Up-Time Pride and Down-Time Prejudice

by Mark H. Huston

  As Mary rested against the log, Fuchs gathered up the weapons from the men and piled them nearby, including Hocholting’s sword and the large knife of the troll, along with the various scabbards and sheaths. “We will keep these, you get to pick first what you want.” The .32 caught his eye, sitting on the log with the slide still locked back. “May I?”

  “Sure.”

  He picked it up and looked at it closely. He was obviously familiar with up-time weapons. “Interesting. Where is Argentina?”

  “South America. Was. Is. Will be, maybe. Probably won’t now. Why?”

  “It’s where this was made.” He pointed to the marks stamped on the slide. “At first I thought it was a different gun. Since I have espionage as a profession, and I spent quite a lot of time in Grantville over the last year, I watched a number of up-time spy movies.”

  “What gun you think it was?” She rubbed at the fresh bandages on her side. It itched. That was good.

  He smiled at her. “This one is your hidden one, the one they didn’t find?”

  “Yeah. Down-timers aren’t generally squeamish about searching a girl, but once they found the Smith & Wesson and the dagger, they didn’t search under my dress. Plus I was kicking them at the time.”

  “I see.” He dropped out the empty magazine, re-inserted it, released the slide, eased the hammer down, and set the safety in one smooth motion. He smiled. “It’s a copy of a German-made gun.”

  “I didn’t know that. It was my father’s. He gave it to me when I got this assignment. Which German gun?”

  He grinned at her. “It’s very famous, as a spy’s weapon.” He held it up in the sunlight. “It’s a copy of a Walther PPK. The gun James Bond uses.”

  Chapter 30 St. Georgenberg

  Mid-May, 1635

  Arefreshing breeze wafted in through Mary’s open window. It was scented with mountain pine, and humidity that hinted at the summer months to come. She was lying in her bed, where she had spent quite a lot of time lately, recovering.

  Healing, she decided, was a long-term challenge that required patience and the ability to be tolerate grunginess. And not scratch what itches you.

  More than anything, she wanted a long, hot shower. With a lot of shampoo, and conditioner like she used to have back up-time. The shampoo and conditioner were out of the question. The shower, that should come soon, at least she hoped so.

  There were stacks of books by her bedside, piles of up-time textbooks, down-time bound copies of up-time books, and some original down-time imprints. She was focusing on the next phase of her work for the family; mineral chemistry and radio. Both of which were interesting, and both of which were going to be challenging. For different reasons. She knew her brain was going to be taxed considerably over the summer, so she was trying to get ahead a bit on her studying. There was more of an affinity for Mary with radio, she grasped it readily. The math was cleaner. Math for chemical problems, once she understood the parameters, were not that complex, but it was understanding what the rock was in your hands and what it contained on a chemical basis, that was what she was having to work extra hard to grasp. She had never worked with the naming conventions of minerals before, and deciphering what the down-time rock hounds called them, and what the up-time definitions were, was going to take a listing or database of some sort. Her wheels turned as she passed the time.

  As the breeze blew through her room, she wished the bandage was off her side, so she could be up and about. And take that shower. The doctor was scheduled to come by today to check on the wound, and if it was sufficiently healed, she would be able to get up and around. She had an honest-to-goodness plaster cast on her left wrist and forearm that was going to stay on for another couple of weeks. It was heavy, much heavier than when she had a cast on her other arm back up-time. And the idea of people signing her new cast had caught on. It was covered with signatures of well-wishers and visitors. One she as particularly happy about was an Italian scientist by the name of Bonaventura Cavalieri who had visited her last week. It turned out he was one of the early mathematicians and scientists who created some of the seeds of up-time calculus. He was also a big fan of logarithms and went away with one of her spare slide rules. His visit was a very interesting couple of days.

  There was a knock on the door, and Maria ushered Regina and the Count into her room. Regina came to her side, to her usual place, where she had spent the last three weeks. There was a small side chair where she usually sat, but this time she remained standing in deference to the Count. She stepped aside for him.

