Up-Time Pride and Down-Time Prejudice

by Mark H. Huston

The attempted assault had left her furious, not only at the two assholes, but also at herself, for allowing the whole thing to happen in the first place. She kept replaying the situation, trying to figure out what she could have done differently. Eventually she allowed herself the conclusion that there wasn’t. She would have done nothing different. There was nothing to blame herself for. She told herself this often, hoping that on some level she could convince herself of it. It was sorta working. Even though the two little assholes hadn’t gotten anything from her except a decent thrashing, she was still working through it. She couldn’t imagine what she would be like if they had completed what they were starting, if they even had an idea of what they were doing in the first place. Assholes.

  Over the last five days, the bruises had receded on her throat and arms. She had pulled a muscle, probably when she swung the chair around, so her back was still a little sore. She certainly didn’t notice injuring it at the time. She knew the physical pain would fade. The other stuff, she wasn’t so sure about. The feeling of insecurity, and of betrayal hung over her, like an itch between her shoulder blades. The reaction of the down-time women, which to Mary’s perception amounted to victim-blaming, made her feel even more betrayed. She knew, from studying and observing, down-time women were many times considered barely human. Slightly above prized cattle. Sometimes below. She saw it more in Wurzberg than here, because here everyone was mostly some level of nobility, or so unbelievably rich it didn’t matter. Depending on where you lived, there were some small patches of equality. Like Grantville. But too often, women were considered the weaker vessel, to be owned, protected, and blamed. Mostly blamed. And scapegoated. After all, most witches were women. She had read those accounts firsthand.

  But what to do about Sibylla? There was no way she could politically counter the girl. She owned the high ground. People jumped when she shouted, cringed when she yelled, and bowed when she moved suddenly. This girl was like a head cheerleader from hell and Josef Stalin all wrapped up in a pretty package. Stadelemier understood; he had interviewed her the day after the assault. There was something about the soldier that let Mary know he knew the score, where the influences had come from, and even why. But there was no recourse for her, not against Sybilla. Nor was there anything the soldier could do, she had seen it in his eyes. Nothing he could do except intimate a subtle sympathy. The boys, however, were a different story. During her interview she was calm, professional, and managed to keep it together. She channeled her anger to focus on the task at hand. She wanted to bury those two idiots.

  She was assigned a second chambermaid who slept in her quarters now, on a low pallet that was at the foot of her bed. And she had gotten into the habit of sleeping with the Smith & Wesson under her pillows at night. After the third day, she gave up trying to hide it from her maids. If the Count wanted to take it, she would just go home, the hell with him and his money. She didn’t think that anyone would mind if she kept it. Maria had looked at it and just nodded.

  Secrets, so many secrets. They made her tired.

  With a bit of free time the first thing she did was catch up on her correspondence, and wrote a series of letters home. The letter she wrote about the ball did not include what happened afterwards. Her mother worried enough, and with her challenging health, Mary didn’t want to add to her troubles. She continued with her coded letters, but there was so little to tell any more that it hardly made sense to keep repeating what she was doing. She talked about what she was working on, but they didn’t need a coded letter to tell them that. She wrote about ten letters for every problem or issue she came across. There were questions about steel making, about copper mining, the minerals that are in the waste stream of copper mining, details about where the components of aluminum are mined, and a particularly long series of questions and answers about hydroelectric power. Generators. Transformers and power transmission. Much of it was interesting, and she learned more and more with every passing day. There were even times when she was able to contribute directly, especially with chemistry and math problems. She did a seminar earlier on the relationship of voltage, amperage and resistance, the holy trinity of electricity, and every single one of her students walked away solid with the math. She had been very proud of that little bit of classroom work.

