by Eric Flint
Friedrich somehow kept reading, slowly, and in almost a monotone, punctuated by the sobbing of the woman in the bed. He read on and on, until the end.
" 'Dear child, keep this letter secret so that people do not find it, else I shall be tortured most piteously and the jailers will be beheaded. So strictly is it forbidden. . . . Dear child, pay this man a dollar . . . I have taken several days to write this: my hands are both lame. I am in a sad plight . . . Good night, for your father Johannes Junius will never see you more. 24 July, 1628.' "
There was silence, except for Veronica's sobbing.
"You see, Father," she said through her tears, "he was innocent. There is a scribble in the margin, Father Friedrich. Can you read that, too?"
"Ja. 'Dear child, six have confessed against me at once: the chancellor, his son, Neudecker, Zaner, Hoffmeisters Ursel and Hoppfen Els—all false, through compulsion, as they have all told me, and begged my forgiveness in God's name before they were executed. . . . They know nothing but good of me. They were forced to say it, just as I myself was . . .' "
Veronica looked hard at Mazzare.
"They had a chance to steal a fortune," she said. "So they accused rich and powerful men, and tortured them until they confessed, and stole their goods and homes. And their families were put out in the street like me."
"And even then it wasn't enough, Father. They sent Eberhardt to find me. He tracked me down from Bamberg to Würzburg, and arrested me for being a witch. I told him I wasn't a witch but he wouldn't listen.
"But Father, even if it damns me to say this, I must. That Father Eberhardt, I'd put a spell on him, all right, if I could, but I don't know any."
"I see," Mazzare said.
Mazzare brushed his hair back from his face with both hands. He sighed, and said, "Veronica, you're safe here. We don't burn witches in Grantville. We don't believe in torture in Grantville. We don't really even believe in witches in Grantville! We will have a trial, as soon as you are well, and then you will go free."
Von Spee stared at him.
* * *
Mazzare morosely sipped his tea and read his breviary at the kitchen table in the rectory. He'd invited von Spee to spend the night at the church, and the two of them had said an early mass and come back into the kitchen for tea. Neither man spoke much as they waited for Hannelore to fix breakfast.
The screen door banged, and Mazzare looked up. Simon Jones barged into the kitchen, smiling. Mazzare's friend, fellow auto mechanic and the town's Methodist minister began pouring himself a cup of tea.
"The Good Lord knows I hope we can talk the Turks into selling us more coffee beans," he said, by way of greeting. "They are still pretty expensive for coffee every morning."
"The Good Lord is getting more help along those lines from the Abrabanel family, from what I heard," Mazzare replied. Von Spee' eyes widened. Like every Jesuit, he knew his politics, and he knew who the Abrabanels were. It was not widely known that they were supporting the United States. Interesting, he thought, very interesting indeed.
"I hear you were out late last night with a beautiful woman," Jones needled.
"That's not very funny, Simon!" Mazzare said. "You know Vincent de Paul? The guy this church was named for? Well, he is still alive, campaigning over there in France to keep priests out of the whorehouses, did you know that? The Church in this time has much to answer for, I think."
"Whoa, there, my friend," Reverend Simon Jones put up his hands. "Easy. I was only kidding."
Jones noticed von Spee. He smiled at him, and looked questioningly at Mazzare.
Mazzare said, "Father Friedrich, this is Simon Jones. He is a Protestant minister here in Grantville, and my good friend." Wondering, but remembering his own friendship with Professor Muenster in Jena, Friedrich shook Jones's hand. Mazzare was continuing to speak.
"It's this whole darn witchcraft thing. We got another one last night. A young woman named Veronica Junius from Bamberg. It seems her father was burned for witchcraft, so they assumed she was a witch, too, and they were all set to burn her at the stake! For real! Tom Simpson shot the leader just as he was going to put his sword through Heinrich Schmidt's head."
