by Eric Flint
Franz's heart was so full it could burst. He looked to the others. "I owe you a life, my friends. It is a debt I can never pay, but know that at any time, for any need, I am yours." The intensity in his gaze impacted them all-they knew how deeply he felt at the moment. Young Johan blushed again and ducked his head; the others simply nodded, not attempting to downplay the moment.
Marla looked around the group one more time. "Thank you, thank you all. It is the love of the friends God has given us, friends like you, that have lifted us-lifted me-in this time of darkness."
"There will be other children," Giacomo said softly.
Marla smiled through the sadness. "I know that. And I know that by enduring what we have just walked through, whatever happens, we will survive."
"Survive and prosper," Andrea said. "Survive and prosper."
Marla turned to face Franz, and looked into his eyes. "Survive, and prosper, and love-love above all."
Coda
From "The Fall of Fire: The Coming of Grantville and the Music of Europe"
Charles William Battenberg, B.A., M.A., Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, Schwarzberg Chair of Musicology, Oxford University
1979, Oxford University Press
Chapter One – The Advent of Grantville
"… story of Grantville's appearance is a matter of fact to every child in school… endless tomes on the impact of Grantville on politics and technology… impact on musical arts was, if anything, even more profound… hesitated to attempt yet another survey, but a number of new evidentiary sources have been uncovered in recent years, including journals of several notable figures… course was shaped by the triad created by the fortuitous meeting of composers, performers and the first modern conductor…"
Chapter Two – The South Advances
"… one of the earliest known works evidencing influence of Grantville's music is Lament for a Fallen Eagle, by Giacomo Carissimi, renowned Italian composer… several versions exist in the composer's own hand… followed in short order by The Passion According to St. John and the opera Brutus… Carissimi was nothing if not prolific… early works were all transitional, all produced while Carissimi's assimilation of up-time forms and techniques was still in progress…"
"… most musicologists agree that the first work by Carissimi that exhibited his fully mature style was Elegy for Lost Innocence, written on the occasion of the death in childbirth of the first child of his very good friends Franz Sylwester and Marla Linder… the composer was in full command of his newly expanded palette of techniques, forms and modalities…"
"… The first performance was apparently given in a recital by Andrea Abati, the noted castrato, who was also a good friend of the bereaved parents… recently discovered journal of Duchess Elisabeth Sofie of Saxe-Altenburg describes the recital in great detail… the young duchess indicates she was greatly touched by Abati's performance of Elegy, and joins with other contemporaneous accounts in raving about how beautiful it was yet how great the impact
…"
"… Elegy for Lost Innocence is infrequently sung. Perhaps one performer in a generation will attempt it. Modern sopranos find the emotional demands to be equally as harsh as the technical demands.. . it is more often heard in the transcription for violin made by Franz Sylwester… still heart-breakingly beautiful…"
"… journal of oldest surviving child, Alexandria Maria Sylwester… herself no mean performer… asked her mother why she had never sung the Elegy… responded with 'That's Andrea's song, not mine.'… explains tradition amongst descendants of Marla Linder… none have sung Elegy for Lost Innocence…"
Chapter Three – The North Responds
"… Heinrich Schutz entered the scene in 1634… perhaps took longer to assimilate the up-time methods than his Italian contemporary… began writing in a strong style almost immediately
… moved in a different direction…"
"… wrote in large works, beginning with Fantasia on a Theme by G.F. Handel, based on the Sarabande from Suite No. 11 for Harpsichord
… recorded in the journal of Lucas Amsel that Schutz considered it an homage to the up-time composer Ralph Vaughan Williams…"
"… tradition has long been that Schutz's Mass on Unchained Melody was composed to mark the death of Marla Linder's daughter, much as Carissimi's Elegy for Lost Innocence was…"
"… again indebted to the journal of Lucas Amsel… Schutz's Passion of St. Luke… his master confided to him that the famous aria, Mein Herz Wei?, or My Heart Knows, sung by Mary looking up at her crucified son… was written specifically for Marla Linder… justly famous… in its own way, just as demanding as Carissimi's Elegy for Lost Innocence… but 'She could not have sung it before losing her baby,' Master Heinrich said. 'She would not have understood the pain.'…"
Chapter Four – Fiat Lux
"… the triad of the composers-Carissimi and Schutz; the performers-Linder and Abati; and the conductor-Sylwester; these lit the beacon that drew a generation of musicians to Magdeburg…"
Butterflies in the Kremlin, Part Eight: As the Bear Turns
Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett
Sheremetev laughed. "Leontii is a fine man, but not nearly subtle enough for this. The new political officer for the Dacha is… Anya."