  Today, Mary found herself in the Hapsburg room, where the ball took place. The coats of arms on the walls had mystified and intrigued her since she was embarrassed by the Countess during her first week. It was obviously a common visual language that everyone knew, even the kitchen servants. She figured it was like corporate logos, and if you didn’t know the difference it was a cultural disadvantage. Back uptime, you really needed to know the difference between a Roto-rooter sign and a Burger King. So, armed with an old book from the small library at the castle, she found herself sitting in front of one of the coats of arms, trying to decide if something called a ‘Dexter’ was on the right side or the left side facing her; the book wasn’t clear. Was it on the right side of the shield shape or on her right side? Plus it was in Latin, which she didn’t read, and was puzzling through. The shield shape was segmented, and each area held a priority and different information. It was starting to make a little bit of sense, when she noticed that she was not alone in the room.

  Still a bit edgy as a result of the two idiots after the ball, she leapt to her feet to find Johann Franz awkwardly standing behind her. Count pissy-pants looked as jumpy as she was.

  “I'm sorry to have startled you, Mary. Are you well?”

  Mary clutched the book in front of her, and forced herself to relax. “Yes, thank you Johann. Quite well. The bruises have mostly gone away.” She rubbed her neck a little self consciously. “I thought you had left for the wedding? Isn’t it soon?”

  “Yes. Yes it is.” He coughed, and started pacing. “I - I wish to speak with you, Mistress Russo.”

  “Okay, Johann.” He looked as if he had swallowed a frog. He paced, paused, and then paced again, finally coming to a nervous halt with his elbow resting on the nearby fireplace mantle, in an attempt to look relaxed and in charge. Mary was not convinced.

  He tried to say something two or three times and then stopped each time. What was going in with him? She waited patiently, curious.

  “I have struggled of late.” He began. “It will not do.”

  Finally, he is talking, she thought. “What is that, Johann? What won’t do?”

  “My feelings, they cannot be repressed any longer. I am helpless, and it is against my better judgment. You must allow me to tell you how much I ardently admire and love you.” He stood in front of her at his most count pissy-pants, deadly earnest, utterly sincere, and absolutely certain.

  Mary looked at him, and blinked, flat-footedly astonished. The first thing she did is re-translate what he had said to her. She wasn’t quite yet ‘thinking’ in German all the time; she did sometimes, speaking and listening without conscious translation. But this time she ran it through her brain three times, to make sure she understood. She kind of went back and forth between ‘ardently’ and ‘passionately’ with leidenschaftlich, but that really was a quibble for the overall tenor of the statement. Didn’t matter all that much. Once firmly and redundantly translated, with options for subtlety, she had absolutely no idea of what to say. In English or German. She looked at Johann, who looked back at her. He was standing, ramrod straight, one hand still resting awkwardly on the fireplace mantle. It looked like he hadn’t slept well in a few days. She initially felt a little sorry for him, particularly if he was carrying around a torch for her, and had repressed it for so long. She could not be insensitive to those feelings, no matter her own. She realized she had been silent since he had said the words, and it had been a few moments. She desperately began to grasp for something to say, other than ‘gabble-gabble-babble’, which was all her brain was supplying her with at the moment.

  He broke the silence. “Of course, we will be married.” Johann said it with certainty. His statement was said with the sam
e absoluteness and in the same tone and expectation as ‘the sun will rise in the east,’ or ‘pick up my dirty sock’ to a maid. Closer to ‘pick up my sock’, in fact. A statement of fact. An order. Imperative. She checked that translation a couple of times too.

  Mary was not in the mood for orders today, especially about her person, and most especially from men. Her feelings of sympathy melted away to one of almost-but-not-quite rage in the blink of an eye. It surprised her. She clamped her mouth shut, afraid she would start screaming at him. He continued to look at her with a certainty that she now saw as smug and self assured, pompous and condescending. He had been feeling repressed. He had been struggling. He had loved her against his will. And now, he was ordering her to marry him.

  Fat freakin’ chance, buddy.

  Before she could speak, he started up again. “I understand, and acknowledge, that your family is less than desirable. Quite undesirable in fact. You are foreign. You are not even lower nobility, in spite of my family’s use of von Uptime. Which I felt was a good technique to enhance your standing. I think it worked rather well. In spite of that, my family will very likely deem this to be a less than optimal match, and they will be very unhappy. Even with all of these disadvantages, I still feel strongly that my love can overcome these obstacles. My family may not be happy with my choice, but I am most comfortable with this position.”

