Ring of Fire IV

by Eric Flint

  Moved by a sudden impulse, she rose from her little writing table and went to the door. Captain Lefferts might still be awake and she could ask him the questions immediately, while they were still fresh in her mind.

  But at the door, she hesitated. Was that really why she wanted to see if he was still awake?

  She couldn’t decide, and the uncertainty made her feel half-mad. Normally, Eva found it easy to assess her own moods and sentiments. But whenever they moved in the direction of Captain Lefferts, they became chaotic, confused—

  Well, not exactly. Chaotic, yes; confused, no.

  “Ah!” With that little inarticulate cry of frustration, she opened the door and went into the corridor beyond. Litsa’s room was directly across from hers, that of the Stone couple a short distance away. The captain, along with the other men in their party, slept on the floor below.

  The hallway was very dark. Feeling particularly foolish, Eva went back into her room to fetch a candle. Lighting it from her reading lamp, she went back into the corridor and headed for the stairs.

  She was light-footed and wearing slippers, so she made little noise going down the stairs and even less once she reached the corridor on the floor below. Captain Lefferts’ room, thankfully, was not far away—the second one on the right.

  As soon as she reached the landing she could see the crack of light below the door to the captain’s room. He was still awake, apparently. Moving quickly so as to keep her cautious instincts at bay, she went to the door and knocked on it.

  “Come in,” came the captain’s voice.

  She opened the door and went inside. Lefferts was sitting at a small table with a book open before him. When he saw her, he smiled broadly. “What can I do for you, Your Serene Highness?”

  Not sure what to say, she looked around and saw that Barbeline was curled up on the bed alongside the wall. She felt even more foolish than she had walking into a dark corridor with no candle. She’d completely forgotten about the little French girl. As attached as Barbeline had so obviously become to Captain Lefferts, she’d no doubt insisted on staying with him.

  Seeing the direction of Eva’s gaze, the captain glanced at the girl on the bed and his broad smile became a grin. “It seems I’ve acquired my own barnacle. Or maybe—me being me—I ought to call her my own pilot fish. I offered to get her a room of her own, but she insisted on staying with me. She is one stubborn little kid.”

  Eva had no idea what to do. The half-formed desires and intentions that had driven her to the captain’s room disintegrated.

  “I…I don’t—” She threw up her hands, turned and left the room. Behind her, she heard the captain say “Eva—wait.” But she ignored that and sped back up the stairs.

  Moments later she was back in her own room. She went to the table and stared down at the manuscript she’d been working on. She began turning the pages, but she was so addlepated she had trouble even making sense of the sentences she was reading.

  —fortunately, Tom Simpson was a big man and a decisive one. He just picked Ms. Mailey up and started down the escape ramp. Within seconds—

  —bishop Laud was still unconscious. That was Tom at work, again. The man’s fists are as big as a—

  —not sure how many men Julie took off the wall. At least ten, I figure, but it might have been—

  “Eva,” said the captain.

  Startled, she turned and saw that he was standing in the open doorway. She must have forgotten to close it behind her.

  Forgotten? Eva knew herself too well to believe that.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Lefferts.

  Suddenly—finally—everything made sense to her. For a moment, all she felt was relief. Eva really, really hated being confused and uncertain.

  No longer. She knew what she would do. And while she was uncertain as to how the captain would respond, that didn’t matter. Not so much, anyway. Whatever else, she would not spend the rest of a lifetime cursing herself for being a coward.

  She stepped away from the table and gestured at the chair with her hand. “Please, Captain. Sit down. I have things I wish to say.”

  Looking far more solemn than he normally did, Lefferts sat down in the chair. While he did so, Eva went to the door and closed it.

  Turning to face him directly, she said: “I was born in September of the year 1613. So I am not even twenty-three years old, yet. I am quite healthy. I survived smallpox and I’ve never had a serious illness since. Barring ill fortune, I still have two-thirds of my life ahead of me. Perhaps more, with the new medical knowledge you Americans have brought with you.”

