1634: The Baltic War (assiti chards)

by Eric Flint

  "An industrial accident of some sort," he whispered into her ear. "A bad one, it seems. But from what I could determine, no enemy action seems to be involved."

  Her responding nod was a minute thing. To all outward appearances, all her attention was focused on the performance. Which, in fact, almost all of it actually was.

  Frescobaldi, for the love of God!

  The man himself, that was to say. Truth be told, in the world somewhere on the other side of the Ring of Fire, Mary Simpson had never been all that fond of Frescobaldi's music. She hadn't been very fond of any music between that of Monteverdi and Bach, in fact. Like most classical music enthusiasts, she'd generally considered the whole seventeenth century something of a musical desert between the great eras of the High Renaissance and the Baroque. A great period in western civilization in terms of the visual arts, of course, but not music. Perhaps aficionados of the organ felt differently about the matter, she supposed, but the organ was very far from her favorite musical instrument.

  But that was then and there, and this was here and now. And the fact remained that Girolamo Frescobaldi was one of the tiny number of composers whose name and music would survive for three and a half centuries. And not simply as a footnote in scholarly studies, either-some of his music was still in the standard repertoire, in the universe they'd left behind. Not much of it, true, and that almost entirely organ music. Still he was a genuine name-and he was here in person.

  Mary was quite simply thrilled to death, whatever she thought of the man's music itself. Especially since she was pretty sure that her relentless campaign-sophisticated, suave, yes, yes, but still relentless-to persuade Frescobaldi to resign his post as organist for the Medicis in Florence and set up in Magdeburg was nearing success.

  Fortunately, Amalie Elizabeth shared her enthusiasm for music. The landgravine of Hesse-Kassel was even, unlike Mary, a fan of organ music. True, her husband Wilhelm V had instituted tight budget limits in order to pay off the debts of his profligate father Moritz. But Hesse-Kassel was a wealthy enough principality that even with limits, Amalie Elizabeth still had some money to throw at music and the arts. So, Mary was able to waggle a very nice stipend under Frescobaldi's nose if he moved to Magdeburg. That, combined with the fascination the composer and keyboard performer had for the new innovations brought by the up-timers ought to do the trick. In that respect, and despite being now middle-aged, Frescobaldi was no different than almost all musicians of the era.

  Still, she couldn't deny she was a bit relieved when Frescobaldi finally stood up from the harpsichord where he'd been playing what seemed like an endless series of pleasant but slight toccatas. Mary was even less fond of the harpsichord than she was of the organ. Why subject oneself to that damn tinkle-tinkle-tinkle when you could listen to the rich sounds of a pianoforte?

  The auditorium was drowned in applause, to which Mary added her own vigorous share. She even whistled, something she'd never have dreamed of doing in the concert halls she'd left behind. But she'd discovered that seventeenth-century music patrons, from royalty on down, had a far more raucous notion of applause than their counterparts possessed in the twentieth century. And, well, as a child Mary had discovered she was a superb whistler-an uncouth skill which, sadly, she'd had to abandon once she grew old enough to participate in proper society.

  She caught a glimpse of her husband grimacing slightly, out of the corner of her eye.

  "Hey, look," she murmured, "I'm a great whistler. Being able to do it again makes up for a lot. Almost makes up for seventeenth-century plumbing."

  Her husband's grimace deepened. "Mary, nothing makes up for the plumbing in the here and how. But that's not why I was wincing. I simply can't for the life of me understand-never could-why anyone would applaud a performer who subjected them to that damn harpsichord. Tinkle-tinkle-tinkle. It's like listening to a concerto for nails-scratching-a-blackboard and orchestra."

  Mary chuckled. "Well, take heart. Our very own Marla is up next."

  That announcement caused John Simpson to lean back in his chair with some degree of anticipation. Mary had always had proteges in the past. Marla Linder was the latest; a young woman Mary had discovered in Grantville who, while she might not be a prodigy, was clearly gifted. She had been their guest in Magdeburg the last few weeks, preparing for this concert. Having heard her singing snippets of songs around their townhouse, John was actually looking forward to hearing her.

