Grantville Gazette-Volume XIV

by Eric Flint

  Melissa had never found it possible to stay mad at Red Sybolt for more than a few seconds. First, because he was such a incorrigible sprite. Second, because she was something of a kindred spirit. She'd admit it was a little silly for her to be denouncing Sybolt as a commie, seeing as how she could remember the label being applied to her often enough.

  "Fine," she said. "Bygones be bygones, and all that. But I'd still like to know"—here she looked at the two Poles—"what exactly in the writings of a socialist dealing with late nineteenth and early twentieth century Europe, the two of you find all that relevant when it comes to the political situation in Poland and Lithuania in the year 1634."

  They practically gaped at her. Belatedly, she realized how silly the question was. True enough, Luxemburg's stature with regard to Marxist economic theory was neither here nor there, in the here and now. But there was so much else in her life and writings.

  For a moment, she contemplated all those "elses." Complete disdain for nationalism. Contempt in particular for touchy exclusivism, including Jewish particularism. An equally complete commitment to social equality in all spheres of life. In her own way, Luxemburg had been one of the great feminists, too. And she'd never flinched from revolution, whatever else. Despite her well-known differences with the Bolsheviks, she'd been one of the few leaders of the German Social Democracy who had immediately supported the October Revolution.

  Melissa peered at the two young men at the table, who were peering back at her. Belatedly, also, remembering her earlier pronouncement—intended more as a jest than anything else, really—that Poland produced revolutionaries and radicals as readily and easily as it produced grain.

  She'd always found the Poles an exasperating people, in the course of her long study of history. Brilliant, one moment; incredibly pig-headed and self-centered, in the next. Always prone to explaining away their own history as the fault of everyone in the world except they themselves—yet, just as ready to lend a hand in someone's else righteous fight. Pulaski was only one of many. Every time Melissa had found herself, in those studies, on the verge of deciding the Poles were simply history's designated basket case, she'd remind herself that the same nation produced the fourth largest army to fight the Nazis in World War II.

  Naturally, they'd done it a la Pole. Their nation's regular army had been hopelessly outclassed when the Germans invaded and overran Poland in 1939. They'd been defeated in five weeks. Thereafter, however, the Polish government in exile put together a Polish exile army, air force and navy that constituted a much more powerful force than the better-known Free French managed to do, despite Poland having a smaller population than France.

  She wondered how it would all turn out in this universe.

  "Nevvvvvvvvvvvvvvver miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind," she said, in English.

  She saw that the Cossack was squinting at her in puzzlement, and realized that her Roseanne Roseannadanna imitation would have been gibberish to him. From the intent expression on his face since he'd arrived, for that matter, she was pretty sure his grasp of German wasn't all that good, either.

  "And what's Mr. Fedorovych's angle in all this?" she asked.

  "Well, it's complicated," said Red. "And we'll have to have Jakub do the translating for us. Dmytro's German is lousy and my Ruthenian—which is actually about a jillion dialects—is even worse."

  Everyone looked at the Poles. Jakub began speaking to Fedorovych. After a while, the Cossack started speaking.

  The first sentences translated were:

  "He says he thinks—so do many people he's spoken to among the Zaporozhian Host—that they'd do better if they shifted their allegiance to Wallenstein. They're fed up with the Lithuanian and Polish boyars, and they don't trust the Russians at all. But first, he says, Mr. Roth has to agree to do something about the Jews."

  "I knew it," hissed Morris. He scowled at the Cossack. "I suppose he expects me—God knows how I'd do it even if I were so inclined—to make all the Jews living in eastern Europe just somehow vanish. Stuff somewhere between a hundred and two hundred thousand kikes into my kike pocket, I guess."

  Zaborowsky translated. Frowning—he seemed more puzzled than anything else, from what Melissa could tell—Fedorovych shook his head and spoke. The translation came back:

  "He doesn't understand why you think to move the Jews. It's impossible anyway, because there are far too many of them. Besides, they make lots of useful things. But he says they have to stay in their towns, or, if they move into the countryside, they have to do it like any other farmer. No more working for the boyars."

  Morris stared at him. Then, glared at Melissa. "This is your fault."

  "Huh?"

  His wife looked exasperated. "Morris, that's absolutely childish!"

  He slumped back in his chair. "Yeah, I know it is. It's still her fault. I can remember her causing trouble since practically the first day she showed up in Grantville, way back almost forty years ago."

  Melissa sniffed. "That is why I came here, after all. At your insistence."

  "Don't remind me." Morris wiped his face. "I feel like I got somehow dropped into the set of Lord of the Rings right at the point when Tolkien conjured up an alliance with dwarves and elves." Gloomily: "And what's worse, some idiot cast me as Gandalf."

  * * *

  Jenny and the King's Men

  Written by Mark Huston

  And thus a mighty deed was done by Jenny's valiant hand,

  Black Prelacy and Popery she drove from Scottish land;

  King Charles he was a shuffling knave, priest Laud a meddling fool,

  But Jenny was a woman wise, who beat them with a stool!

