by Eric Flint
* * *
Margaret met her husband at the door with a satchel holding a small cheese about the size of a good cabbage, and two loaves of bread about the same size. "The cheese should see you there and back. You can buy more bread before you leave London." Two loaves, two days walk, fresh enough, but there was no point in Thomas eating stale bread when it could be had for a fair price. She gave him a peck on the cheek.
"Margaret, please. What will the neighbors think?"
"Thomas, the day I can't send my husband off to London with a kiss because the neighbors are Puritans is the day we will move to Rome. I still think you should have hired a horse, or taken the coach."
"No. My brother is right. The money is better spent. I'd walk twice that for a lot less. Besides, I probably couldn't stay on a horse anyway, then it would run off and how would we ever pay for it? I've got my walking stick. I'll see you in five days."
"Thomas, when you get there call yourself a brasier instead of a tinker. It sounds better."
With these words of advice from his wife, Thomas set off for Temple Bar in London, wondering each step of the way what it was all about.
* * *
While munching the last of his bread in the last of the daylight Thomas found Temple Bar. He asked where he could find the office of Isaac Abrabanel, thinking to locate where he would go in the morning.
"It's right there. That's his shingle hanging over his door, just three down. The one that reads Isaac Abrabanel, Importer. Didn't you look, or can't you read?"
Thomas suspected that the fellow he asked couldn't read either, but wasn't about to admit that to some bumpkin just in from the country. To his surprise, the window spilled lamplight out onto the street. A glance through the glass made it clear that people were about.
"Well, the sooner begun, the sooner it's finished." Thomas pushed the door open and walked in.
* * *
The clerk summed up the man in front of him with a glance. "It's after hours. Come back tomorrow."
"Is this the office of Isaac Abrabanel?"
"Yes. We open at eight in the morning."
"He wants to see me."
"I'm sure he does! Tomorrow."
"Tell him Thomas Bunyan was here, then. I'll be back tomorrow."
"Thomas Bunyan? The tinker from Elstow?"
"I prefer to think of myself as a brasier."
As Thomas turned to leave, the clerk realized he had just made a big mistake. "Please, wait a moment, sir. Let me check with Mr. Abrabanel. I know he is anxious to speak with you."
The clerk came back in short order. On the one hand, he was vindicated. His boss would see the ragged scarecrow tomorrow. He was in a conference at the moment and it would run late. On the other hand, he was unhappy. Yes, he could lock up and leave, but he was to buy the dusty countryman a good dinner and settle him into a decent lodging. And he was to see the fellow back to the office in the morning. It wasn't the way he'd intended to spend his evening.
"Mister Abrabanel is tied up right now. He will see you in the morning. Join me for dinner and then—"
The tinker brushed at his shirt. "I've eaten."
"Are you sure? There is a very nice dining establishment just around the corner."
"I'm sure."
Avram, the clerk, was annoyed again. There went the paid for dinner he was looking forward to, even if it meant being seen with a tinker. "Well, then. Let me get you settled into your lodging for the night."
* * *
Thomas took one look at the hired room. It was, without question, the finest room he had ever even seen and he would be spending tonight here. There was a huge bed, a fireplace laid but unlit on an August night. The wash stand, sink and pitcher, along with an actual bath tub were absolute luxuries. "I can't afford this."
"Oh, but it's at our expense."
"You're sure?"
"Of course." The clerk hesitated a moment. "Dinner is at our expense also . . . if you would care to change your mind?"
* * *
Later, Thomas, smiling, stuffed and bathed, settled into bed with the knowledge that his laundered clothes would be returned in the morning. "A fellow could get used to this if he wasn't careful."
* * *
"Master Bunyan, it is good to meet you. Please be seated. How was the coach ride down from Elstow?"
"I walked."
"Oh, I see. Your wife and young John, they are in good health?"
"Yes."
"Well, Thomas . . . do you mind if I call you Thomas?"
"Most do."
"Yes, well . . . Thomas, I have been instructed to pay all of your expenses if you will relocate your family to the town of Grantville in the Germanies."
"Grantville?"
"You've heard of it, I'm sure."
"Yes. I've heard of the city from the future . . . and I've heard of the sea monsters that dwell in the lakes of Scotland. You might as well pay my way to the New World so I can move into one of the Spanish cities of gold and start making golden pots and kettles."
"I assure you, Grantville is real. I have a cousin there. He wrote me concerning you and your family. You are wanted in Grantville. All expenses are to be paid. A complete shop will be provided and there will be more than enough work—at a sufficient rate of pay to more than provide a good living for your family and a good education for your son."
"Why?"
"What?"
"Why? They have tinkers in Germany. Why does someone want me?"