  The harpsichord had been moved out of the way and the grand piano muscled into position. John joined the applause as Marla came out, gave a nod of her head in acknowledgment, then sat and began. Several selections followed, all sounding somewhat familiar to him, ending with a Chopin showpiece. Loud applause erupted. After it died down, John leaned over to Mary. "I think that made Signor Frescobaldi sound a bit insipid." He smiled at her frown.

  Marla returned, taking a stand in front of the piano. What followed was remarkable, even to John's less than trained ears. Song followed song, lyrical, polished, enrapting; classical was followed by show tunes, ending with Christmas music. Some were sung as duets or ensembles, one with her violinist fiance Franz Sylwester, but most were solos. The final piece was "Ave, Maria," during which John looked over to see a bit of moisture in Mary's eyes. Truth to tell, he had a bit of a lump in his own throat.

  After the concert was over, John Simpson waited while his wife did her usual gadding about, congratulating the performers, chatting with-or chatting up, rather-various key members of the nobility and wealthy merchants present, comparing notes quickly with Amalie Elizabeth and the abbess of Quedlinburg. The usual conspiratorial business of the dame of Magdeburg, in her drive to turn the brand new USE's brand new capital city into one of Europe's cultural powerhouses.

  To Simpson's amusement, some of the city's newspapers were already starting to use that title for her. He wondered if they'd come up with it on their own, or if somehow they'd discovered that in a different universe Pittsburgh's newspapers had often called her "the Dame of the Three Rivers" and decided it was catchy.

  Whatever. Over the years, he'd learned to be patient about the whole business, even though he had very little interest in the matter himself. As one of Pittsburgh's premier industrialists, he'd found Mary's constant cultural and philanthropic enterprises had added a great deal to his own prestige and status. Now as an admiral in the USE's growing little navy-the admiral, really-he knew her activities would have the same effect. More so, probably, in this world than the one they'd left behind.

  So, he waited. Still, it was with some relief that he was finally able to escort her out of the palace. He hadn't let any of it show, but he was actually quite concerned about that industrial accident. True, the location of it wasn't close enough to the navy yard to pose any direct threat to his own enterprises. But as stretched thin as all of Magdeburg's industries were, any major disaster would have an impact-especially since his naval building projects were the main customer for a lot of those industries.

  As soon as they stepped out of the palace onto the portico, his concern spiked sharply. The portico was elevated a good fifteen feet above the rest of Magdeburg-a city whose terrain was as flat as a pancake, where it wasn't outright marshland-with a wide stone staircase descending to the street below. From that perch, they had a good view of the Elbe.

  "Oh… my… God…" said Mary, staring.

  The portico was packed with people, staring along with them.

  Suddenly, Mary chuckled. Almost a giggle. "Well, we won't be able to make jokes about Cleveland any more."

  The nonsensical comment jarred Simpson out of his anxiety enough to look at her. "Excuse me?"

  "The Cuyahoga, remember?"

  Simpson still couldn't make any sense out of what she was saying.

  "The river that burned? That song by Randy Newman?"

  "Oh. Yes."

  He looked back. True enough, the Elbe itself seemed to be aflame. That was an illusion, he knew. Somehow a large quantity of flammable substa
nces must have gotten spilled into the river and had caught fire. It wasn't really as dangerous as it looked, since even the slow current of the Elbe would soon enough carry it away. Assuming it hadn't burned out by then, which it probably would. Whatever was burning there had to be some sort of light oils, floating on the surface. There simply couldn't be that much of it, given the still-primitive state of the USE's petroleum industry.

  Nevertheless… the navy yard was downstream. As dark as it was, with a light snowfall, Simpson couldn't actually see it. But he knew the location of the Yard perfectly. The edges of the flames might already have reached it by now.

  "I need to get down there."

  "Yes, dear, of course. I'll come with you."

