by Eric Flint
"Look, I was getting a degree in computer science and was trying to decide between a life spent as a software engineer or a rabbi. I was not planning to become a cowboy."
Uriel's smile widened into a grin. Among the uptime hobbies that Uriel had adopted since the Ring of Fire, reading westerns was one of them. He was particularly fond of Donald Hamilton, Luke Short and Louis L'Amour.
"I should hope not! Leaving aside your pitiful manner on horseback, you can't—what's that expression?—hit the broadside of a barn. With a rifle, much less a revolver."
"Software engineer," Jason hissed again. "Rabbi." He scowled faintly. "The average rabbi does not pack a gun. Not even in New York—and wouldn't, even if it weren't for the Sullivan Act."
Morris' gaze slid away from Jason and drifted back toward the rear of the not-so-little caravan. There, almost at the very end, was the small group of horsemen centered around the figure of young Dunash Abrabanel. None of them rode a horse any better than Jason. But, unlike Jason, all of them were armed to the teeth. They looked like a caricature of highwaymen, in fact, they had so many firearms festooned upon their bodies and saddles.
Morris sighed. "We're nearing Bohemian territory, if we're not already in it. They're going to have to hide the guns, Jason. Whatever Wallenstein's promises, until he carries out his rebellion Imperial law still applies."
"Either that or agree to pretend they aren't Jews," grunted Uriel. The humor that had been on his face was gone, now. This was a sore subject with him, and one on which he and Dunash's little group had already clashed several times. Many times in his life, Uriel had passed himself off as a gentile of one sort or another. Once, he'd even successfully passed himself off as a Spanish hidalgo.
"Stupid!" he said, almost snarling. "They are no more observant—not any longer—than I am. Much less my brother Balthazar. And even in the days when we were, neither of us hesitated to do what was necessary. So why do they insist on flaunting their Jewishness, when it is pointless?"
Morris started to sigh again, but managed to restrain himself. Jason was apprehensive enough as it was, without Morris making his own nervousness about their project apparent.
It was hard. Even in the age from which Morris had come, the urbane and cosmopolitan world of America at the turn of the twenty-first century, there had been divisions between observant and non-observant Jews, leaving aside the disagreements between the various branches of Judaism. In the seventeenth century, those tensions were far more extreme.
Not, perhaps, for the Ashkenazim of central and eastern Europe, cloistered as they were—corralled by the gentiles surrounding them, more properly speaking—into their tight ghettos and shtetls. There, rabbinical influence and control was powerful. Even enforced by law, since in most places—Prague being no exception—the gentile authorities gave the rabbinate jurisdiction over the members of the Jewish ghettos. But for the Sephardim, since the expulsion from Iberia, it was far more difficult. The Sephardic Jews had been scattered to the winds, and although many of them had managed to retain their traditions and customs and ritual observances, many others had not. So, the issue of how to handle nonobservant Jews—any number of whom had even officially converted to Christianity—was always difficult. In practice, Amsterdam being one of the major exceptions, most Sephardic rabbis and observant communities had adopted a fairly tolerant and patient attitude.
Morris and Judith Roth were themselves Ashkenazim, but their attitudes had far more in common with the cosmopolitan Sephardim they'd encountered since the Ring of Fire than the Ashkenazim of this day and age. And now, unwittingly, the arrival of a half-dozen modern Jews into the seventeenth century had introduced a new element into the equation: the twentieth-century ideology of Zionism.
"Zionism," at least, using the term loosely. Not even Dunash proposed to launch a campaign to create the state of Israel in the middle of the seventeenth century. His own Abrabanel clan would squash any such notion instantly, since their own survival and well-being depended largely on the tolerance of the Ottoman Empire. Murad IV, the current sultan ruling in Istanbul, bore not the slightest resemblance to Lord Balfour. "Murad the Mad," they called him, and for good reason. Though astonishingly capable for a ruler who was obviously a sociopath, one of his principal amusements was wandering about Istanbul personally executing inhabitants he discovered violating his recently decreed hardcore Islamic regulations.
