1635-The Tangled Web

by Virginia DeMarce

  And flirting.

  With Clara's niece, Helena Hamm.

  So what were they going to do about it?

  "Did you know about this, young Kastenmayer?" was not a propitious opening sentence for any conversation.

  Cunz felt like he was about ten years old again. In school. Caught.

  "Ah. Well, not about your niece. We didn't stop long in Badenburg on the trip outward."

  "I am going to stop this. What is it at they say in the movies that they show in Grantville. The westerns?"

  He grasped the reference immediately. "Head them off at the pass."

  "Yes. Precisely. Find Wackernagel and get him in here. I am going to tell Helena. At once. Also, he shall know that if he does not leave Helena alone, if he does not comply, I will tell the other women. He is not going to ruin my niece's life, the wretch. The miserable, irresponsible, abominable . . ." She searched her vocabulary. "Creep. That is what Andrea would say. Creep."

  Veronica nodded.

  "They made me so mad," Helena said. "It's not as if we were doing anything except laughing. Which I get little enough of. Self-righteous old . . . biddies."

  Wackernagel shrugged. "You heard what they said."

  "They can't do anything to me. Not really." Helena leaned her elbows on the counter. "It's not as if I had a fiancé who could break our betrothal in outrage. Or anything close to a fiancé. So, I suppose, it all depends on whether or not you want to risk it."

  Wackernagel picked up his hat. "I'll plan on seeing you the next time I come through, then."

  Grantville

  "I don't know when he'll be back, Clara," Wes said. "Someone else brought the bag in from Fulda this week. The guy said that the people in Fulda, Utt and the others, have been picking up some information about Gruyard and what happened to the abbot. Schweinsberg, that is. I wouldn't trust the new man, Hoheneck, farther than I could shake a stick at him, as Granny used to say.

  "Meier zum Schwan in Frankfurt picked up some information. Sent it to the Hanauer rabbi, who diverted Wackernagel off to make a direct trip to Magdeburg with stuff for Francisco Nasi."

  "Well, good riddance." She paused. "Wesley?"

  "Ummn."

  "Now that you have been assigned to this 'uniform matrimonial legislation' project for the SoTF and maybe the whole USE? What is the law on this man? What does it say? All three of the towns are in the SoTF now, but when he married, they were in three different countries. All in the Holy Roman Empire, but three different jurisdictions. Bindersleben, then, was under Erfurt, but over Erfurt, that part, was the archbishop of Mainz. Steinau belonged to the counts of Hanau. Vacha to the abbey of Fulda. Who is . . . responsible?"

  Wes sighed. "Clara, honey, have you seen any of those little statues around Grantville. The ones with the three monkeys. One with his hands over his ears, one with his hands over his eyes, one with his hands over his mouth?"

  "Yes. Someone, I can't remember who right now, has one on his desk."

  "There's a lot to be said for that motto."

  "What motto?"

  "The monkey statue motto. 'Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.' "

  "I sort of hope you didn't arrive by way of Badenburg," Wes said.

  Wackernagel gave him one of those smiles. "By way of Jena, this time. I rode the railway from Halle. It was . . . interesting. I had heard of the surveying being done up north of Fulda, of course, through southern Hesse-Kassel. But until I experienced it for myself . . . I suppose it's something I will have to factor into my future plans."

  "All right, then. My wife is a woman with strong opinions, you understand."

  "I agree entirely."

  "You know what they are, too." Having disposed of family obligations, Wes got back to government business. "Now, I have something that has to get to Derek Utt as fast as you can move it. The boy's taking every drop of advantage he can squeeze from the lemon during this interregnum over there, without a civilian administrator to ride herd on him. Since I left and before Mel Springer can get there to take over. He took it hard when Hoheneck let us know what had happened to Schweinsberg. Real hard."

  Wackernagel took the packet.

  Wes reached into his shirt pocket. "Take this to him, too. It's a letter from Mary Kat."

  Wackernagel raised his eyebrows.