  She couldn’t meet his direct gaze for the next words. So she looked slightly aside. “I do not—whatever else—want to spend every day of that life ahead of me regretting that I lacked the will to do something which—”

  She started to falter, then.

  “Eva—”

  “Please, Captain.” She held up her hand. “I need to say this.”

  He laughed, softly. “Fine. But will you—finally—call me ‘Harry’ instead of that damn ‘captain’?”

  “All right—Harry.” Still not finding the words, she decided to approach the matter indirectly. She reached up and touched her cheek. “The pox scars. They are mostly just on my face. There are not very many anywhere…else. In most places, none at all.”

  He rose from the chair. “It doesn’t matter, Eva. Either way, I don’t care. I never would, I never will. I don’t even notice them any more, really. They’re just part of you.”

  “Sit down,” she commanded. He obeyed.

  She was finally able to relax a bit. She believed him, but it was important that she remain in control.

  “I will show you.” She began to disrobe, starting with the bodice. “There are some scars here, on my left shoulder.” Turning around: “And some there, in the middle of my back.”

  Once the bodice was off, she faced him again. “None at all on my breasts, though, as you can see.”

  He started to rise again.

  “Sit,” she commanded. “I am not finished.”

  It took longer to remove the rest of her clothing, especially since she insisted on showing him the line of scars that ran down the back of her left thigh and the little clusters on the outside of both ankles.

  “None on my feet,” she concluded. Taking off the slippers, she turned away from him again and lifted each foot so he could see the soles. “Not one scar there, anywhere.”

  She started to turn around but the captain was on his feet again—and this time it was quite obvious he would not listen to any command to sit back down. He picked her up—so easily; the man was very strong—and brought her to the bed.

  He was gentle, though, laying her down. As he began removing his own clothes, Eva laughed and clapped her hands.

  “You don’t boast anyway, Captain—Harry—but it wouldn’t matter if you did. You and I both know the truth.” She was probably grinning like a maniac. “I seduced you, not the other way around. Captain Harry Lefferts! Brought to bed by me. Eva Katherine von Anhalt-Dessau, the ugly one.”

  “You are not ugly,” he growled, sliding nude onto the bed. His hand began to caress her. “You are so, so beautiful.”

  * * *

  There were some surprises for Eva, in what followed, but they simply involved the sheer pleasure of it all. She hadn’t foreseen that. Some pleasure, certainly; but nothing like the reality.

  As for the intimate details, all of those were much as she’d thought they’d be. Eva was a virgin, but she was hardly a naïf. Marriage and sexual intercourse were practical things, in families of her class. Probably in families of any class, she imagined, although she didn’t know for sure.

  She been told by her mother, her older sisters, married friends—close servants, even—of how it all happened and what to expect, and in detail that she knew up-timers would have considered downright clinical. Not to mention appalling. They were peculiar, that way, the Americans. Full of fuzzy notions they called
“romance” but they let their children stumble into the business completely unprepared except for what they might have learned from other children who were just as ignorant as they were. It was a little amazing they managed to breed at all.

  The biggest surprise, though, was how long it lasted. She’d never heard the American expression wham-bam-thank-you-Ma’am but it would have captured the sense she’d had of how rapidly sexual intercourse took place.

  Not with the captain—Harry—however. He seemed determined to prove that he could outlast any fable ever told.

  Which was just fine with Eva. She thought she’d probably feel some remorse for this night in the time to come. But regrets? Never. Not one. Never-never-never.

  When Harry was finally spent, he lay on his back staring up at the ceiling with Eva’s head nestled on his shoulder. “Jesus H. Christ,” he said. “If I wasn’t such a suave and debonair fellow, I’d say that was the best lay I ever had.”

  She slapped his chest. “Just remember! I seduced you. I am not one of your conquests, Captain Lefferts.”

