Ring of fire II (assiti shards)

by Eric Flint

  That completed, Judy said, "I've been thinking."

  "About boys? Mister W, perhaps?"

  "About tennis."

  Millicent started warbling the love song from the Titanic movie. The DVD had been released some months before the Ring of Fire.

  Judy slugged her with a pillow. "All right, about both," she admitted. "But I want to talk about tennis."

  "So talk."

  "It's getting harder and harder to find balls that are bouncy enough for twentieth-century tennis. Once we open the can, the balls lose their air within weeks. And even in the can, they're only good for two years or so."

  "You're thinking about switching to royal tennis?"

  "That's right."

  "But we can't play in Halle, thanks to that jerk of a ballmeister. And constructing a matching tennis court in Grantville would be real expensive."

  "It's a catch twenty-two. We could justify it if we had the players, but we won't have the players until we have the court. Still… tennis used to be a very posh sport. Just the thing to play at the Higgins Hotel."

  "Yeah, but there's no way OPM would fund constructing a real tennis court there. Not until the hotel was in full operation and was getting enough down-time visitors who knew the game."

  "Yeah." Judy puttered around a bit. "Wait. I was just thinking. About the back courtyard. It's much like a cloisters. And it isn't all that wide."

  "You're right! And the walls have sloped roofs, to keep the snow off them."

  "It would mean playing tennis like they did it a few centuries ago. I mean, back when they played in monasteries instead of customized courts. But it would be a way to work up interest in the game."

  "And if enough people got interested, then maybe OPM would decide it was a good investment."

  "William told me that there are almost two thousand tennis courts in Paris. And that when one of the indoor markets burnt down in 1590, it was replaced with a tennis court, because that was more profitable."

  "We would need someone to teach the game. Someone that was willing to teach women to play."

  "What about William, when he comes back?"

  "Well, there would be a lot of snob appeal in having an earl as a teacher. But I don't think he knows how to make the balls and rackets. Perhaps Mister Hobbes, the seventeenth-century know-it-all, does?"

  Judy had written to William: "So, if someone were to build a real tennis court in Grantville, what would be the right dimensions?"

  When she got his response, she read it aloud to Millicent: "There are no two tennis courts which are exactly alike. They can have different dimensions, different winning openings, and so on."

  She looked at Millicent. "That's crazy, don't you think?"

  Millicent disagreed. "Crazier than baseball stadiums?"

  When she had a chance, Judy stopped by the Grantville Public Library. The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica had plenty to say about "royal tennis," including the typical dimensions of the various parts of the court.

  Enough to show that the inner courtyard at the Higgins Hotel was an acceptable match. There would be compromises, of course. No main wall. And the grille side wasn't walled up. But she thought it might work. At least if any exposed windows were covered over. She didn't want to pay for broken glass.

  She would ask William, when he got back from Magdeburg, to take a look.

  Grantville

  September 1633

  "Hi, Heather!" William smiled at her. "I just got back last night. Took my time getting up this morning."

  Heather picked up her books and hurried off. "Hey, what's the matter?" William said as she retreated.

  Derrick Mason was on the other side of the street, and William waved to him. Derrick Mason turned his back.

  What has gotten into these people? William thought. He walked over to the public library. Hobbes was already at a desk, with books piled in front of him. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

  "Hello, Mister Hobbes."

  "Good morning, Lord Devonshire."

  "I haven't suddenly acquired leprosy, have I, Mister Hobbes?"

  "What on Earth leads you to ask such a question?"

  "My American friends haven't been very friendly today."

  "Yes, I know why. I found out when I arrived at the library. Fortunately, the librarians didn't hold it against me."

  "Hold what against you?"

  "Against us. England, Spain and France have formed an alliance, the League of Ostend. The League defeated the Dutch Navy off Dunkirk."

  "Good for them. The Dutch deserve it, after torturing our people on Amboina to make false confessions of treason."

  "Indeed they do. But no one here believes that the League is arrayed against the Dutch alone. King Charles has transferred the American colonies to France. And the Grantville embassy in London has been imprisoned in the Tower. Do you know who is in that embassy?"

