Grantville Gazette Volume 27

by edited by Paula Goodlett

  The count steepled his fingers against his mouth. "My explorations of Grantville have taken me into several of the up-time churches. Two of them have a device called an 'upholstered pew.' This obviates the cushion issue." He nodded decisively. "Our treasury can afford it. If I am called back to Magdeburg to preside over yet another theological colloquy, I shall have the benches upholstered—all of them—before the sessions begin."

  Emelie giggled again. "Maybe you should have the upholsterers arrange things so the padding is removable. Take it away from the most long-winded and obstreperous ones. The longer they talk, the thinner the covering on their sections of the benches will become during the night."

  He beamed down again. His wife. His baby. "Dearest," he said. "I'm really glad that you are on my side."

  She reached one hand up and took his. "Always."

  June 1635

  Holz addressed the question of the Koch-Muselius wedding in three separate pamphlets. The first dealt with sumptuary issues such as the processional, recessional, bridal gown, bridesmaids' dresses, and a level of expenditure appropriate for none but the upper patriciate and nobility. The general thrust of the matter was "not the way we've always done it."

  Since most down-timers figured that the up-timers in general belonged to the patriciate, if not to the nobility, they yawned. Even Oswald Griep said, to anyone who asked, that the issues were adiaphoral.

  The second dealt with the music, which was, Holz proclaimed, awful. Since almost all the down-timers agreed, but there was no law anywhere, civil or ecclesiastical, against having bad taste in music, this did not resonate widely, either.

  The third addressed the theology of Kastenmayer's having agreed to conduct a wedding ceremony before the altar. Which gave at least an appearance of creeping papistry, since marriage was not, in the Lutheran scheme of things, a sacrament. Baptism, except in emergencies, took place at the font, before the altar. Communion took place at the altar. Marriage. No.

  That was a more serious allegation. A lot more serious. Oswald Griep really wished that he had thought of it himself.

  Wherefore his comments on the pamphlet were tart.

  Holz's response was intemperate.

  Truth be told, since their viewpoints on most matters were quite similar, they had only small grounds for disputes. Which caused them to hold onto those small grounds even more tenaciously, magnifying them as large as they dared.

  Increasingly, the longer he was at Saint Thomas, Griep became territorial. Resentful of the intruder.

  His pamphlet accusing Melchior Tilesius of attempting, from Langensalza, to extend undue influence into what was properly the superintendency of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, was bitter.

  * * *

  "Well, there they go." Ron Koch slapped Gary Lambert on the back as they watched Ronella and Jonas set out for Amberg and a new life in the Upper Palatinate. "Every way we looked at it, going over to the trade route, down to Nürnberg, and east on the Goldene Strasse is still the easiest way to get there. Not the fastest, but the easiest. And with Jonas only having one driving hand . . ."

  He looked after the wagon that was heading out on the Badenburg road from where it joined Route 250. "There were times last fall when I thought the girl was just going to pine away with longing. Go into a decline or something."

  Carol swatted him lightly. "Ronella's not that kind of a wimp. She would have gotten him, one way or another. Eventually. Don't you think, Gary?" She turned her head. "Pastor Kastenmayer?"

  They both agreed.

  Gary took a deep breath. "Guys, while we're all here . . . Not in the middle of a bunch of other people."

  "What?"

  "Um." He stopped, clearly uneasy. "I don't want you to think that I don't love each and every one of you. But now that Jonas has left . . . He was my best friend. What was tying me to Saint Martin's really. Since he's gone. Uh, doctrinally . . ." He stopped again, then motioned toward the tower a quarter mile beyond the boundary line. "Okay. I'm switching my membership to Saint Thomas. Theologically, I'll be more comfortable there. And I know that Anna Catharina will be. Her dad's pretty conservative. So I'm going to go ahead and do it. Get it over with before the wedding. But I wanted to tell you before I talked to Griep about it."

  He searched their shocked faces. "I still want to be friends, but . . . Well, I guess I'd better be getting to work." He turned around and climbed on the trolley that was just about to start for the other side of the Ring of Fire.