"Well as you have heard, Grantville is from the future." Isaac held up a hand to forestall Thomas' objection. "I assure you it is true. So, while you may have lived a very ordinary life up till now, it would seem that you will do something extraordinary in the future and someone wants that to happen in Grantville."
"What?"
"I have no idea. Perhaps you will invent something or create some notable works. Perhaps it is young John who is to do something of note, or a child yet to be born? I wasn't informed and I don't know. What I do know is that you are wanted there and I am to see to it that you get there if you are willing to go."
Thomas' mind raced. The bag of coins in his brother's keeping, the room and the meal last night, the bath and the clean clothes, the fancy office. Someone was willing to spend money like Thomas had never had and never dreamed of having. Still . . . "There is a war in Germany."
"Yes, but not in Grantville. It will be quite safe, I assure you."
"This is beyond belief!"
"Yes, I imagine it is. But it is quite true. Master Bunyan . . . Thomas . . . there is a ship leaving in six days. I would like it very much if you and your family were to be on it."
Thomas sat in silence.
"You will want to discuss this with your wife." Isaac brought a small bag of coins out of his desk drawer. It had been prepared for just this point in the conversation. He let it drop several inches, in a spot Thomas could reach. It made the sound that only comes when gold meets gold. "Take a coach home. Think about the offer, and then bring your family back to London by coach. At least, let your wife sit in on the discussion." Isaac had laid the bait. Now it was time to set the hook. "I am authorized to tell you that money for a return trip will be on deposit with us until you use it or it is released to your heirs at the time of your death."
* * *
Secure in the belief that the Abrabanels would be successful, and looking to the patent and copyright laws
in the books he'd read, an attorney in an office in Grantville was quietly preparing a brief to claim the royalties for Pilgrim's Progress for young John Bunyan. True, John hadn't written it or any of his other works yet. But he was undeniably the author. It was a fine point. A very fine point of law. He would have to argue it in court, of course. But he thought he had quite a good case.
Elsewhere in Grantville, an old Free and Approved Mason was wondering what John Bunyan's output would be when he had received a first class education. The expense to find out was well worth it.
* * *<
br />
Nothing's Ever Simple
Written by Virginia DeMarce
Grantville, December 1633
"That's probably about the best we can do." Roberta Sutter looked at the stacks of paper on the table in front of her with considerable dissatisfaction.
"We've interviewed everyone in town," Sandra Prickett said. "We've made them look for family Bibles and scrapbooks and newspaper clippings and birth certificates and applications for delayed birth certificates and applications for Social Security cards and . . . Anyway, quite a few people got annoyed and said things, like, 'Don't you realize there's a war on?'"
"We've gotten a lot that we didn't have before," Mary Jo Blackwell added her bit to the Genealogy Club council meeting. Mary Jo was always spoiling someone else's desire to have a good fight. She was a nuisance that way, sometimes.
Marian Butcher nodded. "Some surprises, too, like how Rose Howell's descendants knew that some of Cyrene's great-grandkids lived here in town and that they were related, but Cyrene's had forgotten all about it."
Miriam Miller looked at Jenny Maddox. "I guess the point is—does the Bureau of Vital Statistics want us to stop the blitz? Have we done enough for the records you need?"
"More than enough, probably. We're going to put copies of everything in the public library. Marietta's fine with that. People can come look up their family trees if they're interested. Down-timers as well as up-timers."
Roberta frowned again. "The down-time stuff is still mainly oral history. It's not properly documented. When the wars stop, maybe we can write to the parishes where people told us they were born and married and get copies of their baptisms and weddings for our files."
"With your approach to genealogy, there will never be an end to it."
Roberta looked at Jenny, honestly surprised. "Of course not. Everyone who's ever been born has two parents, and lots of them have aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews. And cousins. Even Jesus had cousins. The historian Josephus wrote that Roman officials interviewed them, about thirty years after the crucifixion. Oral history is an important part of the process, even though it isn't sufficient in itself." Her voice was starting to perk up again.
Sandra Prickett sighed.
February 1634
"I hate to say it, Melvin, but I think they're losing their enthusiasm."
Melvin Sutter chewed his sausage. Personally, he had sort of hoped, after they adopted a couple of
children after the Ring of Fire and Roberta got a full-time job, that she would lose some of hers. Not that he had anything against family trees. But their house didn't have just plain family trees. It even had family trees that Roberta had cross-stitched, framed, and put up on the walls. There was one hanging right over his head, here in the breakfast nook.
"I started to explain how we could supplement the oral history we collected for the new immigrants. I need documentation for our own children. I've already written to Gotha for Albrecht and Margaretha and to Kitzingen for Martin. Now if I could just find someone who remembers exactly where Verena was baptized, since she doesn't seem to be related to any other of the Elsisheimers who have immigrated to Grantville—not that I'm sure they're telling me the truth. They're a bit evasive, especially Magdalena Albert. She's Kunz Polheimer's wife—her first husband was an Elsisheimer, though she didn't have any children by him. If it's because Verena was born out of wedlock and her mother Maria was actually a relative somehow, then . . ."