***
It was all Anya could do to keep her face still, even though she knew that very stillness was a tell in its own way. Sheremetev had to have done this on purpose; it was his way. Even his carrots were sticks. A promotion and a betrayal all in one. His means of keeping loyalty, to make any other loyalty impossible. She glanced at Natasha and the look of shocked enlightenment on her face gave Anya courage in a strange way. She knew that Natasha would be telling herself that she had always known, but Anya knew better. Natasha hadn't liked Anya because Anya was a peasant and was better at math than Natasha was. And especially because Anya was fucking Bernie, not going to bed alone.
That last thought sent Anya's gaze to Bernie who was looking at her like she had two heads. She turned her eyes away. Looking at Bernie was dangerous. Anya couldn't afford to let what she felt show on her face. Which brought her back to Sheremetev. He was examining her like she was one of the scientist's butterflies. A dead insect pinned to a plank for examination. She stood, bowed and smiled an easy, friendly smile. It was a smile she had practiced for years. "Thank you for your trust, my lord. You may depend on me."
"I was quite sure I could," was Sheremetev's smug reply. Then he turned to Natasha. "The Dacha will continue to run very much as it has in the past, save that projects must be cleared by Anya. To make sure that the results are, ah… desirable." Anya knew what that meant. Projects which would enhance Sheremetev's wealth, status or power would be approved. Those that detracted from those things would be disapproved. She tried not to look at Bernie. She tried not to think of Bernie.
***
Bernie, for his part, wasn't thinking very much at all. His time in Russia had taught him enough to keep him from trying to go across the table at Anya. No, he wouldn't have done that anyway. Maybe storming out of the room. Yep. That was probably what he'd have done back up-time. Mostly what he was doing was trying to take it in. Anya was a spy for Sheremetev. Funny, he couldn't even figure out why that would be such a betrayal. Sheremetev was just another Russian, a member of the high families just like Natasha and Vladimir. He was in the Duma and had as much right to information from the Dacha as anyone in Russia. Besides, the Dacha leaked like a sieve anyway. It was supposed to. The Dacha wasn't supposed to keep stuff secret; it was supposed to take the knowledge freely given by the up-timers and put it in a Russian context so that it could be used to make Russia a better place.
Somehow, in spite of all that, it was still a betrayal. Anya had been lying to him all along. Everything she had said or done since he got to Russia had been a lie.
***
Well, I suppose I should have expected this, Anya thought. She reached for one of the boxes. "Tell me, Irina, why my things are all over the pla
ce here."
Irina was a bit of a snot, one that Anya wasn't at all fond of. So she pretty well expected the girl's smirk, even though the words hurt.
"Bernie said that the Comrade Political Officer could requisition whatever room she wanted," Irina said. "And that if it was his room, he'd just as soon sleep with one of the horses."
Of Bernie himself there was no sign. He was out checking on a new steam engine. Which, Anya knew perfectly well, didn't need checking on. So the political officer requisitioned a room in the Dacha. One of the good ones. Not Natasha's… though she thought about it. She was angry enough.
At an undisclosed location somewhere in Russia
Mikhail Romanov, Czar of all the Rus, bounced his daughter on his knee with a mixture of relief and profound loss. The relief was because he and his family were safe-at least for the moment. The loss was not for the loss of power, but for the loss of his father.
