by Eric Flint
He was not only reassured. He could (and did) congratulate himself on his wisdom in not having transferred Jacques-Pierre Dumais somewhere else. In spite of the extra cost he had absorbed by hiring someone else in that someplace else.
The thought of hauling crates of pamphlets from Frankfurt to Grantville did not please him. He rarely rode. Because of his bulk, it was too hard on all but the largest and strongest of horses. But he preferred a lightweight wagon, a cart, really. He only hauled enough wine for his personal use, and let teamsters move the commercial loads. That's what freight companies were for. Pamphlets would be too heavy. He would just get Dumais his own duplicating machine.
At least he now had a good reason to visit Grantville again. The Higgins Hotel. The hot tub. Aahhh.
Grantville
"It is part of the 'destabilization' campaign against Richelieu."
"What is the connection?"
Mauger frowned. The truth was that he could not perceive much connection between demonstrating against the hospital in Grantville and undermining Richelieu's position in the French government.
Dumais laughed. "Ah, well. They have a poem, these up-timers, from a war in the Crimea that, now, will probably never happen. 'Ours not to reason why, ours but to do or die." If they want a demonstration, they shall have one. I assure you. But why, specifically, on the fourth of March?"
"They simply had to pick a date, I presume. It is far enough away that you will have plenty of time to make arrangements. Now, as for money…"
Jacques-Pierre poured another glass of wine.
Yes. There were possibilities associated with his dinner companions.
Laurent Mauger was a lonely man. He had talked quite a lot during the course of their association. While he was grieving after the death of his wife, his sons and nephews had extracted a pledge from him that he would not remarry and beget a second family. They didn't want to see their inheritances dispersed. Not just a promise. A legally binding contract.
As far as he knew, Mauger's pledge had not contained any proviso about remarriage to a woman beyond childbearing age. Any widow required some provision for her support, of course, but was a temporary thing that reverted to her husband's family after her death. Not the same thing as shares allotted to additional children.
Madame Velma Hardesty, in addition to being Michael Stearns' cousin, was not a bad-looking woman-for a sleazy floozy. Silently, Jacques-Pierre rolled the English words on his tongue; he appreciated their euphony. She must sans doute be beyond childbearing age. He could scarcely confirm it, of course, since it would not be tactful for him to ask and would be most out of character for him to investigate that at the Bureau of Vital Statistics. Doing things that were out of character drew attention to oneself: something to be scrupulously avoided. But the oldest daughter, he had ascertained, was past twenty. And there had been a first marriage, which had produced the hopefully-to-become-a-valuable-contact son in the army. With the up-timer women it was hard to judge from their appearance, but presuming that she had married at the normal age, even a little young
… She had to be fifty, at least.
Mauger was taking a good look. Madame Hardesty was talking about money again. Money, Jacques-Pierre knew, was something that Laurent Mauger had plenty of.
Jacques-Pierre poured more wine. Mauger had brought plenty of that, too.
Madame Hardesty said that It Was Meant to Be.
Jacques-Pierre had missed something while he was thinking about Mauger. He nodded his head solemnly. When Madame Hardesty said that something was Meant to Be, it was usually followed by a quotation from her most recent horoscope. Nodding seemed safe enough.
Madame Hardesty was certainly Meant to leave Grantville. Preferably before her conversation drove him insane.
Mauger leaned far enough forward that he could look down Madame Hardesty's yellow-eyelet-ruffle outlined cleavage.
Velma went to bed feeling pretty good about things.
Mauger went to bed thinking about Madame Hardesty's beauty. Particularly her lack of a corset.
Jacques-Pierre went home to unpack his new Vignelli duplicating machine. At least the Dutchman had brought quite a few useful things this time. Plus instructions.
Nothing about Ducos or Locquifier. Mauger never mentioned their names, but that was not surprising. Mauger's awareness didn't go beyond Isaac de Ron. Behind de Ron, in the background, there was some wealthy Huguenot patriot whom he represented, as far as Mauger was concerned.