Melvin, a veteran of such speculations, tuned it all out and continued chewing.
Until he heard the dire words, ". . . and I'm not going to put it off any longer. I'm not going to wait until it's too late."
"Uh. Put what off?"
"Melvin, you haven't been listening."
He didn't even try to defend himself.
"I know we don't have any natural children, but Marilyn has Matt and it's likely he'll marry and have children one of these days. So I really need to finish the Hooper side of the family. Before the Ring of Fire, I took it as far as the church records from Schwarzach that had been microfilmed by the Mormons would let me, but they only started in 1612. If I go to Schwarzach now, before it's too late, I can interview living ancestors. I'm sure with what they remember, I can add a couple more generations to the family tree. Huber, it was, in Germany, before the Germanna immigrants Americanized the spelling. I hope that my ancestor Georg Huber is still the mayor of Schwarzach."
"I hate to say this, but we've got four adopted children, now. Their mother can't just go haring off someplace to do genealogy."
"They're not babies. Albrecht's sixteen; Martin's fifteen. Margaretha's eleven. Even Verena's five, not a baby any more. Marilyn will help you. I'm sure she will, especially now that Matt's off in Magdeburg. It's her family tree too, after all. You can manage on your own this coming summer."
"Marilyn just got married again last fall. Baxter Harris may not want for her to be babysitting a batch of kids all next summer."
"Since she married Baxter, she's Trissie's stepmother, and Trissie's the perfect age to baby-sit Verena and Margaretha, plus she's in the same class at school with Albrecht." Roberta patted Melvin's cheek. "Don't worry. It will all work out fine."
Melvin shook his head. "It won't be that simple. Things never are."
July 1634
Roberta sat quietly.
Roberta quiet was Roberta dangerous.
"Just where is this Schwarzach place, anyway? Why don't you write them?"
"After the Benedictine imperial abbey there was secularized in 1803, it became part of the Grand Duchy of Baden. That was the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg in our day. I did write to the mayor, last year. And to the Catholic church, but I haven't gotten an answer. So I need to go."
"By my count, there's close to a hundred seventy-five years of politics between now and 1803. Where is it now?"
"Um. In Swabia."
"Horn has a Swedish army in Swabia."
Roberta tilted her head. "Not in the part of Swabia where Schwarzach is."
"Just what part of Swabia is Schwarzach in?"
"It's on the Rhine. And now I have a contact there, so . . ."
"You have a contact there? I thought you said that they hadn't written back."
"Well, Mayor Huber hasn't written back."
"And . . ."
"Uh, you remember that Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar offered Kamala Horton a job? And she took it and shook the dust of Grantville off her feet, so to speak? She and the kids left right after school was out in May."
"Yeah . . ."
"Well, Duke Bernhard has his military headquarters at Schwarzach. That's where Kamala and her kids are. She's going to Besançon this fall, but there's stuff they want her to do in Schwarzach first. They've been given quarters right in the abbey buildings because she's working on military sanitation first. I can stay with her while I'm doing the research, which will save a lot of money in hotel costs . . ."
"Roberta!" This time Melvin practically shrieked. "You'll be walking right into a war zone."
"But not through a war zone. I can go straight over to Frankfurt and then take a boat down the Main and up the Rhine."
"Roberta! It's fucking dangerous!"
She looked at him, honestly bewildered. "Well, that's sort of the point." She patted his cheek again. "If the war is moving that way, I need to get in and copy the records for our family tree now, before things like tax records get destroyed or someone who remembers important information gets killed or dies. Think how many courthouses got burned during the Civil War up-time. It was horrible—just horrible."
* * *
"It's not common to have such a long family tree that's all made up of perfectly ordinary people," Roberta said. "There's not a famous person on it. Just farmers and innkeepers and stonemasons and carpenters. People like that. And their wives. I have all the maiden names back to the Georg Huber who is alive now, in this year 1634. Matt's the thirteenth generation. If I can just talk to this G
eorg Huber—a lot of the records spell his given name as 'Jerg'—then I'm sure I can add his mother's maiden name and he almost certainly knows the names of his grandparents. All four of them. His father was named 'Jerg' too. I've only been able to determine from the microfilmed church records that the older Jerg died some time between 1629 and 1641. If I'm really lucky and that ancestor is still alive, then he should remember the names of his grandparents, too. That would give us fifteen generations to my nephew Matt. At worst, I'll be able to find out Jerg, Sr.'s date of death and enter it on the charts."