  “Fraulein Russo.” He bowed formally. “It’s good to see you again. Are you in much pain?”

  “Count, Regina. Good day to you.” Mary nodded a curtsey from her bed, which made her feel rather formally pleased. “Not much pain at all, thank you. The aspirin from Doctor Gribbleflotz seems to do the trick. No infections from the wound, and the last I saw it was fully healed.”

  “Wonderful news. You were very fortunate, you know.”

  “Suppose so. I smelled the fuse, as someone once said to me.”

  He nodded. “And that is why I am here, the fuse that you were able to keenly discern. There have been some changes here.”

  “Okay. What sort of changes?” Mary waited, looking between them.

  “Sybilla is gone.” Regina blurted.

  “Yes,” The Count said, as he shot Regina a subtle look in admonition of her enthusiasm. “She has offered to retreat to a convent near Ulm. She will spend some years there in contemplative prayer and silence.”

  “Was that her choice?”

  Regina looked at her with a stone face. “It was her choice, ultimately. The one she picked. The family felt it was for the best. A demonstration of her piety.”

  “And Franz?”

  The Count cleared his throat before starting. “He has been assigned to a post as a military attaché in Muscovy, to learn about Russian military techniques. And explore trading opportunities.”

  “Russia?”

  “Yes. It’s an open market. Untapped,” deadpanned the Count.

  “And far. Very far.” Added Regina. “Cold too.”

  “Does he speak Russian?”

  The Count and Regina looked at each other. The Count queried Regina with an eyebrow. Regina shrugged with a ‘your guess is as good as mine’ sort of shrug.

  “I am sure he will eventually learn,” stated the Count.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  “So, Oma. Right or left?” Mary held her hands in front of her, examining first the front, then the back. “At the elbow or wrist? Do you have a preference?” Mary still had her cast on, it was still encased in plaster for another couple of weeks. But at least she was out and walking and getting her strength back. With Johann, she had hiked all the way to St. Georgenberg today. It was part penance, part sunny spring morning, and part of it was because she had come to a decision.

  “You will do it?” Renate Wittrup was grinning widely.

  “I've thought about it, and yes. You can have one.” Mary raised an eyebrow at the old woman as she held out first one arm, then the other. “But I need to be dead first.”

  “Ach! Of course, of course, dead, yes. We wouldn’t have it any other way Mary. We will not take your hand until you're dead.” She paused for a moment and got a curious look on her weathered face. “Or you lose it in some accident.” The old woman shrugged. “It happens.” At which point she took Mary’s broken wrist, with the cast, and gave it a good sniff. “Or you could get gangrene and they have to cut it off. But ach! It smells like it has healed well.”

  Mary took her arm back. “You sound disappointed. But I'm still using it, thank you.”

  Her husband, the incongruously named Bruce, clapped his hands enthusiastically. “We are so happy that you have chosen to do this. We will be privileged, it will make our humble place of pilgrimage viable once again. Thank you, thank you!”

  Mary smiled a little ‘watch this’ smile at Johann, who was standing nearby. She then squared
herself up to the two diminutive and grey haired down-timers, placed her hands on her hips in her best schoolteacher listen-to-me pose, and said. “There are caveats, Renate and Bruce. Several caveats. One is that it’s clearly stated that as an up-timer, I consider myself a victim of time travel, no matter how my life plays out from here. Is that clear?”

  They both shrugged in a non-committal manner, not sure how to deal with caveats. They didn’t often work directly with live donors of body parts. “I'm not a miracle, but I experienced something that looked like a miracle. In fact, it will be engraved on the reliquary. Deeply engraved. In three languages. Maybe four. I'm not the miracle. I'm not the one to be venerated. My hand will be in remembrance of what happened, a tangible reminder of the reality of the Ring of Fire, a memorial. Something people can touch and be close to. If at some date in the future, the church decides that it was a miracle, well I can’t do anything about that. But until then, that’s how you're going to get it, and that’s how it will be.”

