William Monk 12 - Funeral in Blue

the best—those that lived through it, and those that didn’t.” He reeled off half a dozen names. “Max Niemann, Kristian Beck, Hanna Jakob, Ernst Stifter, Elissa von Leibnitz. Never forget her. Most beautiful woman in Vienna, she was. Like a dream, a flame in the darkness of those days. As much courage as any man . . . more!”
    Ferdi’s eyes shone. He was leaning forward, lips parted.
    Monk tried to look skeptical, but he had seen Allardyce’s painting of her, and he knew what the old man meant. It was not a perfection of form, or even a delicacy of feature, it was the passion inside her, the force of her vision, which made her unique. She had had the power to carry others into her dreams.
    The old man was frowning at him. He spoke to Ferdi, and Ferdi smiled at Monk. “He says I’m to tell you that if you don’t believe him, you should go and ask others. Shall I tell him you’d like to do that?”
    “Yes,” Monk agreed quickly. “Ask him about Niemann and Beck, but don’t sound too keen.” He must find something relevant to the personal passions and envies, more than a history lesson, however ardent.
    Ferdi ignored the warning with great dignity. He turned to the old man, and Monk was obliged to listen to a quarter of an hour of animated conversation, mostly from the old man, but with Ferdi putting in increasingly excited questions. Ferdi kept glancing at Monk, willing him not to interrupt.
    As soon as they were outside again in the rain and the shifting pattern of gas lamps, the wind sharp-edged and cold in their faces, Ferdi began. “Max Niemann was one of the heroes,” he said excitedly. “He came out for the reforms straightaway, not like some people, who waited to see the chances of success or what their friends or family would think of them.”
    They came to the corner of the street and a carriage swished by, spraying mud and water. Monk leaped backwards but Ferdi was too absorbed in his story to notice. He was wet up to the knees, and oblivious of it. As soon as the street was clear, he set out across the roadway and Monk hastened to keep up with him.
    “He was brave as well,” Ferdi went on. “He was right out there on the barricades when the real fighting began. So was Elissa von Leibnitz. He told me one story of how when the fighting was really awful in October, after they’d hanged the minister and the army just charged in, several young men were shot and fell in the street. She took a gun herself and went out, shouting and waving, firing the gun at the soldiers. She knew how to and she wasn’t scared. All by herself, she drove them back until others could crawl out and get the wounded men back behind the barricades.”
    “Where was Kristian?” Monk asked. “Or Max?”
    “Max was one of the ones hurt,” Ferdi replied, glancing sideways to make sure Monk was keeping up with him in the dark. “Kristian was trying to stop a man from bleeding to death from a terrible wound. He had one hand holding a pad on the man’s shoulder, and he was shouting to Elissa to stop, or someone to help her, and waving his other arm.”
    “But Elissa wasn’t hurt?”
    “Apparently not. There was one woman called Hanna who was with them. She went right out in front, too. She was one of those who dragged the wounded men back. And she used to carry messages, too, right through where the army had taken the city back, to where their own revolutionaries were cut off at the far side. And carry messages to their allies in the government as well.”
    “Can we speak to her?” Monk asked eagerly. It would be a firsthand account from another person who knew them well. She might have noticed more of relationships, the undercurrents of envy or passion between Kristian and Max.
    “I asked,” Ferdi agreed, his face suddenly very sober. “But he thinks she is one of those killed in the uprising. He told me roughly where Max Niemann still lives. He’s very respectable now. The government hasn’t forgotten which side he was on when it mattered, and they just can’t afford to punish everybody, or it would all get out of hand again. Too many people think highly of Herr Niemann.” He waved his hands excitedly. “But that’s not all. It seems that your friend Herr Beck was a pretty good hero too, a real fighter. Not only brave, but pretty clever, a sort of natural leader. He had the courage to face the enemy down. Could read people rather well, and knew when to call a bluff, and just how far to go. He was