Grantville
Sveta sat cross-legged on the bed in the bedroom of her child's father, hugging the large, well-loved teddy bear that had been sitting on the bed. Frau Trelli had taken her to see Dr. Shipley for a pregnancy test. The test would take a few days to give a result, but the doctor had indicated that everything pointed to her being pregnant, and that, if Sveta was sure about the date of conception, could expect to deliver in March of next year.
She snorted. As if she was going to forget the day the man she loved married another. Still, she had a letter she had to write. She slid off the bed and carried the teddy bear to the desk where John must have sat to do his homework in times past. Together they wrote a letter to John.
A few days later, outside Leipzig
Puss was lying comfortably on the ground, his back supported by his saddle, and the brim of his hat pulled over his eyes. His personal kit was laid out beside him, ready to be loaded at a moment's notice onto Thunder, who was lazily picking at the pile of hay cut from one of the trampled fields.
"Mail for Behrns, Cleesattel, Klein, and Trelli."
Puss tipped back his hat and searched for the source of the call. Seeing the company clerk, he did up his webbing and picked up his rifle before walking over to the mail cart.
There was the usual CARE package from his family, and a single letter. He accepted them and returned to his kit, where the vultures were already circling.
Puss attempted to ignore them. Instead of opening the CARE package, which was what Corporals Klein, Poppler, Cleesattel, and Behrns were interested in, he studied the letter. Normally the family included their letters in the packages, so who was writing to him? A quick glance on the back only added to his confusion. The return address was his parent's house in Grantville. Well, there was one sure way to learn who the letter was from. He used the blade of his clasp-knife to break the seal.
He didn't read far before he froze in abject terror. He blinked a few times before re-reading the first sentence.
"Something wrong, Sarge?" Michael asked.
Puss folded the letter so Thomas couldn't read it over his shoulder. "Sveta,"-it felt funny using Corporal Anderovna's nickname-"is pregnant."
"Oh, like, wow. How'd you manage that?" Lenhard asked.
There was a yip of pain from Lenhard as Michael clipped him across the ear. "The usual way, dummy."
"But he's not even betrothed to the girl," Lenhard said. "Are you?" he asked Puss.
"No." From the cultural awareness module of his military police training, Puss knew that a certain amount of latitude was permitted to betrothed couples. However, good girls did not let things go too far until they were betrothed.
He read the rest of the letter. Sveta certainly hadn't wasted any words. She'd said what she had to say, and then asked him what he intended doing. There was nothing about how worried she was about the situation, but she had to be. Babies were expensive, and a single mother had a lot of obstacles in their way. Well, he knew what he had to do, and he didn't need the fact that she had moved in with his parents to tell him what it was. "Looks like I better ask for leave so I can get home and marry Sveta as soon as possible."
"Don't like your chances," Hermann Behrns said. He glanced around. "Anybody here like the Sarge's chances?"
Three shaking heads told Puss that none of them liked his chances of getting leave. He folded the letter and tucked it away. If he couldn't go to her, maybe there was an alternative. "Then I better have a few words with the chaplain."
"He won't be able to get you leave, Sarge," Hermann called to Puss's back.
Grantville
Felix gave Sveta a sympathetic shake of the head as he laid the mail on the table in front of his wife.
Suzanne quickly sorted out the mail, sliding letters across the table to the down-time sisters who were more daughter substitutes than boarders, and her husband. There was nothing for Sveta.
She hadn't expected anything either. Who would write to her here? Certainly not John. Not yet, anyway. She knew from her job with the Joint Armed Services Press Division that it could take a week just for her letter to get to him.
"You're looking happy, Elisabeth," Frau-call me Sue-Trelli said to the eldest of the boarders.
Elisabeth Muller held up her letter. "My book has done better than expected, and Frau Frobel says they are planning a second printing."
Suzanne clapped her hands. "Congratulations." She hurried around the table to give Elisabeth a hug.