  "His wife." Wes grinned. "They were married last February and haven't seen each other since the honeymoon. Which lasted three days. Remind him from me that if he doesn't take his long-overdue leave and come home for Christmas, he's going to have a really pissed lady lawyer on his tail."

  Badenburg, November 1634

  "Ah," Wackernagel said. "The fair Helena, whose face launched a thousand ships."

  "This face," Helena said, "has never seen a boat bigger than a barge on the Ilm."

  "Must you disillusion me? Such a skewering of my best efforts is positively discouraging."

  She leaned forward, her elbows resting on the counter. She knew she shouldn't be doing this. Not for her sake, but for his. She had no doubt that Aunt Clara sincerely meant every threat she made.

  On the other hand—he was by far the most entertaining man she had ever met. She was old enough to know what she was doing.

  "If not a thousand ships," Wackernagel said, "then a hundred small barges, at the very least." He kissed her fingertips.

  She giggled. And told herself that she could manage Aunt Clara. If it came to that.

  December 1634

  Etienne Baril, the Huguenot lawyer who worked for Andrea Hill in Fulda, still regarded Wes Jenkins as his real pipeline into the SoTF and, therefore, the USE governmental structure. The next time Wackernagel came through, he gave him a letter when the courier dropped in to ask how Liesel was doing.

  "She's in school," Andrea said. "As long as the roads are bad, I think she'll stay there. Liesel may be a little hard to handle, but she certainly isn't dumb."

  Wes looked at the letter, took off his glasses to polish them, and said, "Can you hang around for a day or so and then go up to Magdeburg for me? I'd like Clara to do an analysis of this before I send it on to Nasi."

  "If it doesn't go beyond a couple of days. I'll send a message with Wattenbach that I'm delayed and have him cover my usual stops. But Mutti expects me home for the holidays. She'll fret if I'm not there."

  Wes had a little difficult juxtaposing the concepts of "Martin Wackernagel" and "fretting mother" in his mind.

  It didn't work out too badly. He got the packets to Magdeburg, hit Bindersleben on Christmas Eve, Vacha a couple of days later (he and Rufina had given the children their presents earlier in the month, on the Feast of Saint Nicholas, as was the Catholic custom), Steinau for New Year's, and Frankfurt for Twelfth Night.

  He'd had practice, of course. Although some years, he made the stops in the reverse order.

  Bindersleben bei Erfurt, January 1635

  Something was wrong. He knew it as soon as he tethered his horse and stepped into the tavern.

  "Martin. Oh, Martin," the tavernkeeper's old mother said. "I'll call the pastor." She turned toward the kitchen. "Hanni, run, put on your cloak and run. Bring the pastor right away." Then she put her hand on his arm. "Don't go to your cottage, Martin. Wait for Pastor Asmus. Don't go to your cottage. There's no one there."

  "It was so sudden," Pastor Asmus's wife said. "Just last week, and we had no way to reach you. We knew you would be on the Reichsstrasse, somewhere. She had just told us that she was expecting another child. Another blessing. Then, Tuesday evening, little Kaethe came running up to Midwife Knorrin's house, saying that her mother was lying on the floor, bleeding. We called a physician from Erfurt. He came riding out in the dark and the cold, but by morning she was gone. Oh, poor Maria. Not that she isn't in a better place. But the children? She has no relatives and you are an orphan. Plus you are scarcely here more than a day in each month."

  Wackernagel rested his forehead on his fists, his elbows on his knees.

  "Eight years old, Kaethe," P
astor Asmus said. "Six, two; Otto not yet a year. I remember when I married the two of you, thinking that if she had family to investigate your background, they would worry about just such a thing, with you on the road all the time."

  Wackernagel raised his head. "If she had family to investigate my background, the children would be with that family now."

  "The Schultheiss has taken them in, temporarily. But he and his wife have six of their own. It's not a permanent solution. But there's the cottage and garden. It's not as if they will be charity cases. You can afford to have them bound out to good families. The village council and church elders are already making inquiries for you."

