Raymund Eich

Science fiction and fantasy - from Middle America to the ends of the Universe

"This book was a true joy to read"

Hi ,

Raymund Eich here. Welcome to my first Readers Club email of 2021. I hope the year is off to a good start for you. Despite the cold snap and mismanaged electrical grid here in Texas earlier this month, it sure is for me.

Publishing News

In case you missed the news, my latest novel, Azureseas: Cantrell's War, was published January 28, 2021. An anthropological first contact action adventure novel, I enjoyed writing it and I hope you'll enjoy reading it.

One reviewer, Matt Seniff, did:

This book was a true joy to read. The characters are three dimensional and developed to serve the storyline. The world building is first rate. The plot had enough twists to keep me wanting to read....

Want to learn more about the novel? Including where to buy it? Keep reading and scroll down for bookstore links.

Azureseas

A world of sandy beaches under a yellow-orange sun. Human developers could turn it into the next great tourist world of the Consortia... except for its large, dangerous native animals.

Ross Cantrell joined the animal control mission on Azureseas to earn the money he needed to marry and start a life together with his girlfriend. Dirty work, but necessary to keep people safe. Like plinking tree cats back home.

Then Ross discovers the truth about the planet's "animals."

Cantrell's War

His former plans no longer matter. Against high-tech soldiers, illicit brain-hackers, and the billionaires backing them both, he puts everything at risk. Money. Love. Even his own life. All to do the right thing for humans and aliens alike.

Ebook $2.99 (or comparable outside the US)

Trade paperback $16.99.

Available at these and more booksellers worldwide.

Other Stores

Prefer to order the trade paperback from your local bookstore? Tell them ISBN 978-1-952220-05-0.

Patently Curious

I've read thousands of patents in my career. Some are more memorable than others.

Did you know you can patent plant varieties? Renee O'Connell of Escondido, California did. She's the inventor of PP29,257, "Echinopsis Plant Named Mardi Gras."

Why Mardi Gras? Is she from New Orleans?

The abstract tells us why:

A new and distinct Echinopsis cultivar named `Mardi Gras` is disclosed, characterized by distinctive large flowers of golden yellow with a vermillion mid-stripe. Flowering occurs more than once between Spring and Fall, continuing as late as August or September. Plants have a distinctive upright morphology. Echinopsis is an ornamental cactus, useful as an indoor ornamental plant and outdoors in warm climates.

Blog Post

What did Super Bowl LV have in common with German poet Bertolt Brecht? I blogged about it at my website, here.

Other books you might like

Because you can read them faster than I can write them.

The Lost Signal

Slaves of Zisaida, Book 1

by J.S. Fernandez Morales

J. S. Fernandez Morales is a making a splash as a newer science fiction writer. This is the first book in her series.

In near-future America, an eccentric scientist and a disgraced military unit meet someone they don't expect. Meanwhile, a foundling girl who isn't human like the others in her low-tech village meets someone with clues to her unknown origin. The story builds from there.

You can purchase "The Lost Signal" by following the links here.

A Free Short Story

Mardi Gras, as it's known in the U.S., took place this year on February 16. It came to the U.S. from the French culture of Louisiana, and is celebrated as Mardi Gras or Carnival throughout the Catholic world. Brazil might be the most famous Carnival celebration, but it also is celebrated in Catholic regions of Germany, such as Bavaria and the Rhineland around Cologne.

It was even celebrated in the Rhineland in 1919, after thousands of young men from the region had died in the Great War, French soldiers occupied the area, and Communists had recently attempted to overthrow the newborn, sickly Weimar Republic.

Here's an historical fantasy set there. Free for you to read.

Carnival in Sorgenbach

Hans lifted the beer mug to his mouth when the vision hit.

The rabble-rouser, lank strand of hair falling down his apoplectic face.

The hooked cross, black on white on red. The rumble of engines high

above, from aircraft far larger than the Fokkers and Sopwiths of the

war. A rubblescape stretching for miles, punctuated by skeletal walls

and smothered with the stench of innumerable corpses.

Hans' awareness returned to the beer hall. The glass mug lay sideways on

the wooden table. Lager pooled on the tabletop and dripped down the

edges. It soaked the thighs of his best pair of pants.

He stood up and brushed at the sodden line across his thighs. A fool's

task, it would not dry them in time. Why had a vision struck him now?

He'd ordered a beer to keep the visions away during the job interview,

not bring them on.

He caught his breath, then remembered the other people in the tavern.

The women and the old men looked wary. A few glanced searchingly around,

hoping someone else would have an explanation. In a corner, Schmidt came

closest to showing understanding, through eyes too old for his youthful

face, and jacket cuff pinned to his shoulder. Yet even Schmidt wouldn't

know. He would assume Hans had been plunged into memories of the year

before, not into premonitions of greater horrors in the years to come.

The bartender came out with a rag and a pail. "Hans, let me help you."

He sopped up beer along the table's edge.