"Yeah, they did it a lot in this century, here and in England. And in America, too . . . remember the Salem witch trials? It wasn't just the Catholics, you know."
"Well, we've got to do something about it, Simon." Mazzare looked straight at his friend. "It's like the Church thinks that every woman is the 'wicked witch of the west' nya-ah-ah! Too bad we can't get them to think about Glinda the Good Witch instead."
"Um, why can't we?" Jones said, slowly, thinking.
"What?"
"Well, you have a tape of The Wizard of Oz, don't you? Why don't we have Becky show it? And we can have a discussion afterward with young Miss Junius and Melissa and maybe Gretchen or one of her friends from Jena."
"Okay," Mazzare said. "That works for inside the United States. Now we have to figure out what to do outside the United States."
Friedrich von Spee was completely confused by the back and forth. He had no idea what the two Americans were talking about. He started to interrupt, but Mazzare suddenly stiffened, and rose half out of his seat.
"Wait a minute," he said.
Mazzare got up and went into his study. He returned with a large volume.
"Catholic Encyclopedia," he said. "I want to look something up. Let's see. 'witchcraft' . . . yes, here it is. I thought I remembered it."
"What did you find, Larry?" Jones stood and peered over his friend's shoulder.
"This. Look here. 'Friedrich von Spee: a poet, opponent of trials for witchcraft . . .' He sounds like a pretty good guy. I think we need to find him."
"Um." The sound came from von Spee.
The two Americans looked at him. He came forward, and as he did so, they noticed he was shaking.
"May I please see that book?" Von Spee's voice quavered, and he took the book from Mazzare.
He looked at the cover, then he turned to the page Mazzare had been reading from, and read haltingly aloud.
"Friedrich von Spee. A poet, opponent of trials for witchcraft, born at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, 25 February, 1591; died at Trier 7 August, 1635." Friedrich swallowed heavily, and kept reading. " . . . During the storming of Trier by the imperial forces in March, 1635, he distinguished himself in the care of the suffering, and died soon afterwards from the results of an infection contracted in a hospital. He was one of the noblest and most attractive figures of the awful era of the Thirty Years' War . . ."
He looked at Mazzare and Jones.
"It . . . it is not every day that a man gets to read the judgement of history upon him," Friedrich said.
The two Americans sat, staring at him.
"I am sorry not to have properly introduced myself last night, Father Mazzare," he continued. "I am Friedrich von Spee."
* * *
Friedrich von Spee crumpled up the letter he had started to write so few days before. He went to the window and stared out of it, at nothing.
"Not my will, but thine, almighty Father," he said to himself, softly.
He returned to his desk, took out a new piece of paper, lifted his pen, and began to write.
"AMDG. Father Friedrich von Spee, of the Society of Jesus, to His Excellency, Mutius Vitelleschi, Father General of the Society," he wrote. "It is with a chastened heart that I accept your rebuke, Father General. I did not intend the Cautio Criminalis to be published. But, with respect, Excellency, I must tell you that nothing in the work is false. I have attended the confessions of over two hundred witches up to now, and I have never heard one confess except after torture and the rack.
"I have just returned from the new town of Grantville, which I am certain you have heard of by now. I am now convinced that all of the witches I have seen burned have been completely innocent.
"I have brought back with me to Würzburg copies of some books that were given to me by Father Mazzare, the priest in Grantville. Th
ey have a marvelous machine that flashes a strong light at the pages of a book and produces an exact replica without a printing press. Father Mazzare showed me the workings, and explained them so far as I was able to understand them. It is an entirely mechanical device, and nothing of witchcraft. Father Mazzare himself is a scientist and artisan, I believe. I have put together a package of some of these copies to include with this letter.
"I am asking for your permission to publish the Cautio Criminalis in my own name, and with official imprimatur. I am certain that your permission will be forthcoming once you have read these books.
"Father General, I beg you to permit me to continue as I have begun, for as a priest of God, and a theologian, I can do no other."