Sveta felt a stab of jealousy watching the easy affection between Frau Trelli and the older girl. She wished she could reach out to Frau Trelli like Elisabeth, but she felt too embarrassed, guilty, and a bit of a fraud. It wasn't as if she was in love with John. She was just pregnant with his child.
Then Suzanne opened the letter from John and read aloud what he had got up to since he last wrote.
Even Sveta managed to smile at some of the things he and his men got up to, although, if one was to believe John, it was mostly his men getting into trouble and him getting them out of it. The letter opened a window on the world of Sergeant John Trelli, soldier, and introduced her to someone completely different from the man she'd shepherded around war bond rallies.
****
Sveta received a reply to her letter three days later. She retired to her room where she cuddled the teddy-bear while she prepared herself for the recriminations she was sure were to be heaped upon her.
Tears began to trail down her cheeks as she read the letter. John was being so understanding. He was even willing to marry her, if that was what she wanted. After talking to Janie and Julia, she'd been almost hoping that he would insist on them marrying. At least that would indicate some interest in her as something other than his child's mother, but there was nothing to suggest that he might love, or even care for her. She buried her face in the worn fur of the teddy-bear and cried.
Eventually the tears stopped, and she was able to return to John's letter. There were promises of financial support, and that he wouldn't pressure her to make a decision. There was also a separate piece of paper a lot smaller than the main letter. Sveta cracked a smile after reading it. It certainly deserved it's "destroy after reading" heading. John's mother-and he freely admitted it-would surely be tempted to kill him if she ever saw what he'd written about her. She hid that page in her Bible and prepared to share the rest of John's letter with his parents.
"It's only what I expected of John," John's mother said as she passed the letter onto her husband.
John's father took the letter and read it. "I'm sure he does want to marry you, Sveta."
"It's good of you to say that, Herr Trelli. But we all know that the only reason we're talking about marriage is because I'm pregnant."
"We'd be happy for you to marry John even if you weren't pregnant," Suzanne said.
****
A week later a package in heavy bond paper was delivered to the Trelli residence. Sveta waited for Mama, as she now called John's mother, to open it, but instead she slid it across the table to her. She accepted the letter knife from Mama and broke open the heavy wax seal.
There was a covering letter from a lawyer in Leipzig, a copy of John's will, and two copies of a marriage contract. She passed them all over to John's father, whom she'd started calling Papa.
"John has made arrangements for the pair of you to marry by proxy," Felix said.
"Is that legal?" Suzanne asked.
John's father nodded. "According to John's lawyer, all we need is for Sveta to sign the contracts before witnesses, and exchange vows with John's stand-in."
Sveta bit her lip. "I will need my father's permission."
"Where does he live?" Felix asked.
"He lives in Savonia, near the fortress of Olavinlinna, in Finland."
"That doesn't exactly sound like we'd be able to send him a letter and get a reply in a few days time."
"No." Sveta knew exactly how long it could take to get news in and out of Savonia, except in winter
, when the lakes and rivers froze, making travel so much easier. She'd made the trip herself on her way to Grantville. "At this time of year, it could take four weeks just to get to the fortress from Borga."
"And Borga is where?" Felix asked.
"It's a port on the Gulf of Finland, about thirty miles east of Helsinki, the modern capital of Finland." Before Papa could ask the usual question, Sveta continued. "Helsinki's a lot smaller than Borga. King Gustav I created the town nearly a hundred years ago in an attempt to challenge the Hanseatic city of Reval, and it hasn't done very well."
Suzanne ran a hand through her hair. "You could send him a letter, but, if it's going to take over three months to hear back . . ."
Sveta saw where Mama was looking. Her hands fell protectively over her belly. John's mother's meaning was obvious. She'd certainly be showing in three months time.
"Is your father likely to raise any objections to you marrying John?" Felix asked.
Sveta shook her head. John's family was Catholic, but her father wasn't sufficiently interested in her to care about that.
"Right then. Sveta, you write your father asking his permission, and thanking him nicely for giving it. We'll post that off and set about posting the banns."
"And I'll start planning the wedding," Suzanne said.
