Grantville Gazette VI

by Eric Flint

  The hundred-piece marching band paraded onto the field, and then ascended to their section, joining assorted down-time and up-time adult musicians. The cheerleaders were next, strutting out, swinging their pom-poms, and shouting out, as a cheer routine, a highly abbreviated prologue. In the meantime, the food concessionaire, Grantville Freedom Arches, was doing a brisk business, both on the field and in the stands.

  * * *

  The first act was supposed to simulate a typical court dance of a royal court. The couples were masked, but several were prominent members of the community. The most notable down-timer was the Imperial Princess Kristina Vasa, who would be eight years old in just a couple of months. She was partnered by the thirteen-year-old Count Ludwig Guenther of Schwarzburg-Ebeleben. In addition, young Emilie von Oldenberg had managed to coax her husband, Count Ludwig Guenther of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, into participating. The down-time ranks were filled out by various pupils of Federico, Adriane and Bitty, notably the duchess-ballerina Elisabeth Sofie.

  The up-time contingent included Timothy and Lisa Kennedy, who had learned swing dancing when they lived in Baltimore, and Ed and Annabelle Piazza. The Piazzas had been active in community theater before the Ring of Fire, and therefore were experienced in up-time theatrical dancing. Ed had even managed to squeeze in a few lessons in seventeenth-century dances, sandwiched in-between his many tasks as President of the State of Thuringia-Franconia. If he forgot a move, well, Annabelle was there to back-lead him.

  The first slow-fast pairing was of a pavane and a galliard. Just your usual seventeenth-century "top forty" stuff. These were followed by a slow waltz, and a medium-tempo jitterbug. Finally, the masquers polka'd off. The masquers who were not needed for other acts changed hurriedly, so that they could claim their reserved seats in the VIP section and watch the rest of the show from there.

  The torches were quenched, the stage crew rushed in, and half the stage was transformed from the main hall of a court to the common room of a tavern. The other half depicted the street outside. A series of loosely connected comic routines followed, some acted out by members of the high school drama club, and others by down-timers.

  In one routine, a husband and wife were standing out on the street. The husband, a printer, explained that he had a "rush" job at the printing house. Off he went . . . to the tavern. There he and his buddies were, drinking beer and flirting with the barmaids, when in came his wife, broom in hand. She chased him around the tavern, much to the enjoyment of the others, and finally cornered him. She swung the broom low; he jumped over it. She swung it high, he ducked. They repeated these movements; suddenly, it was a dance. They stopped to catch their breath. He grabbed a mug of beer and handed it to her; she took a swig. They both grasped the broom and danced around it, first one way, then the other. His buddies each invited a barmaid to dance, and they all did a peasant couple dance, and then another folk dance, which progressed off stage.

  Another number was clearly intended to poke fun at the up-timers' love of gadgets. Some men were sitting at a table in the tavern. A newcomer, dressed in twentieth-century clothes, entered. The locals invited the up-timer to join them at the table. After a few beers, one suggested that they all go fishing. The up-timer said, "I'll be right there; I have to pick up a few things from home," and went out by the "back door." The down-timers each grabbed a simple fishing rod and went out into the "street." They opened a trap door in the wood stage. Under it, a pit had been dug, and they began "fishing."

  Then the up-timer returned. He was wearing a fishing vest with many pockets, a helmet with all sorts of strange metal antennae and coils, and carrying what looked like a giant harpoon.

  "Wait, wait," he cried. "I will find the fish for you!" He set down the harpoon, put one hand on his helmet and extended the other, and started wandering around the "street," going everywhere, it seemed, but the actual fishing hole. Finally he stopped in front of it, saying in a stage whisper, "What a curious signal I am getting!" He picked up his harpoon and thrust it into the hole.

  There was a great (amplified) shriek, which took the audience quite by surprise. The fishermen all fell back, and then the up-timer went to the edge of the hole and reached in. Out he pulled a beautiful woman, dressed as a mermaid. She smiled demurely at the audience.

