2 barley rolls 1 pfennig
1 cup small beer 1 quartered pfennig
Supper–
1 cup cabbage soup 2 pfennigs
1 barley roll 2 quartered pfennigs
1 cup small beer 1 quartered pfennig
Exhausted this morning. Don't remember dreams, but must have had some, because I was so tired. Felt hungover, but wasn't drunk.
Head hurt all day. Wish I had some of Dr. Gribbleflotz's little blue pills.
Martin was humming hymns again today. Badly. Finally told him that if he couldn't do a tune better than that in public, he should be silent, as hymns were supposed to be a praise to God, and what he was doing was an insult. He looked at me shocked and almost on verge of tears, I think, but he shut up. Herr Schiller frowned at me, but said nothing. It was worth it, because it was quiet the rest of the day.
Didn't visit the bookstore after work. Just ate supper and went home. Felt better after the soup.
Finished The Fall of the House of Usher by Herr Poe. Herr Lovecraft's story is The Doom That Came to Sarnath. Forced myself to not read it tonight so I can make the magazine last longer.
Recited evening prayers. Decided I was rude to Martin. Will apologize. Recited evening prayers again.
Now to bed.
****
From the Journal of Philip Fröhlich
5 November 1634
Sunday
Breakfast–
fasted
Lunch–
1 wheat roll 3 pfennigs
1 sausage 2 pfennigs
1 cup small beer 1 quartered pfennig
Supper–
1 wurst 1 pfennig
2 mugs beer 1 pfennig
Lord's Day, Lord's work.
Muddled dreams last night. Woke up twice.
Church this morning. St. Jacob's had fewer people in the nave. Gossip is that some people have been sick, rumors of plague were whispered about, even though it's winter.
Music was even worse than usual. Sang anyway.
Sermon was no better than usual. No one fell asleep, but suspect that may be because with fewer people, the nave was colder than usual. Old man Schicklegruber wasn't there, so it was a bit quieter.
Broke my fast after church. Spent the afternoon reading more of The City of God and thinking about it. St. Augustine is still hard to understand.
Did meet Cousin Johann at The Green Horse tonight, and he explained one of my problems with St. Augustine, but told me he would have to think about the other one.
Even so, a productive holy day.
Recited evening prayers, and now to bed.
****
From the Journal of Philip Fröhlich
6 November 1634
Monday
Breakfast–
1 barley roll 2 quartered pfennigs
Supper–
1 barley roll 2 quartered pfennigs
1 winter apple 1 pfennig
1 cup small beer 1 quartered pfennig
I apologized to Martin Niemoller for being rude to him last week. Then I told him he still needed to learn his hymns better, as it's disrespectful to God to sing them badly. He tried to tell me that he's doing the best he can. I told him he needs to learn better, but not here. It's distracting.
Herr Schiller commended me for apologizing, then told Martin I was right, and set him to work drawing more forms. He is getting the lines straighter than he was.
Reviewed the entries from late last week, found no errors. Pleasant surprise after following behind Thomas for so long. Showed the pages to Herr Schiller. He looked somewhat glad. He said Master Gröning would be pleased.
Have an idea for a story! It came to me while I was looking at the entries, and almost distracted me from the work.
Was so involved in thinking about the story idea this evening, didn't even read any of the new Der Schwarze Kater. Was surprised when I noticed that.
Eventually recited evening prayers. Then recited again to calm myself more. Now to bed.
****
From the Journal of Philip Fröhlich
11 November 1634
Saturday
Breakfast–
1 barley roll 2 quartered pfennigs
1 cup small beer 1 quartered pfennig
Supper–
1 barley roll 2 quartered pfennigs
1 cup small beer 1 quartered pfennig
Master Gröning only hires us for a half day on Saturdays. Old miser. But he still expects near a full day's ledger entries from us.
Today I was glad to leave after noon, as it gave me a chance to run to my room and work on my story. And I finished it.