  "More changes," Carol whispered. "More of them, all of the time. Creeping up on us, after so many changes already the past few years."

  July 1635

  "Anne." Natalie Bellamy stood up and waved. "Anne, I want toast, please." She sat down again. "There's so much babble in here this morning that a person can't hear herself think."

  "It's another 'creeping papistry' pamphlet," Orinne Sterling said. "It landed on the news stands in Rudolstadt day before yesterday. Before the distribution here."

  "What is Holz going on about now?"

  "Well, you know that Pastor Kastenmayer and his wife took some time off," Carol said.

  "Since it's the first time in two years, they deserved it."

  "Nobody's arguing about that. But they went to Erfurt. Not for some kind of a church thing, but because Dina's sister had a baby. Andrea and Tony Chabert. You know Tony—he was one of the guests at Tom and Rita Simpson's wedding. He joined the army right away and has stayed in. They had a boy and they named him Ludwig. Ludwig Anthony, even before the Kastenmayers decided to go visit."

  "Maybe that's why he decided to go visit," Anne said, delivering the toast.

  "I haven't seen the pamphlet," Carol said. "I guess I'll have to read it. Bring me my bill, please, Anne. I'll stop and pick one up on the way home."

  "She looks sort of worn thin," Natalie said.

  "With Ronella gone and Jake in Augsburg, I guess they call it 'empty nest syndrome.'"

  "Whatever reason," Orrinne said, "Holz is declaring that for a Lutheran pastor to visit a Catholic son-in-law who doesn't show any immediate signs of converting, and go to the baby's baptism—Tony had it done in a Catholic church up there in Erfurt—is a sign of . . . well, something doctrinal that's bad. Even if he just watched and didn't go to communion or anything. What Holz wrote, in the English translation, is 'unionism,' but I can't imagine what it could possibly have to do with the Civil War. Or workers' rights, either."

  Neither could anyone else who was still at the table.

  * * *

  "It doesn't matter what you think, Pastor Griep." The head of the board of elders elected by the congregation (confirmed male members, of course) of Saint Thomas the Apostle stood there stubbornly. "Well, it matters. We took it into consideration. But we've voted. We know you don't like using the names of modern saints who aren't in the bible, but that's just too bad, I guess. We're naming the school for Saint Guenther of Thuringia. He was the patron saint of the count's family for seven hundred years or more. Even if he's been de-patronized, so to speak, he's still in heaven and we expect he still has considerable interest in what's going on around here. It was his job for a long time."

  It was becoming clear to Oswald Griep that shepherding his new congregation into a fully reliable doctrinal stance might be a long-term project. At least he would have Gary Lambert's help.

  He wrote a pamphlet and a flyer aimed at the vacillating Flacians of Grantville and West Virginia County, stating in no uncertain terms his views that Pankratz Holz was an unauthorized trespasser, engaged in stealing the Lord's sheep.

  September 1635

  "Ron and I went to the dedication," Carol said. "Just as guests, of course. As you did. But you were honored, up on the podium. We were sort of lurking in the back, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible."

  Countess Emelie laughed. "You must be happy that Holz is now so angry at Pastor Griep that he has stopped writing pamphlets about Pastor Kastenmayer."

  "I can't be glad. Not really."

>   "How come?" Count Ludwig Guenther asked.

  Carol opened her purse. "I finally got this done. I had to have the illustrations copied by hand and with the move to Bamberg, Lenore Jenkins has been so busy that it took her forever to finish, and then I had to wait again until someone at the University Press had time to bind it. It's for your little Albrecht Karl. The book I was telling you about. The poem. Eugene Field. It sort of says how I feel about all these disputes. I don't want to tell you. It all bothers me too much. You can figure it out for yourselves."

  The count leafed through it. "It's a lovely book. We are very grateful. The stuffed animals, the printed fabrics in the pictures, the floppy blue ears on the dog and the perky yellow ones on the cat are charming."

  * * *

  "What do you think she meant, dearest," Emelie asked after she had gone on her way to Jena.

  He flipped the book to the last page and read in the excellent English he had acquired in Oxford on his grand tour so many decades before.

  "The truth about that cat and pup,

  Is this: they ate each other up.