Jacques-Pierre's own belief was that after the debacle associated with the failed attempt to assassinate the pope in Rome the previous summer, Ducos and his closest associates had somehow managed to find a hiding place in England, so it made sense that his directives would be coming through the Netherlands and Frankfurt now.
Interesting instructions. And the wonderful provision of a genuine duplicating machine. Jacques Pierre drummed his fingers on the table. Propaganda and planning. The coming winter would not be dull.
If only he could get rid of Velma Hardesty before he succumbed permanently to la migraine.
"I tell you, Veda Mae, I grinned when I looked in the mirror." Velma gestured dramatically, to draw attention to her nails. She was getting a lot of good, now, from the fact that back up-time she hadn't been able to walk into a drugstore without buying cosmetics. She still had nail polish. Today, her nails featured an azure undercoat with white tips and a little glitter on each one.
"What do you have to grin about?"
"Just look at me! Jacques-Pierre comes over to the trailer and talks to me for an hour or two at least three or four times a week. He's giving me ideas that I'm supposed to Meditate on. Mental Enlightenment and Spiritual Comfort. It's done wonders. I have to admit it."
"You're about as able to meditate as… as… an ostrich."
"I do try to meditate, just like he says. A whole five minutes, twice a day. And to share my new insights. He gives me Themes. For each one of them, I'm supposed to walk around town every day until I've talked to at least four people. I'm supposed to Share Words of Enlightened Wisdom."
"Have people started to run when they see you coming?"
"Well, of course not. I'm supposed to share each Theme with four different people. I don't bother with that, most of the time. Whenever he gives me a new one, I share it with the receptionist at the Probate Court and the receptionist in Maurice Tito's office, since I have to go talk to them about Susan's money and the custody of Susan, anyway. Dropping off papers and things like that."
"Captive audiences, then. Figures."
"But I have to do extra walking to find enough people to share the rest of the Themes. By now, I know almost every place in town where I can be sure of finding several all at once. The checkout line at the grocery store. The line for the circulation desk at the public library. I figure that even if I just say it to the person behind the counter, I've had shared it with everyone in line. Don't you think so?"
"More captive audiences."
"With all the extra walking, I've lost four pounds. If the bathroom scale is right, which I can't guarantee. It's ancient. Really, having someone who listens to me-really listens-has made so much difference in my life. So I owe you."
Veda Mae blinked.
"I can see what you were trying to tell me, now. It really does have to be Meant that Jacques-Pierre came to Grantville. He agrees that I ought to have custody of Susan. Or, least, take care of her money. He promised to help me. At least, he nodded his head the other evening, when I said it was Meant to Be."
"Mummph."
"So now I'll pay even more attention to his other suggestions in regard to Mental Enlightenment and Spiritual Comfort."
"I bet there isn't a single soul in Grantville who believes that the only comfort he's offered you is spiritual."
"Hell, Veda Mae. I scarcely believe it myself. But let me tell you something, Even if Jean-Pierre isn't interested, his friend Laurent Mauger definitely is. A girl can tell that kind of thing."
As soon as Mauger left town again-his comings and goings served more or less as punctuation marks for the sentences that Jacques-Pierre's experiences in Grantville were writing in the story of his life-it was time to send another report to Henri de Rohan.
Dumais passed on what Mauger brought him in the way of new instructions from de Ron. Exactly and precisely as he had received them. Since de Ron would also be sending a report to the duke, the duke could worry about the question of whether Mauger had manipulated or misinterpreted anything.
In response to a question he had received from the duke himself, Jacques-Pierre confirmed his belief that that Henry Dreeson and his wife Veronica had, during this autumn, become some sort of symbols-icons or "morale builders" as the up-timers described it-of significance beyond the town of Grantville itself. Even beyond the borders of West Virginia County. Possibly even beyond the borders of the State of Thuringia-Franconia. He included things he'd heard various people say about Dreeson's "your local government in action" tour over in the Fulda and Frankfurt region.
***
"When are you going back to Magdeburg?" Jacques-Pierre asked. He didn't mind having a sandwich with Bryant Holloway here at the Willard Hotel in the evenings. The food was awful, true. But otherwise it was more pleasant than the 250 Club. It certainly smelled better.
