Time to think about why she was there, and assuming they weren’t going to prosecute her for shooting at Count-Johann-pissy-pants, then she had better keep her priorities straight. And what were her priorities? Easy. Two of them. Her family and her future. Her family, as in her mother and her care. A steady and dependable level of quality care. That care required money, which they didn’t have. It was up to her to provide it. The second? Her own future, because the harsh fact is females in the down-time here-and-now were pretty much third class citizens. Little better than cattle. Sure there were exceptions, sure things were changing, and sure as heck she was going to do as much of that changing as she could. But still. Even as an up-timer, which was becoming its own little separate social class, in the class-centric hierarchy of 1630’s Europe, she still needed every angle she could get. She wasn’t especially related to the “royalty” of Grantville, like some other girls who could claim a shirt-tail relation to Mike Stearns’ family. Or the Simpsons, or two or three others. She was li’lol’ Mary Nobody from Nowheresville West Virginia. What she needed was to keep her eyes on the prize. Because without the contacts, without the perceived social rank, her options diminished greatly. And as her options diminished, so did her family’s fortunes. Not that she thought she would ever marry into royalty, or even some level of a noble family. That was surely far above what she could hope for. Way beyond realistic expectations. Princes in this time and place were most assuredly never charming.
So, in spite of the rough start, in spite of the fact that she thought Hofer was a first class arrogant jerk, and in spite of the fact that she had spent her first night in a cell, she knew she didn’t have many choices. So, she needed to be civil. Say yes sir and no sir, and bite her tongue. “Chill”, as her brother would say. Suck it up, cupcake.
They were still in the “downstairs room”, as Hofer called it. A cell as far as Mary was concerned. But during the night, someone from the household had visited her, apologized profusely, and brought her candles and bedding. The woman was comfortably plump and middle aged, and said her name was Regina. She was very kind and told Mary that things would all be cleared up soon. While Mary was happy to hear it, she didn’t really know what to believe. It was very confusing, especially since it seemed nobody was in charge.
Hofer turned to one of the servant girls. “Give her the proper clothing and help her into it. We can put the rest of her things in storage. She cannot look like this when she meets the count.” Hofer then turned and was gone. The servant girl handed her a pile of clothing virtually identical to what the servant girl was wearing. She then turned around and left the room, barring the door behind her.
Mary sighed. The first thing she did was to pick up the pile of clothes, and sniff them. They were obviously worn and threadbare homespun, but they smelled clean, like lye soap and a touch of pine oil. She was familiar enough with down-time clothes, and in a moment she was dressed with sleeves, underskirt, overskirt, a bodice made for a much larger woman, and an apron to go over it all. She kept her boots. There were no pockets to speak of, so she simply grabbed her lighter, knife, and some other odds and ends and put them into her handkerchief. She was re-arranging the crucifix around her neck when the door opened again. There were two female servants, dressed much the same as she was. They looked at her with indifference and motioned her to move ahead. Clutching her handkerchief, she left the room.
They guided her up the stairs, around several corners and back hallways until they came to a large kitchen. When they entered, the bustling kitchen full of servants stopped and stared at her. Mary felt herself blushing, and then she straightened her back and returned the looks, until the stares stopped. One of her escorts whispered to a large woman, who Mary took to be in charge of the kitchen.
The large woman was quite put out. With the Tyrol accents, and quiet tones, Mary couldn’t quite catch everything that was said, but it sounded like the large woman didn’t want Mary there, and the other woman was telling her that what she wanted really didn’t matter, but she had better keep an eye on Mary or else. Mary caught the name of Hofer, and someone else was mentioned, called Sybilla, in the snippets of conversation.
Mary waited patiently while the details were worked out. Finally the large woman came to her, with the other woman in tow. “You are the girl? The one they brought in yesterday?” She was large, with flour covered hands and apron, a ruddy complexion, and grey curly hair tumbling out from under her kerchief. Mary smiled and nodded. “My name is Mary. What is yours?”
