have lived about two hundred years from now. Or at least, it was supposed to be. I made so many mistakes it was ridiculous. Got to practice more. Anyway, he'll probably never be born, and the only place his music exists is here in Grantville. And Ingram, the A-flat three is a little flat."

Thomas broke out of his stillness, threw himself to his knees by the bench and took her hand in both of his. "Teach me."

Startled, she tried to pull away.

"I beg of you, teach me! I will pay anything to learn this!"

The happy-go-lucky young man of the night before was staring at her with burning eyes, and his clutch on her hand was fervent and strong to the point of pain. "Please, I must have this music! This power, this passion, this . . . this . . . "

"Thomas," Anna said, touching his shoulder, "let go, you're frightening her."

He dropped her hand as if it burned him, and shrank back, saying, "Sorry," over and over. "Please . . . "

"I'm . . . I'm not a teacher," Marla said unevenly. "I can't teach you. I don't know enough to teach."

"Marla," Ingram said. She looked at him. "You know plenty. What you don't know, you can find out or teach yourself. You can teach. You were going to eventually, before. Looks like you just get your chance earlier than you thought, is all."

She looked into his weathered face for long moments, and seemed to draw strength from his confidence in her. Squaring her shoulders, she turned to Thomas.

"What I know, I will show you. And maybe together we can learn what I don't know." Then she turned to Franz and held out her hand. "And you, too, dear heart. We will find a way for you to do music again."

The young people gathered around the piano, talking back and forth, chattering, even. Marla began playing something light and bouncy. Master Riebeck drifted over to stand next to Ingram Bledsoe. "She is good?"

"Oh, yes. For her age and the amount of study she had before the Ring of Fire, she's very good. And she has the potential, the talent, to be as good as they come. She's right, there's a lot she doesn't know, but even so I'd bet she knows more than anyone except Marcus Wendell, the school band director. Experience, he's ahead of her, but knowledge . . . she's probably not far behind him even now. She'd absorbed everything the piano and voice teachers here in Grantville could teach her a few years before the Ring, and was studying with teachers in Morgantown." He smiled in satisfaction. "Yes, she's good. She even has perfect pitch."

"She is . . . " he stopped, muttered in German, then called out, "Friedrich!" When his son-in-law stepped over, he spoke rapidly in German. Friedrich nodded, and said, "Strong-willed." Master Hans turned back to Ingram and raised his eyebrows.

Ingram laughed, but didn't say anything.

"A good match for our Franz, then." Riebeck nodded. "So."

With the air of a man who's settled his mind about something, the craftmaster marched over to the piano and declared, "Enough of this noodling. Time to talk about important things. Herr Bledsoe, this piano, it is
ein grosse
dulcimer, yes? Hammers strike the strings, yes?"

The others stepped back as Master Hans, Ingram and Friedrich took over the piano and spent the next little while examining its construction and mechanisms. Exclamations such as "
Himmel!
" and "Aha!" punctuated the conversation.

While this was going on, Anna visibly steeled herself, turned to Marla and said, "Franz says that you sing. Do you sing as well as you play?"

"Well . . . "

"Yes," Franz said. "If anything, she is better." Marla flushed again.

"Er," Anna hemmed, "um, if-you-teach-Thomas-will-you-teach-me-please?" It all came out in a rush, and she in turn blushed, but still continued to hold her head up and look the taller woman in the eye.

Marla reached out and took her hand, saying, "Of course. I would love to."

"You know," said Thomas, "that some people will disapprove."

Two heads turned as one toward him, two sets of female eyes focused on him, and if pointed glances had been daggers and stilettos he would have been well and truly nailed to the nearest wall. He quickly held up his hands in surrender. "Not me! I would never object. I just meant that others would."

"Smart man," Franz muttered under his breath.

He thought. The heads turned toward him now, the eyes boring, and Marla gently said, "Did you say something?"

"No, nothing, not a word."

"I didn't think so."