  "Melissa Mailley, my friends' teacher."

  "That's right. And Rita and Tom Simpson, Friedrich and Nelly Bruch, Darryl McCarthy, and Gayle Mason. All popular people here. I'd stay away from Thuringen Gardens for a few days, unless you have a taste for one-against-many bar brawls."

  "So, are we prisoners, too?"

  "Not yet, at least. But we do appear to be persona non grata, all of a sudden." Hobbes closed the book in front of him with a snap. "The attitude of the Americans is not our only problem."

  "How so?"

  "Your license from the Privy Council to 'go beyond the sea' says-" Hobbes changed the pitch of his voice to indicate that he was quoting from memory " '-do not haunt or resort onto the territories or dominions of any foreign prince not being with us in league or amity, nor wittingly keep company with any person or persons evil affected to our State.'

  "If you stay, it could be interpreted as treason."

  The coach was loaded to capacity. Hobbes and William had acquired so many curiosities in Grantville that if they put on another bag, the horses would just go on strike.

  William was feeling sorry for himself. When he asked at the hotel desk that they connect him with Judy, they had told him, "she's out." Again and again. William suspected that she would be "out" until he left town.

  William was leaning against the coach, waiting for Mister Hobbes to finish checking the hotel's arithmetic, when Judy appeared.

  "Hi," he said.

  "Hi, yourself."

  William shifted from one foot to another. The silence grew.

  "I know it's not your fault. I mean, the Treaty of Ostend. But people I know are going to end up fighting, and maybe dying, over this. Derrick and Kelsey Mason are in the military. And even civilians are at risk-we haven't forgotten the Croat Raid on Grantville."

  "I know… But from what Mister Hobbes has taught me, history has a way of flipping things around. Enemies today, allies tomorrow."

  "Yeah." Judy blinked, as though she was trying to hold back tears. "But it can be a long time in-between flips."

  "Maybe…" William paused, wondering how to say it. "Maybe, someday…"

  Judy gave him a little smile. "Yeah. Maybe someday. Write me, okay?"

  "I will."

  The coach was ready and the men were getting impatient. It was time to go. "Ah…" William wanted to say more but didn't have any words. "Ah…"

  Judy leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss. "Maybe next time." She ran off, back into the hotel.

  William watched the doors for a moment, but she didn't come back. Instead, Hobbes emerged. "Lord Devonshire, are you ready?"

  "Yes, Mister Hobbes. It's time to go."

  Hobbes and William stood on the docks of Hamburg. With the ports of Holland under blockade, Hamburg was busier than ever. The servants carried William's baggage, piece by piece, onto the ship that would take him home.

  But Hobbes was not going home. He had told William everything that needed to be passed on to his family. It was far too sensitive to set on paper. While Hobbes didn't point it out, he knew that this knowledge would give William
a kind of power he had never had before. Hobbes hoped that William would profit from it.

  William would also give his mother an explanation of why Hobbes was staying behind. First, to continue his researches into up-time history that could affect Cavendish interests. Secondly, so that he could send word back home of any critical new developments.

  Of course, Hobbes had other reasons, too. William knew them.

  "Mister Hobbes, are you sure you are going to live in Grantville permanently?"

  "The ball is still on the roof, Lord Devonshire."

  Hobbes was quite sure that only the Americans would tolerate his views toward religion. While the Cavendishes might protect him from charges of heresy, such protection would probably come at the price of his remaining silent on any matter that could give offense to anyone.

  Such silence was a price he had resolved not to pay.

  Still, change might come to England, too. Perhaps sooner than the king, or even Doctor Harvey, expected.

  William embraced him. "Goodbye, Mister Hobbes. I shan't forget all your lessons. And I will have your things sent to you."

  "When you write to me, do not put my name anywhere on the letter. I would like to leave as vague as possible where I am and what I am doing."

  "But how will the letter be delivered to you?"