  Wackernagel shook his head. Thinking, thinking. No. He could not endure to have them bound out. Separated from each other. They slept in a single trundle bed at night, cuddled together like a litter of puppies in this cold winter weather.

  But, since he had represented himself as an orphan for so long, he couldn't say that he had family in Frankfurt who would take them.

  "Or," the pastor was saying, "if you want to keep the household together, to continue its existence more or less undisturbed, all of us will be happy to try to find you another nice wife. Within the next month. I think that is as long as you can really presume on the kindness of the Schultheiss, and it takes three weeks to read the banns."

  The pastor's wife and the tavernkeeper's mother both nodded solemnly.

  He shook his head.

  "I need to see the children," he said. He looked out at the snow-covered ground. "I can't leave my horse standing there. It's so cold. Could you bury her?"

  "Don't worry about the horse," Hanni said. "On my way back from the rectory, I took him to the stable and groomed him."

  Pastor Asmus answered the other question. "Not yet. She is in the crypt. We loaned her one of the church's shrouds. Burial will have to wait for a thaw. So I waited until you came to preach the funeral sermon. Shall we do that tomorrow?"

  Wackernagel stood up. "I guess we might as well. Thank you, Pastor Asmus. All of you. Thank you for everything."

  Rufina would not be understanding. He sat in the church, listening to the words of the twenty-third psalm. And Maria would not have wanted her children brought up by a Catholic. Edeltraud might be understanding. Growing up in an inn tended to make a young woman a little more . . . comprehending of the ways of the world. But . . . Thomas and Anna were not likely to be, and it would be a burden on the two sisters, as well, to have four more small children to care for, in the middle of a busy hostel, in addition to their own six. Plus, they were Calvinists. Maria would not have wanted her children to be brought up by Calvinists.

  "Our father, who art in heaven." The words of the prayer, recited by the congregation, passed over him. Almost the whole village had come to the service.

  Maria had been a darling girl.

  "We think it would be best," the Schultheiss said.

  "No. It's not what I want for them. For me."

  "What do you want to do, then, Martin?"

  "Can I leave my horse in your stable, Hanni?" He turned to the tavernkeeper. "For a couple of weeks?"

  "Of course."

  "Then, I'll go into Erfurt tomorrow. See a lawyer about the cottage and garden—he'll come out to talk to the village council. You'll have approval of anyone who assumes the lease or buys it out, of course. Maria bought one of those new handcarts—the kind farm wives are using to take produce to market in the summer. For her cheeses. I've made friends, along the road. People who will take my children in, keep them together, long enough for me to deal with this. I'll pack them and their things in the cart, good and warm, with hot bricks and pans of coals, and take them down to Badenburg.

  "I can't thank all of you enough, for everything you have done. But I just can't bear to bind them out.

  "I'll bring the cart back. It's part of Maria's estate. The lawyer can put it into the inventory before I go.

  Badenburg

  It wasn't warm, not really. If if were April, it would be a chilly day. But it was warm for January. Helena stood on the steps, her apron wrapped around her hands, watching the early sunset of midwinter. There weren't any customers in the shop, she had caught up the bookkeeping, and right now she couldn't stand to listen to Willibald, Mama, and Dietrich in the back for one more minute.

  She didn't notice the man with the handcart at first. Not until he stopped right in front of her. Even then . . . Martin did not look like himself.

  "She died," he said. "Maria died. I've brought the children to you."

  She picked them up, one at a time, and carried them indoors. After shooing Martin inside and telling him to get warm at the hearth.

  The children were toasty. Not happy, and in the case of Otto in serious need of a clean diaper, but warm.

  "It hasn't been bad, today," Martin said. "Except that my feet are wet. My boots are designed for riding, not walking."

  "Well, then, take them off and put on dry socks. Surely you have some." Her voice was cross. "If you don't, I'll get a pair of Dietrich's."

  She knew perfectly well that she was going to take these children in.

  Just because Martin had brought them to her.