“I am Maria and you're in my kitchen. It has been my kitchen for thirty years. It was my mother’s kitchen before that. They tell me you are to stay here, until they decide what to do with you. I don’t know what to do with you. You look too skinny to be any good in the kitchen. Or anywhere else for that matter. Just sit. Here.” She motioned to a tall stool near what Mary assumed was a pantry or closet door. “Here you will be out of the way. Don’t speak until spoken to. Don’t get in our way, we have much to do. Do nothing to attract attention. Don’t distract my staff. I don’t want you here, but Hofer seems to think he can put you here because Her Grace wishes it.” She gestured with a flour covered arm again, pointing to the stool, flour dust arcing away from her in a curve that matched the sweep of her arm. “So there you will sit, until someone tells me otherwise.”
She turned, not awaiting a response, and shouted to the others in the busy kitchen. “This person,” Maria pointed over her shoulder at Mary, “is that one from the future who the count has hired. You may be curious about her.” The cook slowly shook her head and waved her chubby finger side to side several times to indicate the negative. “You would be mistaken. Ignore her. They have let her out of the cell, and placed her here under our watch.” The cook glanced around the kitchen at the staff with a stern and harried look, taking a moment to gaze at each face. “Am I clear?” Nobody made eye contact, and after a moment, they all went back to whatever they were doing. “Good.” She walked back to her counter space, and began kneading dough, at the same time giving Hofer’s messenger servant a look that told her it was time to leave her kitchen.
She bowed slightly and backed out of the kitchen door, with a sideways glance and a raised finger to Mary containing an admonition. Stay put. Mary simply nodded and sat on the stool.
As the morning passed, she watched the staff work. There were six people in the kitchen, all performing various tasks, with the head cook Maria, in charge of them all. There were a couple of boys, but mostly it was women. Occasionally, as the morning wore on, someone would hastily pass her position, or go into the storeroom behind her, but nobody made eye contact, or replied when Mary tried to start a conversation. After a while, she simply sat there, letting the smells and the movement flow past her and tried to think of something pleasant. Her mind wandered back to the flight, remembering the green fields and forests as they slid beneath the airplane, her mind hypnotized by the blue alpine lakes, the reflections of the clouds and mountain peaks, the shadow of the plane racing up and down the steep slopes, entranced by the rugged beauty of the country where she now lived. She hoped that she would be able to see more of it, if she ever got out of the kitchen.
From across the room, she saw Johann, her count “pissy-pants” who had tackled her on the mountain the previous day. She shifted on the stool feeling the bruises on her ribs. He entered the kitchen, looking relaxed. With an easy familiarity, he snatched a biscuit from off of the counter and grinned at the cook, who slapped his hand in mock seriousness. He in turn pouted, then made a feint to one side of her, then the other, and ended up with another biscuit for his reward. He continued his play with the cook, who then gestured with her chin towards Mary.
Instantly his posture changed. He stood straighter, and his face changed from happy-go-lucky to one of a serious soldier. Mary thought it a pity. When he first came in he actually could be described as a bit on the cute side. Not going overboard, on the cute thing, certainly. He wasn’t a mud fence, nor was he
going to be a candidate for a boy band, like back before the Ring of Fire. But as soon as he became Count pissy-pants he ceased to be anything resembling desirable. She sighed.
Johann came to her in the corner. “Fraulein Mary.” He stood ramrod straight, greeting her with a quick formal head nod.
“Count.” She rose to meet him. There was an awkward moment, as if he were trying to come up with something to say.
“You look more appropriately dressed this morning, Fraulein Mary,” he said with an expected formality.
Mary tried to break the formality, to see if the fun count that played with the cook could return. She smiled at him and tilted her head. “I'm to be a house servant, it seems.” She held out the edges of her skirt. “Not what I signed up for, I think.”
“Fraulein, this is a temporary arrangement. When the Count returns from Innsbruck, we will have the answers as to where to place you. You arrived very suddenly, and no instructions were left. My other uncle, who lives in town, has been sent for. He will make decisions. He will be here shortly. You must excuse me.” He turned on his heel and marched out of the kitchen. Mary suppressed making a face behind his stick straight back, and sat back down with a sigh.