  "You must place some token upon it that the people in Grantville would understand, but the censors in England will not. A drawing of a whale to signify Leviathan, perhaps."

  Hobbes paced. "Or perhaps not. The king may have sent agents to Grantville, to find every encyclopedia reference to Englishmen of our day, and the whale would surely point to me."

  "Mister Hobbes, I promise to try to come up with something better. I have a long sea ride with nothing to do but think."

  "Letter for you, Mister Hobbes."

  "Thank you." Hobbes ripped it open the letter. It was from William. At least, Hobbes recognized the handwriting. The letter itself was unsigned. It thanked Hobbes for his efforts, and assured the unnamed recipient that he was to consider himself still on the family payroll. Without naming any particular family.

  And there was a laundry list of gadgets to collect for William's uncles "if it wouldn't be too much trouble."

  Carefully folded inside the main letter was a second one, addressed to Judy. Hobbes didn't open that one. Now that William was outside his custody, it was none of his business.

  He decided that he would bring it by the Higgins Hotel and deliver it personally, as Judy might not otherwise realize who it had come from.

  The next day, Hobbes spotted the postman as he walked down the street. Hobbes called out through his window. "That letter you gave me. How did you know it was for me?"

  "It was obvious, Mister Hobbes." The postman waved and walked off.

  Hobbes looked at the address side of the letter again, still puzzled. There was no name on it. No whale, for that matter. Just a drawing of a bipedal orange tiger, wearing a gown and a mortar board cap.

  What could that refer to? Then Hobbes remembered the comic strip William had shown him, months before. Calvin… and Hobbes.

  Eddie and the King's Daughter

  K.D. Wentworth

  King Christian IV nodded as the Danish court physician unbandaged what was left of Eddie Cantrell's leg. The monarch was a big, bluff man, narrow on the top and bottom, but wide in the middle. It was late at Rosenborg Castle, but, as Eddie had come to realize since his capture, the king kept idiosyncratic hours.

  Lying on his narrow bed, Eddie flinched as his stump was revealed in the flickering candlelight, but the king's homely face took in the scarred flesh, the lack of both ankle and foot, with the utter aplomb of one who is whole himself and has never gotten in the way of an eighteen-pound roundshot in the heat of battle. "A very nice stump, Dr. Belk," he said in German. "Very nice, indeed. You have outdone yourself. Soon he can be fitted for a peg leg."

  The doctor, who looked shriveled, as though he'd been freeze-dried at some point, waved a careless hand and replied testily, though Eddie couldn't understand more than a few words. Eddie's Danish was just barely coming along in the weeks since he'd been pulled out of the sea by the Danes, and the blasted doctor steadfastly refused to speak a single word of German to him. King Christian however spoke German like a native and seemed to prefer it. He even had a fair amount of English.

  Eddie's room in Rosenborg castle was large and well furnished, with clean linens as well as a fireplace against Denmark's late autumn chill. He might have been an honored guest, but for the everpresent uniformed guard outside his room.

  The doctor gestured at his truncated leg again, shrugged, then gathered the discarded bandages.

  "What?" Eddie said. His fingers clawed at the bedclothes as he pushed himself up against the headboard. "Are you trying to tell me that it's going to grow back?" Despite of his gladness to be alive, even in this condition, he was tired of being treated like a stick of wood.

  King Christian's forehead wrinkled. Fifty-six years old, he liked to dress in bright colors and sported a silly little goatee along with a single braid that stuck out of his dark hair. Tonight, as usual, he smelled of strong drink, but Eddie did not make the mistake of thinking him a fool. He just wished he could remember more of what the history books in Grantville said about Denmark in this era. Not that they'd said much, beyond some good articles in some of the encyclopedias. The problem was that given the rush with which Eddie and Hans Richter and Larry Wild had been sent up to Wismar to try to fend off the Danish fleet approaching it, there just hadn't been time to study anything that hadn't been directly tied to the task at hand. He'd read those encyclopedia articles, once, but simply couldn't remember much from them.