  Oma Wittrup grunted. “Still a Vatican lawyer, I see.”

  Mary raised an eyebrow. “Still a horse trader, I see.”

  Another Tyrolian grunting noise, and the old woman gave Mary a stink eye. She then brightened with a thought. “Which hand do you shoot with? Right or the broken one?”

  “Which time?” Mary smiled sweetly.

  Bruce cackled. “Ha! Lawyer. Yes, yes, Renate. Vatican lawyer this one. Haha!”

  Deals done, with a handshake and a sincere promise, as well as an arranged pre-payment for care and cleaning of any reliquary that will be required at an undermined time in the future that may need to be increased or adjusted for inflation or currency collapse and… Johann graciously volunteered to send one of the Fugger family attorneys to work out the details. Frau Wittrup was not happy, but at least she had a handshake agreement. It was going to have to be good enough.

  After attending mass at the small chapel, Mary sat in the semi-dark space. She looked around at the silver and gold reliquaries, the dusty sconces, the soot stained walls, and… waited to feel something. Johann sat next to her, quiet, letting her have the moment. She allowed her eyes to linger on the various gaudy bits and shiny containers, the enclosure with the glass window which housed the famous bone of St. George, and finally, the finger of a long dead pope in a silver box. It smelled moldy in the church, as if it wasn’t aired out enough. Body sweat and spilled wine, and an undercurrent of damp-rotting wood masked by candle wax. She was reminded of the library-book smell of her old church back in Grantville, and the stark difference between the churches.

  For Mary, there was a feeling of clarity of mind here, in spite of the shiny organic clutter, the stains, the smell, and the scuffed and battered wood floors. Like much of downtime, it was scattered, unorganized, messy, but real. Not sterile. Handmade. There was a chaotic peace here. Unlike her last visit, there was nothing to be afraid of, no ghosts she could sense. No feeling of someone watching her.

  “We should go, Johann. I think I'm done here.”

  They went out the door and passed the small pile of crutches and braces tossed haphazardly at the exit. She realized these must be from the new season of miracles, last season’s cast-offs already taken down into the village for re-use. She turned to Johann. “Let’s go sit by the precipice, and look out at the valley. I like the view.”

  “So do I.”

  She led the way and Johann followed. The bench was still there, overlooking the drop off to the valley below. Mary kicked a stone off the edge, watching as it arced off into space, eventually bouncing on the rocks far below. She stood for a while, looking at the view, the still snowy peaks across the valley, the river below, and neatly defined dirty brown fields on the valley floor, not yet fully green. “It occurs to me people who have grown up here all of their lives think everything in the world is as beautiful as this. In many ways, this world is much more beautiful than the one I came from. Have you ever seen a mile-long stretch of strip shopping centers on each side of a four-lane road? Really ugly. I hope we don’t make the world too ugly, in our new future. I hope we can keep it beautiful.”

  He sat on the bench behind her, leaning back, arms crossed. “It seems to be a good goal.”

  She began to speak, facing out over the valley. “You know, when I first came to the castle, I was scared to death. I thought everyone was way above me. Everyone was so incredibly rich, and powerful, and intimidating. I’m a small-town girl, and those are not my people.” A breeze picked up and blew her dress and cloak to the side. She pulled her cloak a little closer. “But I think I’ve learned a few things. Please don’t take this wrong, Johann, but I think – I believe – that I'm just as good as you people. Not vanity, I think. But pride. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.” She paused for a moment thinking.

  Johann sat patiently on the bench, listening.