So, the zeal of Dunash and his young comrades had been turned elsewhere. Toward the great mass of Jews living in eastern Europe, and the alleviation of their plight. They had been more enthusiastic about Wallenstein's scheme than anyone. Even Wallenstein himself, Morris suspected. If a Jewish homeland could not be created in the Levant, who was to say that somewhere in eastern Europe . . .
It was a tangled mess. Morris had supported the state of Israel, was a U.S. army veteran himself, and had no philosophical attachment to pacifism. But he also did not share Dunash's simple faith in the efficacy of violence as a way of solving political problems. In the end, he thought tolerance and a willingness to accept a compromise were far more practical methods than shooting a gun.
Not, admittedly, that shooting a gun isn't sometimes necessary to get the other guy to accept a compromise, he reminded himself.
He put the thought into words. "Look at it this way. Maybe having them along will help the others involved see things the right way."
Uriel looked skeptical. "Pappenheim? And what do you propose for our next trick? Intimidate a wolf with a stick?"
Pappenheim himself came out to meet them, as they neared the outskirts of Prague. Wallenstein's chief general rode down the line of the little caravan, inspecting them coldly. Looking every bit, Morris thought . . .
Like a wolf on horseback.
There was no other way to describe him. Pappenheim was just plain scary. Melissa Mailey had a copy of C.V. Wedgwood's classic The Thirty Years War, and Morris had read the passage in it describing Pappenheim. In fact, he'd reread the passage in the copy of the book which he now owned himself, produced by a seventeenth-century printing press, just before leaving on this expedition. Morris had an excellent memory, and now, watching Pappenheim trotting down the line, he called it up:
The heaviest loss Wallenstein had suffered at Lützen was that of Pappenheim. Reckless of his men, arrogant and insubordinate, Pappenheim was nevertheless the soldier's hero: tireless, restless, the first in attack, the last in retreat. Stories of his fantastic courage were told round the camp fires and he had a legend before he was dead—the hundred scars that he boasted, the birthmark like crossed swords which glowed red when he was angry. He flashes past against that squalid background, the Rupert of the German war. His loyalty to Wallenstein, his affection and admiration, had been of greater effect in inspiring the troops than Wallenstein probably realized. The general owed his power to his control over the army alone, and the loss of Pappenheim was irreparable.
But Pappenheim hadn't died at the battle of Lützen in this universe, because that battle had never been fought. He was still alive, still as vigorous as ever—and still Wallenstein's right hand man. Come out to meet Wallenstein himself, who was hidden in one of the covered wagons since his trip to Grantville had been kept a secret.
Morris watched as Pappenheim exchanged a few words with Wallenstein, who had pushed aside for a moment the coverings of his wagon. Then, watched as Pappenheim inspected the rest of the caravan, examining the peculiar new allies whom Wallenstein had brought with him.
Pappenheim spent not much time studying the men from the Unity of Brethren. Those, he was familiar with. Though now defeated and scattered, the spiritual descendants of Huss and Jan Zizka were a force to be reckoned with. One which had often, in times past, proven their capacity to break aristocratic forces on the field of battle.
He spent more time studying Dunash Abrabanel and his little band of Jewish would-be liberators. Pappenheim wasn't exactly sneering, but there was enough in the way of arrogant condescension in his face
to cause Dunash and his followers to glare at him.
Morris decided he'd better go back there and defuse the situation. With the ease of an experienced horseman, he was soon at Pappenheim's side.
"Is there a problem, General?" he asked, keeping his tone level and mild.
Pappenheim swiveled to gaze at him. Up close, Morris could see the famous birthmark. It didn't really look like crossed swords, he thought. Just like another scar.
"You are the jeweler, yes?" Since it wasn't really a question, Morris didn't reply.