  "Now I understand," he said, "she is only half-fish, so I got only half a signal." He shook his head. "I had best throw her back in!"

  "No, no!" shouted his comrades. They lifted the mermaid up, and carried her off stage. The up-timer followed, banging on his helmet perplexedly.

  And so it went. The last skit ended with a dark-out, and the stage crew cleared the stage for the second act.

  * * *

  Amber Higham, the school's theater manager, had arranged for the Grantville Street and Roads Department to loan Federico one of the truck-mounted cherry pickers that were usually used to trim trees. It had an extendible boom, with a platform at one end.

  The boom slowly hauled up a giant, reflective aluminum foil-covered disk hooked to the bottom of the platform. As the platform ascended, the stage crew trained spotlights on it. The moon had risen!

  The cheerleaders now came back on stage. There were no cheers or pom-poms this time; this was a dance routine, with plenty of stunts.

  They were dressed in half-white, half-black blouses and skirts, and wore headbands with a crescent moon symbol. There were now a dozen of them; they had been able to recruit and train two down-timer students.

  At one point, they clustered together, with all of them oriented so that only the black parts of their costumes were visible. It created the appearance of a black disk. Then they turned. Not all at once, but progressively, so the black disk first acquired a white edge on one side, then was half-and-half, and so forth, until, finally, it was all white.

  Bitty Matowski nodded approvingly. She had deliberately not sat in the VIP section on ground level, although she had received an invitation. Instead, she was up high in the stands, but at a forty-five degree angle to the centerline of the stage. That made it easy to see the dancers' floor patterns as well as their "front."

  "See," she said to her husband. "They have shown the phases of the waxing moon, from new to crescent to half to gibbous to full." She pondered for a moment. "They really need more than twelve dancers for the best effect, however." As she spoke, the cheerleaders completed the figure, by depicting the waning of the moon. The dance continued.

  The centerpiece of the finale was a very difficult lift. The side bases both held the flier's right foot, the front spot grasped her wrist and shin, and the back spot had one hand under her tush and the other on her calf. Millicent nodded slightly, confirming that she was ready to go airborne. On the count, her assistants all lifted, while she pushed down. Millicent was now balanced on just her right foot, which was above her supporters' heads.

  To climax the stunt, Millicent raised her left leg to the vertical, holding her left foot in her right hand. Her right arm formed a gentle arc, curving left over her head, and her left arm was straight out horizontally, also to the left. This was the "bow-and-arrow" pose: the bow was formed by her right side, from hand to hip; the bowstring was her raised left leg; the arrow, her left arm. The crowd oohed and aahed.

  In the VIP section, Lisa Dailey, the assistant principal, turned to Victor Saluzzo. "Very clever. The Greeks had three moon goddesses: Artemis, Selene, and Hecate. Artemis was also the goddess of the hunt. The bow was part of her iconography." Lisa had been an English teacher before the Ring of Fire.

  "Whatever you say," replied Victor. "What I was thinking is that I wouldn't want to try getting into that position even if I was lying on the ground, let alone being held six feet up in the air. And mind you, I got my bachelor's in P.E."

  The fliers dismounted, and the cheerleaders edged into a crescent formation, and kneeled.

  * * *

  Adriane now came onto the field. She was standing atop a salvaged Homecoming '99 float, wearing a silver sequined party dre
ss, and matching shoes. On her head, she had a kind of skullcap to which an ingenious drama club draper had fastened a papier-mâché crescent, painted silver. This cap allowed her long hair to escape down her back; both her tresses and her exposed skin had been liberally sprinkled with twentieth-century "moon glitter" to give her a more celestial appearance.

  The float was drawn by a team of white horses. Adriane's coachman, dressed in stage crew black, snapped his whip, and guided the float into a slow circuit of the football field. During this processional, the band played, "Shine On, Shine On Harvest Moon."

  Adriane's unusual makeup attracted considerable attention.

  "Do you have any idea how that woman has achieved that stunning starlight effect?" asked one of the duchesses in attendance.

  "No, but I fully intend to find out," her companion replied.