  The column of soldiers advanced down High Street from Edinburgh castle. They parted the market-day crowd like a trout swimming upstream. Young boys ran up and down the column of soldiers, reveling in the novelty of having a troop of King Charles' men marching through their market.

  Ahead of the boys flew the rumors. By the time the squad of soldiers and their officer reached the corner of St. Giles Street and High Street, where the greengrocers and fishmongers were selling their wares in the shadow of St. Giles Cathedral, the rumors had raced ahead of them like wildfire.

  Jenny Geddes, the greengrocer in the second stand from the end, had one eye on the soldiers and the other on the vegetables in her cart. When there was a distraction in the street, someone, usually one of the street urchins, would dart up and try to run off with a carrot or two. Not today. She had been doing this for over twenty years, taking the stand over from her father when he died. And if her two daughters were lucky, maybe one of them could do the same.

  The officer bellowed out his halt order, and the soldiers stopped in front of the cathedral.

  Jenny took a moment and sucked on her pipe, put her hand on her hip and glared at the soldiers. Ever since Charles, she thought, that dirty papist-leaning king with a Catholic wife, arrested a whole lot of young lords over talk of a rebellion, things have been unsettled.

  But there was nothing that required this sort of armed display down the middle of High Street. She shook her head at the nonsense, and went back to keeping one eye on her stand and one eye on the troops in the street. Besides, that mess was over weeks ago; they were past this sort of thing. Bad for business, it is.

  The troops stopped at the other end of the square, and she could hear the murmur of the crowd around them. She grabbed her little three-legged stool and stood on it to get a better view, still keeping one eye on the cart. She thought she heard her name and raised her hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun. She shifted her pipe to the other side of her mouth. It fit well on both sides, as she had teeth missing on the right and left. She squinted against the sunlight with her not-so-perfect thirty-five-year-old eyes, and listened again.

  "They be a looking fer Jenny?" someone said. "Jenny Geddes?"

  "What on earth has she done?" said another.

  An old man spit on the ground. "These are t'king's men. Why would they be look
ing fer Jenny Geddes? That makes not a wit o' sense."

  Heads and eyes began to swivel toward Jenny. She stepped off the stool as inconspicuously as possible, and knocked the fire out of her pipe on the heel of her shoe. The pipe went into her pocket. She could see the soldiers advancing through the crowd to her left and to her right. They were surrounding her.

  She had a decision to make. Stay or flee. In all of her years in Edinburgh, she had never seen anyone who was arrested in this manner live to tell the tale. She thought of her daughters, her small plots of land outside the city gates, and made her decision. It was a simple and practical decision. There would be certain torture or death in the hands of the king's men. She had done nothing wrong—at least nothing wrong enough to send more than the sheriff after her. Whatever the reason that they were coming for her—guilty, innocent, mistaken identity—it was a sure thing that no good would come of it.

  Flee.

  She'd had a talent for evading pursuit since she was a girl. The twists and turns and dead ends of the medieval streets of Edinburgh were a playground to her as a child. She knew she could evade them, but then what?

  Jenny scooped up the few coins she had made this morning, moved back from the oncoming soldiers, and headed for the church courtyard directly behind her. There was a small passage that led to Candlemaker's way, and then to Cowpath Street. She took Cowpath Street into town every morning at dawn. It was one of the few streets on the south side of the town that had its own gate, one of only a handful into the walled city. She'd make for that gate.

  Troops were hollering for her to stop, and she sprinted to a narrow opening in the corner of the courtyard. She wasn't quite as skinny as she had been as a girl, but she still fit. Her tattered clothing caught on the bricks, but she kept moving.

  The opening became a long passageway between two buildings, with just enough room to slip sideways between them. The bright sunlight abruptly changed to shadow as she shuffled sideways into the musty passageway. It smelled of urine. She tried not to think about what was happening to her shoes.

  She glanced behind her and could see the soldiers gathering at the opening. She kept shuffling as fast as she could.

  "Where does this come out?" growled the officer. "You four stay here, you two follow her in the passage, the rest of you come with me."

  She glanced back again, and saw two men begin to squeeze into the passage. She knew her pursuers would have to work their way back through the dense market-day crowd still clustered in the church courtyard. They would then have to backtrack up the hill to another street that cut through, and then race back. By then, she should be long gone.

  "If I wasn't so afraid, this would almost be funny," she muttered when she popped out of the passageway a moment later. Her pair of pursuers had gotten stuck.

  "Cowpath Road is where I need t'be," she thought. "If I can get there, I'll go home and get the bairns, and then I'll. . . ." The thought trailed off as she continued to walk quickly through the maze of the city. Then what? She had no savings, no money, and no immediate family. Since her husband had died five years ago, she had been just holding on. There was some help from the church, but charity always irritated her. "One thing at a time, Jenny me girl, one thing at a time."

  The terrain turned dramatically downhill as she continued to slip between buildings, and she knew she was close to the road. Just a few more yards and she would be in view of the gate. She slowed to a walk and caught her breath. Soldiers were nowhere in sight, far behind and limited to the streets.