Hans stared glumly. Part of his dwindling money wasted, when he needed a

job and every penny was precious. "I hadn't even taken a sip."

"As I said, I'll clean it." The bartender wrung beer into the pail. "You

fought hard for us. You deserved better than getting stabbed in the

back."

A never-ending supply of fresh-faced doughboys, joining British and

French soldiers reinvigorated with American munitions and tins of bully

beef, had done a good job stabbing the army in the front. The emptiness

of his pockets returned to Hans. "I mean, all that beer, wasted."

The bartender paused his motion of the rag. "Times are tough for all of

us, with the British keeping up the blockade. But you'll find some free

beer in a few days, once Carnival starts."

Hans trudged toward the door. Out of habit, he reached into his jacket

for his notebook and fountain pen. If he recorded every detail of each

vision, perhaps he could understand the future they predicted and, Mary

full of grace, keep it from coming true.

But a glance at his wristwatch told him he had to leave now for his

interview. Understanding the visions would not fill his belly. He took

his overcoat and hat from their racks and hurried out.

Clouds clotted the late-morning sky. Hans' breath steamed as he walked

from the tavern toward the town's market plaza. The St. Boniface Church,

clad in brick and rough stone, stood near the half-timbered,

half-plastered face of the town hall. A cart pulled by two blinkered

horses waited, as workmen off-loaded bunting and effigies of springtime

spirits to dress the town hall for Carnival.

Hans took the shortest route to Müller's watch factory, straight down

toward the Rhine and then along the street serving its docks. The

river's gray-green presence buoyed him. It would flow on, even if all

the disasters he foresaw would come about, and Sorgenbach joined the

weed-covered Roman ruins on nearby hilltops.

The watch factory looked alive. Its beige brick face bore rounded

windows, and whiplash curves of wrought iron moldings. Hans took firmer

steps as he approached the factory. Müller would not notice the spilled

beer on his pants, nor the visions sometimes gripping him. Müller would

give him a job.

A rumbling sound came up the street behind him. Hans stepped aside and

glanced over his shoulder. A large truck with a tarpaulin stretched

above the cargo area, and the French army's tricolor roundel on the

side. A driver in a horizon-blue greatcoat and Adrian helmet, next to an

officer wearing a visor crusted with braid. The driver glowered at Hans

as the truck passed.

In the cargo area, colonial soldiers huddled for warmth. Their dark

faces contrasted with their greatcoats and the orange-red tips of

cigarettes. One stared at Hans with an unreadable look while the truck

faded into the distance.

Hans resumed his earlier pace and soon reached the watch factory.

Inside, the tick of a large clock echoed off the brick and tile of the

main reception room. A few minutes before eleven, he'd made it on time.

A receptionist, with a long gray dress and a careworn face, spoke. "Herr

Müller is ready for you." Time and sorrows sapped her voice. He wondered

how many of her sons had been plowed into French soil. "Please follow

me."

The only sound came from her heels clacking the tile. It echoed down

underused hallways as they went to Müller's office. She announced Hans,

then withdrew.

Müller had a ruddy face and a firm handshake. "Hans, it's an honor to

meet you. You are one of our heroes, undefeated on the battlefield." He

gestured at a chair facing his desk.

Hans sat. "I don't consider myself a hero, but thank you, Herr Müller."

"I regret I must be curt. The French have sent a squad of Negroes and I

can only stall them a few minutes."

The truck overtaking him on the street. "Why?"

"We served the war effort by making shell fuses," Müller said. "When the

French occupiers first arrived in town, they confiscated every fuse

remaining in the warehouse. Now, though we have retooled the factory to

manufacture watches, they think we still have fuses hidden away."

Desperation and hope leaked into Hans' voice. "Your watch business is

growing, then."

Müller looked pained. "I wish it were. You see, our best suppliers are

outside the Rhineland. When shipments meant for us reach the French

checkpoints, they delay them until they get their bribes. If they don't

steal them outright. The same happens when we ship finished product

out."

Müller sighed. "I don't have enough work for the men already on the

payroll. I cannot add a bookkeeper. Not even one as heroic as you."

Hans sloughed out a breath. "I see. Thank you for your time, Herr

Müller." He rose from his chair.

"Wait, please. Though times are dour now, they will change someday.

Carnival is a harbinger of that change. It is a season when the dark

spirits of winter are expelled and the fertile ones of spring are

admitted. I am the president of the Fools' Republic, the Sorgenbach Old

Carnival Club. Most of the leading businessmen in town are members. We

are looking for new blood, younger men of merit. Younger men such as

you. Would you join us?"

Businessmen who might be hiring. The company of other men without

thunderclouds of steel rumbling at the horizon. Raucous laughter,

foolish costumes, and flowing beer to push the visions away. "You

flatter me, Herr Müller, but I have little to offer. I can't afford---"

Müller came closer. "We'll provide you a costume for our parade. Don't

worry about that. Hans, please, join us."