The morning stretched into afternoon. Mary watched as the dim natural light from the back of room changed, and the staff bustled about with evening meal preparation. She had been given some bread and a wonderful soft cheese, along with watered wine by one of the servants in the kitchen. She was still stiff from the rough treatment on the mountain, a hard pallet in the cell, and just sitting on the stool all day. Whenever she stood, she sensed the kitchen staff pause what they were doing and stare at her. Once she finished stretching, and sat back down, they proceeded with their work. Mary began to wonder what Hofer had told them about her to be so frightened. She had lived out of Grantville long enough to be used to the reactions of down-timers to the rare up-timers when they met. The whispers, the veiled pointing of fingers, the sudden quieting of conversations when she approached. There was a time when she was initially in Wurzburg when groups of people would cross themselves when they saw her coming, to ward off the devil. And in many ways, Mary could understand it. She came from the future. She was one of “them.” An outsider. Supposedly fierce warriors – that one got her laughing sometimes, she was as big of a chicken as anybody, the sound of bullets whizzing overhead as part of basic training had been enough to convince her of that. She was really pissed at that upperclassman cheerleader/sniper chick, Julie Sims, for starting that. Everyone expected her to be some sort of super being, when in reality she was just Mary. Mary Russo. That’s all.
Well, she thought, you're just Mary from Grantville, but you're sitting in the kitchen of a castle, in the Alps, almost four hundred years in the past. She smiled to herself. That should tell you something. There had to be some reason she was here, in the past. A girl who was a nobody from nowhere. After all, Grantville West Virginia was about as backwater as backwater can be. The whole thing was so absurd, so mind-blowingly weird that the only thing she could do was smile about it. Smile, and keep on keeping on.
She was still smiling, and staring off into space when she saw Hofer, and a pair of female servants, followed by a very rotund, richly dressed man who lumbered into the kitchen after them. The rotund man was followed by a pre-teen boy, looking sullen and put upon as all pre-teen boys seem to be, and a pleasant looking woman, as richly dressed as the rotund man. The man looked about the kitchen. “You told me she was here, Hofer. Where is she? All I see are servants?”
Hofer pointed to Mary in the corner. “She is there sir. In the corner by the pantry.”
The rotund man followed Hofer’s knobby finger, and his eyes settled on Mary. “Her? That one?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“She looks like a common servant girl. Are you sure?” The rotund man looked at Hofer as if he was trying to put one over on him.
Hofer bowed and scraped, and Mary observed the man had a talent for it. He was able to almost instantly mollify the rotund man, who Mary figured was this mysterious Fugger uncle from the village of Schwaz that was sent for while she was incarcerated. He waddled up to her, and she rose to meet him with a curtsy.
“Well, well, well. So this is our up-timer.” He stopped in front of her and bowed with aplomb. “I am Hieronymus Fugger. My brother is Georg Fugger, and he rules this castle.” His accent was clear, more Bavarian than Tyrolean.
Mary curtsied. “Mary Russo, of Grantville. I am pleased to make your acquaintance Herr Fugger.” She stood and gave him her best smile, to which he responded with his own. She wondered at his seeming informality, much different that some of the other members of the family she had met.
Hieronymus turned to Hofer. “She doesn’t seem like some fire breathing warrior-demon, Hofer. Looks like a servant girl to me. Manners, too. But with that accent, it’s clear you're not from around here, that’s for sure! Ha!” He gestured to what Mary assumed to be his wife and son, standing nearby. “Maria. Leo. Meet our up-timer.” They both came to him, the pre-teen boy and his wife, and were introduced. “This is my wife Maria, and my son Leopold.”
It never ceased to amaze Mary how many women in the 17th century, particularly German women, were named Mary, or Maria. Good lord. Her briefing packet listed about half the girls in the family as having one of those as a first or middle name. This particular Maria was slender, built somewhat like Mary. She seemed uncomfortable for some reason, and was deeply formal. Mary spoke and curtsied to her. “I am pleased to meet you.”