  She also knew perfectly well how her mother would react. And Willibald. And Dietrich. And, for that matter, the rest of her siblings and half-siblings. Her aunts and uncles. Particularly Aunt Clara.

  So much for any prospects of ever having a serious suitor. Much less a fiancé. Or a husband.

  Old enough to enjoy a harmless flirtation with no repercussions. Like hell she was.

  Maybe sometimes your mother and aunts really did know better.

  She opened the door to the back of the shop. In the dying light, Willibald and Dietrich were clearing up the day's work. Mama, already heavy with this pregnancy, was perched on a high stool, tallying up the successful pours.

  "Guess what?" she said.

  Grantville, late January 1635

  "Agnes just couldn't believe that Helena did it," Clara told Kortney Pence. Anything to take her mind off the prodding and poking of a prenatal exam. "Without so much as a by-your-leave to anyone else in the family."

  "The man can afford to pay for their keep," Kortney said. "It's not as if she was taking in charity cases."

  "But the extra work. And with Agnes pregnant again. What do you suppose happened to that poor woman?"

  Kortney looked down. Clara, pregnant for the first time at thirty-nine, did pretty well in hiding her panic as her due date got closer.

  Not so well that an experienced nurse-midwife couldn't detect it, though.

  "Nothing that's going to happen to you," she said firmly. "I didn't get to examine her, but from what Wackernagel told Helena, I'd bet on an ectopic pregnancy." She pulled a chart of the human female reproductive system down from the top of the metal closet. "Here . . . you've seen this before. I've shown it to you. The ovaries, where you store the eggs. The womb, where the baby grows. And these—the fallopian tubes. If the fertilized egg gets stuck before it reaches the womb and the baby starts to grow in the tube, well, there's just no room. You get a rupture. Hemorrage. And, a lot of the time, death. Always, with down-time medicine. Sometimes, even up-time." She put away the chart. "But you're well beyond that. The baby's fine. Go home and harass your relatives."

  The rumors about anti-Semitic demonstrations kept coming in. Wesley was involved, of course, through the SoTF Consular Service. Plus, there had been those pamphlets in Fulda. There were new pamphlets now.

  Harangues in the towns around Grantville.

  Questions from Stearns and Nasi in Magdeburg.

  Wackernagel, every now and then, bringing things in from Frankfurt am Main.

  Nobody could quite put a finger on it.

  Not until the fourth of March, when everything erupted. When someone, nobody knew who, shot Henry Dreeson and Enoch Wiley. In front of Grantville's synagogue. During an attack on it. Which the police weren't there to handle because of a demonstration against
the Leahy Medical Center. A demonstration that turned violent.

  Hanau, March 5, 1635

  "The rumors of a pogrom in Grantville," the Hanauer rabbi said.

  "I rode down as soon as it came in on the radio," David Kronberg said. "We have a good receiver at the post office now. Better, actually, than the SoTF administration's own. Sometimes they come down and listen to ours."

  "How many?" the president of the congregation asked.

  David knew what they meant. How many new martyrs to commemorate.

  "Um, none. No deaths. Some minor injuries. Everyone will recover. The attackers never actually managed to break into the synagogue. Which is good, considering how many were gathered there for Purim."

  "We heard there were many dead in Grantville yesterday."

  "Yes. The casualty count was pretty high. But none of ours. Nobody knows how it connects together yet. At the hospital, several of the Grantville Polizei and many more of the attackers. None of ours were there at all. In front of the synagogue, yes, there was an attack against it. The mayor and the Calvinist minister came to calm the crowd. Somebody—no one knows who, yet, shot them. Another up-timer who attacked the attackers, riding a hog, was killed with an axe. A piano, one of the great harpsichords they have, fell on the minister's wife and broke her leg."

  A question.

  "No. I have no idea why she was there with a piano. None at all. It was the Christian sabbath. They say that people came pouring out of the churches. But not to attack. To defend. All the rest of the dead were the attackers."

  "A hog? In front of the synagogue?"