  Mary continued. “I’m not experienced in the details of living in this time, I know that. I clunk around and make mistakes all the time, everything from my accent to the way I walk in skirts. I hear the servants giggling and gossiping, and I know the family sees my social screw ups, but graciously say nothing to me. Sometimes I'm too direct when it comes to the subtle social graces of the here and now.” She turned to him. “But. I know things, have lived things, things you will never understand. Never. I believe many things you and your family do are wrong. There is a lot of right that you do, but there is so much wrong. I don’t mean Sybilla and Franz. I mean the protections, the privilege, the enabling world that created them are what is wrong. The system is wrong, Johann. It needs to be changed. And I believe it will change whether you want it to or not.”

  “We brought you here to help with the change that is coming.” It was a statement, but it had a question at the end.

  She smiled. “In the misbegotten hope that you can manage that change, to get ahead of it somehow. Hire an up-timer to get the inside scoop on what’s coming, hire me so you can stay in control by managing the change, but still not fundamentally change what or who you are. Keep the castle walls strong.”

  “True enough, I think.” He kept his voice carefully neutral and shifted his posture. He tucked his legs up to a sitting position and uncrossed his arms. “What are you trying to say to me?”

  “I'm saying that I don’t want to be your enemy, Johann. I've been forced to kill, because people believed I was their enemy. It’s a terrible feeling. It messes with you, the faces, the smells, the memories that come back to you unbidden, vivid, and horrible.” She turned away, hiding the emotion that bubbled to the surface. She took a breath, and looked out at the vista of the Inn valley. She turned back to him. “I don’t want to be your enemy. Because moving forward, I may be at odds with the Fugger, have different challenging and intractable ideas, I may say and do things that are radical, and unpopular. ”

  He came to her, standing close. The wind died down to a gentle breeze. She had to tilt her head up a little to look at him. “Mary, I could never be your enemy. When you arrived, you completely changed my world. I never saw the fear in your eyes. All I ever saw was wisdom, and bravery, and fire, and intelligence, and passion. I saw all of those things in you on that very first day, even over the barrel of your up-time gun. And every day thereafter.” He stepped away from her, and went to the edge of the cliff, looking outward at the valley. His arms went behind, and he stood with his back straight, shaking his head slightly. “At first, I was in denial. I ignored my feelings. Pushed them to the back of my mind, threw myself at my work. But as time went on, the more I denied my true feelings for you, the more distraught I became. You…disrupted…my judgement.” He turned back to her, resolved. “I was embarrassed. I'm still embarrassed for how I treated you. You see, I thought I should treat you the way I thought an up-timer would want to be treated. In my ignorant, prideful way, I thought I was honoring you. I did not understand you, or your world. Or what I was a
sking. I thought I did, but I did not. What I did was wrong.” He squared up to her. “Would you accept my formal apology Mary Margaret Russo von Uptime?” He slowly bowed, then straightened up from his bow and looked into her eyes.

  Mary looked back into his eyes. They were soulful brown eyes, and in this light, she could see the hints of green and grey, like the first time she really looked at him the night of the ball. She felt her heart rate increase, and her cheeks flush. Oh my, girl. She swallowed, mouth surprisingly dry. And in her chest, there was a pleasant warmth that spread out through her body, as if something that she had been holding back had suddenly broken loose and was now flowing through her like oxygen.

  She took a new breath. “Of course, Johann. Apology accepted.”

  His face lit up like she had never seen it before, boyish and grinning, all trace of Strong Bavarian – no - Swabian Count gone, replaced with a simple happy man. He looked physically lighter, in danger of rising into the air and drifting from the precipice in happiness. Her heart squeezed a little.

  “I stepped into a great big bowl of pig fat,” he said, still grinning.

  She beamed back at him. “Always with the pigs for idioms. Why is that?”

  They both laughed. “I told you! Pigs are important.” The stood, smiling for a moment. Johann settled back towards his formal self, but he didn’t retreat fully. There was something much more relaxed about him. It suits him. He gestured to the bench, and they sat.

  “Mary, I have something to ask you.”

  She looked at him with a raised eyebrow, the thought flitting through her head that he was going to propose again. Her face must have done the speaking for her, and he looked alarmed.