  "I have been called to the next colloquy. Sometimes, though, I start to think that the wish of Gustavus Adolphus, to achieve doctrinal unity among all Lutherans, is close to being Don Quixote's unattainable dream. Your friend Carol may think so, too. I suspect that she has become . . . discouraged."

  Emelie reached up and took his hand. "All you can do is try."

  * * *

  A Friend in Need

  Written by Jack Carroll

  Autumn 1635

  Haro Blaser started up the ladder and reached overhead to slide the hatch back. From long habit his gaze swept the deck and then the horizon the instant he could see over the cabin skylight. There was already a faint glow in the sky to starboard, just forward of the beam. This time of year, that would be east-southeast. Good, they were on course. Nobody was by the wheel, though; where had Berry gone? In a moment the sound of a line running through a block up forward answered that question.

  "I'm easing the sheets a bit, sir. The wind's shifted a little."

  "Very well." It was, literally. The young petty officer wasn't leaning on him for advice or permission any more, he was taking responsibility for what happened on his watch. Good.

  Berry belayed the foresheet and came back to unlock the wheel. "What do you think, Skipper? Are we gonna find a good station site on the island?"

  "Well, that's what we're here to find out, isn't it? We should know in a day or two. But let me remind you not to talk about radio in front of the Irish, so we don't start any rumors. Officially, we're here to see if there's any possibility of making a deal for provisions and repairs when our ships start passing this way regularly. Which happens to be the truth. Just not all of it."

  "Sure. Let the French and the Spanish find out about the Atlantic net when they see the towers from forty miles out to sea, huh?"

  "There's that. More to the point, the government doesn't want Boyle getting a hint of our interest before they do their diplomatic dance. Convincing him and Charles that leaving us alone off the Irish coast is better than the alternatives will be a delicate enough business, even without them knowing all of our reasons. So we visit, we write our report, and we don't do anything to make people notice us. You want to be a naval officer? Learn the meaning of Top Secret."

  Blaser swung onto the weather ratlines and started up. It was time for a look around. They weren't all that far from land, now, and anything could be out there. Too bad these courier schooners didn't carry crow's nests like the old fluyt did—hard to see where you could put one, though, without fouling the sails—but nearly everything could be done from the deck. It pretty well had to be, in a vessel so small there was room for only one man to a watch. He hooked one elbow around the shrouds and raised the binoculars to his eyes. Nothing out there. Wait a minute. There was a speck four or five miles off, almost dead ahead. Couldn't tell what it was, but it would soon be lighter. He climbed higher and continued scanning. Further off the starboard bow, silhouetted on the horizon . . . sails. Lateen, looked like. Two masts. That's a Mediterranean rig. What's it doing in Irish waters? He finished looking the rest of the way around. Nothing else in sight. He went back to the first sighting—still couldn't make out what it was.

  "Berry, will you come up here and take a look at this? You've got sharp eyes."

  Haro grinned at the way Berry came swarming aloft for a look. He stepped around to the lee shrouds, passed over the binoculars, and pointed at the nearer sighting.

  Berry steadied his wrist against the mast and fiddled with the focus. He stared for a good half-minute. "I can make out a little movement, lieutenant. Looks like . . . two men. I think. Can't see anything of their boat—has to be pretty small. I think they're hauling a net. Local fishermen, maybe. Pretty far out to sea, though." He shifted position, to point the binoculars at the sails silhouetted against the brightening dawn. "Now, the other one, that's plain weird. I think they call that rig a xebec. I don't see what it could be but a North African pirate. But even they sail regular ships, this far north."

  "So they do. Somebody new at it, then. A young Turk who hasn't captured anything more suitable for these waters."

  "Could be, sir. Oh-oh. Sails are shifting. Spotted the fishermen, I'll bet. Doesn't look like the locals have seen the lateener so far, though."

  Blaser made up his mind. "Well, we've got the wind to get to them fast on this tack. Let's snatch them out of the claws of those devils. Those two can tell us a lot about what's ahead of us."