Pappenheim grunted. "There are times I think the Duke of Friedland is mad. Nor do I have his faith in astrologers. Still . . ."
Suddenly, his face broke into a grin. It was a cold sort of grin, without much in the way of humor in it.
"Who is to say? It is a mad world, after all."
2
"Well, will it do?" asked Len, a bit gruffly.
"It will do splendidly," Uriel assured him. He cocked an eye at Morris and Jason. "Yes?"
"Oh, sure," said Morris, looking around the cavernous room that served the—small palace? mansion? it was hard to say—as something of a combination between an entry hall and a gathering place. Not for the first time, he was struck by the conspicuous consumption that was so typical of Europe's nobility of the time.
He reminded himself that there had been plenty of conspicuous consumption by rich people in the universe they came from, also. But at least they didn't—well, not usually—have people living in hovels next door. Not to mention—
He moved over to one of the windows and gazed out at the street beyond, almost glaring. Across the narrow passageway rose the wall of Prague's ghetto, sealing off the Jewish inhabitants from the rest of the city. The Josefov, that ghetto was called. Somewhere around fifteen thousand people teemed in its cramped quarters, the largest ghetto in Europe. It was quite possibly the largest urban concentration of Jews anywhere in the world, in the year 1633, except maybe Istanbul.
Jason came to stand next to him. The young man's gaze seemed filled with more in the way of dread—anxiety, at least—than Morris' anger.
Morris smiled crookedly. It was hard to blame Jason, of course. Morris could glare at the injustice embodied in that ghetto wall till the cows came home. He wasn't the one he was trying to wheedle and cajole and finagle into becoming a new rabbi for its inhabitants. A Reform rabbi-to-be, with precious little in the way of theological training, for a community that was solidly orthodox and had a long tradition of prestigious rabbis to guide them. Rabbi Loew, in fact—the one reputed by legend to have invented the golem—had been Prague's chief rabbi not so long ago. He'd died only a quarter of a century earlier.
"They don't even use the term 'Orthodox,' " Jason muttered. "In this day and age, there's nothing 'unorthodox' to give the term any meaning. In our universe, the term didn't come into existence until after the Reform movement started in the nineteenth century. In the here and now, Jews are Jews. Period."
He gave Morris a look of appeal. "They'll just declare me a heretic, Morris, and cast me out. So what's the point?"
Morris jabbed a stiff finger at the street separating their building from the ghetto. "You're already out of the ghetto, Jason. So how can they 'cast' you out?" He glanced at the two gentiles in the room. "That's why I asked Len and Ellie to find us a place just outside of the Josefov."
Jason gave the two people mentioned a questioning look. "Is there going to be any kind of . . . you, know. Trouble about this?"
Len shrugged. "From who? Don Balthasar de Marradas? Yeah, sure, he's officially in charge here in Prague—so he says, anyway. But most of the soldiers and officials in the city are Wallenstein's people, from what Ellie and I can tell. And the ones who aren't are too pre-occupied dealing with Wallenstein to be worrying about whether a few Jews are living outside the ghetto."
"They wouldn't know the difference anyway," added Ellie. "Not with you guys."
She hooked a thumb in the direction of the Hradcany. "Don't think they won't learn soon enough that some more Americans have arrived. They're not that preoccupied. Whatever else is backward about the seventeenth century, spying sure as hell isn't. By the end of the week—latest—Marradas will have his fucking stoolies watching you, just like they do us."
Morris found Ellie's coarse language refreshing, for some odd reason. He was one of the few people in Grantville who'd always liked Ellie Anderson, and had never found her brash and vulgar personality off-putting. And, in their current circumstances, he thought her go-fuck-yourself attitude toward the world was probably . . .
Dead on the money.
"Dead on the money," he murmured, repeating the thought aloud. "Stop worrying, Jason. Ellie's right. They'll spy on us, but what they'll see is Americans, not Jews."
"What about Dunash and the others?"
