by Eric Flint
Perhaps he could try it. But not without money. General Baner was constantly nagging him for more money to support the army, but everything else that needed to be done required money, too. The mines, for example, had continuing problems from the destruction wreaked by Tilly and Mansfeld in the 1620s and early 1630s. They needed pumps; they needed to reopen the shafts when the pumps arrived; they needed transportation to bring the ore out. As manager of the elector's very large share of the joint stock company that financed the iron mines, a major part of his economic development work would be to get them back into full production.
There were reasons that Bavaria had been so greedy for the lands of the Upper Palatinate. Always, historically, these hills had furnished the financial basis for the wealth of the Palatine electors. They had produced raw materials-above all, iron. Amberg, the administrative residence, was also the center of a landscape that had, for centuries, been marked by mines and smelters. Before the war, its economic ties had extended not only into Bohemia, but also into the great mercantile cities: Regensburg and Nurnberg prime among them. The principality had traded iron for Bohemian tin; had prepared the ore for export as pig iron; had produced multiple types of wrought iron and cast iron products, as large as ship's anchors, exporting them to Venice and other ports. When he had arrived, these were gone; all gone. Mansfeld's marauders; Tilly's plunderers. Iron production had fallen to almost nothing by 1632.
His first major project had been to find out just what the resources were. It wasn't that the prior rulers hadn't kept records. Most certainly they had. But in the nearly fifteen years of war-driven chaos, they had all become obsolete; many files had been damaged or destroyed, burned or stolen; the men who knew how the indexes worked and what all the symbols meant had been driven out during the years that Maximilian of Bavaria held the country. People listed as landholders were frequently fled or dead. Businesses that were listed on tax assessment lists had been burned or smashed, the walls fallen into the basements; their owners also, very often, fled or dead. He scarcely had enough personnel to keep track of the real estate transactions; every piece of property needed to be reassessed; thousands of titles needed to be cleared. For the past six months, his staff had been crossing the territory; questioning the former Amtmaenner and Bavarian Pfleggerichter when they could be found, distributing questionnaires.
****
There was a knock on the door. Duke Ernst lifted his head and said, "Enter." Bocler came in with Zincgref. Duke Ernst did not underestimate himself, but he knew his limitations. Hard-working, conscientious, serious, and competent, "willing to do it" and "willing to try," were qualities that some people-in fact, quite a lot of people-found to be ultimately boring. He had hired a public relations man.
Zincgref was having trouble getting with the program. Neo-Latin poetry-that he could furnish almost with a wave of his hand. Admonitions to patriotism and bravery in German-a cinch. A blistering anti-Catholic polemic in either language-be my guest. A product of the late humanist circle at the University of Heidelberg, he had fifteen years of experience as a propagandist for the Palatinate, after all. But…
"Do I understand Your Grace correctly?" he asked carefully. "You want me to write an inspirational poem, in German, by tomorrow? It is to be called Der Fragebogen? It is to persuade the residents of the Upper Palatinate of the value of filling out questionnaires completely and fully? And it is to be amusing, so the people will willingly read it? Will, in fact, recite it out loud to one another in taverns and inns?"
"Precisely," said the regent.
Bocler included a summary of the instructions in his notes.
Chapter 9
Corona Conflagrens
Grantville, State of Thuringia-Franconia
It was Ash Wednesday. Athanasius Kircher, S.J., substituting for Father Larry Mazzare at the parish of St. Mary's, had made a place in his schedule, on one of the busiest days of the church year, for the three women. When Bernadette Adducci had called for an appointment, she had asked specifically that it be on Ash Wednesday. Not, as the up-timers normally asked, for an appointment on a certain day of the month. She had referenced the liturgical calendar.
He had made it his business to find something out about each of the three women who would be coming. Between running the parish, even with three curates to assist, and teaching at the high school, he did not know Father Mazzare's parishioners as well as he should. It had been-impressive. It appeared that among the up-timers, families of the middle classes, ordinary businessmen and sometimes even manual workers, educated their daughters as carefully as the down-time high nobility. Granted the absence of Latin and Greek-one always had to make allowance for the absence of classical languages among the Grantvillers.
He looked out the window. The three women had arrived.
****
"Miss Adducci, Miss Constantinault, Miss Mastroianni," he said, by way of a greeting.
Kircher noticed that Bernadette Adducci had a book in her hand. Presumably one of her own, that had not been wanted for the state library, or that she had needed for her daily work. Kircher refreshed his mind. In her mid-forties, she worked for the police department as their "juvenile officer" specializing in transgressions by, and against, children. She had an advanced degree, not in any field that was a subject of university study in his day, but she was a magister. Magistra? The word fell strangely on his ears. Her brother, Tony, the state treasurer, he knew fairly well.
She handed him the book. Over a hundred pages. Several entries on each page; for each a picture of a woman in a habit and short description. Women's religious orders as they had existed in the United States of America in-he flipped to the front-the 1950s. A half century before the Ring of Fire occurred. The four women sat quietly while he looked at it.
