Up-Time Pride and Down-Time Prejudice

by Mark H. Huston

  Father Huntsha took up the thread from Mary. “Countess, this is one of the things that even the up-timers, with all of their medical wisdom, still didn’t understand fully. It wasn’t these germs she speaks of, more likely something that is inherited, or possibly there is some other cause not know. Morbus animi, unknown.” He looked at Mary, who nodded at him.

  There was a pause. “It isn’t demons?” the Countess asked with a quirked eyebrow. “Many have said it was demons. We went to Venice once, for an exorcism, and we thought about going to Rome, we could do that still.”

  Father Huntsha cleared his throat. “I've read through much of the information from Grantville, and there was a lot of it. I am convinced that it’s not demonic. And the Cardinal Protector says so.” Mary knew he had added that last part on his own, and she shot him a side glance, to which he smiled back. It was technically true, she supposed.

  “But you said he was born with it? Would God be punishing us for some transgression?” The Countess began to pace. “Is that why Leopold is the way he is, as punishment for something we did, or something my husband did? Did God touch him before he was born…?” She sat on a couch in the center of the room, looking lost, and placed her hands on her stomach. She realized her actions, and then took them away. She was unsure what to do with her hands, so after a moment of indecision, she placed them on her knees.

  Mary got up from her chair, sat next to the Countess, and took her hand. “No, Countess. This is not punishment, this is just a thing that happens. No demons, no germs, nothing you did or did not do. It just is. We are not even sure what causes it back up-time, but most feel that it’s genetic, or it could be environmental, or some combination that was not fully understood. We just don’t know. I’m sorry. But it’s very likely he was simply born with the condition.”

  “I don’t understand, you said genetic? I don’t know that word.”

  Mary looked at Father Huntsha with concern, she hadn’t meant to use that word to complicate things. She mentally kicked herself. Fortunately, Father Huntsha was more aware of things that she knew.

  “Countess,” he began “There is a Fugger Uncle that did horse breeding, quite famous. Are you aware of it?”

  She looked at him, puzzled. “Yes. He wrote a book. But what has that to do with this?”

  “He talks a lot about the passing down of traits. Breeding horses to bring out certain advantages, and make others retreat.” Father Huntsha continued to surprise Mary, but she concealed her surprise, choosing to focus on the Countess Maria.

  Maria nodded, still confused. “Of course.”

  “There are people who work with plants, to breed different progeny, to improve yields. Up-timers have discovered there is a common mechanism for this, and it applies to people as well. In fact, all living things.”

  Maria nodded again. “Yes. I have heard of such things.” The Countess did not look particularly convinced, despite her saying so.

  “Well, that’s ‘genetics’.” He used air quotes around the unfamiliar word. Mary had a passing thought that her air quotes were making it into the mainstream. “Traits passed down. Sometimes it goes wrong, and there are mistakes. You have seen babies with cleft lips?”

  “Yes. And everyone knows those are the mark of a demon, or of someone who has consorted with demons, or has displeased God in some way.” She crossed herself. “Are you saying that this is a mechanism gone bad, and not the influence of God?” The Countess raised another impressive eyebrow to the priest.

  He nodded solemnly, choosing to ignore the eyebrow. “That is what the up-timers have discovered, Countess. It’s not God’s punishment. Always remember Christ’s teaching, and He loves Leopold like he loves all of us. His affliction is a gift from God, like the mechanism - the genetics - is from God himself.”

  “God gives us rather unusual gifts, don’t you think, Father?” The Countess pursed her lips into a thin white line and raised her other eyebrow. The Countess was clearly a student of the art of sarcasm.

  Mary cleared her throat as Father Huntsha floundered. “There is something I want to try, Countess. Leopold has not been in any of the advanced classes at the Schloss, as his reading skills are not what they should be. But he has always been strong at math. I would like to have him study with some of the other children in the math classes. Sometimes, this disease can act in such a way that some skills are different than others. We know he doesn’t like to read, and he is awkward, despite your extensive training. But I've seen him grasp basic math skills quite easily. There is an order to math that’s not present in the rest of the world, and sometimes autistic students have quite high math skills. It is calming to them when things are solvable and predictable, as opposed to, well, the chaos of the real world. Which can be pretty wild sometimes. I would like to try to teach him some concepts that are a little more advanced than his reading levels indicate.”

  “Do you think that is a good idea?” The countess said uncertainly. “He gets very frustrated when things do not go easily his way. We were forced to beat him, sometimes quite often, when he was younger, and it helped his behavior. There were times when it was the only thing that helped him. There were times that the beatings really helped, or at least seemed to improve him for a time.”

  Mary winced inwardly. “I don’t think that will be necessary. We don’t do that very much up-time. The beatings. We try and stay away from it as much as possible.”

  The Countess shook her head. “It would seem to make your job harder, not beating your students.”

  “I don’t think it will be necessary.” Mary smiled through gritted teeth, with as much finality as she could muster in her voice. She forced herself to remember once again that at least the Countess wasn’t focusing on demons, and that was a good thing. There was nothing Mary could do about the past with Leopold, but maybe moving forward she could make some progress with the boy. Without beating him. At least she could do that. She focused on the issues at hand. “But the math. I want to try it. And I want to have some of the other students teach the younger ones. There are a couple of good students that I have that I think I can use to work with Leopold.”