"I will deal with Papa and Friedrich and my brother Karl," Anna said. "No one else matters." The two women talked together about singing, while Franz and Thomas silently congratulated each other on narrowly escaping with their skins intact.

Finally, Master Hans pushed away from the piano, and said, "Enough. I must think. Herr Bledsoe, now go to your workshop? I would see more of the wonders of Grantville,
bitte
."

After Marla closed the piano top and put the quilted cover over it, nothing would do but for them all to bundle up against the cold and traipse back out into the bright day, all load into the visitors' wagon and drive the few blocks to the Bledsoe residence.

Ingram's workshop turned out to be in an old detached garage building behind his house. He ushered them into it and turned on the lights. They all looked around at the neatly racked tools, the power saws and lathe. Both Master Hans and Friedrich were immediately drawn to the workbench where a work was in progress.

"This is?" Master Hans looked to Ingram.

"A guitar, the kind that's called a classical guitar."

"Is this . . . what strange word was it, Franz?"

"Kit."

"Thank you. Is this
eine
kit?"

Ingram chuckled, and said, "Yep. I got this one and a steel-string guitar kit in right before the Ring fell. Didn't start it until recently, but it's coming along well. I had it in mind to build these, learn from them and try producing my own."

"So, this is apprentice work?"

Ingram blinked. "Well, you might say so."

"If you please, show me this kit."

"Sure." Ingram hauled out the box, laid out all the parts and showed them the instructions. Master Hans and Friedrich looked them over, examined everything, tried to read the instructions and understand enough to follow the pictures.

"Hmm. These writings—good. Friedrich, think about these, how we might use them." To Ingram, "How good will this guitar be?"

Turning to a nearby cabinet, Ingram brought out something wrapped in a scrap of old blanket, which he unwrapped to reveal a lap harp. "This was made from a kit from the same company. I assume the guitar will be similar in quality—not great, but good enough for a beginning student to play." He held it out to the two down-time craftsmen.

As they scrutinized the harp, Marla whispered to Anna, "Why is your father quizzing Ingram this way?"

"Quizzing?" with a perplexed expression.

"Why is he questioning him, and poking into everything?"

Anna shook her head, "I do not know. Papa always wants to know how good other craftsmen are, but I have never seen him this direct before."

"Good, Herr Bledsoe." Master Hans handed the harp back.

"Call me Ingram."

"Herr Ingram, have you zomezing of your own that I can see, zomezing not a . . . kit?" Master Hans seemed to be getting excited. His accent was getting thicker.

Wrapping the harp up and putting it back in the cabinet, Ingram said nothing. Marla could tell he was beginning to get irritated with the down-timers because a muscle in his jaw was jumping. She went over and helped him clear the guitar kit from the workbench. Still not saying a word, he went back to the cabinet and removed a much larger blanket-wrapped parcel which he carefully set down on the workbench and equally carefully unwrapped. Stepping back, he waved a hand at what was revealed—a dulcimer of beauty and quality. There was a faint "Oooh" sound from the others in the room, and they stepped closer.

Marla clapped her hands. "Ingram, you finished it! You didn't tell me!"

"Yep. Finished it last week. Figured I'd tell you the next time I saw you, which turned out to be today."

Master Hans and Friedrich peered at the dulcimer closely, muttering to each other. The craftmaster looked to Ingram for permission. At his nod, they picked it up carefully, turning it this way and that, examining the wood grain and joins, plucking at the strings, nodding approval at the sound.

"Pardon," Friedrich said, "I must be sure. This is not a kit?"

"Nope," said Ingram tightly. "I haven't made a hammer dulcimer from a kit in, oh, twenty years or more."

"A fine work, this," Master Hans declared. "Worthy of rank." Ingram looked pleased.

"Old Bessie MacLaren from Clarksburg commissioned that, before the Ring. She is . . . or I should say she was . . . one of the best players in the country, and I was right pleased that she called on me. I finished it up after the Ring fell, even though she's not around to get it. Couldn't stand to leave it undone, and I figured that sooner or later I'd have a chance to sell it. Anyway, I have to admit that's probably the best piece I've done."