Finally, Miss Adducci spoke. "I entered the Daughters of Charity founded by Vincent de Paul when I was twenty years old; I left, not because of any scandal, when I was thirty-three."
She had not said, "St. Vincent de Paul." Did she think that Larry Mazzare would not have shared the original name of Grantville's parish with his assistants?
Her next question confused him. "Have you read any of Simon Jones' detective stories?" He assured her that he had read several.
"There was-is-a series that I love. An elderly nun who was a detective. Sister Mary Theresa Dempsey. I can lend you a couple of the books, if you might possibly have time to read them. I mostly borrowed them from the library, when I was working in Pittsburgh, but I bought a few in paperback that the library never got in."
Kircher noted the wryness of her smile. She was continuing. "There was one young nun in that house, among the elderly women. In one book of the series, she remarked that when she entered the order, one of her relatives had commented that she was 'climbing aboard a sinking ship.' The women's religious orders in the United States were a sinking ship. It happened in a half century, between when that was published,"-she gestured at the book in his hand-"and the time the Ring of Fire happened."
He maintained his silence. After a pause, she continued.
"Do you want to know why?"
He nodded.
"I can't answer for everyone. In part, probably, it was that there were other opportunities-the same reason that fewer women were going into elementary school teaching and nursing. But. I entered the order wanting to give a hundred percent of what I was capable, or more. By the early 1980s, though, so few young women were entering that the superiors seemed to be afraid of frightening them away. They never seemed to require more than eighty-five percent. Oh, I might have found it somewhere else. I could have asked for a transfer. In Calcutta, I am sure, Mother Teresa could have found a sufficiently strenuous job for me. But I was American; it was selfish, perhaps, but I didn't want to go so far from my family. So, what did I do? I left the order and went into social work. In social work, I assure you, Father Kircher, a person can give more than a hundred ten percent for a lifetime and still see a gaping black hole of unmet needs bef
ore her."
Kircher wondered idly what a "black hole" might be. A pit, perhaps? An abyss? Miss Adducci appeared to have said all that she intended to say. Miss Mastroianni gestured, an understandable request for permission to speak. He had noticed that many of his students used the same one and she was a teacher, a woman about thirty. He nodded.
"We've never had a house of sisters in Grantville, Father Kircher. The town could use one, now. Not the kind you're used to; women enclosed inside walls. Not contemplative. The active kind that Bernadette is talking about. All we're asking is that you think about it. If you could look at the book-see what sisters did? There's so much that we could do."
Kircher's fingers met one another. He placed his chin on them. "And the three of you are doing nothing now?"
One of the other women rose. Miss Constantinault; just appointed the chief of staff of the state court system for all of the state of Thuringia-Franconia, trained as an administrator and, to some limited extent, in the law. She looked at him sharply and said, "Not as a group-not as a unit. And not," she pointed to the "AMDG" motto on the wall of his office, "to the greater glory of God. That's why I came along. Because that is why we should be doing things."
"I will," he heard himself saying, "look at your book. Carefully."
The three women rose. "We know that you have a lot to do today," Bernadette Adducci said. "That is all we ask. Shall we plan to meet again after Easter?"
****
"There is no reason why I should not go now. There are many reasons that I should go now." Veronica Dreeson looked at her husband. Not mulishly. She did not want to look stubborn. She wished to look calmly determined. She wanted an expression of serene dignity. Her prematurely wizened face strained with the effort of assuming one.
All her life, at need, Veronica Schusterin, verw. Richter, verh. Dreeson, had been willing to argue with others when it was needed. Last fall, in Magdeburg, the Abbess of Quedlinburg's approach to life had struck her as a blinding revelation-the elegance of it. The Abbess almost never argued with anyone, because she simply assumed that no one would contradict her wishes and acted upon that assumption. Even amid the sorrow of her grandson Hans' death, Veronica had filed away in her mind the general usefulness of this approach to getting one's own way. If one could manage it.
Another tactic. "I have a letter of recommendation from the king of Sweden himself. Or," she added conscientiously, "at least one with his signature on it, though that may have been added by one of his secretaries. It introduces me to his regent in the Upper Palatinate. It requests him to assist me in obtaining a resolution of our just claims to Johann Stephan's property. So, clearly, I should go while the regent whom he named is still holding the office."
Then, to clinch the deal. "We need the money." She sat quietly. Henry could not argue with that.
Henry was doing what he called "cogitating." Ronnie let him cogitate. He knew the truth as well as she did. His salary as mayor was not large; before the Ring of Fire, when it had been only what they called a "part time" job, his salary had not existed at all. He once had a pension, a Social Security; it was gone. Fortunately he had saved money for his retirement; like any city councilman down-time, his civic service had been premised on having sufficient income to "get away from the office" and serve the public good.
The savings had come through the Ring of Fire, but they were gone. Oh, if there had been only the two of them, with his salary, her business, and the little coming in here and there from the real estate, there would have been plenty.