"Thank you. I will."

Müller beamed. "Wonderful. Meet me in the market plaza on Thursday at

noon to watch the women seize the town hall. After that, our club

gathers on Sunday night for a final meeting before we march in the Rose

Monday parade. We tell our wives we're putting the final decorations on

the wagons, but---" His eye twinkled. "---mostly we'll be drinking."

The twinkle faded. "I must go deal with my unwelcome guests. Can you

find your way out?"

Hans had navigated zigzag trenches in darkness. "Yes."

"Till Thursday!" Müller held his office door for Hans, then hurried

toward the factory's rear.

Hans headed toward the reception area. Or thought he did---unmarked

cross-corridors and unfamiliar stairs led him on a meandering course

past empty offices. Relief touched him when brightness at the end of a

hallway indicated a side door. Not ideal, but it would get him out of

the factory.

He went through the door. Wrought iron lengths with post finials in the

young style fenced off a picnic area. The clouds had thinned. Cold light

seemingly encased wooden benches and tables in a brittle shell of

winter.

Not completely. A young woman sat at the furthest table, closest to the

river. She leaned over an oversized block of paper. In her hand, a pen's

nib skipped over the paper like a flat rock on water, and though she

faced almost fully away from Hans, the facet of her cheekbone revealed

intense concentration.

Her hand slowed. She looked around, started when she saw him. Blond

strands curled from under her cap. Cold air rouged her cheeks and the

tip of her nose. Her blue eyes showed a wisdom unexpected in a youthful

face.

She stood and her breath streamed out with her words. "Hello, I'm Liesl

Müller."

He stepped forward. "Hans." He reached for her hand.

She offered it, but when he raised it to his lips, she resisted. Ink

smudges dotted her thumb and first two fingers. "I'm sorry---"

"They make your hand even lovelier." She relaxed her forearm and he

kissed the back of her hand. "What does your father think of your art?"

"He approves it. He thinks it will repel the coarser sort of suitor,

when the time comes to marry." She glanced playfully at the looming wall

of the factory. "Though he may disapprove me shirking my duties in the

filing room right now."

"I don't think so," Hans said. "I understand business is slow."

Liesl's gaze darted, taking in his arms, his upright carriage, his

unscarred face. For a moment, warmth showed on her face, but then

paused. Perhaps she sensed the war had wounded him in places she could

not see. "You sought a job and Father could not provide you one. You

aren't the first. I wish we could do more, for all of you. For our

sakes, you went through a hell on earth which I cannot imagine. All we

can offer in recompense is cold comfort." Gently, she touched his

shoulder.

Warmth stirred in his chest, like an iced-over pond responding to the

rays of springtime. Liesl understood enough to know she couldn't

understand the trenches. Her voice and touch conveyed sympathy, not

pity. But another part of him prayed for another vision to come, of her

pinned beneath a collapsed building's rubble or some half-Asiatic brute

under the red star. The war had broken him. Better to divest himself of

dreams of healing himself by connecting with another.

"I don't mean to interrupt your drawing," he said. Through the fabric of

his coat, his fingers traced his notebook's outline. "If you wouldn't

mind, I'll sit across the way for a few minutes."

Disappointment glimmered on her face, until she gazed at his tracing

fingers, stark against his gray coat. Her eyes grew thoughtful. He

glanced down. Though he'd scrubbed away as best he could ink leaked by

his pen onto his fingers, they still showed reddened skin overlaid with

abraded black streaks.

"I don't know what you must do," she said, "but I can tell you must do

it. It was a pleasure to meet you, Hans."

"And you."

Hans withdrew to a table at the far end of the picnic area. With

trembling hands, he pulled the notebook from his inner pocket and

blotted excess ink from his pen's nib onto an unused page at the back.

Then he scrawled notes. Rabble rouser. Aerial bombardment. What else

had gripped him in the beer hall? He squeezed shut his eyes, then dashed

out more.

Eventually the pressure of the vision faded, its contents transformed

and diffused across the pages. The ink dried rapidly in the cold air,

and Hans soon returned his pen to his inner pocket.

He had not finished. He reviewed his recent words, then flipped through

the rest of the notebook. The earliest entries dated to the long retreat

of last summer and fall, when he first realized the visions were not

hallucinations born in dysentery, undernourishment, and incessant

shelling. He squinted at barely legible handwriting, winced at

misspellings. A deep breath helped him look past those trivialities. His

visions formed nodes in a network, like the different machines on

Müller's factory floor, or the wire coils, pillboxes, and machine gun

nests of a defensive position. If he could learn all the visions'

connections, he might find a point where a single man's effort could

keep them from happening.

The words he read called up memories of the visions that had propelled

them to the page, memories nearly as intense as the visions themselves.

Spurred, he pored over his notes with extra intensity.