  Better and better. He just kept digging a bigger hole. Mary managed to back down her anger to an incredulous boil, enough to get herself under sufficient control so she would not hit him. Or kick him. Kicking that little shithead the other night was eminently satisfying, and she could still feel his balls crushing up against her foot. That crossed her mind briefly, but only briefly. Johann was an idiot, not evil. She figured she really ought to say something, before he created a situation where she did kick him. She held up her hand.

  “Johann. Please. Just stop.” She shook her head. “Stop.”

  He stopped and looked at her expectantly. “Of course. You need to respond, I have been running on. Speaking too much. You do make me quite nervous sometimes.”

  She took a breath, still fighting anger, now dialed back. She was able to think. She spoke in a measured and controlled manner. “In this sort of a situation, typically this is where I would talk about gratitude, and my feelings of reciprocity.” She paused then forged ahead. “That is not the case here, Johann. You have bestowed these feelings on me most unwillingly. If I have given you the impression that these feelings are mutual, I am sorry. They are not.” She stopped, awaiting his reaction.

  He stared at her a moment, processing what she said. What he heard was not what he was expecting. She watched his face go from puzzlement, to disbelief, and then to pain. She could see his jaw tightening as he ground his teeth together, desiring to blurt out something, but repressing it. She figured he was doing the smart thing for once and counting to ten. Maybe twenty. He remained rigid, one hand still on the mantle, but she could see his knuckles were white.

  Finally he spoke. “And this is all the reply which I am to receive? Can you inform me of why with so little civility I am rejected?” His voice was measured and contained. Teeth still clenched.

  “You really want to do this?”

  “Yes.” He finally took his hand off of the mantle and stood to face her, as if she was going to deliver a blow, and he to receive it. And in a way, she was. She sighed.

  “Okay. Fine. Let’s start. You just said that my family isn’t good enough for you. If you think that is the case, then you have absolutely no chance with me. Because my family is the most important thing in the world to me, and if they are not good enough for you, then you are not good enough for them. Or me. Frankly, the fact that you think you are ‘better’ than I am is pretty much a deal killer for me. If there ever was a deal, and there isn’t.”

  Mary was, for the moment, a force of nature. “Next. Do you know what my pet name is for you? Count Pissy-Pants. That’s right. You have been nothing but condescending, dismissive, arrogant, unhelpful, and a general all-around jerk since you tackled me up on the mountain. You have a stick so far up your ass that it would take major surgery to remove it. You are prideful, self-centered, and self-absorbed; I have seen nothing else from you, and I expect nothing but the same from you in the future. When you brought Maria Cecelia back to my classroom, you stood there, expecting me to throw myself at your feet in gratitude.”

  His mouth had gone to single white line on his face, and his cheeks were red. “Were you not grateful?”

  “Of course I was grateful, you idiot. But I wasn’t going to kiss your feet, as it seemed you expected from me. I don’t need that kind of ego in my life. No self-respecting girl does .”

  “I see.”

  “No. No you don’t Johann.” She was winding down now, no longer furious and spitting fire. Johann looked devastated and angry. But he was behaving himself. The man was just so... frustrating! “Johann, I'm not some prize to be won, or some wretch to be saved from her awful family, or some ‘thing’, some object on a pedestal, to be owned. I am a person. A person. Who not only has a say in who she will marry, but will love and care for who she marries, when she decides, with her partner, to take that step. You do not have the right, or the privilege, to decide this for me. That’s not how it will work with me. And I'm furious with you for even thinking you can just ‘decide’ to marry me, and expect my ready compliance.”

  He stood in front of the fireplace, rigid and pale. “I do not completely understand everything you have told me.”

  She looked at him questioningly.

  “I perfectly understand your rejection, painful as it may be. That is clear enough.” He looked lost for a moment, then continued. “I am not an expressive person, I fear. The idea of an un-arranged marriage proposal is a radical one, and clearly I have not done it well. I have failed to consider…things.”