"Not right away. I guess Steve has some inkling that Stannard and I aren't the best of pals. He's sending me over to Frankfurt, on a temporary assignment, to work with the militia on getting fire prevention up to standard there. Actually, even though Frankfurt is Kraut country too, this won't be bad."
"In what way?"
"Well, for one thing, it will let me save some money. Nathan Prickett-he's married to my wife's sister-is over there, working on getting the city militia used to the new weapons systems that Suhl is delivering to the USE. I can stay with him; not pay rent. I should be back about the middle of December. Before Christmas, anyhow."
"Ah. This man Prickett. He is your brother-in-law?"
"No. That would be the relationship if he was married to my sister Lola. Or if I had married his sister. I'm not exactly sure myself what you call someone who's married to your wife's sister. If you're interested in finding out, I could introduce you to some of the ladies in the Genealogy Club. They know that sort of stuff."
"I would appreciate it." Jacques-Pierre meant that quite sincerely. Whenever he received a new introduction, to find out the answer to some question that he was legitimately asking, it gave him wonderful entree into more of Grantville. From some member of this genealogy club, perhaps he really could come to have a reason to go places like the Bureau of Vital Statistics. With all of its files that were guarded so protectively by the formidable Ms. Jenny Maddox.
"Actually," Bryant was saying. "Prickett's mom belongs that club. I'll introduce you to her. And he might have been my brother-in-law if things had turned out different. He dated Lola for a while, before he started going out with Chandra Jenkins and Lola married Latham Beckworth. Grantville was a pretty small town, after all, before the Ring of Fire. Everybody knew everybody else, just about, and a lot of us are related to each other. He and Lola got into a big fight about politics and broke up. She was pretty much a left wing Democrat and he sure wasn't. It added a certain something to their relationship. They'd done it three or four times before-fought and broken up. I was sort of surprised when the last time turned out to be permanent."
"This Beckworth, then, is your brother-in-law."
"Not any more. They're divorced and both looking, sort of. They've been stuck at that level for five years, though, so I'm not holding my breath that either one of them will get married again. She caught his eyes wandering while she still hadn't quite gotten her figure back from the second kid. Well, more than his eyes wandering. She caught him and this other gal doing the horizontal tango, ten toes up and ten toes down."
"She initiated the divorce procedure, then?"
"Damn tootin'. Hell, but she was mad. Called Mom and Dad, who drove over from Clarksburg. Called me-I was working in Fairmont then. Called Latham's father. It's got to be humiliating for a woman when her husband goes out and diddles a woman a dozen years older than she is. The stuff she said about Velma, you would hardly believe."
"Velma?" Jacques-Pierre asked tentatively.
"Velma Hardesty," Bryant answered. "You know her. I've seen you talking to each other."
"Yes, I do know her. We were introduced by Veda Mae Haggerty."
"Just like us, huh?" Bryant commented.
Jacques-Pierre nodded. He was thinking that Velma Hardesty could become a liability. More than merely a cause of la migraine. When Mauger got back…
Jacques-Pierre did not particularly like the fat Netherlander, but the man was rich. Certainly rich enough to attract Madame Hardesty. Certainly, if all went well, rich enough to remove her from this town.
That wasn't part of his assignment, of course. But in some things, a man had to look out for his own welfare. Take the initiative. Much more of Madame Hardesty's conversation and he would run out into the night, screaming.
Mauger had not tried to lay a hand on Madame Hardesty. When he left town the morning after their introduction, though, she had come to the hotel to tell him good-bye. He had assured her that he would be back in a few weeks.
That was a possibility with some potential. If properly managed, it might even offer some hope.
Chapter 18
Grantville
Simon Jones stood at the livery stable next to the still-under-construction St. Thomas the Apostle Lutheran Church, right outside the Ring of Fire, on the main road to Badenburg. Really the not-yet-much-more-than-a-foundation St. Thomas the Apostle church. With winter coming on, it would probably keep that status until next spring.