  With Mary in tow, Simpson shouldered his way through the little mob on the stairs, being as polite about it as he could, but not to the point of being delayed. There would be a wait anyway, to get a carriage, once they reached the street. He wanted to be one of the first in line.

  As it happened, however, no wait was necessary. By the time he got down to the street, he discovered that there was a Marine carriage already drawn up for him.

  Lieutenant Franz-Leo Chomse emerged from the carriage and held the door open for them. "I assumed you'd wish to be taken to the navy yard, sir."

  Simpson was pleased to see him. Partly because of his general anxiety, but also because it demonstrated once again that Chomse was turning into an excellent aide. He would have taken this initiative on his own, of course. Chomse wouldn't ever replace Eddie Cantrell somewhere in that place in Simpson's heart he almost never admitted existed, even to himself. But as an admiral's aide, he was actually better. If he had less of Eddie's occasional brilliance he had a lot more in the way of methodical thoughtfulness-and, thankfully, none of the up-time redhead's annoying rambunctiousness.

  "Thank you, Lieutenant. Yes, I would, please."

  John and Mary entered the carriage and took their seats. Chomse joined them on the bench opposite, after a quick command to the driver. No sooner had he closed the door than the carriage set off.

  Almost immediately, Mary got jostled into her husband. "You and your blasted notions of military protocol," she muttered.

  Simpson ignored the wisecrack. Like most people, Mary thought using a wheeled carriage in the streets of Magdeburg was just silly. Between the ruts and the mud and the potholes-not to mention those few stretches which had been cobblestoned, which were often worse-riding through Magdeburg in a wheeled contrivance guaranteed a rough ride. Bruises, often enough. Far better to take one of the more common conveyances, which were essentially small palanquins toted between two horses, like covered litters. Or four horses, in the case of big ones. The conveyances never had direct contact with the street, since the legs and hooves of the horses absorbed the impact.

  But Simpson found the contraptions repellent and insisted on "proper" carriages for the Navy and the Marines. He wasn't sure why, actually. In public, even to Mary, he stood stoutly by his claim that the arcane demands of military protocol required wheels. But he suspected it was really an emotional residue from the Vietnam War. A war which he had faithfully served in, as a junior officer, but had detested just as much as almost anyone in the military at the time.

  The seventeenth-century palanquins, in some vague way, had an oriental flavor to them. And not the Orient of Vietnam's peasants and poor town dwellers, which he had often found irritating-their consequences, rather-but had never despised. Poverty was simply what it was, no more to be sneered at than sneering at the winds or the tides. No, the palanquins somehow reminded him of South Vietnam's elite, a class of people he had come to loathe, as had most American officers. He had no desire whatever to infuse that spirit into the ranks of his new navy, even indirectly or purely symbolically. Real soldiers would have their teeth rattle when they rode in carriages, damnation.

  Fine, it was silly. So was war, if you looked at it from a certain perspective. But war was now John Simpson's business, and he took it seriously.

  "What happened, Lieutenant?" he asked Chomse. "Do we know any details yet?"

  "Almost all of them, sir. A large number of naval ratings and Marines were involved in dealing with the disaster at the coal gas plant. The prime minister happened to be nearby when the fire started, and he pretty much took charge of things, using sailors and Marines from the navy yard."

  Quickly and precisely-by now, the lieutenant had learned to give excellent briefings-Chomse explained what had happened.

  When he finished, Mary shook her head. "My God, is the man insane? He's the prime minister of the United States of Europe! He's got no business risking his life like that!"

  Simpson looked out of the window. There was still nothing much to see, beyond an occasional street lamp in front of a tavern or one of the wealthier residences-and, then, only the old-fashioned oil lamps. None of the newer gas lights were working. As a result of the catastrophe, obviously.

  He felt his wife tugging on his elbow. "John, you must speak to Mike about the matter. He simply can't do things like this."

  Simpson thought about it for a moment. "No, Mary, I don't think I will. First, because Mike Stearns wouldn't pay any attention to me if I did. And second, because I don't really agree with you anyway."