Mikhail had been told that his father had died of a stroke during the riots and that was entirely possible. Filaret, Patriarch of Russia, had in fact had a series of minor strokes before the riots started and his response to the riots was quite likely to have led to another one, quite possibly fatal. Still, the timing was suggestive. Filaret would never have gone along with Sheremetev's takeover and he had the connections to fight back. Mikhail couldn't help the belief that one of Sheremetev's agents had managed to get close enough to the patriarch to help the stroke along. The possibility that Filaret was still alive was no more than a fantasy.
Mikhail knew that he should be fighting Sheremetev because of those suspicions and for the good of Russia. But he wasn't. He knew virtually nothing of what was going on in the wider world. He had no basis to plan and, for now at least, he and his family were being treated quite well. Also, from what he did know, Sheremetev's plan depended on his continued safety.
Life was full of strange twists of fate and even more so when you were living in a time of miracles. The Ring of Fire had seemed a wild rumor when they had first heard it. Sending Vladimir to check it out had been a precautionary measure. But it had all proved to be true. Vladimir had stayed in Grantville to learn the secrets of the up-timers and Boris had brought an up-timer back with him. Bernie had started out as little more than a dictionary of up-timer English on legs. But being used as a dictionary has side effects. Poor Bernie had found himself in school. Mikhail laughed a little at that thought. One student and hundreds of anxious teachers, each insisting that he learn enough to explain some other artifact of a language was foreign to even those that spoke seventeenth century English. Mikhail could sympathize with Bernie's predicament; he wasn't a scholar by choice either. And he, like Bernie, had been forced by circumstances into a role he wasn't well prepared for when he had been dragooned into becoming czar of Russia.
Come to that, Vladimir wasn't a trained spy. That was Boris. Still, Vladimir was doing an excellent job-aided and abetted by the up-timers free way with their knowledge. He and Boris had kept Russia from the Smolensk War, even before Boris brought Bernie to Russia. Vladimir had married a up-timer girl and was well situated in their community. And quite openly, for the most part, sending tons of copied books to Moscow, along with information on innovations made since the Ring of Fire as down-time craftsmanship had combined with up-time knowledge. That part was harder, from what Mikhail understood, because some of the new businesses were much more secretive than the State Library of Thuringia Franconia. Still, Boris had left Vladimir a good core organization and Vladimir had expanded it. So the Dacha and the Gun Shop, Russia's industrial and military research and development shops, were well supplied with up-timer knowledge.
That knowledge, combined with Russian ingenuity and a willingness to go with simple, workable solutions rather than slavishly copy everything the up-timers were doing, plus a brute force approach that involved putting lots of people to work on projects that the up-timers could probably do with a lot less, had stood Russia in very good stead. Both industrially and in the recent battle over Rzhev. Russia had the beginnings of an electronics industry at the price of several people accidentally electrocuted. Telegraphs and telephones in the Kremlin and radios-soon-with experiments on tubes and transistors, Mikhail was told. So far unsuccessful. A test dirigible built and used at Rzhev and a much larger one under construction. Plumbing at the Dacha and starting to appear other places, including parts of Moscow. New rifled muskets with replaceable chambers for the Army and new breach-loading cannon as well. New pumps for clearing mines of water and for creating vacuums. Which apparently had a myriad of uses. Improved roads, steam engines… the list went on and on. Sucking up labor almost as fast as the new plows and reapers freed it, perhaps faster. The free peasantry-what was left of it-had been among the first to go to the factories and set up their own, along with the musketeers who were Russia's traditional merchant class.
Mikhail was less happy about some of the policy changes that Sheremetev had come up with. He didn't mind the wood railroad to Smolensk, but selling to the Turks bothered him.
Moscow, the Grantville Bureau
Boris filled out paperwork and tried not to think about what was happening. Sheremetev was an idiot who had no concept of how to treat people to get the best work out of them. He couldn't inspire or motivate, save through threats. But, for now at least, the threats seemed to be working. Sheremetev had complete control of the Duma through a combination of bribes, coercion and outright threats. Worse, he was what the up-timers called a micromanager, and his decisions were wrong more often than not.
It wasn't that Boris disagreed with Sheremetev's assessment of the general situation in Europe.