“And I am pleased to meet you too, Fraulein. Allow me to introduce my son, Leopold. He lives with us in Schwaz.” She turned to the boy. “Step up, Leo. Meet our up-timer.”
The boy shuffled up to Mary, and didn’t make eye contact, instead keeping his gaze at the floor. He mumbled something that sounded like the German version of “Pleasedtomeetya ” and stepped back away from them all.
“Nice to meet you, Leopold.” Mary stood looking at the boy, and then looking at the parents. Mary knew she wasn’t completely up to speed on the subtleties of manners in this place, but she was reasonably sure that wasn’t a proper greeting. The mother looked embarrassed, and the father looked clueless, still gazing at Mary with what Mary realized was a look she got occasionally when she met down-timers for the first time. She supposed it was what celebrities must have felt like, back up-time, when people stared at them because of who they were, or because they were famous because of some movie. She smiled back at him. “He seems a little shy, your son Leopold?”
“Yes, sometimes. But, one doesn’t meet a person from the future all that often, in the kitchen of his uncle’s castle. Right Maria?” Mary glanced at Maria, and it was clear from Mary’s perspective that Maria didn’t agree. But it was a fleeting glance, gone in a moment. Hieronymus looked around for Hofer, and then found him. “Hofer. You said Regina and Sybilla sent for me. What do you want me to do? I’ve met her.”
Hofer came over to them, bowing slightly. Mary decided the man’s first reflex to a loud noise would be to instantly bow from the waist, before any other. Not a bad policy for a man in his job, Mary figured. “Your brother left us no instructions, Herr Fugger. We do not know her place here. And she shot at Johann when she arrived, ran from authorities, terrorized a family on the mountain, and had to be subdued to bring her here.”
Hieronymus’ eyes bugged out a little at that last part, and Leopold looked up at her for the first time with interest. Maria looked calm.
Hieronymus sputtered. “I – I – well. This is odd. This girl doesn’t look as if – well, she is lovely. What would possess her to do such a thing?”
Mary didn’t like where this was going, but before she could interrupt, another woman came into the kitchen. She could see the servants and the cook stopping their work to watch. “Hieronymus, I am so glad you're here!” Mary recognized her from the night before, the woman who had brought her blankets. “Mary, it’s nice to see they let you out of your cel
l for the day.” That remark got her a look from Hofer. “Hieronymus, we have a problem here, of course we need your help. There has been a tremendous misunderstanding with Mary’s arrival, and we need you to guide us in your brother’s absence.”
Hieronymus looked a little overwhelmed. He glanced about the room, but Regina came right up to him and took him by the arm, getting him in front of Mary and away from Hofer. “You know she was brought in as a teacher, Hieronymus? Not a servant girl.”
“Well, no. I didn’t know that. My bother doesn’t tell me everything.”
Hofer eased his way next to Hieronymus. “Did I mention that she was dressed as a man when she came?”
Hieronymus’ head spun around to Hofer, and Mary noticed that Leopold was watching closely. His dark hair pushed back from his face, eyes keen. Hieronymus sputtered. “She did – was- what?”
Regina spoke next, quickly. “Those were typical up-time clothes, Hofer. You know that.”
“Terrorized that poor family.” Hofer didn’t quite tsk-tsk, but it was strongly implied. Hieronymus’ head swiveled back to Hofer.
Mary watched this all with growing concern. She knew that at some time she would have to fit into this household. She had a two year contract. But she also had spent time in Wurzburg. Were they burned witches. In large fires. In the church yard. Lots of them. This unsettling undercurrent of up-timers, the Ring of Fire, and witchcraft was something she was keenly aware of. In Wurzburg she had the backup of Grantville to keep the religious zealots at bay. Here, other than her contract, which was ultimately only a piece of paper, she didn’t have that backup. And the conversation was beginning to feel unsettling.
Regina was speaking now, and Hieronymus’ head was back on her. “She couldn’t understand what they were saying, Hofer. I can barely understand the country folk sometimes; I have lived here almost all my life. How can you expect a girl from so far away to understand?”
Up-Time Pride and Down-Time Prejudice Page 7