  "How can you-"

  "Mary, leave off. The man is what he is. You might as well ask an iceberg to stop being chilly. Or-perhaps a better analogy-ask a general like George Patton to lead from the rear, the way a sensible general should."

  His wife shook her head. "People will think he's crazy."

  "Which people, Mary? That crowd we just left in the palace? Oh, yes, they will. Many of them, at least." He tilted his head toward the window. "But I can assure you that most of the city's residents won't have that reaction. This is a workingmen's city, dear, don't ever forget that. If the fire had spread, it would have been their modest and cramped apartments that went up in flames-along with what little they possess in the way of material goods, and quite possibly they themselves and their children."

  Mary stared at him. Simpson felt an old exasperation stir a little, and suppressed it. Being fair, it wasn't that his wife was callous in her attitudes toward people of the lower classes. In fact, she was quite popular with those of them she had contact with. She was invariably gracious and the graciousness wasn't simply a facade.

  Put any single person in front of Mary Simpson whom she had to deal with, and she had no difficulty at all seeing that person as an individual human being, regardless of what class they came from. And she was quite indifferent to matters of race. In fact, she was generally far more perceptive in her dealings with people than Simpson was himself.

  The problem lay elsewhere. It was simply that Mary didn't deal with such people all that often, and almost never at close range except for servants. Her world-both of those worlds-had always been that of the upper crust. Whereas Simpson himself, as the CEO of a major corporation, had always had to deal with his workforce-and now, as an admiral, had to lead men into combat, almost every one of whom came from very modest circumstances. The prestigious service for seventeenth-century noblemen was the army, not the navy.

  That included the young man sitting across from him, in a naval uniform that he wore all the more proudly because his father had been a simple butcher. Chomse's expression was outwardly noncommittal, but some subtlety there made it perfectly clear to Simpson that the lieutenant did not agree with the opinion of his admiral's wife. Not that he would ever say so openly, of course.

  In the event, he didn't need to. Mary hadn't missed the subtleties in his expression either.

  "I take it you don't agree with me either, Lieutenant Chomse?"

  Franz-Leo shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Well… to be honest, Mrs. Simpson, no. I don't. I understand your point of view, but…"

  He, too, looked out of the window. In his case, not to gather his thoughts but because they'd now entered the industrial zone and were passing by an area of flat land devoted t
o storing timber. For the first time, they had a close-up view of the burning river, with no buildings to obstruct the view.

  It was an impressive sight, in its own way. Now that they were much closer, it was obvious that Simpson's guess had been correct. The flames emerging from the river were clearly coming from a thin film of oil on the surface. The fire actually seemed less threatening from this distance, since it was clear from the dancing and flickering motion of the flames that it was literally skin-deep. There was nothing burning here that could last for all that long.

  "Skin-deep," however, meant a lot of skin, spread out of that much expanse of water. Gloomily, Simpson was quite certain that the USE had just suffered a noticeable dent in its stock of petroleum products-which had been none too extensive to begin with.

  "The thing is, Mrs. Simpson," Chomse continued, "however much the prime minister might frighten many people in the nation, his own people are ferociously loyal to him." He did not need to add-in fact, Simpson was sure, didn't even think about it-that by "his own people" Chomse was referring mostly to German down-timers.

  That thought was more than a bit of a rueful one, for Simpson. He knew he'd been wrong about many things, in the period after the Ring of Fire. But about nothing had he been more wrong than his assessment that seventeenth-century Germans would be oblivious to the appeal of democracy. Many of them, especially from the lower classes, had adopted Mike Stearns' ideology quite readily. Often, in fact, with a fervor that made Simpson himself uncomfortable.

  "So tonight will simply deepen that loyalty," Chomse concluded. "In private, you know"-he made a little sweeping motion with his forefinger at the apartment buildings visible through the opposite window of the carriage-"these folk are more likely to call him 'Prince of Germany' than they are to use his actual title of prime minister."