Some things were clear. The rabble-rouser, whoever he was, would somehow

take the reins of government, then plunge the country into an unwinnable

war and devastation not seen in three centuries. The rabble-rouser

lacked the easy hauteur of the abdicated Kaiser or the princes now shorn

of titles, and neither the empire nor any of its former kingdoms use the

hooked cross on flags or crests. Not a monarchist, then. But what did he

stand for? How did he seize power?

What could be done to stop him from leading the country to ruin?

Could anything?

Hans lost track of time. His energy faded, leaving him with no fresh

insight.

He looked up. The clouds had thickened. Liesl had gone inside.

Time to go home. He found a gate in the wrought iron fence, then a

footpath leading to the riverside street. Hans trudged along, his belly

hollow. He almost turned toward the market plaza, but it would be busy

with pedestrians, and workmen setting up for Carnival. He preferred

solitude. He kept going, toward the foundry and the workmen's quarter

huddled under its smokestacks.

He turned away from the riverside street at a corner occupied by a

timber-and-plaster beer hall. The door opened and three men bustled out.

They wore workmen's clothes, patched woolen jackets and rumpled

trousers, but their demeanor---the bold, lively face of the leader, and

the hard eyes of the two men following him---showed they were not simple

workmen.

The leader halted his followers with a gesture. "Hello, trenchfighter."

The leader stepped forward. "I'm Becker." He jutted out his hand.

Hans shook it and gave Becker his name.

"You look morose," Becker said. "Doesn't he, boys?"

Becker's followers muttered agreement.

To Hans, Becker asked, "What trouble has befallen you?"

"I'm a bookkeeper. I sought a job at Müller's watch factory and was

turned away." He thought of his pockets, nearly empty save for his

notebook and pen.

Becker put on a sad look. "That's capitalism in a nutshell. Your

comrades die on the hill of expanding monopoly, and you come home to

enforced idleness. You're as much a victim of the capitalists as we

workers. But fear not, all will change after the revolution is come."

A red flag raised over the ruins of Berlin. "Revolution? Or the

replacement of one monopoly by another? How many people have the reds

killed in their civil war?"

A dismissive wave. "Lenin and Trotsky seek to establish communism in a

country that hasn't even reached capitalism. The vast masses of Russian

peasants are not in position to comprehend the Marxist message, never

mind embrace it. We won't have those problems here."

Hans stood taller. "Can you be so certain?"

Understanding flared on Becker's face. "Ach, of course your first

instinct is to side with the capitalists. You're a bookkeeper and fear

you would have no place come the revolution. To the contrary. Even after

we abolish money, there will still be a need to keep records, of which

supplies are come, of which finished products are shipped out, that sort

of thing."

Hans failed to find a rebuttal before Becker went on. "Once we turf out

men like old fat Müller, we will have all we want. Employment for every

man! His daughter will cleave to me, of course, as the leader of the

revolution in Sorgenbach, but there's many more young women than young

men now, you'll have a prime pick."

Becker leaned closer. "One more thing. Join us for Carnival. We've taken

over one of the parade clubs, the Prince-Archbishop-Elector's Guard."

"An odd club for communists to join," Hans said.

"The club names are all in mock," Becker said. "And by maintaining the

tradition of a club, its elder members and the people on the street

think we pose no threat to their settled ways. Will you join us?"

Hans shook his head. "I've joined another club."

Becker raised an eyebrow. "One of the capitalists'? Do you know why they

admitted you?"

"You do?"

"They want men to brawl with us. They think we can be kept down by a few

punches, while the police look the other way. They're wrong about that.

We will parade peacefully, unless we must defend ourselves. You would

gain nothing but a worker's fist if you parade with the capitalists."

"I appreciate your offer," Hans said. A deep breath filled his torso.

"But I've already joined another."

∞

Thursday dawned clear and cold, but warmed enough by late morning that

Hans left his garret without his hat. A crowd of men spilled out of the

market plaza. Hans craned his neck for Müller. No sight of the factory

owner.

Hans accreted to the crowd, but a moment later, a hand landed on his

shoulder. "Hans?" The speaker had a fringe of gray hair and a jutting

nose. Schneider, owner of the foundry. "Let me take you to Müller."

The crowd parted for Schneider. Hans followed in his wake. Moments later

they reached Müller, who stood with half a dozen older, well-dressed men

near the town hall and the church. The hands of the clock on the church

steeple pointed nearly to noon.

"Hans, welcome!" Müller said. "Here, you need this." He extended a

tricorner hat with a white ceramic domino masking the eyes. A leer was

baked into the mask. From each side of the domino hung a string.

Men's voices grew louder on the streets approaching the market plaza.

Near them, men pulled on dominos, jester hats, full masks. "Quick,

quick!" Müller said.

Hans put on the hat, and tied the strings together behind his ears. The

first peals of noon rang from the clock.

"And one more thing." Müller handed him a necktie. Hans realized Müller

and the men around him each wore one.

"But...."

"Yes. We know what will happen. That's the point."