"
Ist gut
," Master Hans repeated. "Master Ingram"—who now looked very pleased at the compliment—"from this I see that
du bist
craftsman." He waved at the dulcimer, which Friedrich was carefully placing back on the workbench. "You know wood, you have skills, yes? Now, let us talk of pianos. To make pianos, here, now, what do we need?"

The newly dubbed master pulled at his chin with his thick-fingered hand. "I'm not an expert," he said slowly. "I moonlighted for a music store in Clarksville, Tennessee, when I was working for a contractor at Fort Campbell a lot of years ago. That's where I learned what I know, including how to tune pianos. But I suspect you-all have a handle on the woodworking part of it. The soundboard is large, but shouldn't be a problem, and a cabinet is a cabinet."

Master Hans nodded impatiently, and motioned for him to continue.

"No, the two things that you will need to make one right are the cast-iron harp and the steel wire. You need the wire to stand up to the tension and the hammering and not stretch or break, and you need the harp to brace the soundboard so it will stand up to the tension that has to be placed on the wire to tune it. Otherwise, sooner or later the soundboard will warp and all your work will be wasted."

"As I thought," said the German craftmaster. "For the piano, for the music, it must be this cold heavy metal." Marla choked. He looked at her quizzically, but she waved him to go on. "Good copper and bronze and brass too warm, too soft would be, not hard as iron."

As the craftsmen discussed the metals and their availability, Franz leaned over to Marla and asked, "What was so funny?"

"Heavy metal . . . music. I'll explain later."

"Iron we can get," Riebeck concluded. "From Mühlhausen or even Nürnberg. Wire from steel, difficult."

"Especially that much of it," Friedrich said, "and in those lengths. Steel wire is not common, and is ruinously expensive."

There was silence in the shop, while they all ruminated on that thought.

"There might be a way around that problem," Marla said, "at least until they start making the stuff in Magdeburg that they keep talking about."

Both older men turned and looked at her, identical expressions with raised eyebrows on their faces. She smiled, and said, "You know, Aunt Susan's got that old upright piano in her parlor, Ingram? The one you said had a cracked soundboard? I bet you could buy it from her for not much, strip out the harp and wire and other fittings, and use them to build a new piano."

Simultaneous expressions of joy appeared on the three craftsmen's faces. "Of course!" Ingram enthused. "I don't know what it would take to adapt the works of an upright to a baby grand, but it's worth a try. If that can't be done, then we'll make uprights until someone starts making wire. In fact, I can name fifteen or more houses with old pianos in them that I can probably convince their owners to sell. Not to mention the fact that the Methodist and Baptist churches have at least half a dozen apiece in Sunday School rooms that nobody's played in the last twenty years. Give me two weeks, and I can probably buy enough old pianos to keep you in business for a year, maybe more!"

Master Hans nodded definitively. "Friedrich, Anna, we move to Grantville. Karl will take the shop in Mainz. We must be here to grasp the new, to grasp pianos."

They gaped at him. "I am not mad. It will be as I say." He seemed almost agitated as he turned. "Master Ingram," he began, then muttered to Franz once more in German. "Proposal," said Franz. "Master Ingram, I haff proposal for you. I will bring tools, wood, apprentices, money, even fumble-fingered journeyman." He slapped Friedrich on the shoulder. "You buy pianos, find bigger workspace. We will make pianos, sell to
Hoch-Adels
, to burghers with more silver than sense. We will be first, we will be rich. Piano from Bledsoe and Riebeck everyone will want. And guitars," he added, almost as an afterthought. Ingram stared at him. It took a moment for him to realize that the German was very serious. A slow smile bloomed on his face, and the two men shook hands.

Pivoting, Riebeck pointed to Franz, Marla and Thomas. "Pianos need the new music, the new music needs pianos. You, you must learn the music. You must teach the music. You must make the people hungry for the music. I will help. Silver I will give, but your hearts must build road, must cornerstone be, must bring light for new music to all who can hear and see."