  There was a tense pause as the countess thought it over. “Very well,” the countess said with a sigh. “It’s a long line of things we have tried, in order to make Leopold into someone who is a capable heir. Perhaps this is the thing that will improve him. We have brought many owls to Athens with this boy, to no avail.”

  Mary nodded, not fully understanding the idiom, but at least getting the gist of it. “It’s certainly worth a try, Countess.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Later, as they walked back to the church through town, her two footmen-guards from the castle shadowing her from a respectful distance, she turned to Father Huntsha. “Father, how do you know so much about up-time? You seem to be a lot more enthusiastic about up-time concepts than most down-timers I’ve met, especially those in Wurzberg. You have been reading quite a lot, I would guess?”

  The short priest looked a little chagrined, and absently scratched his neatly trimmed brown beard. Smiling shyly, he put his hands behind his back as they walked, and leaned towards Mary, his voice low. “I'm afraid this post here in Schwaz requires somewhat more flexible thinkers than your standard parish priest. There was a time when radical thought was rather rampant here. Less than one hundred years ago, Jakob Hutter was burned at the stake in Innsbruck. He was a Moravian, and I assume you have heard of Hutterites?”

  “I guess, I think I have. Maybe.” Mary was not completely certain as to what a Hutterite was, other than what she assumed to be another one of what seemed to be hundreds of bull-headed protestant sects. She made a mental note to write another inquiry to Grantville.

  He turned to her as they walked and raised a finger to his pursed lips, indicating a secret. “Let’s just say that among the mining community, which is on the surface completely Catholic, and attends Mass on a regular basis, there is still an undercurrent of radicalism. Any priest tha
t serves the miners, who the Fugger need, is best a flexible and tolerant thinker. There are still many here.”

  “Hutterites?”

  He nodded as they continued to walk, and made a subtle motion for her to keep her voice down as they passed through the center of Schwaz. “And others.”

  She continued in a low voice. “Doesn’t the emperor continue to persecute them? I mean, one of the reasons they hired me - the Fugger, that is - is that I'm a Catholic. At least by up-time standards I am. Not always so sure about down-time standards of Catholicism.”

  He smiled at her. “You try, and have an honest heart. For some dogmatists that’s not enough. For me, but more importantly God, I think it is more than enough.” He shrugged as they passed the Schwaz Rathaus.

  Mary nodded, feeling herself blush slightly. “Thank you, Father, for saying so. I try. But what about these Hutterites?” she asked, as a way to change the subject away from herself and her own conflicted faith.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  “Dogma changes- has changed – will change.” He threw his hands up in a gesture of futility. “You see the issue? What the up-timers have brought back, it tells me, and anyone else with eyes to see, that the issue of dogma is fleeting. We want it to be solid, but it’s not. In truth, it never is. And people die, are dying, for dogma. Like the Hutterites. Or Lutherans. Or Catholics. I see it as the key issue the church needs to come to come to grips with. Indeed it is, and will be, the question for us for the next century.”

  Mary nodded to him. “I really hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  He looked at her kindly. “You will need to think about it. Indeed, for the faithful, it’s the question for our age, and certainly one that I am pondering daily. I pray for guidance often.” He again leaned close to her and spoke, almost in a whisper. “Personally, I've begun to think of dogma like a rock. Rigid, and inflexible.” He held up a fist. “And time, mixed with the grit of human folly, it’s very much like water. Flowing water.” He held up his other hand, this one open, fingers waving and pointing to his fist. “Over time, and with enough of it, our rock of dogma in the stream is reduced to gravel, and then sand, and eventually the dust of history.” His fist opened, and fluttered away, leaving his other hand. “Time and folly still flow. Your Ring of Fire, your miracle, is a clear demonstration of this effect.”

  They continued walking side by side. Mary was silent, thinking about the parish priest next to her, and the fact that he was struggling with faith as much as she was, if not more. All because of the Ring of Fire. For perhaps the first time, she imagined the ripples of Grantville tearing across the world, ripping at foundations, and began to understand the impact of what had happened. It made her a little dizzy.

  The priest brightened and straightened up, talking, but still quietly, hands once more clenched behind his back. “So, yes, the priest who serves here needs to be a little more flexible than many parishes. And I for one, do enjoy it greatly.”

  Mary looked at the slightly round, bearded man, and smiled. “You and Father Larry would get along just fine.”

  The priest beamed at her, and Mary thought he might have had a tear in his eye as they continued on.

  They arrived at the church, and met Raphael, who was his typical excited self, smiling and gesturing. Father Huntsha excused himself with Mary’s many thanks for his help. The footmen who followed her around everywhere were not accompanied by a maid today, so they allowed some space for Mary and Raphael to speak privately. They walked about the interior of the church, and paused beneath the organ, the long pipes stretching over their heads. She sat on the bench on front of the organ. “So, what news do you have for me, Raphael? Anything new happening back home?”