There were far more than two of them. Gretchen, amazingly enough, was famous now. But fame, especially fame gained by giving speeches urging other people to revolt against their superiors, did not pay many bills. At the beginning, Jeff and his friends had helped. But Jeff, Gretchen, and, presumably, Jeff's pay from the army, were now in Amsterdam, far away in the Netherlands. If Jeff's pay was not arriving in Amsterdam via letter of credit, Veronica did not have the slightest idea how the two of them were paying for their food, and rooms, and replacing shoes that wore out, and all the other necessities that came with prolonged travel, but it wasn't something that she could do anything about.
Jimmy was in Amsterdam too, presumably with his pay also arriving there. Eddie was a captive in Denmark; she didn't know where his pay was. Not in the Dreesons' bank account, certainly. She hoped that the navy bookkeepers in Magdeburg were saving it for him. Larry and Hans-she blinked quickly-had died bravely. But they weren't being paid any more. Neither of them had had legal dependents.
The other children, from Annalise on down, were still in school. She felt her face tightening into a slightly grimmer expression, in spite of her efforts to remain tranquil. What was more, Annalise would stay in school. Annalise, no matter how much she protested the matter, was going to college. She would be a member of the first class of the new women's college at Quedlinburg. And her grandmother would, somewhere, find the money to pay for it. Veronica had learned a lot, these last months, about the cost of tuition at such a school for the daughters of the elite and wealthy, the patricians, the great merchants, and the nobles. It was only reasonable that her dead husband Johann Stephan's property, if anything were left of it, should pay for his granddaughter's education.
The question of who would pay for the education of the other children as they grew older, and how, could rest for the moment. If Gretchen and Jeff returned from Amsterdam-that was an if; she would not delude herself that it was no more than a when -then she could give that problem back to them. If they did not return…
She looked across the room at Henry. He shifted in his chair. His hip was bothering him again, she could tell. If Gretchen and Jeff did not return, she hoped that the schools would be doing very, very well in another ten years. She would need every Pfennig of the income from her business.
Veronica leaned over the side of her arm chair, reaching into her widely recognized tote bag. Come to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, it proclaimed, with a large picture of a harlequin in costume. "I have an answer from the lawyer to whom I wrote earlier. It is going to be complicated. I want to retrieve anything that I can. I want to ensure that whatever is sold is sold for the maximum price. At least, for the most I can get. The economy is recovering very slowly south of the Thueringerwald. After all, Henry, it is peaceful there now. It is likely to remain peaceful there throughout the summer. Everyone says that this year's action will be to the north. In the Baltic. Where the king of Sweden is."
****
Magdeburg
"We will open the normal school next fall." Mary Simpson, sitting in the conference room of the Magdeburg offices of the Leek family's new down-time IBM corporation (manual typewriters and mechanical adding machines), put only the slightest emphasis on the word "will." "Teacher training is a project that we just have to get started."
Vanessa Clements nodded; so did Livvie Nielsen. Carol Ann Washaw, who was trying to acquire a library for the project, looked more doubtful. She was universally addressed as "Tiny" by the Grantvillers, a nickname which derived not from her present comfortable girth but rather from the size of the preemie she had been back in 1934.
"There isn't any money to open the normal school next fall." Carolyn Rush, Ben Leek's daughter and office manager, shook her head. Carolyn brought a lot of perspective to this project-fifteen years as an administrative aide in the Marion County public school system on top of an undergraduate degree in American history. "Normal schools just aren't glamorous. You can excite the upper nobility and rich merchants about opera, about ballet, libraries, even about these new women's colleges at the Damenstifte. Those have eye appeal. What's the prospect of getting them excited about re-treading hundreds or thousands of middle-aged widows and one-legged or one-armed soldiers into grade school teachers? Zilch."
Mary Simpson shook her head. "There are some. I just need to talk to the right ones. Preferably, in person. Look, Carolyn, you have been working on this long enough now to have gotten over the idea that all of
the down-time wealthy get their kicks out of being oppressors of the oppressed."
"I still don't think that we're going to get money for this one, Mary. Definitely not any tax money." Carolyn shook her head. "Even a lot of the people back home in Grantville think that it's the wrong way to handle the problem. Once we get past the crunch of these first few years, they're thinking of college-age kids; of full university educations, like the medical school in Jena. A lot of them lived through the years when the school reformers forced women who just had the two-year normal school degree out of the system. There are women in Grantville who were forced out of the system that way. They see it as a step backwards; not just gearing down, but giving up and saying that we're not going to make it; admitting that we really won't be able to make this work."
Vanessa spoke up. "It's not, really, a lot different than the teacher training program they're starting at the middle school, now that they've finally faced up to the fact that their existing teachers aren't immortal and they'd better start getting some new ones into the pipeline."
"Notice that they aren't calling it a normal school. There's a lot in a name," Tiny answered.
"Well, then." Mary smiled sweetly. "Think of another name. That's the next assignment for the marketing department. That's you, Livvie. Community college; teachers' college. Pick it. Just make sure that the curriculum stays aimed at turning out grade school teachers, K-8. And plan to open on a shoestring. Get Otto Gericke to let you use any unfilled space in the new building for the Magdeburg Gymnasium next year. Admit more people than he gives you space for, to show that the demand is there. While you do that, I'm going to find some money. Real money."