Hans shrugged out of his coat and lifted his collar. With unpracticed

hands, he tied the necktie. The clock's dozenth chime rang out. Hans put

his coat back on just as the women entered the market plaza.

They wore black dresses, like widows, or brides who'd previously birthed

bastards. Black masked their eyes, mostly in the form of dominos, though

a few, the leaders, wore cowls. They glowered at the men, who roared

with laughter and shrank back, as they proceeded to the town hall.

The mayor played his part of the ritual with grace. He blocked the main

door, fists on hips, and shook his head at the women's scripted requests

he yield. After he refused them twice, three women stepped forward and

pulled him out of the way. He stumbled on the cobbles, but kept his

balance and approached the crowd.

A vision swept over Hans.

A well-dressed man with fear in his eyes, trudging into woods,

surrounded by men in black greatcoats and hooked-cross armbands. Old men

with missing limbs and boys of twelve or thirteen, wearing ill-fitting

field-gray and carrying obsolete rifles, cowering in a ditch as a

gigantic armored vehicle rumbled toward them. Corpses, shrunken and

shriveled like burnt dolls, in waterless fountains as a conflagration

consumed their city.

The vision disappeared as swiftly as it came. Hans sucked in deep

breaths of cool air.

The ritual of Women's Thursday had gone on without him. With shouts of

triumph, the last of the women entered the town hall.

The clerks soon fled the building through the main door, buttoning their

coats and pulling on their hats as they ran. The town hall's upper

windows banged open, and the women's leaders proclaimed victory with a

viraginous tone and the flinging of papers from some clerk's desk. The

papers drifted down like British propaganda leaflets as the women's

leaders bellowed their decrees. Neckties were forbidden. A woman's

request for a kiss could not be refused.

Hans wished he could slip away and write in his notebook. The shoulders

of the surrounding businessmen hemmed him in. When half a dozen young

women slipped out of the town hall, he shut his eyes for a moment to

preserve the vision's memory, then opened his eyes and squared his

shoulders to the women.

Young, indeed. About twenty years of age, give or take. They halted in

front of Müller. "What's this?" one called out. She fingered his

necktie.

"This?" he said with false innocence. "I have no idea."

"You are in contempt of the Women's Committee's decree. Who witnesses

this crime?"

"I do," a second woman said. A third repeated the words.

A grave look crossed the first woman's face. "The punishment shall be

meted out. Scissors!"

A fourth woman held out a pair of scissors. The first woman took them,

lifted the end of Müller's tie straight out, and cut the taut tie with

two snips. She lifted the cut end and the women cheered.

She flung the necktie's cut end over her shoulder. "A fine is also due!"

"Oh, how shall I pay?" Müller said.

She stood on tiptoe and kissed Müller. The other women followed, all but

one. By the end, lipstick smeared his face.

"And here," the first woman said, "another violator---" Her eyelids

fluttered when she saw Hans up close. Soon, though, she recovered,

grabbing his tie and pulling him in for a kiss. Her mouth worked over

his, striving to draw out a passion he lacked.

"Make way," a stout woman said. She shouldered the first woman aside and

cupped his face in thick hands. Her desperation came through her lips as

clearly as had the first woman's. A man their age, alive and seemingly

intact---

Which of the shriveled corpses in the dry fountain had been women,

middle-aged two decades hence?

More young women took kisses from him. The first woman pushed through

the crowd. "His necktie must be sacrificed!"

"Allow me," said a woman heretofore silent. She snatched the scissors

and closed on Hans. She had been the one woman to not kiss Müller.

"Stand back!" she called to her peers. Liesl's voice.

She stood close to Hans, then pulled his tie far enough to slide one

blade between it and his coat. She cut the tie with one long snip.

Her lips touched his tenderly, for a long moment. He leaned into her.

His hands rose to her hips.

She broke off the kiss. "I must police the rest of the town, young

miscreant."

"I am contrite," he said. The corners of his mouth lifted slightly.

Liesl turned away.

The vision remained clear in his memory, but distant, as if behind thick

glass. He could regard it as something outside himself.

He blinked, turned his head. Müller looked at him, and despite hat and

mask, the factory owner projected an air of knowing humor.

Hans' cheeks warmed and he turned his head. The women drifted down the

front rank of the male crowd. Hans studied each line of head and

shoulders, in search of Liesl.

∞

Thin clouds like worn strips of cloth hung above a purpling sky, and an

orange-red sunset backlit the Roman ruins on the hill above Sorgenbach,

as Hans went to the Old Carnival Club's parade preparation site. On the

outskirts of town, a barn stood on a hillside. A rough stone wall, its

base conforming to the slope and its top even, supported an upper

structure of timbers and planking. In the tallest part of the stone

wall, facing downslope, yellow light leaked around two carriage doors

guarded by two middle-aged men in bright blue coats, white jackets, and

tall shako hats.