They had come into Grantville from the west. The trip back had been shorter. The Duchy of Tirol had granted them safe-conducts. It seemed that among the changes in the political picture, the duchess-regent there, who was Italian, was sending out feelers to the USE. Probably nervous about Maximilian of Bavaria.
Coming through Bavaria would not have been prudent. Not at all. Swabia was still really uneasy, too. So they'd gone northwest through Switzerland, and then down the Rhine. Whatever else Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar might be up to, he was keeping the river open for commercial traffic. Then, up the Main to Frankfurt, the Imperial Road to Erfurt, and then the Erfurt-Badenburg-Grantville route.
The crews had done a lot to improve the Badenburg-Grantville road since the embassy left for Venice last winter. Of course, Thuringia had been through another prime road-improvement season since then. Now the road was not only graded and ditched, with a single wagon-width of gravel for bad weather, but macadamized on a double track, starting right where Route 250 came to an end and going all the way to Badenburg. Same thing from there up to the trade route.
After he had transferred the Gentileschis' luggage, he looked down toward the trolley stop just inside the Ring of Fire's border. He was very glad to be getting off a horse and onto a trolley. Very. He understood the priorities that were pushing the railroad north past Magdeburg. It would be great when a spur went west. It would be worth a big detour not to have to travel from Erfurt by horseback.
Pushing it south was so far off that there wasn't even any point in dreaming. He'd probably be dead before people could get on the train in Nurnberg and get off again in Grantville.
Ron and Gerry Stone, ignoring the trolley, were starting off for Lothlorien on foot. He looked after them, a little wistfully. Thirty or forty years ago, he would have had that much energy, too. At the age of fifty-two, he welcomed a seat on the trolley. A seat in which he could sit and worry about Gerry until he got home and finally saw his wife and kids again.
The trolley station had a pay phone. Not one that accepted coins. You paid the station attendant and got to use his phone. Simon called Mary Ellen and told her that he was on the very final leg of the trip back.
She said that she w
ould let everyone at First Methodist know. And call the Nobilis and let Prudentia know that her mother was on her way.
He would really rather have gotten a good night's sleep before facing a reunion at First Methodist. He had been a minister for years, though. He realized that it wasn't feasible. He would say hello to everyone at church, eat a potluck dinner, and sleep later. Or, maybe, be too tired to sleep. Or, with better luck, not be too tired to sleep. He had really missed Mary Ellen.
Ron and Gerry left the hired horses they had ridden in on at the livery stable. They left most of the baggage there, too, in the lockup. Ron told the manager that he'd send a cart for it in the morning. The shouldered their backpacks and headed up the road to Lothlorien.
"Are you going to get a horse of your own now?" Gerry asked. "I won't need one, in Rudolstadt, and I can always take the train back and forth between school and home. But to get back and forth between the dye works and town, you might need one."
Ron shook his head. "I hadn't really thought about it. There's no hurry and I really don't like to ride, just for its own sake. It's really almost as fast to walk back and forth, and if I have things to carry, I can always hitch a ride on a delivery wagon if I remember to schedule my meetings right."
"Look, Minnie!" Denise yelled over the sound of the motors. "It's Gerry! He's back."
"Gerry?"
"Stone. Well, maybe you didn't know him. You didn't start school until the fall of '33 and you were over in the ESOL classes then. He left for Italy with his folks the next January. But it's impossible to miss him when you do see him. Carrot top. Freckles."
"Should I run over him for you?"
"No! He's almost the only boy who was ever nice to me, back in elementary school. Polite nice, I mean. He was one year behind me, before I got sick and lost a grade-had to do it over, I mean. Since then, we've been in the same class. And he stayed nice. Not trying to grope me after I got into middle school and started to develop. Sort of absentminded about it. I don't know whether he meant to be nice to me but, he's not a pain. And he knows more chemicals to play pranks with than the average person would ever dream of. Picked the right targets. Not afraid of a fight if someone tries to hassle him. He isn't afraid of guns, either, but he's not a very good shot. You can't have everything, though. I want to offer him a lift up to Lothlorien. You can haul the other guy."