The Swede was much more dangerous than the Pole. That had to be clear to anyone except an idiot.
But Boris didn't think Sheremetev really believed in paper money. Boris didn't really believe in it himself, in spite of the fact that he had seen it work in Grantville. But Sheremetev was pushing it as hard or harder than Czar Mikhail had been and the czar had believed in it and at least seemed to understand it. Boris figured that Sheremetev was just using it to sucker people into giving him gold and working for nothing.
Just outside the Ring of Fire, near Grantville
"Sheremetev is teaching us a lesson," Vladimir explained. "He's also tempting us, putting pressure on to see if we will defect. Well, if I will defect. You hold dual citizenship."
"What lesson?" Brandy asked.
"Don't try to hold up the Russian government. Or, more accurately, don't fail to cut him in on it."
"So how bad is it?"
"Bad! It's the advances." The ruble, now a paper currency, with the face of Czar Mikhail and the double-headed eagle on the face and the Moscow Kremlin and a Russian bear on the back, was valued at less than half the value of the Dutch guilder in spite of the fact that it was supposed to be equivalent to the silver ruble coin that had twice the silver of the Dutch guilder. Partly that was because the czar and Duma had issued rather more rubles than they really should have. But mostly it was because the Dutch merchants resented the heck out of the paper ruble. It had changed the whole trading landscape in Russia. Dutch merchants had gone from absolutely vital to convenient. And the price they paid at Arkhangelsk for grain, cordage, lumber, and other Russian goods had more than doubled.
Partly out of resentment, the Dutch wouldn't deal in Russian paper money or money of account based on Russian money. They would still accept Russian coins, but their refusal to deal in Russian paper had its effect. "If the canny Dutch merchants wouldn't take paper rubles, there must be something wrong with them. Right?" So rubles traded in Grantville, Venice and Vienna at less than a quarter of face value. And that was if you were basing face value on the amount of silver in a ruble coin. If you figured it in the price of a bushel of grain at Arkhangelsk versus the same bushel at Amsterdam, it traded at less than a tenth of its face value.
And it's really hard to make a profit if you're losing more than nine-tenths of your money to arbitrage. Vladimir spent hi
s rubles where they would buy something, then shipped the goods to the USE for resale, just like he had been doing from the beginning. And, like any good man of business, he tried to find buyers in advance rather than shipping the goods on spec. What Sheremetev objected to was how much of the money Vladimir was investing in Grantville and the USE. Sheremetev wanted Vladimir to buy silver and gold and send it back to Moscow. Which made no sense at all. If Vladimir was going to do anything along those lines, he would be buying paper rubles in Grantville with silver where he could get a lot of them, then shipping the rubles back to Moscow where they would buy more.
Vladimir had contracts to sell five thousand stacked-plate mica capacitors, plus several tons of other mica products. But what he didn't have was this quarter's shipment of mica and mica-based components. Also missing were a couple of hundred miles of cordage, several tons of Russian hardwoods, plus sundry other goods. In other words, several million American dollars worth of goods, which he was morally and legally obligated to provide. And about half of it had been paid for in advance. He was insured against loss at sea. With Swedish control of the Baltic, the insurance hadn't been all that expensive.
What he wasn't insured against was Sheremetev and the Duma preventing him from bringing out the goods. Goods that had never sailed from Nyen, Saint Petersburg it would have become in that other history. Goods that had never even reached Swedish Ingria. It wasn't just that money wasn't coming in-money that had already come would have to be paid back with penalties for non-delivery.
Vladimir wasn't broke exactly. He was now deeply in debt. In some ways it was better than being broke, but in others much worse. Partly to gain access to the developing tech and partly just because it was good long-term financial strategy, he had invested in some of the more long-term projects. He was, for instance, fairly heavily invested in three of the companies that were working on down-time manufacture of automobiles. And he was the major investor in a group that was working on the tubes for microwaves. They didn't expect results for years, but they were working on it and Vladimir was the primary backer of the research. Microwave tech was just too useful to ignore because it was hard to do.