That felt good. That felt really good. I was almost dancing in the room when I got done.
After a little while, I picked it up and read it. I like it.
So, I will fold it up and put the address on it and take it to Herr Gronow's offices and submit it.
~~~
Back. Found Herr Gronow's office in the building where the magazine said it would be. The door was closed and locked, which did not surprise me, but there is a slot cut in the door with a sign above it that says "Submissions", so after a moment I dropped the story through the slot. And as soon as I let go of it I wanted to take it back, but my hand wouldn't reach through the slot far enough to pick it up where it fell. So I leaned against the door and prayed about it.
Ate supper on the way home.
When I returned to my room I treated myself to The Doom That Came to Sarnath. Very fine.
Still I worry about my story.
Recited evening prayers. Now to bed.
****
From the Journal of Philip Fröhlich
15 November 1634
Wednesday
Breakfast–
1 barley roll 2 quartered pfennigs
1 cup small beer 1 quartered pfennig
Supper–
1 barley roll 2 quartered pfennigs
No dreams last night.
Today a messenger stepped inside the office. Herr Schiller held out his hand, but the messenger stood and said, "This here message is for nobody but Herr Philip Fröhlich."
Herr Schiller frowned, but pointed at me, and the messenger stepped over to hand me an envelope before he ducked his head in a bow—to me!—and turned and left.
"If that is not part of the business of Master Gröning, you will leave it alone until your day is done," Herr Schiller said. His face looked like he was tasting something sour. I stuffed it inside my shirt, and didn't open it until I got back to my room.
****
14 November 1634
Herr Philip Fröhlich
I have received what appears to be a story submission to Der Schwarze Kater magazine with your name and contact address on the outside. Unfortunately, at this time I cannot publish your story, mostly because I cannot read the blasted thing.
First, I do understand if you are not able to afford one of the new Goldfarb und Meier typewriting machines. You will notice that, as much as I personally lust after one, this response is written with pen and ink. You will also notice that my letter is perfectly legible, with well-formed characters inked on the page. Sadly, your story was not. Pencil written on cheap tan paper does not make for a readable page, and the smudges and attempted erasures simply make it illegible.
Second, your handwriting, from what I could detect of it, is execrable. Your school teacher would be chastised if I knew who he was.
Third, it is simply not permitted to spell the same word three different ways on one page. I suggest you pay attention to the Bible as translated by Martin Luther. However he spelled a word is how it should be spelled in writing.
I hesitate to say this, but if you can find a way to improve the presentation of your story, whose title I cannot decipher, you may resubmit it.
Good day to you.
Johann Gronow
Editor and Publisher
Der Schwarze Kater
About the Faces on the Cutting Room Floor Number Eig
ht: Authenticity, Site Surveys, and Blind Serendipity by Charles E. Gannon
I have been asked a number of times how much research I did in order to invoke the sense of place that often pervades 1635: The Papal Stakes. The answer is, "Lots." And there are two parts to that answer.
The first part is the frank admission that strong reliance upon good libraries, wary utilization of Wikipedia, and—above all—deep forays via Google Earth were indispensable in acquiring a good sense of the land and architecture of the various locales depicted in Papal Stakes. That being said, those sources often came close to leading me into error, as well. For instance: there is a scene early in the book where Estuban Miro is leading the Wrecking Crew over the alps in a dirigible and they come across a "duck pond" called the Marmelsee. Harry Lefferts is surprised that it is not a larger expanse of waters, given how vast it looked on their Fodors maps. Well, in the E-arc, I believe you'll find that it is shown to be just that large—because the small duck pond was turned into a vast alpine lake by a damming project in (I believe) the early twentieth century. But that was not flagged in any of the references I had and was, I believe, pointed out by a reader familiar with the region's history. Google Earth doesn't lie, but we do occasionally change the planet (and sometimes it changes all by itself, as I learned when trying to locate the seventeenth-century shoreline of Louisiana versus the modern one as I commenced writing 1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies).