As Hans approached the barn, one of the men came forward. His paunch

puckered his buttoned jacket. Between his hands, he spun a stave carved

to resemble an antique musket, then held it horizontally and jutted it

in front of him. "What enemy of the Fools' Republic comes?" Breath

steamed away with his words.

"Herr Müller invited me."

The other man came up. He stomped his boots tromp-tromp. "Name, rank,

and serial number, citoyen."

The costumes and words parodied the soldiers of the previous French

occupation, Napoleon's, a century before. God knew what the current crop

of French would make of them.

Hans gave his name, and that of his regiment in the war.

His interrogator pulled up his furry shako and rummaged inside the

lining for a piece of paper. He squinted at it in the dim light, ran his

finger down it. "There you are. Follow us, citoyen." The men marched

to the carriage doors and gave each other commands in pidgin French. One

lifted the bar and the other swung open a door.

Inside he found light, sound, warmth, mirth. Men crowded around wagons

bearing papier-mâché effigies. War economy and blockade had not hardened

the men, but merely shrank their softness. Banter about the last touches

needed by the floats combined with calls to harried barmaids, recruited

from some tavern, to bring more beer. In one corner, brass blatted and

drums rattled as a band practiced the fools' marches. In another

corner, men in blue uniforms and shako hats drilled with staves. Spilled

lager and paste stained the hard-packed dirt floor. Heat from

wood-burning ovens cloaked the space.

Some of the floats enacted timeless themes. Here, men lifted tankards

and joined arms in drunken song. There, the Rhine's daughters sunned

themselves on rocks during the first days of spring.

Other floats made blatant political statements. A bust of Napoleon,

right hand inside his jacket, left lifting sausages and cheeses to his

mouth, gluttonous face mustachioed by beer foam. Around him, miniature

French colonials, their black faces anachronistic above the blue and

white uniforms of his Grande Armée, dragged fresh-faced blondes to

their emperor's feet.

Hans remembered looting the cellars of French country houses. He turned

away.

Another float commented on domestic politics. Two men, a stolid burgher

and a soldier under the steel helmet, each stood with one foot between

the shoulder blades of a flailing figure. The soldier held his bayonet's

tip at the nape of a man with a high forehead and pince-nez glasses. The

burgher stepped on a woman whose skirts could not conceal mismatched

legs. The trampled figures were Liebknecht and Luxemburg, dead and

presumed dead since the failed Communist uprising in Berlin six weeks

earlier.

"Hans, it's good you've come." Schneider clapped him on the shoulder,

then gestured at his coat. "It's warm enough to shed this. We have a

table, let me set it there."

Hans shrugged out of his coat. Schneider draped it over his arm and led

him to table near the doors, heaped with woolen coats. After Hans'

joined the pile, Schneider beckoned to a barmaid. "This man is thirsty.

For that matter, so am I."

The barmaid brought them beers. From her face below the eyes, and her

thick fingers around the mug handles, Hans recognized one of Thursday's

kissing women. She bustled away.

Schneider tapped his mug to Hans'. "Prosit."

Hans echoed the word and sipped. "Is Herr Müller about? I wish to speak

with him."

"He must be somewhere." Schneider looked around with exaggerated care.

"I don't see him. Keep searching, I'm sure you'll find him. And keep

your mug full!"

Hans kept wandering. He caught glimpses of Müller around the barn, but

could never take more than two steps in his direction before one or

another of the older club members, slightly familiar from the market

plaza on Women's Thursday, curtailed him and bade the barmaids bring him

more beer. The need to speak with Müller grew less urgent, as Hans soon

became very drunk.

Much later, outside, he wavered on his feet, stream of piss wobbling

over the barn's stone wall, when three chimes rose from the clock tower

and climbed the cold hillside. The ringing of three o'clock steadied his

head. He hadn't spoken with Müller. He went back into the barn and held

his hands out to an oven until its remaining heat dispelled his shivers.

The barn had grown quiet. The band had packed up its instruments and

departed. Most of the club guards had left, save for a few protecting

the floats. Hans remembered passing several more club guards between the

barn doors and the pissing wall. A half-dozen men sat around the room,

snoring off their drunkenness.

He could find a chair and sleep here, or walk to his garret and sleep

there. The cold night air would sober him.

Not yet. Where was Müller?

The factory owner came to him from around the float of defeated

Communists. "Hans. The night has treated you well, I see. Do you have a

minute?"

"I wanted to ask you the same. What was your purpose in inviting me to

your club?"

Müller nodded gravely. "You are a perceptive young man."

"It's not to drink your beer. You and the other members could handle

that on your own." He'd drunk enough to excrete his usual reticence with

his piss. "You were right, the floats were fully decorated by the time I

arrived. I thought it might be to join your guard to battle the

Communists during tomorrow's parade, but the guard finished drilling

without speaking to me." Hans leaned forward. "What did you invite me

for?"

"What makes you think we want to battle the Communists?" Müller asked.

His voice sounded sober.

