Marieke smiled shyly. "Then let us be off!"
The two slowly made their way to the rescue barn, which was outside the city walls, about a mile down the road from the Freedom Arches. The sunny day turned warm, making both young people sweat and wipe their foreheads. Hans had to work hard to stay upright with the crutches, and they had to stop several times to rest. Marieke tried to help Hans, but he was uncomfortable when she touched him. They could be seen! He was so drawn to her, both her physical beauty and her gracious manner, but he knew she was out of his reach. It was all well and good to dream of princesses, and have a few kisses maybe, but regardless of what Marieke thought, it was dangerous for him. If her family found out what they'd been doing in the library … well, that could get him killed or worse. No, he must keep his distance … at least in public.
Hans knew they were reaching the rescue barn because he heard a cacophony of animal sounds. Then he smelled the barnyard before he actually saw it. Horses, cows, goats, sheep, even dogs and cats milled around the fenced area. Chickens and geese pecked the ground in a separate enclosure, safe from marauding animals. Hundreds of lost animals nibbled at the straw and various feeds strewn around the enclosures. How would he ever find his Beatrix in all this?
"Do you see her?" Marieke stood back from the milling animals and their feces.
"Not right away but let me look around." Hans hopped up on one end of the fencing. He cupped his hands in front of his mouth and let out a huge cry, "Beatrix! Beate, Beate, Beatrix! Come here."
He stood still a few minutes waiting, despair threatening to overwhelm him. Beatrix had been with him all his life. She was the only family he had here. Oh please, let Beatrix be here. His thoughts darkened with every passing moment. He called again, and again.
Hans had almost turned to start back toward Marieke when he noticed there was a small commotion toward the center of the field. Several horses and cows were vocalizing their complaints as dust rose off the dry straw. Something was making them move! Then he saw her! Hans saw his black-and-white Beatrix push between another draft horse and a smaller saddle horse. She nudged them aside and cantered to him. She was alive and here! Maybe life would be good after all. If she had made it maybe everyone else he cared about had too.
When Beatrix reached the fence, Hans and Marieke opened the gate, he threw a rope bridle over her head and led her out as Marieke closed the gate behind her. Then Hans gave Beatrix the biggest hug he could manage. Tears rolled down his face. He knew it was not manly but, God's eternal love, this was Beatrix! He didn't care.
Marieke stood petting Beatrix's neck and smiling a distinctly unladylike smile. She didn't care either. She was thrilled to share Hans's happiness.
Even the sun seemed to shine more brightly as the happy trio made their way back to the Freedom Arches.
Being on crutches, Hans could not ride Beatrix so he and Marieke walked her back to the Freedom Arches and found her a place in the barn nearby. He had a little money from his dishwashing and other service at the Arches.
****
At least several times a day he wondered about Liesel, his Papa, and Japik. Hans still had not seen Japik and with no way to look for his boyhood friend, Hans had begun to despair of ever seeing him again. Marieke was waiting for him in the library when he came back from the place where refugees from the Great Drowning were being housed.
He looked down at the floor, not at Marieke. "Nobody has seen my friend Japik. Nobody has come in from my village at all!"
She leaped up and ran to hug him. He burst into tears, and held on to her as he cried himself out.
"I still must go there … to the village," Hans said, his voice muffled because he still had his face buried in her shoulder.
"Yes, I know. I wish I could come with you."
"I know you cannot."
****
Early the next morning, Hans walked down to the stable where Beatrix was. It was a large building, housing many horses and even some donkeys. He told the stable hand he was taking Beatrix out for a ride and might be gone a day. He put her tack on her and led her out of the stable. He'd tied a bag to her harness, and he shinnied up on her back. He didn't have a saddle, but the tack was easy enough to ride—after all he'd been doing it for years.
Hans patted her on the neck. "Let's go, Beate, let's go see if we can find them."
He headed out of Bremen toward the northeast. By about noon, he had found what remained of the high dike road he'd taken on the way to Bremerlehe. It was in ruins, with big hunks of dike just missing. He stopped to eat about noon, and fed Beatrix some oats. There was nobody on the road—nobody. It was like he was going to the moon. The storm wrack and ruin was everywhere. He saw broken boats, five miles from the sea.
He got back up on Beatrix and headed toward the village, riding beside the dike road, not on it. The village had been built on the raised dike, with a main street and houses on both sides. Their house was at the end of the village. He got where he thought it was, and found a mud-filled foundation, and nothing else. He sat there for quite some time, staring at the hole in the ground where his family's house had been. There were no other houses, either. The entire village had been washed away. There were no signs of people. Liesel and his Papa were just—gone.
Eventually, he turned Beatrix around, and began to slowly ride back to Bremen. When he got to the stable, he took the blanket and tack off of Beatrix, and put her in her stall, with oats and hay. He gave her a good rubdown, put her blanket back on her, and slowly walked back to the Freedom Arches. The two yellow humps on the sign welcomed him back. It was like the CoC was his only family now.
The common room at the front of the Arches fell silent as they watched him walk inside. He caught Frau Schultz's eye and slowly shook his head. "I have had a very long day, and I think I will go to bed now," he said. The room continued to be silent as he went to his pallet in one of the alcoves in the back.