The second part of the answer is that I have actually visited a number of key sites in Papal Stakes. Certainly Rome, but more especially Mallorca, where, over the years, I've probably spent a cumulative total of about four months. During some of my final visits there, I was fortunately under contract for Papal Stakes and so had the opportunity to go armed with a camera and conduct what, in the film business, we call "site surveys." What I found, and its value to enriching the narrative, are for you to judge. However, not all of these photos were snapped by your humble narrator, and for every one that you see here, there were twenty passed over for one reason or another.
So to end this series on the same cinematic theme with which we began –"faces on the cutting room floor"—here are some of the site survey (and other helpful graphics) that went into the making and visualizations of 1635: The Papal Stakes.
#1 The Island of Monte Cristo. This is the view entering the bay into which Miro and Harry Lefferts led the pirate xebec beneath the ambushing guns of North's Hibernians and then the boarders under Owen Roe O'Neill's Wild Geese. You will note the scrub cover, the crags that provide stony foxholes and the murderous downward angle of fire and commanding view of the battlespace. A narrow inlet any other day, at that point in the book, it was nothing less than a kill zone.
#2 The Bay of Canyamel. The view here is from the crest of the Cap des Pins looking across the bay at Cap Vermell. If you look closely, you will see a triangle of shadow approximately one third of the way in from the extreme right hand of the image, set in the face of the stony spur of land and relatively close to the water. This is the entrance to the Caves of Arta, known as a pirate lair since Roman times and a tourist attraction today. But trust me, a firefight in there would be not merely a gothic horror show, but deafening. This was, of course, the site of the second attack Miro's band made upon pirates, grabbing another hull (a llaut, a Balearic boat still used today) and much-needed supplies with which to begin their covert stay upon Mallorca.
#3 A period map of Palma de Mallorca, first city of the entire Balearic Island chain. Although the map was drafted approximately one hundred years after the events in Papal Stakes, it is inspired by the layout of the city as it was in 1644 (hence the strangely anachronistic mix of ship types). Even as an "epochal fusion" map, it still offers an excellent sense of the layout and scope of this picturesque and strategically important provincial capitol. Long a point of contact between Moors and Spanish, as well as Carthaginians and Romans, trade and piracy are integral parts of the island's heritage. The Castell de Bellver, the site of Frank and Giovanna Stone's final imprisonment and one of the two pitched, final battles in the novel, is located well to the west/left of the map edge.
#4 Convincing description must extend to artifacts as well as architecture. In the case of all the boats depicted, considerable examination of deckplans and accounts (unofficial as well as official) was exhaustive. Weapons and equipment were handled similarly; if you are going to convincingly depict any device, one must have a sense of its physical properties.
In the case of the hallmark weapons of this combat-intensive novel, the signature rifle of the Hibernian Mercenary Battalion was the Winchester Model 1895 lever action in .40-72. A black powder weapon (in 1635), it was an excellent compromise between simplicity of design, portability, rate of fire, and stopping power (it was used with reasonable success as a big game rifle). Nowhere near as affordable or easy to manufacture as the standard shoulder arms of the USE, having a model of the weapon from which to build copies allowed it to become a practical "special equipage" model for small, elite formations such as the Hibernians.
#5 The other shoulder weapon used by some of the elite forces in the second half of The Papal Stakes—an "equalizer" to make up for the heavy losses suffered in Rome—was the Russian SKS. As shown here, most models (like the top one) are loaded via ten-round stripper clips. However, as shown below, certain variants are able to use an AK-47 magazine (it fires the same 7.62 x 39 mm cartridge). However, the SKS arguably enjoys greater accuracy due to superior ergonomic design (my personal experience aligns with this opinion). Remember this gun when we get to the pictures of the lazarette/tower at the Castell de Bellver…
#6 and #7 A few more pieces of standard Hibernian Mercenary equipment: the top revolver (shown for comparison with a modern model) is a close approximation of the Hockenjoss & Klott .44 cap and ball pistol, and the "lobstertail" helmet, which offers good protection and excellent field of vision. (Made famous by Oliver Cromwell's Roundheads, but it was in broad use on the continent as well.)