"On the street last week, I ran into Becker---"

"Becker?" Müller's face twisted in disgust. "That vile spreader of

Bolshevik contagion. The workmen of Sorgenbach would be content with

their lot if not for his lies. If he seized the reins of our town,

everything we value would come toppling down on us. Here is one of his

tricks. He wants to start a fight, then pin the guilt clause on us to

whip up the indignation of his deluded followers. He didn't tell you

that, did he?"

"No." Hans remembered Becker's other words.

"What else did he say?"

"The usual rhetoric. And.... he lusts after Liesl."

Müller clamped his lips together. Waves of anger worked through his face

until he mastered them. "Like all of history's usurpers, he seeks

legitimacy by wedding the daughter of his overturned foe. Even though

her choice would be another." Müller managed a smile. "Don't look so

embarrassed, Hans. I know she cannot remain my little maiden forever.

You've taken a shine to her and her, to you."

Hans' heart thudded. "I don't know what she would see in me."

"Don't be so modest. You're a brave hero. And if you don't know what she

sees in you, come to our house on Tuesday, for a last tea-time of cakes

and chicory before Lent."

Hans' heart kept thudding. "Thank you, Herr Müller."

Müller raised a hand. "There is one thing, though, before that. That

intent of mine you asked about? Let's discuss it, in private." He

pointed at a loft above the main floor of the barn.

"Of course."

Hans followed Müller to a ladder guarded by a man leaning against it.

The brim of the man's shako half-covered his drooping eyes. He snapped

to alertness as they approached and stood aside as they climbed.

The heat of the ovens lingered in the loft. A lantern's dim glow cast

the scene in orange light. A few bales of hay occupied the loft's rear.

To the front, and in addition to the lantern, a table bore empty mugs of

beer and maps of the parade route.

"Wait here," Müller said. Along the wall stood a small locked trunk.

Müller went to it, worked a key, and brought out a bundle. He rested it

on the table in front of Hans and began untying it.

The cords fell away to reveal an ornate, puffy costume of reds and

earth-tones, with matching striped hose and a broad, flat hat. The garb

of a landsknecht, a mercenary soldier of centuries ago. A black domino

accompanied the costume. Amid the fabric was a wooden sword, the length

of a man's arm, with a figure-eight hilt guard.

"This is the costume of the Prince-Archbishop-Elector's Guard," Hans

said.

"So it is. Down to the cat-gutter---at least at first glance." Müller

gripped the hilt with one hand and held the wooden blade down with the

other. He pulled his hands apart. With a metallic scritch came out a

knife-blade. Six inches long, but honed steel. A close cousin to the

knife Hans had carried on a dozen trench raids.

"I've made inquiries of your officers. How many tommies and frogs have

you skewered?"

The whites of a French sentry's bulging eyes, staring up at the moonless

sky as he bled out. "One or two."

"You needn't be so modest. You have used the trench knife against our

foreign enemies. Now it is time to use it against a domestic one."

"Becker."

"In this costume, you'll infiltrate the Communist parade, find Becker,

and gut him before anyone is the wiser. He'll be near the front of his

parade, and we'll have the frog-baiting float near the back. When the

French Negroes react to the float, we'll add to the confusion, to give

you more cover to work. That's clear?"

Hans nodded, mute.

"Splendid. Let me rebundle this---"

Ships stretched toward the horizon, their shells pounding hungry men in

field-gray. Long columns of massive armored fighting vehicles, decorated

with the red star, thundering across open fields. A fleet of aircraft,

their silhouettes like a hundred crosses against the daylight sky,

releasing cargoes of whistling bombs.

"No," Hans said. "No. No!" He ran to the ladder and tramped down. His

breaths were shallow, like an unmasked man in a gas attack. He ran to

the carriage doors and out, into the chill night, onto the road, a few

steps down the hill toward town.

The chill air bit his throat. He shivered, slowed his steps. He had done

the right thing. He would leave his killing work behind in the spectral

wastelands of France, where it belonged. Killing Becker would not

prevent the visions from coming true. He knew this with sudden

intuition.

He slowed his steps further. Why was he so cold?

His coat remained in the barn.

In his coat, his notebook.

Hans stopped. Could he go back and face Müller? Yes, he could. Müller

had kept the plot a secret from his club colleagues. Some of them would

be present and awake. Müller would not ask him again.

His invitation to cakes and chicory---to a sitting room with

Liesl---would be revoked.

No. It already had. Hans expelled a ragged breath, then turned back to

the barn.

The guards let him in the gate and through the carriage doors. He found

the table laden with coats. The shuffling of piles had brought it to the

top. He put it on, then tapped the breast above the inner pocket.

Empty---

"Hans."

Müller stood at the loft's railing. He held a small, open notebook.

"Interesting reading. Would you come up to discuss it?"

"Hand it back."

"I'll be glad to. But, please, come up and discuss it with me. I

understand now."

Hans stared at the notebook in Müller's hands and licked his lips. "I'm

coming up."