  He grinned, his hand stroking her hip. “Can’t deny it. I put up one hell of a fight, too. For all the good it did me.”

  Not more than a few seconds later, the door swung open again. This time, it was Barbeline standing there.

  Eva and Harry froze. They were completely naked on top of the bedding—most of which was on the floor by now.

  But the French girl took it quite in stride. “You didn’t tell me Eva was your wife, Captain.” Eva had no trouble, this time, deciphering the thick country accent.

  Barbeline covered her mouth, yawning. “Sorry, I was just worried when I woke up and you were gone. Promise you’ll wake me up when you come back to the room.”

  And with that, she turned and left, still yawning.

  Eva and Harry looked at each other.

  “What should we tell her?” asked Eva. “In the morning.”

  “I don’t know,” said Harry. “But I do know this much. I do not want this to be a one-night stand.”

  One-night stand. Eva was not familiar with the idiom, but its meaning was obvious.

  That was an issue she simply hadn’t considered, she now realized. Her thoughts had never been able to get past…this night.

  There was a lot to think about, and she had no idea where it might eventually lead. But she didn’t have to decide everything at once. All she needed to decide was whether this would be a one-night stand or…

  Not.

  “Okay,” she said. Proving, for perhaps the millionth time since the Ring of Fire, that some American idioms were more contagious than either smallpox or the plague.

  Chapter 9

  Eva awoke some time after dawn, with the pale light of winter spilling into the room. She was a bit surprised, at first, because she was normally a light sleeper and woke before sunrise. But then, feeling the warm body pressed against hers and remembering the night that had just passed, the surprise vanished.

  This being the first time in her life she had awakened in the same bed with a man—both of them naked and neither of them pristine in that state—she wasn’t quite sure what to do. Running through in her mind the various and lengthy pieces of reminiscences and analysis she’d gotten from other women in her family, she found nothing that was particularly useful.

  Apparently, she was free to explore the possibilities. What was the American term? Ah, yes. “Free style.” She thought it had mostly to do with swimming but saw no reason the same principles couldn’t be applied in these circumstances.

  So, she began styling freely. And, within a very short time, Captain Lefferts—no, he wanted to be thought of as “Harry” now—responded in much the same manner.

  So passed a very enjoyable time, of uncertain duration. When it was over and they’d both rested a bit, Harry raised himself up on an elbow and gazed down at her.

  “In case I need to start thinking about it, is there much chance you’re going to get pregnant? Not to be blunt or anything.”

  “From last night and this morning?” Eva considered the problem. “It’s not impossible but it’s not likely, either. It’s the wrong time of the month. That was probably partly what I was thinking—insofar as I was thinking at all—when I came to your room.”

  She rolled toward him so she could see his face better. “As for the future, I can’t say. Assuming you haven’t changed your mind about the one-night—what is it? stance? status?—”

  “Stand,” he said.

  “Yes, that. If you still feel the same way—”

  “You bet your sweet ass I do.”

  That idiom made her laugh, with its truly grotesque affection. “Well, in that case, it’s hard to say. I’ve been told that you up-timers have methods for preventing pregnancy. Is that true, and if it is, are you so equipped?”

  “The really reliable ones are only usable by women,” he said. “They’re hard to come by, any longer, although there are some fairly effective down-time substitutes. As for me, well…I ran out of up-time rubbers—condoms, they’re also called—some time ago. And despite what seems to be my reputation I’m not always in the mood for sex—and I haven’t been for quite a while, until I ran into you.” His tone darkened considerably. “Not since Rome.”

  He fell silent for a few seconds. Eva didn’t try to prod him into talking about Rome. She knew Harry was upset over what had happened—the details of which she still didn’t know because he wouldn’t talk about it. Some day, she would ask. Not today.