#8 and #9 The Castell de Bellver. A singular architectural wonder and largely held to be impregnable prior to the advent of seventeenth-century artillery, the layout reflected the mathematical metaphysics of Ramon Llull. As is visible in the photo with the Bay of Palma (and city) in the background, it is a tight, circular structure, with one attached outlying tower (the "lazarette," although this was usually used for visiting dignitaries requiring high security) and a single drawbridge access over an empty moat. The perfect geometric symmetries of the structure are more evident in the other image, as are the outlying revetments that guard the approaches to the fort, and by the seventeenth century, were its primary artillery stations.
#10 The Lazarette. Accessible only by a very narrow walkway (accessed by single file) suspended high above the moat, this was an extraordinarily defensive position even if only defended from the ground. However, with marksmen on the roof…
#11 The approach to the lazarette and its commanding presence. This narrow spire of a tower (with fifteen-foot-wide round rooms and a single tight staircase) was clearly designed to provide a clear field of fire for either musketeers or crossbowmen not only across the broad expanse of the top level of the castell, but also of the opposite galleries and a good part of the arms court. As can be seen from…
#12 The overlook from the top of the lazarette. To coin a phrase, this was obviously designed quite intentionally to provide "a view to a kill." With marksmen on either side of the stone cupola protecting the roof access point of the lazarette's staircase, this view, in stereo, provides complete coverage of the entirety of the upper level of the castell, and is designed to enable murderous crossfire concentration upon the approaches to the single-stone bridge linking it to the lazarette. If anyone ever wondered if Harry Lefferts and his Hibernian partner could rip apart two dozen Spanish soldiers with their extended-magazine SKSs (thirty rounds, no waiting) …think again.
#13 View from the upper level. In addition to offering a commanding view of
(and artillery trajectory toward) the Bay of Palma to the east, the other points of the compass allowed direct, uncovered fields of fire upon the artillery revetments that were the forts' outer works. Another scene of (in this case, implied) carnage from the pages of Papal Stakes.
#14 The interior of Castell de Bellver. Comprised of an "arms court" and two circular vaulted galleries, any conventional intruders would find themselves in one of the world's most striking crucibles of defensive small arms fire. The taller upper gallery affords defenders waist-high stone cover in a 360-degree encirclement of the court. Access is by two staircases accessible directly from the lower gallery.
#15 and #15a The lower gallery. Devoted mostly to the practical, day-to-day needs of the fort, these rooms were somewhat more rude in construction, but also quite sturdy, with heavy door and iron hardware. The site of housing, kitchen, storerooms, and privies, it was the working level of Castell de Bellver. One of the nicer rooms on this level (a commander's office and marshalling area, apparently) recalls the more refined features and architectural interest (groined vaulting) of the chambers that ring the more airy and bright upper gallery.
#16 The ascending stairway to the upper gallery. Narrow and steep, with stout doors, an upwards assault against well-prepared defenders was sure to be a costly matter. Even with the superior firepower, surprise, speed, and training of the Wild Geese and Hibernians, reaching and breaking out into the second level was a difficult task and ultimately, where the majority of casualties were inflicted upon them.
#17 The upper gallery. With taller doorways, more windows, and graceful stonework throughout, the ceiling of the second level soars and also receives some cooling sea breezes scalloping down and in through the circular opening to the roof and the sky beyond. Despite its refinements, the upper gallery is also designed for murderously effective defense against any intruders who might fight through the single, double-portcullised entrance into the arms court. And for any attackers who might (improbably) get this far, access to the roof level was only to be had through three stairways protected within rooms lining the promenade.
Grantville Gazette, Volume 70 Page 14