By the time he climbed the ladder, Müller stood at the table. On it, the

notebook lay closed, yet Hans knew it had yielded all its secrets.

"Troubling visions," Müller said. "A disaster for us all, should they

prove true."

"Killing Becker won't stop them from coming true."

"Are you certain?" Müller peered at him. "Becker is not the

rabble-rouser, clearly, but who is that man? What does he stand for?"

Hans racked his memory, a sluggish process in the aftermath of all the

beer he'd drunk. "Not the monarchy."

"His banner has a red field. Sounds like a Communist or radical

Socialist to me."

Hans shook his head. "The imperial flag has the same red, black, and

white as the rabble-rouser's. Doesn't matter. He can't be a Communist.

The Soviets will lift their red flag over the Reichstag. Would

Communists fight Communists?"

Müller widened his arms. "Whoever he is, he's no Communist. I'll grant

you that. I'll grant killing Becker won't stop him. But would keeping

Becker alive stop him?"

Hans opened his mouth, shut it.

Müller went on. "Becker is one Communist out of millions. We know from

the chaos they unleashed on Russia the last eighteen months, and tried

to unleash in Berlin this past January, they wouldn't submit to

non-Communist domination without a fight. But if your visions are true,

then all their resistance won't matter. Even if we let Becker join his

comrades, they would still lose. But think of the wreck and ruin they

would inflict on their way to defeat. Think of the wreck and ruin Becker

would inflict on Sorgenbach, even if his ultimate fate were sealed."

Müller half-sat on the table. "And if your visions are true, even if the

future they show could be changed, what could you do, or I? One man

makes no difference in the great struggles of our current age. I didn't

see the trenches but I know enough to know that. If your visions are

our fate, there's nothing you or I could do. We can only act here, and

now, to preserve ourselves and the few people most important to us as

best we can." Müller smiled. "Have you rethought your answer, Hans?"

He felt drained. Not simply tired, or numbed by drink, but as if his

spirit had been grievously wounded and it slumped inside him, cold and

babbling from blood loss. Kill one more man, then a quiet life with

Liesl, and perhaps the visions would follow Becker into the ground.

"I'll do it."

Müller looked solemn. "I appreciate what you do, for our town, for our

country. Here you go." He lifted the notebook.

Hans shook his head. "I don't need it anymore."

∞

The clashing sounds of two bands echoed off the front walls of houses

and reached Hans in his hiding place, a stairwell leading down to a

cellar. Slivers of torchlight like ground-bound starshells swept over

his eye. He covered his mouth and nose to keep his breath from streaming

up to street level.

The blue and white uniforms and shako hats of the old club's guard hove

into view, as did the anti-French float. The first ranks of the

Prince-Archbishop-Elector's Guard came close behind. Hans peered over

the top of the stairwell at the street.

A French officer scowled at the float. The colonials behind him did

more. They brandished their rifles and shouted at the club members

standing near the minuscule effigies.

The officer raised his hand and shouted at them. Perhaps the French

simply didn't want to make trouble by interfering in the local

tradition. Perhaps the officer recognized the float as a temporary

inversion of the new order of things, and the next day the people of

Sorgenbach would revert to their inferior status, just as the town's

women had after the previous Thursday.

If the officer knew that, he failed to share the message with his men.

Especially when townsfolk watching the parade hooted with laughter.

Then a man in the trailing rank of the old club flung a half-empty mug

of beer into the midst of the colonial soldiers.

Shouts and screams, and waves of movement spasmed through the two parade

clubs. The colonial soldiers swung rifle butts at members of both clubs.

Musket-shaped staves and short wooden swords came out, raised to parry,

and from both clubs, men flowed toward the colonials. The French officer

shouted and blew his whistle to get his men to disengage, without

success.

Hans scanned the figures of the Prince-Archbishop-Elector's Guard. All

wore the landsknecht uniform and a black domino. Stolid workers, most

of them. Slay the officer and the men will crumble. But where was---?

A figure, taller than average, with two strapping men standing near him,

heads turned to receive his commands. The body language was clear. The

commanding figure was Becker. His two bodyguards joined the flow of club

members going to resist the French colonials.

While keeping his eye on Becker, Hans put on his domino and broad flat

hat. He went up the stairs to street level, unnoticed by the

identically-clad men around him.

The tumult on the street masked the scritch as he drew his knife from

its wooden sheath.

Before I go, one last thing: are my emails giving you what you want? If they aren't, email me at newsletter@raymundeich.com or take a short online survey to tell me what you'd like to hear more about.

No longer want to be part of my Readers Club? No worries. There's an unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email.

I hope you, your family, and your loved ones have a Happy New Year.

I'll be back in a couple of months with more news. And I'll bring you a special bulletin when publishing news breaks.

Happy reading!

Copyright © 2020 Raymund Eich, All rights reserved.

Part of the Sumo family with AppSumo and KingSumo. © 2020 Sumo Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of Service | Privacy Policy.