****
Later that evening Sveta entered the kitchen with the letter for her father. It'd been a surprisingly easy letter to write, but while she'd chewed over how to explain becoming pregnant to a man she wasn't even betrothed to, she'd been reminded of something Julia had said.
She walked over to the table where Mama had spread out the contents of a large cardboard box, and sat opposite her. "Mama."
Suzanne looked up. "Yes, dear?"
"Who is Donetta?" Sveta didn't like the look that flashed across Mama's face. It looked too much like she'd bitten into something sour.
"Where did you hear that name, dear?"
Sveta recognized evasion when she heard it. Did that mean Donetta had been someone important in John's life? "Julia was asking me what it was like making love with John, and Janie was telling her to stop embarrassing me, but Julia said Janie wanted to know if he'd learned anything from Donetta just as much as she did."
Suzanne stared at Sveta, her eyes opened wide for a moment before she blinked and shaking her head. "No, they couldn't have, neither of them would have been more than thirteen or fourteen." She smiled ruefully at Sveta. "Sorry, ignore what I just said. Madam Donetta Leasure nee Frost had an affair with John right under her fiance's nose a few months before they were due to marry. Things got a bit messy when her fiance realized what was going on, and we had to ship John out of town until after the wedding for his own safety."
Sveta couldn't imagine a man marrying a woman who had a relationship with another man while they were betrothed, not unless there was a good reason. "Was her family very rich?"
"Donetta's parents? They run the tack shop in town."
So, if her family wasn't rich, that only left one reason why the man had married her. "Was she very beautiful?"
"She certainly thought so," Suzanne snorted. "You don't need to feel jealous of Madam, dear. She and her fool of a husband were left up-time."
Sveta wanted to protest that she wasn't jealous, she was just curious. She was left wondering what John had felt for Donetta. "Thank you for telling me. What is it you're doing?"
****
Back in her room Sveta pulled out her Bible and searched for the "destroy after reading" letter. When she'd first read it, she'd thought John was just making jokes at his mother's expense, but now she realized that John just knew his mother.
She glanced down at the list again. After two hours spent flicking through the wedding file Mama had been putting together ever since the birth of her first daughter, Sveta now understood his warning that his mother would insist on a "white wedding with all the trimmings."
September, somewhere en route to Poland
Puss sat in his tent looking at the photographs of the wedding. Sveta looked beautiful. The white princess-style off-the-shoulder dress suited her and he was glad that she'd let his mother have the wedding she'd dreamed of giving his sisters. Losing both of them left up-time had hit his mother hard, which was one reason he'd been sure she'd willingly accept Sveta. That Sveta was carrying her first grandchild had just been the icing on the cake.
And speaking of icing on cake, Mom had sent him a piece of the wedding cake. He savored it as he bit into it. It was a proper fruitcake, and mom had remembered to cut him a piece with plenty of marzipan. While he let the almond flavored icing dissolve in his mouth he checked the rest of the photos. His old friend from school, James Warren, was there with his wife Kelli, and their new baby. He was glad James had accepted his request to be his stand-in; there was nobody he trusted more, and if James had so much as thought about giving Sveta more than a peck on the cheek, Kelli would have decked him.
The thought made him smile. He was getting very possessive about his Sveta. It'd just be nice if he could believe she felt the same about him. But he knew she had only married him for the sake of the baby.
Two weeks later, outside Swiebodzin, Poland
Puss took advantage of the short break to sort through the latest package from home. There was the usual re-supply of the essentials-cake, coffee, cookies, sugar, hard candy, and toilet paper-as well as some writing paper, pens and ink. But more importantly, there were letters from home. Puss distributed everything else amongst his belt webbing and saddlebags, but kept the letters separate. He selected Sveta's and pushed the rest into a jacket pocket.
Breaking the seal he was soon back in Grantville watching the movie made from a screenplay he'd written while he was on the war bonds treadmill. According to Sveta, and she would know, as she'd had the task of typing up his hand-written drafts, they'd actually followed his final screenplay relatively closely. Even to the extent of actually filming the finale at the very castle he'd used as his model. He just wished he'd been there with Sveta to see it.