The Three R's
Jody Dorsett
Bishop Comenius put down the page of the book he was working on. Swedish was not his best language, and he had to be very precise in what he was doing. He hoped that writing textbooks for the Swedes would pay his way, and the Church desperately needed more money to help the Brethren scattered across Poland and the rest of Northern Europe. Since the publication of his work Janua linguarum reserata several years before he had received many requests for his time. Now that he had recently been elected bishop of the Unitas Fratum he hoped those contacts would help him save the Church.
That effort consumed much of his time; more still was taken up earning a living. He had barely enough time for his personal work, the Didactica magna, a revolutionary concept of universal education. He had no way of knowing when, or if, he would get it published. His fear of the Brethren fading away occupied his every spare thought. These works were the beginning of what he was slowly coming to accept was a long-term vision. The planting of seeds.
His ruminations were disturbed by a knock at the door of his study.
"Bishop?" The young minister quietly asked, interrupting as gently as he could. "There is a man here to see you . . . Jan Billek?"
"Deacon Billek? Here? By all means, send him in Timothy, send him in!"
Jan entered the garret room, his body filling the doorway. He looked much the same as he had the last time they had seen each other, only much grayer. Comenius rushed forward and grabbed the hand of the man. "Praise be, that I get to see you again, Jan Billek!"
"Yes, Bishop, it has been quite awhile."
They both stopped and looked at each other. Remembering the horror after White Mountain and Bloody Prague, the time following Tilly's victory and the capture of the barons. The time when Liechtenstein had declared the Brethren apostate, banished them from Bohemia, and turned the Brethren into penniless, desperate refugees. Burned their Bibles, hymnals, and catechisms, and placed them in the position they were in now—the head of the church an exile in the Netherlands, and the congregations reduced to running or hiding.
"What brings you, Deacon Billek, from far away Poland to here? It was surely an arduous journey."
"I came to speak to you about the future of the Church, my Bishop."
"I've read your reports from Lissel. I hope you have received my observations?"
"Yes, Bishop. I have read your letters, and they give us strength. It has given us hope these last many years, that now you will one day get us the help we need to bring the Church back to its home."
Comenius sat back down in his chair. Not long ago he had taught and fought vigorously for not only the evangelical expansion of the Church, but the need to ally with others. He had felt that there was, or at least should be, a common bond between the Protestant nations and people. It was one of the reasons the synod had selected him. Now, away from the halls of academia that he had trod for so long, he realized that theory and practice were quite different. That realization had made his publishing efforts even more important to him. He had committed himself to finding a savior for his people, and would seek it where he could, but his heart was committed to an effort that would take years.
"I know you hope that, and I petition for aid from all I can, but help is not forthcoming. And you must know from my letters, that I have begun to plant what I hope are the seeds of rebirth for the Church. That when the time is right, it will grow again. You and your fellows' acts of distributing the printed Word to the people, even if they hide them away, is a great help." Comenius paused, then forged ahead. "But anything else might bring about the destruction of the Church. We must wait."
"Sir, perhaps not." Jan went to the window, and looked out of it. "You've heard that Wallenstein's army was routed at the Alte Veste? Wallenstein himself badly wounded—some rumors say mortally."
"Yes, I have heard."
Billek turned from the window and looked at the last bishop of the Church of The Brethren. "Wallenstein's army is smashed, true, but so long as the Habsburgs rule Bohemia, we will find no succor at home. But that victory over the Habsburgs has made me think of these new folk. The 'Americans,' as they seem to be called, whom the rumors say were instrumental in his defeat. Perhaps they might help us. I don't know how much you know about them, or even if you have considered contacting them."
"All we hear are wild rumors, Deacon Billek. That they are 'witches' and other such nonsense. Nothing is really known of them, and I hesitate to contact an unknown."
"I have tried to glean a little about them. One of the first things I found was that the Jesuits are also collecting information. That must be a good sign."