"Water washed away my whole life," he said aloud. "I must learn how to control water. As the book says, I must learn water's journey, and become a master of water. This Great Drowning must never happen again."
In the morning, he discussed his new determination to be an engineer with Marieke.
"See," she said, "If you become an engineer, you will not be in a proscribed occupation. If you are a good engineer, you can become wealthy."
"Yes, and we can be wed," Hans said, as he kissed her.
****
Christmas Eve, 1635
Hans joined Marieke and the others at the huge dining area that served the CoC and those recuperating from the wave. The sun had just set when several hundred people found their seats at the wooden tables set end to end. Hans could hear numerous accents in the hall around him. At one end of the room, the cooking crew had set up a long table set with large salvers filled with marvelous smelling food.
Hans had never seen anything like it. Off-white beeswax candles sat on every table, throwing off warm light. He followed Marieke to a table holding a stack of wooden plates and metal forks. He picked up one of each and proceeded to fill his plate with roasted chicken, boiled turnips, honeyed carrots, and fresh rye bread. There was even butter and honey for the bread! He had never seen so much food in one place!
He and Marieke found seats at a bench and table with some people who obviously knew Marieke. She introduced him to their table mates. "This is Hans. He was injured in the great wave. He's not from here. Hans, this is Max, and this is Heidi."
Max was a slightly older man, maybe in his late twenties, and dressed in leather breeches with a long brown woolen vest over a dark orange linen shirt. Heidi had golden brown hair piled on top of her head in a braided crown, was about the same age as Max, and slightly plump but pleasantly attractive. Her embroidered blue bodice was well worn but still presentable. She had a knitted shawl in shades of blue thrown over her shoulders against the chilly fall evening.
All four, even the women, fell to their plates with hearty appetites. Marieke eve
n went back for more bread and shared it with Hans.
During the dinner, Hans watched the people around him talking and eating. No one seemed to know that they should not be talking with him. They engaged him in the same kind of small talk they shared with each other. Did they not know he was a night soil driver? Maybe they did not know because he did not smell like night soil right now. But what would they do when they found out? He quietly ate the delicious dinner and listened to Max, Heidi, and Marieke talk about world politics, something they seemed quite interested in.
"So Hans, Marieke says you come from an unusual background. What is that?" Heidi unwittingly asked the one question Hans had hoped to avoid.
Marieke jumped in to change the subject as Hans fiddled nervously with the blue and white cotton napkin in his lap. "Hans is interested in hearing about the changing political scene. Max, can you talk about why things are changing between the nobles and the commons?"
Hans breathed a sigh of relief and smiled gratefully at Marieke. "Yes, please. We don't hear much in our small village."
Heidi picked up hers and Max's empty plates and took them to the cleaning area while Max got a little more comfortable, preparing to address a topic he obviously appreciated. "Hans, I don't know how much you have heard so I may tell you more than you want to know. Please have patience with me." Max smiled and jumped into his monologue.
"There have been some changes among the nobles as they try to come to terms with the up-timers and the USE. Several nobles have given up their duchies or traditional fiefdoms and have tried to reach a compromise between the nobles maintaining their powers and the commoners who feel it is time to have democracies, like the up-timers have talked about. The problem is that some of the nobles do not want to let the times change and let commoners have more say in their lives. This is where the CoC enters the field."
Heidi rejoined the group, sitting next to Max in a very comfortable way. It was obvious by the arm he put around her ample waist that they were more than just dinner mates. Heidi smiled at him, a shared moment between the two.
"The CoC is based upon an organization that the up-timers say made their own revolution possible," Max continued. "They were the agents of change in the American Revolution, and we are the agents of change in this one."
"How can the CoC change things when everyone has to live within the boundaries of their class?" After everything that had happened, Hans still could not believe that there was real hope he could escape the scheisswagen.
Heidi spoke up. "We help commoners like us understand how things can change and how to live in the changed world."
Hans noticed that Marieke had moved a little closer to him. "How do you do that?"
Heidi continued, warming to her topic. "We are teaching political understanding to the people. They need to understand that they are every bit the equals of the Adel. So, we show them equality, just like the up-timers. We are also teaching them things like finance, English if they want to learn it, and sanitation. It may be that there is no more useful thing we teach them than how to improve sanitary conditions. The up-timers say that most disease can be prevented by simply washing your hands with soap. But we have to give them value. There was an uptimer called Bertold Brecht who said, ‘Erst komm das Fressen, dann komm die Moral!'"
Hans and Marieke shared a laugh over that. "First you must feed us, and then you can preach to us! Yes, we have heard it before," Marieke said.
Hans nodded, trying hard not to notice that his hand was but a few inches from Marieke's porcelain one.
They grew quiet, then Max spoke up. "Some of the nobles are trying, as the up-timers say, to turn back the clock. But many commoners are already rising up and demanding new rights. They will not settle for half measures. Unfortunately, there are some nobles who refuse to accept the inevitable."
Hans shivered. "What does that mean for us, for our families?"
