“I came a-running soon as I heard the uproar,” explained the driver. “Seems I was too late.” He coiled his whip and gazed around. “Well, I reckon Sir Henry and the other gentleman are off on one of their journeys-in rough company, by the look of it.” Kit regarded the coachman closely for the first time and was mildly surprised to discover him to be a young fellow, more or less his own age, with a round head of short hair and a compact, stocky build. He had a wide, honest face, thick shoulders, and a bull neck. His hands were strong and well calloused from his duties, and he wore a white kerchief knotted tightly around his throat.
“What’s your name?”
“Standfast.” He made a curious gesture at his temple, the symbolic doffing of an invisible cap. “Giles Standfast.”
“What do your friends call you?”
The servant gave a puzzled look, then offered a halfhearted shrug. “I do not have any friends, sir.”
“Well, you do now.” Kit stuck out his hand. “You saved my life, and for that I thank you. Call me Kit.”
The driver regarded the offered hand with hesitant interest, then accepted it with a vigorous shake.
“Glad to meet you, Giles,” said Kit, wincing at the strength of the young man’s grip.
“Likewise, sir.”
“So, you know about Sir Henry’s journeys?” wondered Kit, removing his hand as from a bear trap.
“That I do, sir,” replied Giles the driver.
“Well, then,” replied Kit, accepting him at his word, “maybe you can tell me what we do now?”
“Well, sir, I am to go home and await Sir Henry’s return,” he answered simply.
“Back to London?”
“Aye, sir. Back to London.”
Kit nodded. He took a last look around at the flat circular top of Black Mixen. The Trolls loomed overhead, and the evening’s shadows had claimed the top of the tump. All was quiet, peaceful in the coming of night.
“Very well,” said Kit, patting the dust from his clothes. “Back to London it is. Lead the way, Giles, my friend.”
CHAPTER 16
In Which Wilhelmina Changes History Much for the Better
On the fortieth day of their steadily failing bakery enterprise, Wilhelmina rose early and padded downstairs to the kitchen to find Englebert sitting in a chair with his head in his hands, the oven cold and unlit behind him.
“What’s wrong, Etzel?” she asked, stepping lightly across the stone flagging in her bare feet. She knelt in front of him.
“What is the use?” he groaned without raising his eyes from the bleak contemplation of his empty hands. “No one comes. No one buys. It is finished…” He sighed. “We are finished.”
She bit her lip. She had never seen him so dejected, and it tore at her heart. “No,” she whispered, mostly to herself, “I will not allow it.”
She stood and let her gaze sweep across the tidy shop. It was a fine place, and a good place-too good to be driven down by the indifference of the locals. It only needed… something-some little refinement, a detail perhaps overlooked till now, or a new ingredient added. But what?
“Etzel,” she said slowly. “Did they have coffee in Rosenheim?”
“You mean Kaffee?”
“Yes, coffee, cafe, Kaffee, or whatever you call it-did you have it there? Were there shops that sold it?”
“This is a drink, ja?”
“That’s right-a hot drink.” Wilhelmina began pacing before him, her brow scrunched in concentration. “Did they have it there?”
“I do not think so,” he said slowly, raising his head at last. “In Munchen, maybe, though I cannot say for sure. I heard they had this Kaffee in Venice.” He shrugged. “I have never tried it myself.”
“How far is Vienna?” she asked, mishearing him because her mind was already racing down the road to a certain destination. At his blank look she corrected herself. “Wien, I mean-how far is it from here?”
Etzel tapped his teeth with a pudgy finger and squinched up his eyes as he tried to work out the sums in his head. “I think,” he said finally, “it must be two hundred miles at least-a little more, perhaps. I have never been there, but my father went to Wien once as a young man. It is a very great city.”
“So it is. But, if I remember correctly, it is also the place where the selling of coffee in Europe began.”
Englebert studied her carefully. “What are you thinking, Liebchen?”
“I am thinking that coffee will be the saving of us, Etzel.”
“But I know nothing of this Kaffee,” countered the baker mournfully.
“Don’t worry about that,” Mina reassured him. “I know all about it. All we have to do is get a supply of beans.”
“Beans?” he wondered.
“Coffee beans, Etzel-the grains used to make the drink.” She turned and stooped and, taking his hands in hers, raised him to his feet. “Now then, you go and put on your coat and hat; then we’ll go to the stable to get the mule cart ready.”
“Where are we going?”
“I’m staying here to make the shop ready,” Mina said. “You’re going to Vienna-to Wien. Hurry along. We have wasted enough time as it is.”
A short time later, Wilhelmina stood watching as the mule cart clattered away down the empty streets of Old Prague. She sent her willing accomplice with a detailed description of the commodity-including a little drawing she had made-and instructions to purchase as many coffee beans from whatever source he could find. “Get the black roasted ones if you can,” she had instructed him as he climbed up into the wagon box. “If you can’t get those, then get the green raw ones, and we’ll roast them ourselves. It doesn’t matter. Just get them.”
The plan was simply to go around to one and another of the Viennese coffee emporiums and offer to buy beans in bulk. Thus when, after five days on the road, Englebert arrived in the imposing city and began his search, he was heartily disappointed to find not a single Kaffeehaus anywhere. He walked the streets for a day and a half asking shopkeepers and businessmen and even idle passersby where he might find a Kaffeehaus in Wien, but no one he met had ever heard of such a thing in the city. Weary from his travels, and woefully dispirited by the realisation he had made a long trip for nothing, he began to wander aimlessly, not caring anymore where he went. Eventually, he came to himself on the riverbanks of the wide, slow-moving Danube.
Looking around, he saw that he had inadvertently arrived at one of the many wharfs lining the busy river docklands. There were rows of warehouses and small shops serving the sailors, dockworkers, and day labourers. He strolled along the wharf and came upon a man pacing back and forth before a large heap of grain sacks. Two stevedores were loading the sacks onto a wagon. Dressed in expensive dark wool with a pristine white shirt and extravagant lace collar, the man was waving at passersby and calling out something Etzel could not quite make out. He also held a small sign in his hands with which he seemed to be trying to attract attention.
Closer, Etzel heard the word Bohnen. That single utterance brought him up short. He stopped to observe the man as he waved his sign and shouted, “Beans!”
Intrigued, Englebert stepped nearer and summoned up the last ounce of friendliness from his vast reserve. “Hello to you, sir,” he said. “I give you good greeting, friend.”
“Would that I could offer the same in return,” answered the man, “but I fear the hardship which I now endure would overcome you, too, even as it has overcome me.”
“I am sorry to hear it,” replied Etzel. “I, too, am brought low by difficulties. May I ask what is the nature of your particular hardship?”
“I am a grain merchant, ja?” replied the man. “I deal in barley, rice, and rye. From all over the world I buy, ja?”
“I pray your business thrives,” said Etzel.
“I make a good living,” conceded the merchant. “Until today, that is.” He flung a hand at the heap of bags on the dock. “What am I to do with all these beans?” He waved the sign at someone passing by just then. “Beans! Buy some beans!”