  He sighed and stroked her hair. Then, his good cheer returning, said: “They’re making some rubbers down-time now. I’ll look for some, but it may take a while, especially to find ones that I’d trust even a little bit. From what I’ve seen and heard, a lot of these so-called condoms are about as effective as spitting in the wind.”

  That assessment was close to the one Eva had gotten from her relatives and friends. As soon as she got a chance, she’d investigate the methods she might be able to use. But in the meantime…

  “I’m afraid we’ll just have to be careful and abstain at certain points in my cycle,” she said.

  His expression became stern, like that of a man determined to perform a duty he found unpleasant. “I really don’t want to get you into trouble with your folks, Eva. We could abstain altogether.”

  “Put that evil thought entirely out of your mind, Captain Lefferts.”

  * * *

  Ron Stone had never liked wristwatches and had refused to wear one back up-time. Since arriving in the seventeenth century and becoming far wealthier than he’d ever imagined he’d be in any time or place, he’d commissioned a jeweler to make him a pocket watch. The arrival of Grantville in Germany in the year 1631 had jump-stated watchmaking by at least a quarter of a century. In the old timeline the balance spring—critical to any watch that hoped to be accurate at all—hadn’t been introduced until 1657.

  But while the best-made down-time pocket watches could remain accurate over the course of a day within a few minutes, they were heavy and bulky. Not a problem, of course, for a man in the full splendor of his august presence to pull the great thing out of his pocket and make a public display of his affluence. But for a man who’d been sitting through a tedious and detail-consumed business meeting for hours, Ron would have appreciated just this once having a wrist watch that he could glance at surreptitiously to see just how much longer his suffering was likely to last.

  It didn’t help any that the meeting had started at six-thirty in the morning, before the sun had even come up. People whose only access to night light came from fires, hearths, oil lamps and candles were usually of the early-to-bed-early-to-rise persuasion. Another thing which the Ring of Fire had jump-started was the proverb The early bird catcheth the worm—not that any down-timers Ron had ever met needed old saws to leap out of bed when or, often enough, before the local roosters started crowing.

  He, on the other hand, coming from a civilized time, was a night owl by nature. As far back as h
e could remember, his idea of a proper diurnal cycle started when the sun had been up long enough to get comfortable and warm everything up properly.

  He put his hand over his mouth in what he hoped would pass as a thoughtful pose, so at least he could yawn. And entertained himself for the next ten minutes or so by visiting silent curses on every apothecary who ever lived, beginning with the unknown founders of the nefarious trade back in Babylon somewhere around 2500 BCE.

  Being fair about it—not that he was inclined to be at the moment—most of the tedium and ennui of the day was not caused by the apothecary aspect of the business so much as it was by the money side. Sea gulls and pigeons did not squabble over crumbs with anything close to the relentless enthusiasm of Herren Hümmel and Bresch. Their bankers were even worse.

  But, eventually, it was over. For that day, at least. Ron rose from the table and finally pulled out his pocket watch.

  “Two-thirty in the afternoon,” he said. “It’s amazing, sometimes, how time flies.”

  And with that, he sped out the door.

  * * *

  “Hi, hon,” he said, closing the door behind him. “And I used to think your library study seminars were dull. Fool that I was! When it comes to boring they don’t—”

  “That fucking son-of-a-bitch!”

  That brought Ron up short. Gaping a little, he stared at his wife. Who, for her part, was standing by the window and bestowing a furious glare upon the world beyond.

  “Uh, Missy, what’s…”

  “What’s the problem? Your fucking buddy Harry Lefferts, that’s what the problem is!”

  Ron tried to figure out by what peculiar logic Harry Lefferts had become his “buddy.” It was quite the enigma. Over here, Harry Lefferts, the quintessential hillbilly roustabout who only fell short of outright “jock” status because he was too much of a rascal to abide by the discipline of athletic coaches. Over there, Ron Stone—or rather, Elrond Stone, that being his legal given name—who was raised in a commune and until the Ring of Fire had fully enjoyed his status as a teenage hippie.