  Berry looked once more, estimating angles and distances, then scrambled down the ratlines. "Aye, aye, sir, I'll get the topsails up. The sooner we get there, the sooner we're out of there." He slid the hatch open and hissed to Edelstein to come on deck.

  Blaser was happy to have Lothar Edelstein along on the mission. The warrant officer was smart and curious. His profession was charting and mapping, but just the same, if you weren't a sailor when you went to sea with Blaser, you were when you came home.

  As soon as Berry and Edelstein got the maintopsail clear of the locker, Blaser grabbed for the foretopsail. They must have made more noise than he'd thought, because another head popped out of the hatch. "Ah, Corporal Ó Houlihan, you're just in time to give me a hand. Tend the topsail halyard and sheet for me." Haro didn't need to point out the proper lines or even look up as the army translator stepped to the pinrail. Not after three weeks at sea. He started sliding the clips into the track. Now there was something SSIM Bjorn Svedberg's legendary Canadian ancestor never had—pole masts with topsail tracks running all the way down to shoulder height.

  Presently she heeled over a little further and the hiss of the bow wave rose and steadied. What a sweet sailer! What a swift little jewel!

  * * *

  Haro hoisted the ensign himself. Maybe it would warn off the Moors or whoever they were. No. They were still coming. Either they didn't know enough to steer clear of the USE's navy, or they were just bull-headed. Or desperate for some reason. The fishermen were rowing hard now, in the general direction of the distant land. Looks like those two aren't the kind to give up easily. Must be hoping for a sail to blow out, or something. Haro was on the point of warning Berry against running over that bundle of sticks and hides ahead of them, when the petty officer twitched the wheel a hair. Good, they'd pass safely to leeward. "Sergeant Ó Carroll, you know what to say?"

  "That I do, Captain, all set."

  Edelstein was back on deck too. He and Ó Houlihan didn't need to be told what orders were coming. They took station by the jib and staysail sheets. For the present, Haro left Dirck Goosens to his cooking; this really wasn't an all-hands maneuver.

  At the last moment Berry called, "Un-belay headsail sheets and hold . . . off headsails!"

  He whipped the wheel hard over to port, then back the other way to stop the swing. The schooner spun in her own length, came up into the wind, and lay bobbing in the swell.

  Ó Carroll
leaned over the port rail and shouted in Irish, "Do you need help? Do you want us to tow you out of here?"

  One of the men shouted back, "Tow? To where? Where are you going?"

  "Clear Island. If we leave you there, can you get home all right?"

  A look of astonishment came over the fisherman's face. "That we can, for Cape Clear is our home."

  Ó Carroll gestured thumbs-up. Haro tossed the heaving line. While the fisherman was still making it fast, Berry called, "Back the outer jib." The schooner started turning away from the oncoming lateener, now only a couple of miles away. The booms swung over to port and the sails filled with a thump. "Sheet home!"

  Blaser watched the fishermen's boat as it fell in behind at the end of the towline. The Irish currach was just a light frame of tough, springy wood, covered with hides and waterproofed. Hard to believe anyone had ever crossed the ocean in one of those and survived, even if St. Brendan was supposed to have done it. But it was starting to whip around in the wake. It got worse as the fast courier hit its stride in the stiff wind. Clearly, as seaworthy as the little boat undoubtedly was, it had never been designed for the speed Bjorn Svedberg was making. The fishermen recognized the problem, and got down as low as they could. It helped, but not enough.

  "Berry, this isn't working. Heave to. Sergeant, translate for me again.

  "We're going to stop so you can come aboard. Otherwise you'd be thrown into the sea."

  "Leave the boat and the catch to those heathen? Well, better than leaving ourselves."

  "No, there's just room enough to stow it on the foredeck. We'll help you get it aboard. But be quick. Haul yourselves up to us as soon the line goes slack."

  Berry was already turning into the wind. In seconds the currach was alongside and the men were passing a couple of baskets of fish over the rail while Edelstein led the towline forward of the shrouds.

  Haro ran forward to lend a hand himself while Ó Carroll translated. "It should fit right there, keel-up over the dories." With Haro, both soldiers, and the two fishermen hauling, the boat came up over the rail with a rush.