Morris shrugged. "What about them? The plan is for them to find quarters in the ghetto anyway, as soon as possible. They'll be officially coming here every day to work in my new jewelry establishment. Even in the here and now, Jews are allowed out of the ghetto on legitimate business."
"Especially when the soldiers stationed in the area to check stuff like that are handpicked by Pappenheim," Ellie added cheerfully. "Nobody fucks with Pappenheim. I mean, nobody. The one and only time a Habsburg official gave Pappenheim a hard time since he arrived here, Pappenheim beat him half to death. The way the story goes, he dumped the fuckhead out of his chair, broke up the chair and used one of the legs to whup on him."
Morris couldn't help smiling. Pappenheim was scary, true enough. But if there was one lesson Morris had drawn from his studies of history, it was that bureaucrats, in the end, killed more people than soldiers. Way more. If Morris had to make a choice between this century's equivalents of General Heinz Guderian and Adolf Eichmann, he'd pick Guderian any day of the week.
No "if" about it, really. He had been given the choice, and he'd made it. Whatever new world Wallenstein and his ruthless generals made out of Bohemia and eastern Europe, Morris didn't think it could be any worse than the world the Habsburgs and their officials had made—not to mention the Polish szlachta and the Russian boyars.
Wallenstein, whatever else, was looking to the future. He'd get rid of the second serfdom that was engulfing eastern Europe and its accompanying oppression of Jews, if for no other reason, because he wanted to build a powerful empire for himself. Of that, Mike Stearns was sure—and Morris agreed with him. Wallenstein had said nothing to Stearns—or Torstensson, Gustav Adolf's emissary in the negotiations—about his plans beyond seizing power in Bohemia and Moravia. But neither of them doubted that Wallenstein had further ambitions. He'd try to take Silesia, for a certainty—he was already the ruler of Sagan, one of the Silesian principalities—and probably other parts of Poland and the Ukraine.
In short, he was—or hoped to be—a seventeenth-century Napoleon in the making. That could obviously pose problems in the future. But for Morris, as for most Jews, Napoleon hadn't simply been a conqueror and a tyrant. He'd also been the man who broke Germany's surviving traits of medievalism, had granted civil rights to the Jews—and had had a short way with would-be pogromists.
Jason was still worrying. "If they know we're Americans—even if they don't realize we're Jews—won't that cause trouble in its own right?"
Ellie's grin was lopsided and a tad sarcastic. "Where the hell have you been for the last two years? In the here and now, people don't give a fuck about 'patriotism.' Ain't no such animal. You're loyal to a dynasty—or work for one, at least—not a country. Wallenstein's paying us the big bucks—he is, too, don't think Len and me didn't stick it to him good—and so everybody assumes we're his people."
Morris nodded. "I don't think the word 'patriotism' has even been invented yet. She's got the right of it, Jason. The Habsburgs will be suspicious of anyone connected with Wallenstein, right now, because of the strains between them. But until and unless they're ready to move against him, they won't meddle much with us."
&nb
sp; "Nothing dramatic and open, anyway," added Uriel. "Though I'd keep an eye out for a stiletto in the back in dark corners. And we need to make sure we hire a trustworthy cook or we'll need to hire a food-taster." He grimaced. "Food-tasters are expensive."
Jason gave Morris a meaningful look. Morris sighed.
"Oh, all right, Jason. We'll start eating kosher."
He wasn't happy about it. Still . . .
The dietary restrictions of Orthodox Judaism irritated Morris, but they weren't ultimately that important to him. Compared to such things as separate seating for women in the synagogue, no driving on Shabbat, family purity laws, women not being allowed to participate in the service, the divinity of the oral law—oh, it went on and on—keeping kashrut barely made the list.
"It's a good idea, Morris," said Jason softly. "At least that'll remove one obstacle. And the truth is, it's a safer way to eat anyway, in a time when nobody's ever heard of FDA inspectors."