  “I don’t care about that.” He was suddenly very intense, and glanced about to make certain they were alone. “I've not seen you since the ball. I heard what happened. Was it the men from out of town who did this? I was very worried. Mary. Very worried.” He sat next to her on the bench, but did not touch her, his gaze full of concern, and studying her expressions like a hawk. “Are you well?”

  She met his gaze. “I'm well enough, Raphael. They didn’t hurt me. A few bruises and a sore back. It was a couple of kids from Jenbach. They said they thought all up-timers were prostitutes, and should be treated as such. Thought I was free for the taking.” She paused and smiled. “I wasn’t.”

  He leaned back from her, processing not just what she had told him, but also her expressions. Mary assumed he wanted to make sure she wasn’t trying to lie to him. She was handling it. So far. She looked him square in the eye, with an edge of defiance. He tossed his hair to one side and absently ran his hand through it. It was an unconscious movement for him, one that back uptime could be viewed as a pretentious, affected gesture. But on Raphael it was just right. Mary smiled at him.

  “What are you smiling about?”

  “You.”

  He knitted his dark eyebrows.

  She impulsively leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”

  His eyebrows shot up in surprise, and he began to smile. With a certain gleam in his eyes. She put her hand on his chest as he leaned forward, and shook her head. “Not that kind of kiss, Raphael. You know that.”

  He broke into a wide grin. “Ah, Mary. You get my hopes up. Your beauty, she is hard to resist…”

  She laughed, and stood up, leaving him sitting on the bench. “I thought we had an agreement, Raphael, we had to maintain a working relationship. You told me so on the first day we met.”

  He looked up at her and grew serious, realizing what she had done. “You're getting to be a much better spy. You changed the subject on me.”

  She swished her skirts with her hips and smiled coyly, with just enough sarcasm to sell it. “Did I?”

  He stood and faced her, ignoring her innuendo and humor, still serious. “Mary, your people in Grantville were concerned about the attack. Very concerned. They were very specific, that if you - or I- felt you were in great danger, or that you were, well, injured or hurt somehow, that I should know and that I should report.” He grabbed her hands and took them in his. “Mary, are you okay?”

  She looked into his eyes. “I’m okay, Raphael. Not perfect, not one hundred percent, but still okay. They didn’t hurt me. They did make me less trusting, and I've been a bit jumpy lately. I have an up-time weapon on me now.” She nodded to the side of her dress, where she kept the .38 in a pocket, the weight a comfortable feeling. “I'm okay.”

  He took a moment to look at her, obviously evaluating her once again. “Okay.” He grinned widely. “I believe you.”

  “Fine. Can we drop it now?” She raised an eyebrow and looked at his hands, still holding hers.

  He looked down at his hands holding hers, and then back to her, smiling. He sighed his oh-so Italian romantic sigh, which on anyone else would have been so over the top as to be parody. But somehow, he made it work. He released her hands.

  “Now, do you want to hear my news, Raphael? I have some for a change. Although it’s rather embarrassing. Johann Franz asked me to marry him. While everyone was gone for the wedding in Munich, he came to me and asked. Caught me off guard.”

  Raphael’s eyes grew round. “That’s marvelous, what did you say?”

  “I said no, of course.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why?” Mary put her hands on her hips and took a step back, incredulous that Raphael would expect her to say yes.

  “He is rich, powerful, destined to inherit and to operate part of one the most important financial institutions in the world.” He shook his head as if to clear away a fog. “Mary, if a Fugger prince asks you, you don’t say no.”

  “Well, I did.” She put her hands on her hips.

  “Why?”

  “Well, I don’t love him for one thing.”

  “So?”

  “What do you mean, ‘so’?”

  “I mean, the fact that you don’t love him isn’t a reason to refuse marri
age to a Fugger, or anyone of that station. That’s what I mean by ‘so’!” Raphael was looking at her like she had grown a third eye on her forehead.

  “Well, it is for me.” She folded her arms and stuck out her chin. “I'm not a down-timer, Raphael. We do things differently, you know that.”

  He turned and paced away from Mary, agitated, thinking, then snapped his fingers. “Wait. How did he propose to you? I mean, was it a formal proposal with negotiations opened with your family, and a contract proposed?”

  “No, he just came up to me and asked.”

  Raphael ran his hands through his hair, and turned back to Mary. “Oh my.”

  Mary began to get a little worried. She hadn’t thought much about Johann since the afternoon in the Hapsburg Hall, and he had disappeared with the rest of the family, she assumed to go to Munich. In fact, she had put it out of her mind while she prepped for her meeting with Leopold’s mother. And if she was being honest, she didn’t think about it because it was just so damn uncomfortable. Nobody had ever asked her to marry before, and her feelings were all over the map. She needed time to sort them out. Had she committed some massive social faux pas? “What do you mean?” she asked Raphael, finally.

  Raphael began to pace again. “An individual with the position and power like Johann Franz does not do something like this lightly. There are negotiations, a contract, investigations of family and holdings, a dowry most of the time, staffs of lawyers and assistants are involved. There are negotiations. He just came up to you and asked you?”