  While they spoke, the float pulled up alongside the rear of the stage.

  Then Federico, dressed as a shepherd, made his entrance. The cheerleaders dropped to all fours, and "baa-ed." They were now his sheep. That established, they rose, and continued dancing, surging first in one direction, then another, as the band played a jig tune. As they did so, Federico cavorted about them, seeming to head off their movements and drive them in the other direction. One moment, he was doing a side step, with the stick held to one side. The next, he was leaping, one leg across the other, as he plied his stick in a figure-eight pattern.

  The orchestra suddenly started playing an Argentine Tango tune, and Federico froze. Adriane descended from her float, assisted by two of the cheerleaders. She spiraled toward him, caressing the floor with each step, some slow, others quick.

  Now she was circling him, and, simultaneously, he turned, hopping on his left foot, while his right foot traced little arcs in her direction. Suddenly, he trapped one of her feet between his. She responded by drawing the toe of her free foot, slowly, sensuously up his leg. He released her foot from the mordida, the "little bite," and their dance continued.

  A canopy bed, mounted on rollers, was wheeled out of one of the prop tents. Four cheerleaders, two at each end, danced with it, turning it slowly clockwise, and occasionally releasing it to do spins of their own.

  In the stands, Victor Saluzzo turned to his wife, Viola. "I know that Adriane is portraying the Moon Goddess Selene, but what was the name of her shepherd?

  "Oh, let me think—Federico told me. Endymion, the shepherd, that's it. Selene the Moon saw him asleep in a cave, and shone down to join him each night. Eventually she asked Zeus to give him perpetual youth. Zeus agreed, but insisted that Endymion remain asleep forever."

  "Doesn't sound like much of a deal."

  "Yes, well, Zeus was one of Selene's ex-lovers. That may have had something to do with it. However, Selene and Endymion still managed to have fifty daughters."

  * * *

  In the meantime, Federico and Adriane had danced, now in the close embrace, to the edge of the bed. Some members of the audience looked shocked. Others leaned forward. Some did both.

  Tim Kennedy thumbed the remote controls of the two precious fog machines. The high school PTA had used them in the "Haunted House" fundraiser it held each year, before the Ring of Fire. Basically, each machine had a piston pump, which forced the fog fluid through an aluminum block heat exchanger. A heating element had already preheated the metal, so the pumped fluid was "flashed" before it was forced out of the nozzle.

  Federico and Adriane had been a bit worried about this particular special effect. They only had a limited amount of "fog fluid," so they couldn't practice with it as much as they would have liked to. But they did have a backup plan if the fog refused to materialize.

  Fortunately, the machines spewed out a satisfyingly large quantity of fog, obscuring the audience's view of Adriane, Federico and the bed. The stage crew was happy; the opinion in the stands was, perhaps, more ambivalent. But the spectators did appreciate the conceit of clouds covering up the moon.

  The four cheerleaders returned to the bed corners and released the curtain retainers. That was the backup plan, and also meant that they could economize a bit on fog fluid. Federico and Adriane were now completely hidden from view, and the bed, with them aboard, was returned to its tent.

  * * *

  It was now necessary to pay homage to the third moon goddess: Hecate. The school drama club returned to the stage, its players wearing dog masks, and carrying torches. They pranced about the stage.

  Hecate entered, in an improvised chariot. Ideally, it would have been drawn by dragons, but two horses, each wearing a chamfron and neck guard painted to look like a dragon's head, had to do.

  "Who is that?" Victor Saluzzo asked.

  "I dropped my program, hold on. Okay, that's Hecate, Goddess of the Moon, of Magic, of the Underworld, of Sailors, and of Shepherds."

  Ed Piazza overheard. "Sounds like she has a lot on her plate. I know exactly how she must feel."

  Hecate was now dancing with her followers, who had been joined by the cheerleaders.

  "It looks like Amber is enjoying herself," said Victor approvingly. Amber Higham, high school drama teacher in two universes, and former star of the Minneapolis community theater circuit, was indeed having a blast.