"Trelli, get your men together."
The sudden thump on his back brought Puss back to the present. "What's happening?" he asked as he hastily folded Sveta's letter and put it safely away.
"Some of the auxiliaries and men of the Gray Adder have run amok and are sacking the town." Sergeant Johannes Coper, the platoon sergeant, didn't seem too concerned that the Finnish auxiliary cavalry attached to 3rd Division had run amok, but he was clearly upset that proper USE soldiers had joined them. "The general has ordered the division in to deal with them."
Puss glanced in the direction of Swiebodzin. It wasn't as if there had been a long siege or anything that would normally justify sacking the place. He turned to ask Sergeant Coper some more questions, but he'd already moved on, which meant he'd better get a move on himself. "Behrns, Cleesattel, Klein, Poppler, get your gear together and saddle up."
****
They entered Swiebodzin behind the division's own cavalry. The MPs didn't do any fighting; the cavalry did all of it. They just got to pick up the pieces.
Puss badly wanted to throw up, but he had nothing left in his stomach. The dead adults had been bad enough, but the children had been much worse. Why would anybody want to bayonet a baby? He rewrapped the baby in its swaddling and placed it beside what he assumed was his mother, who'd been raped and murdered. He stepped back, and as he looked down upon the dead mother and son, he thought of Sveta and their baby, and he wanted to kill those responsible.
But that wasn't the worst. That came when he found a girl who couldn't have been more than eight. She was naked, battered and bruised, bleeding from both the vagina and anus, and white with shock. He'd carried her shivering body to the first aid station the medics had set up in the town square. She didn't make a sound the whole time. He wasn't even sure she knew what was happening to her.
****
Puss hadn't felt anything when he helped lead the twenty, mostly still drunk, rioters who'd been c
aught in the act to the fence line in a pasture just outside Swiebodzin. There, he'd helped tie the prisoners to the wooden fence before retiring behind the firing line. From there he'd watched the executions by volley gun before advancing to supervise men of the Gray Adder regiment as they collected the shredded remains of their former colleagues and dumped them into the mass grave they'd dug earlier.
It was different when it came to the officers. For a start, they were to be executed by a regular firing squad made up of members of the volley gun batteries.
Ex-Captains Hermann auf der Mauer and Traugott Nachtigall were lined up either side of their commanding officer, ex-Major Johannes Dietrich.
"How can you allow this travesty?" Johannes Dietrich demanded as Puss checked the bindings holding him against the wood support. "We did nothing wrong."
"The men went mad when a sniper murdered Colonel Kuster," Hermann auf der Mauer said.
Puss ignored the comments, but Traugott Nachtigall took offence at his silence. "You rear end mother-fucker, what do you know of war? I bet you've never even been in combat. What right do you have to judge us?"
For a moment he saw that eight-year-old girl again. He looked at the ex-captain, and then to his own officer. "The prisoners are secure, sir."
"Very good, Sergeant. Retire your men behind the line."
Spittle from ex-captain Nachtigall struck Puss and mingled with the blood of an eight-year-old Pole. He looked up at Nachtigall, who seemed proud of his small victory. Puss gestured for his men to leave before following them.
Grantville
In the glory days of 1633 and 1634, the Grantville office of the Armed Forces Press Division had boasted over a dozen staff members, but those days were long gone. Now, the permanent staff consisted of Lieutenant Johann Dauth, the three radio operators who maintained a 24/7 radio watch, and three enlisted women who rotated the position of front desk receptionist while doing their real job of composing press releases and running them off on the duplicator machine for distribution to the local media.
There was some kind of bug going around, and the office was down to a skeleton staff, meaning, instead of getting out of the office over lunch, Sveta had to stay in the office. She'd just settled her mug of hot soup on her desk and sat down when Lieutenant Dauth burst out of the radio room waving a printout.
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