Max and Heidi glanced at each other and he took her hand, squeezing it comfortingly. "I hope, we hope, it can be a peaceful change but that is not guaranteed. Some of us have spent time in the great library in Grantville studying the up-timer histories of their revolutions. Few remain peaceful because those who have power often cling to it like a man hanging from a thin root off a mountain. I do not know."
"Things will change, no matter who wants them to remain the same." Marieke's sweet visage took on too grim a cast for one so young.
The quartet set silently for a moment until Max and Heidi stood up. "It was a long day and another tomorrow. We should be to bed. Our dinner company has been quite pleasant. I look forward to another conversation tomorrow evening." Max pushed his bench under the table, took Heidi's hand and walked to the door. Marieke hugged Heidi before she left and made her own good evenings.
****
Hans was in the library. It was after church on Christmas Day. Sanitary engineering, could he do this? Would they let the son of a night soil driver become something as important as an engineer? He remembered all his daydreams of working beyond his caste. Were Max and Heidi really right that commoners could be something better? Could he ever become worthy of Marieke? Could he wash away the night soil taint and be someone important?
If Max and Heidi were correct, Hans could be something more. He could try. Maybe he could not rescue a princess from a dragon but maybe he could rise by becoming an engineer. Maybe he could prove himself to Papa, even though his Papa was surely dead.
The next few weeks seemed to be a dream to Hans. His body healed as he spent hours listening to Marieke read from the engineering book and learning German. He made a point of visiting with Beatrix every day and giving her fresh feed and brushing her coat. Often, Marieke went with him and Beatrix would let her pet her nose and brush her mane.
But Marieke was there as much as possible. She had some duties at the Arches that took her away for a few hours most days. When she could be with Hans, she made a point of being with him.
****
Late January, 1636
Marieke stood, shaking with anger in front of her father. He had grabbed her by the arm and marched her into his office and slammed the door shut.
"What is this I hear that you are making free with a pig of a night soil collector? Do you know what this is going to do to your family's status in this city?" He took her by the shoulders and shook her. "How could you do this to us?" Her head bobbled back and forth from the severity of her father's shaking. "Are you pregnant?"
"No! We are not lovers." Marieke paused, then she raised her head high and spat out, "Yet."
"I forbid you to see him ever again," Marieke's father roared. "I forbid you to go to the Freedom Arches. I do not care if you say they do good works there. They are a nest of vipers, and soon, the Crown Loyalists will have them where they belong—in jail! I don't want you involved in that mess anymore. Do. You. Hear. Me?" The periods after each word were plainly audible.
Somehow, she tore herself free from her father's grasp and ran from the room. Marieke hid until the pursuit died away, and then she slipped out of the house by the back door, and made her way to the Freedom Arches and went to the door to the kitchen.
Frau Schultz surprised her by refusing to let her in. "You can't come in, Marieke. Your father has made it plain that he will hurt us badly if we let you in here." The old woman shook her head. "I know this is bad, but, child, we cannot afford to have what we do disrupted because of you and your love affair."
"My love affair!" Marieke began to wind herself up into a genuine fury.
"Stop this at once," Frau Schultz commanded. "Go home. In a few days, your father will have calmed down, and you can come back."
"But, Hans …" Marieke stood there, tears streaking down her cheeks, staring at the iron expression on the old woman's face.
"You leave Hans to me." The old woman smiled, and as she closed the door in Marieke's face, she said quietly, "This is not the end. You will see him again, I am sure."
****
Hans went to see Frau
Schultz. "I know what happened with Marieke. I must leave here."
"Yes, you should. Or you will be harmed or killed," the feisty old lady replied. "Do you have any money?"
"I have a few coppers and my horse."
"Without more money than that, you are going to have to sell your horse."
"I…I know, but du lieber Gott!, it is so hard. She is all I have left from … before."
The old woman looked at him for a long time. "Then you have nowhere to go but the future, Hans."
"Do you know someone who will buy Beatrix and treat her well?"
"Yes, I think we can arrange that for you. Be at the stable in the morning."
****
He combed and brushed Beatrix out for the last time. He tied a nice ribbon in her tail, and buffed her tack until the leather and brass shone. The stable master himself came into the stall. He held out a leather purse that clinked.
"Frisian draft horses sell well, because of the flood, young Hans. We were able to get you a good price. It should get you to Magdeburg and give you some living money while you study."
Hans was surprised. "I didn't know that you knew me at all, sir."
"We all know you, Hans. Good luck to you."
Hans threw his arms around Beatrix's neck and hugged her for the last time. He fought back salty tears that threatened to escape his eyelids. He put the purse inside his shirt, and walked away, not looking back. "I have ‘nowhere to go but the future,' now."
****
The hour was very late. The night was moonless, and the streets were dark. Most of the lanterns in front of people's houses had been put out hours ago. A shadow crept from one house to another, quietly, slowly making his way to the house where Marieke lived. Hans found a window ajar, and quietly clambered through it. By trial and error, and luckily not waking anyone, he found Marieke's room.
"What…"
"Ssh! It's me."
"So it is," Marieke said, raising her arms to him. He came to her, and lay with her on her bed. Some time passed, pleasurably.
Grantville Gazette, Volume 64 Page 8