  * * *

  Princess Kristina entered, stage left, preceded by her attendants. These were Catherine Matzinger and Lady Ulrike, each holding one end of a long bolt of bright yellow cloth, with which they swept across the stage. The worshippers of Selene and Hecate scattered before them, even as night retreats from the light of day. Princess Kristina followed, but stopped at stage center. She was wearing a dress, tie-dyed in blues, yellows and reds. Wings were attached to her back. In one hand she carried a golden wand with a silver star on top. She, too, had received the "glitter dust" treatment. That, of course, only increased the intensity of interest in certain quarters. It was now an imperial cosmetic.

  Thomas Jefferson Johnson turned to his wife. "Sybill, isn't that the little princess? My eyesight isn't what it used to be."

  "Let me check the program, dear. Yes, indeed. It says 'Eos, the Dawn . . . Lieutenant General Kristina Vasa.'"

  The musicians played a galliard tune. Kristina performed several galliard variations, short and long, including one inspired by a Charleston step. The silver disk was lowered, and a golden one slowly raised in its place. Kristina danced off stage.

  * * *

  The high school JROTC drill team marched onto the stage, and formed a double file. They presented arms. Now Federico emerged from the stage left tent. He was definitely no longer a shepherd. On his head he wore an elaborate headdress, made of some gold fabric which had been folded over and over, accordion fashion, and secured so it would fan out. His shoes had golden buckles, sunburst-shaped.

  "There's Federico!" said TJ.

  "Yes, he makes a very handsome Sun God, don't you think?" Sybill replied.

  Federico's attire had some more secular aspects, too. Specifically, he was wearing a blue surcoat with a gold cross upon it—the Swedish flag.

  Federico capered halfway down the line, turned to face the king, and bowed. The drill team separated into two groups, flanking him, and began executing show moves, such as rifle spins and exchange tosses.

  There was quiet murmuring in the VIP section, which had the keenest interest in, and appreciation of, the political ramifications of the production. "So this confirms that Gustav is the 'Golden King,'" Fletcher Wendell, USE Secretary of the Treasury whispered.

  Arnold Bellamy, of the USE State Department, laughed. "Oh, you don't realize how devious Federico is. He told His Majesty, who told me." Arnold stopped to admire a particularly spectacular spin-kick. Federico's fellow dancing masters would have recognized it as a "kick the tassles" move, but to the up-timers it looked like karate.

  "Have you ever wondered why Louis the Fourteenth was called the Sun King?" Fletcher shook his head, and Arnold continued.

  "Louis XIV was born, in our time line, in 1638, and ascended to the throne aft
er Cardinal Richelieu's death. The young king loved to dance, even more than his father Louis XIII, and Mazarin was delighted to take advantage of it for political purposes.

  "In 1653, the French court, and the attendant professional dancers, put on Ballet Royal de la Nuit. It showed Paris from sunset to sunrise. Louis XIV, then fourteen years old, appeared in the final act as Apollo, the Sun."

  Fletcher chuckled. "So Federico has taken a piece of French propaganda and turned it into 'Gustaviana.' I like it. Especially if Richelieu, when he reads his spies' reports, recognizes exactly where this idea came from.

  "Perhaps we should tell him, so he doesn't miss out?"

  "Anyway," Arnold concluded, "thanks to Federico and Adriane, in this time line, Gustav II Adolf of Sweden is, and will forever be, the Sun King."

  RECYCLING

  by Philip C. Schillawski and John Rigby

  "Hey! Watch it with that broom." Officer Preston Richards hastily pulled his feet back away from the stiff bristles that threatened the shine of his newly polished shoes. He glanced up from the night sheets he was going over, and looked over the unprepossessing figure before him. The small gray-haired woman in dumpy clothes, with her flesh hanging from her thin frame, was a far cry from the well dressed matron he had met the day of the Ring of Fire. Then she had been a hard-bodied exercise maven. Now the only thing hard about her was her eyes. But he'd kept his eyes on her for too long.