Billek and Comenius exchanged a hard smile at the thought of the Jesuits having consternation over the appearance of the new folk.
"Hmmp . . . Another foe for them, you think?"
"I don't know. But what I have found out is very interesting. Although they are allied with the Swedish Lutherans, they apparently believe in complete religious tolerance. They are highly educated, and have great command of the physical sciences. And they have interesting ideas of freedom for every person. I am reminded of Zizka, and the early Church. None could stand before them."
"I see." Comenius was intrigued. Education and tolerance were some of the seeds he wanted to plant. Perhaps there was something here after all.
"What is that you want me to do, Deacon Billek? I can hardly show up at their court with no prior knowledge, and ask them for aid."
"That's why I'm here, my Bishop. I want to go there. Give me a letter of introduction as your emissary. I will find out enough about them for you to determine if you wish to pursue further talks with them yourself."
Comenius didn't respond at once. He was torn between the sudden flare of hope, and the experience of rejection. He also didn't want to lose Billek. He was one of his rocks in Poland, and he kept the Church alive, even if hidden. But Comenius also knew that everyday Billek spent outside of the Protestant countries he was at risk.
"All right, Deacon Billek, you'll have your letter. But I ask one favor in return."
"What might that be, my Bishop?"
"That you consider receiving your ordination and taking a congregation."
For the first time since he entered the room, Jan smiled.
* * *
The first part of Jan's journey was not as hard as he feared. Comenius' contacts with the Swedish court helped get him first to Sweden, and then to Germany. He was able to accompany a Swedish supply column until he was close enough to the area of Thuringia that he believed held the Americans. The last leg was a different story.
When Jan entered the region that lay close to the country of the Americans, he was appalled at the devastation. It was worse than anything he had seen in Bohemia or Poland. Whole areas in central Germany were almost devoid of people. Struggling groups of refugees abounded, and towns were not pleased to see strangers. The constant reports of bands of brigands forced him to move at night. He had learned to travel at night during his travels back into Bohemia, but he didn't like it. It took longer to travel.
Then, suddenly, everything changed. While the country he was in still showed the ravages of war, the roads began to show cart traffic, and clots of people traveling in apparent relaxatio
n. Jan walked along the road and listened to the people. Some were refugees on the edge of collapse, following the rumors of a safe haven. However, there were many others who were in better shape. These were apparently traveling to the town called Grantville not out of necessity but because they were on some business or other. This was the type of group he wanted.
The group he approached allowed him to join without too much of a glance, since he only carried a small bag and a walking staff. Despite his size, his lack of weapons seemed to gain him acceptance in a group all too familiar with what even the smallest band of armed men could do.
Shortly after noon on the next day, the small band he had attached himself to came to a halt. In front of them was a small tollbooth, and men in strangely colored garb surrounded it. Some held familiar muskets, but others held what were surely weapons but unlike any that Jan had ever seen before. The group was formed into a queue. Jan could see that each was asked a question, and then directed off to another area.
When he reached the front of the queue, he was confronted by a man with blazing red hair, a full beard and mustache. He wore the oddly colored clothing that many of the others wore, but his boots were those of a cavalryman and he carried a brace of pistols on his belt. Jan took him to be one of the officers. He then asked, in the most atrocious German Jan had ever heard "Lord, yer a big 'un. Be yer here fer business, or be yer fleeing?"
"I come from my bishop. But . . . perhaps there is another language that we may speak in, that you may be more comfortable in?"
The answer was clearly longer, and different, than the man had expected, and it took him a moment to parse it out. Then he grinned and replied, in some of the worst English Jan had ever heard: "If yer speak English it would be a vurra good thing. We don't get many past here that speak naught else but German. You say you come from yer bishop. Are ye a Catholic then?"
Jan couldn't help but chuckle a bit. "Hardly, sir, I come from Bishop Comenius, of the Unity of Brethren. I wish to present my papers to your court."