"I promise," she said. "But…"
"But what?"
"I want to know about the Steinway."
"Marla…" with exasperation.
"Franz…" sweetly.
He gazed into her eyes, and sighed. "All right, if I go and bring word to you, will you stay here?"
"Yes."
"Promise?"
She raised a hand to his face. "I promise." He captured her hand and brought it around to kiss the fingertips.
"Then I will go forth and return with word of your precious Steinway." Franz straightened, then looked down at her with a grin. "You know, if that piano was a man, I would be very jealous."
"You!" She slapped his leg. "Get, and find out what's happening with my piano!"
"As you command," he intoned. Hilde appeared with his coat, which, if not totally dry, was at least dryer than it had been, and considerably warmer to boot.
"By your leave, Frau Simpson," he said with a slight bow.
"Go, Franz." She laughed. "She won't rest until you do."
He stepped to the door, raised a hand in farewell, and was gone.
Franz closed the door behind him and turned to face the street. Immediately he noticed that the rain had almost stopped. Casting a quizzical eye to the sky, he muttered, "You could have answered my prayer to stop the rain a little earlier than this, and spared Marla." He looked back at the street, and started down the steps. "I know, I know, 'The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the Name of the Lord.' "
When he reached the bottom, he turned and began walking toward the docks. At the end of the row of houses, he stopped a merchant's apprentice hurrying by and asked for directions to the Weaver's Guildhall. Slipping and sliding through the mud, he dodged wagons, horses and other people and finally arrived at the guildhall without injury. The wagon that had been hired to carry the piano from the docks to the hall was still waiting in front of it.
Like the rest of Magdeburg, the building had been built anew after the fires from Tilly's sack had destroyed the original hall. It was a rather large structure that had much of the raw look of the newer construction, but he could see where some friezes and a few small statues had been added to the original plain exterior. The weavers were a wealthy guild, and no doubt would continue to ornament their hall until it reflected what they felt to be their position in Magdeburg's society.
Franz walked up the main steps to the portico, paused at the top to scrape his boots on the tool provided for that purpose, then faced a pair of large but plain doors. No doubt the guild would have them replaced with ornately carved panels at their earliest convenience. He passed through them and entered a foyer of sorts: a couple of offices on each side, then a cross hallway, and on the other side a large pair of doors flanked by stairways. The guild had already spent some money here, for these doors had glass panes in them.
One of the office doors was open, so Franz stuck his head in the doorway. He spied a clerk hard at work at a ledger book. "Where is the ballroom?"
The clerk didn't even look up, just jabbed with the quill in his hand toward his left. "Through the glass doors." Dipping his quill in his ink, he continued his hasty scribbling.
The first thing Franz noticed as he opened the doors was Friedrich Braun's voice. "No, you idiot! Do not start lifting until I tell you to!"
Franz entered the room at the far end from where Friedrich was rolling out from under the piano to glare at someone Franz didn't know. Several of the men standing around the piano looked around as he approached. He saw Hermann Katzberg, Isaac Fremdling and Josef and Rupert Tuchman standing together, watching as Friedrich worked at uncrating the piano. Several Magdeburg locals, obviously drafted to provide muscle power, were grouped together on the other side of the piano. It was one of them that Friedrich was glaring at. The man started to bristle, but something caught his attention, and he paled and backed away to mingle with his companions. Franz followed his eyes, to see Gunther Achterhof leaning against the side wall and directing a very piercing gaze at the offender.
Franz's footsteps sounded in the suddenly quiet room, and Friedrich turned to spy him. "Franz! How is Marla?" All of his friends looked at him with concern written on their faces, expressions which lightened as they saw the smile on his own face.
"She is feeling better," he responded as he joined their rank. "Getting her inside where she could be warm and dry has made much difference. In a day or two, we will have her amongst us again, belaboring us with directions and criticisms, and assuring us that we will grow used to the dissonance."
They all laughed in relief as Franz squatted to bring himself down to Friedrich's level. "So what happens here, oh greatest of all journeymen?"
"Have a care how you speak to one who holds tools in his hands," Friedrich retorted, "lest you find them applied to your skull instead of this crate." He rolled back under the piano. "As you can see, the bottom of the shipping crate is resting on trestles. Master Ingram, who is indeed worthy of that accolade, designed the crate in such a manner that while it rests on the trestles, we can remove part of the bottom and reattach the legs and pedals to the piano. Thus we do not have to tilt it onto its side, nor have many men attempt to hold it in the air whilst I scurry around like a beetle underneath it, striving to attach the legs before it is dropped upon me. That is, if a certain lackwit can be restrained from attempting to lift one side of it until I am finished!" Friedrich's voice at that moment dripped acid. The man he referred to shuffled his feet and moved to the rear of the group of locals.
"So the liberating of the Steinway from its crate proceeds well, then?" Franz asked lightly.
"Aye, well indeed, thanks to the artifice of those unknown craftsmen who made the Steinway. 'Tis a miracle of design, Franz. So spare in features, so well crafted, so few tools needed to disassemble and reassemble it. There is an elegance in their work that I despair of ever attaining. And in its own way, Master Ingram's design of the crate is almost as elegant, allowing the piano to be enveloped by the crate's assembly around it, rather than forcing the instrument to be jostled around and eventually placed inside the crate. Much less risk of damage in his way. There!" he exclaimed, rolling out from under the piano again.
Climbing to his feet, Friedrich said, "All right, you lot, space yourselves around the piano, but leave the curved side open for the moment." He waited for the locals and Isaac, Johann and Rupert to take their places. "Do not grasp the packing crate, but the bottom of the instrument itself. Take a good grasp, so that the blanket wrapping it does not slip in your hands. And do not lift until I say the word!" with an indiscriminate glare for everyone involved. "Franz, Hermann, when we lift, gently pull the trestles and the remaining portion of the crate from under the piano. I remind you all, if anyone mars the beauty of this creation, he will answer to Mistress Marla, and I would not be in his shoes for all the silver in Amsterdam." Franz took his coat off and tossed it to the floor some distance away.
Friedrich took his place at the keyboard end between two of the locals, took his grip and looked around at them all. "Lift!" The piano elevated, and Hermann dove under it to support the bottom of the case and guide it as Franz carefully pulled the first trestle from under the small end of the piano. After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably no more than a very few of the up-timers' minutes, it was accomplished.
Hermann came out from under the instrument with a sour look on his face. Guessing that the expression came from his being apparently relegated to the easy work because of his short stature, Franz caught his eye and held up his damaged left hand, not saying a word. It took a moment for Hermann to catch his meaning, but catch it he did, and he acknowledged it with a nod and a wry twist of his mouth. As much as they might wish otherwise, Franz thought, they both had to acknowledge their limitations.