  "Attract no attention to yerself, lass" she thought, "just walk around this corner and be calm. Say g'day just like always."

  She peered out from around the corner, looking straight at Cowgate. She took a moment and looked carefully. Everything seemed normal. She waited, and watched. She was about to step around the corner when a young woman carrying a basket approached the gate to leave the city. As the girl reached the open gate, soldiers appeared from outside the gate. With their swords drawn.

  "Well, now. That's a bit odd." Jenny kept watching. The soldiers questioned the girl, inspecting her basket carefully. They then started leering, and grabbed at her. She complained and pulled away. McNulty, the regular gatekeeper and toll collector, stepped in and spoke to the men. McNulty was over fifty years old, and in no shape to take on two soldiers. But his commanding demeanor, roughly honed by three decades at Cowgate, convinced the men to let the girl through the gate without further molestation. He continued to talk to them after she had gone on her way. He then began to talk very animatedly to the men, who responded in kind. The argument continued. McNulty was one of the few honest gatekeepers in the city, and he had known Jenny all of her life. He was the gatekeeper when her father had his stand.

  Jenny leaned back against the wall, out of sight of the gate and tried to think. Were they searching for her at the gate? She had to find out before she tried to go through. She frantically tried to think of a way to find out what was going on; how could she get home without being discovered?

  "Dear Lord Jesus, please give me a way t'git home wi' me bairns," she whispered softly with her hands folded. "Take me if ye needs, but leave them be, please." She would need to act quickly; the other soldiers would be coming soon.

  She heard footsteps approach from the direction of the gate. She eased further away from the street and pressed against the building. She watched McNulty pass on his way up the street. He was muttering to himself, still upset from his encounter with the soldiers.

  Jenny took a sharp breath as he walked past her, and made another quick decision. "Oy. McNulty. It's me, Jenny Geddes. What be happening? Are they looking for me?"

  McNulty stopped suddenly, and did not respond. He casually eased toward the corner where Jenny was hiding, and leaned his back to the wall facing the street. He did not look at her. He looked up and down the street, and then spoke quietly over his shoulder. "Jenny Geddes, wa' in Gods name did ye do, lass? They got the king's men out after ye. I ain't seen the likes of this fer many a year." He paused and pulled his cap down lower on his face. "Aye, they be looking fer ye. They got orders to kill ye. W'a di' ye do, lass?"

  "Nothing. I swear it on my mother's grave, McNulty. Ye knows me, knows I go t'kirk always. I don't cheat folks. I am a god-fearing woman and I have a business. I didn't do nothing." She paused to think. "I don't like the papists, ye know that. But who does?"

  "Then why are they looking fer ye, lass?"

  Finally the frustration welled up in her, as the adrenaline melted away. She began to cry. "I swear that I hae done nothing! I just want to get back to me bairns and hug 'em and make sure they are well." She sniffed, and regained control. No time to cry. "I hae got to get home, McNulty. Wa' cannae do?"

  "They will be a waiting fer ye at home, Jenny. You got to hide. All the gates be manned like this one, with English soldiers. You got to hide."

  "But me bairns . . ." The tears welled up again.

  "Have you heard of the 'Committees of Correspondence'?"

  "Aye." She sniffed. "The ones with the speeches and the place on Little's Close" She sniffed again.

  "Go there. Ask for the German. His name is Otto. He will be able to help ye. I will send word through him aboot the bairns. Go and stay outta sight. If they catch you, they will kill you. That much I do know from these lads at me gate. Ye may want to hide until it's dark; there will be just a sliver of moon tonight. I will find out about the bairns." He glanced toward the gate. "Get away from here. The bloody English lads at the gate are starting to notice me here. So git."

  "There will be more soldiers coming soon. They will be looking fer me."

  "Lord, girl. What could they want with you? Now git on w'ye, before they get suspicious."

  "God bless ye, McNulty."

  "Git, woman!"

  * * *

  Otto Artmann sat in the back room of the tiny CoC building in near perfect darkness and listened. He could hear the rats moving in the dark alley behind. Most of Edinburgh
had gone home for the night. Soldiers had stopped patrolling the streets looking for Jenny.

  Carefully, so as not to make any noise, he shifted positions in his chair. He had been sitting for two hours, waiting, and his leg was falling asleep. He had caught a bad pike wound in his calf while fighting in the Germanies four years ago. After his capture by the Americans, he was released into a new world. A world he was determined to make better. He had spent a lot of his life making the world worse. He pushed the old thoughts out of his head, and focused on listening again. He was rewarded with a new sound. Silence. The rats had stopped moving in the alley. Silently, as he rose from the chair, he slid his dagger out of the sheath in his boot, and moved to the back door. It was so quiet that he could hear someone breathing and the movement of fabric from behind the door.

  "Otto? Are ye there? Otto?" The voice was low, quiet, tense.

  He paused before answering. "Aye. Who is this? Who sent you?"