  Mary nodded.

  “Forgive me for taking up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your continued health and happiness.” And with those words, he hastily left the hall, and Mary heard his footsteps recede down the corridor.

  Mary focused on the Latin book about heraldry still in her hands. Head whirling, she decided that all motivation was lost for further understanding of those odd lions and birds and checkerboard patterns. Her seat in the turret was still there, and the window was open to the valley below. She walked slowly to the bench in front of the window, and sat, letting the mountain air blow through her hair.

  Mary never had anyone propose marriage to her before. She had really never thought about it other than as a concept. It was something that might happen, someday, down the road. A fuzzy and nebulous idea. She was okay with the concept, the idea, the warm idea of marriage, but it had to be with the right person, and at the right time. Kids were also something she saw in her future, if she was lucky, but definitely near Grantville, with the best maternity care in the world. Pregnancy was dangerous in the here-and-now.

  She thought about Johann Franz, and angry as she was, she still felt sorry for him. She was still furious with him for his presumption, but a part of him seemed to care for her deeply. He hadn’t done anything particularly wrong in her eyes, or hurt her directly, it was just that he was so distant, so inflexible, she couldn’t see what kind of a person he might be. It was like he didn’t know what to do. She shook her head to try and clear it. There were way too many emotions flowing through her, too many priorities, too many bruises, too many demands on her being, and she felt she was losing control.

  She looked at the valley below, and began to softly cry.

  Chapter 20 Not Demons, Demons

  Schwaz

  Mid July1634

  Mary waited patiently for Countess Maria Fugger to respond. The Countess at the moment was staring out the window of the sitting room of the Fuggerhouse in Schwaz. They were in one of the private, family spaces on the third floor, as the first two floors were set aside for the business of mining and metals.
The top floors were for the family. They were in the elegant sitting room, where she was meeting with the Countess Maria, along with Father Huntsha. Hieronymus and Leopold were not there. She didn’t know where Hieronymus was, probably away for the wedding in Munich, but she had asked that Leopold not be at this meeting. Because it was about Leopold.

  It turns out there was a questionnaire for autism. It wasn’t a substitution for a diagnosis, but it was at least a strong indicator. After several back and forth letters to home, and consultation with teachers who had some experience, and one expert-- which in the Grantville world was the one teacher who had gone to a seminar at WVU and had kept her notes from 1997, they had arrived at the diagnosis. Leopold was autistic. Or something close, as near as they could tell. Probably.

  Countess Maria had filled out the questionnaire, and Mary had sent it back to Grantville, with her notes. And now, Mary sat across from the Countess as she absorbed the news.

  As Mary shot a look to Father Huntsha, the Countess finally turned to them and spoke. “This is a disease, then? What my Leopold has? A sickness?”

  “Up-timers would call it that, yes.” Mary nodded. “It’s a type of mental illness, a sickness of the brain that he has had since he was born.” Mary shifted in her chair. There was a pleasant cross-breeze through the house, and she could see the tower of the Castle Freundsberg out of the same window where the Countess had been staring, perched on the side of the valley opposite Schloss Tratzberg.

  “Is there a cure, for this disease? This brain sickness? A medicine? We would pay any amount.”

  “There is no cure, Countess.” Mary watched the Countess’ face as she processed this information.

  “What is the cause of this sickness? Is it these germs you talk about all the time?” Mary observed that the Countess Maria seemed to be taking it all in at face value, but was still glad that Father Huntsha agreed to come along for the visit. She hoped the discussion didn’t go down the ‘demon’ path for mental health, some of which she knew from first-hand experience had persisted even back up-time. Mary remembered a girl from high school who belonged to a Pentecostal sect that believed all mental illness was because of demonic possession. It made Freshman health class interesting for a couple of days. Fortunately, the long conversation she had with Father Huntsha before setting up the meeting with the Countess covered up-time mental illness, the approaches to cures, and handling the diseases. He found it fascinating and was enthusiastically supportive. The good Father was quite the up-time fanboy-nerd, she decided.