  "They can do that?" the king said. "Your people from the future time?" His eyes, the pale-blue of winter ice, studied him shrewdly.

  For a moment, Eddie was tempted to say yes. The more the king respected up-timers, the more leverage Eddie would have as a prisoner-of-war, but it just wasn't in him to tell a whopper that big at the moment. Lying took a lot of energy and he was fresh out. "No," he said, then tugged the red and blue quilt back over his stump so he wouldn't have to look at it. "We can't."

  "Regrettable," the king said. "I would have liked to see that, but do not be downcast. You are mostly whole, just a little damaged, and it is not Our fault you attacked Our splendid navy in that tiny ship."

  The battle flashed again inside Eddie's head-the roar of the Outlaw power boat, his foot exploding in raw, wrenching agony, blood everywhere-

  He shuddered and threw an arm over his eyes as though he could blot out the memory. The grisly scene was embedded in his brain, though, and replayed endlessly. It didn't help that when he tried to sleep, he often saw Larry and Bjorn sliced to bloody ribbons by the same roundshot that had taken him out.

  Christian patted his shoulder, but the man was so big, it felt more like a good-natured swat. "We have followed your Geneva Convention, and, by all appearances, your people set great store by you, even though you are only a lieutenant. Is your family highly placed?"

  Eddie stared at the king's face, stifling an undignified snort at the thought of his old man being respected by anyone.

  Christian didn't seem to notice. "Once negotiations are concluded, your people will most likely pay your ransom, and then you can go home to your family."

  Eddie flopped back against his pillow. If Christian was pestering Mike Stearns for armaments or technology in return for Eddie's battered carcass, it just wasn't going to happen. He'd already come to terms with that.

  He stared up at the fancy decorated ceiling. Besides, what good could he do the folks back in Grantville anyway? He couldn't see that anyone would have much use for a one-legged lieutenant.

  "You rest now." The king turned away. "Tomorrow, I mean for you to tell my councilors about this Grantville so we can better understand how to defend against them. Your people are far too clever for my peace of mind."

  Great, Eddie thought.
Just great, icing on the cake, as his fellow Americans would have said. Now, on top of everything else that had happened to him, the Danes thought he should betray his country. Something to freaking look forward to. Too bad that roundshot hadn't been aimed just a hair higher.

  He turned over and buried his face in his pillow as the door clicked shut.

  Eddie awoke with a start to find a very pretty teenaged girl with long curly red-gold hair sitting on the stool beside his bed. She regarded him with unblinking blue eyes, her face very solemn for one so young. "Papa says you are feeling better," she said in flawless German.

  His mouth sagged open and he could think of nothing to say. He'd kicked the bedclothes off in his sleep and suddenly realized she was leaning forward to examine his stump. Face burning, he covered it with the quilt.

  "It is quite all right," the girl said. No more than fourteen or fifteen, she smoothed her skirts with utter aplomb. "I have seen such before. You are fortunate to be alive." The scent of roses drifted toward him.

  It was still dark outside, so it had to be either very late or very early. The fire had burned down low in the grate. Shadows lay thick in the little room. Eddie struggled to sit up, clutching the quilts to his chest. "Who are you?"

  "Anne Cathrine," she said as though that explained everything. Her hands were folded in her lap and a white lace shawl lay across her shoulders. She was dressed in a well-cut gown of dark-green, which was obviously far too expensive to belong to any sort of serving girl.

  "I still don't understand," he said.

  "Papa said you were feeling better when he came to tell us good night," she said again, this time speaking very slowly, as though he were brain-damaged, "so I thought I would visit you. I have never seen anyone from the future before."

  He ran his fingers through his bedraggled ginger-colored hair, vainly attempting to restore some order. It had grown shaggy since his mishap at Wismar. "Who is your Papa?" Maybe the doctor or one of the court officials? he thought.

  "Oh, he is the king." She cocked her head, studying him. "I thought everyone knew that."

  His heart thudded and he became acutely aware that he hadn't washed in days. His scalp began to itch and he had to force his hands not to scratch. "Then you are a princess," he said.