by Eric Flint
"No, it's political," said Ed. "And you should be part of the discussion anyway. The problem is with Becky's seat in the SoTF Congress. She's been gone for a long time, Mike. Is she planning to come back to Grantville? If so, we'll figure on running her again as the candidate of the Fourth of July Party. But, if she's not coming back-or not coming back soon-we really need to run somebody else. We just can't keep that seat held for somebody in absentia."
Mike scratched his jaw. "Yeah, I understand. Becky and I have talked about it, but-what with this and that and this and that-"
"It's been a hectic few months," Ed said, chuckling.
"-we never came to any conclusions. And, yes, I can see where it'd be a problem for the party in Thuringia."
"We'll be by tonight, then. In the meantime…" Ed winced. "I suppose we may as well go see Gretchen."
Mike frowned. "What's the problem? She's not hard to talk to-at least, if you can pry yourself through the small mob of CoCers who are usually surrounding her." He glanced at his watch. "And, this time of day, that's where you'll usually find her. At the CoC headquarters downtown."
"Well… this is a personal matter. Henry Dreeson asked us to talk to her while we were here. He's wondering-and he's getting pretty damn dyspeptic about it-when Gretchen's planning to come home and start taking care of that mob of kids of hers. She's been gone just as long as Becky, you know."
"Oh." Now, Mike made a face. "Yeah. Good luck. The old saw comes to mind. 'Better you than me.' "
That made his grin re-appear.
"That's really a pretty disgusting grin," Ed observed.
In the event, though, Gretchen wasn't belligerent. In fact, she looked downright shame-faced when Ed finished passing on the message from Henry.
"Well, yes, I know. But… we've been very busy…" She made a fluttery sort of gesture, very out of character for Gretchen. "The struggle against reaction…"
Ed just waited. Under the circumstances, that seemed the wisest course.
Eventually, Gretchen stopped muttering and mumbling about the needs of the struggle and started muttering and mumbling noises on the subject of returning to Grantville. After a couple of minutes or so, Ed decided he could excavate enough of those vague phrases to mollify Henry.
For a while, anyway. But, by then, all sorts of things might happen. The newly-arrived cousin might turn into the reincarnation of Mary Poppins or… Whazzername, the great governess played by Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. The one who wound up marrying von Trump. Von Trapp?
Or, horses might learn to sing. Or, Gretchen might actually tear herself away from the struggle against reaction and the forces of darkness long enough to come home to Grantville and do something with that gaggle of kids.
Who was to say? All Ed had agreed to do was pass on the message. Which, he'd done.
"I'll tell Henry," he said stoutly.
Rebecca seemed a bit shame-faced herself, that night, after Ed raised the problem of her seat in the SoTF Congress.
"Yes, I understand. You may tell our people back in Grantville that I think it would be best if I simply resigned from the seat." She glanced at her husband. "Michael and I… well, we do not wish to be parted again. And he must remain in Magdeburg. Even if he loses the election, as we expect, he will have to lead the opposition."
She looked back at Ed. "So, we have decided. I will go to Magdeburg also. And if my father is willing, we will ask him to move in with us."
Ed nodded. He didn't ask about Mike's mother, since he knew full well she'd be quite unwilling to leave Grantville even if she wasn't an invalid. But that wouldn't be a major problem, he didn't think, with all the support she had in the town.
And it was none of his business anyway. The political issue had been resolved. "All right," he said. "You might consider becoming active politically in Magdeburg."
Mike and Rebecca both smiled. "As it happens," Mike said, "Gunther Achterhof has been pestering us for weeks now to agree to let Becky run for the House of Commons from one of Magdeburg's districts."
Ed's eyes widened. "The USE parliament?"
"Yup."
"But…"
"Exactly what I said!" exclaimed Rebecca. Her hands fluttered much the way Gretchen's had earlier than day. "I've never lived in the city-anywhere in the province. Only even visited just a few times. I could just manage to move there in time for the election. The idea seems absurd."
Mike, on the other hand, was looking smug again. "Who cares? Gunther sure doesn't-and he says nobody else will either. If we run Becky, he says she'll win in a landslide."
Nasi cleared his throat. "I have to say, I agree with Achterhof. Magdeburg province is even more-ah, I will say 'July-Fourthish' rather than 'radical,' just to avoid haggling-than the State of Thuringia-Franconia." His eyes got a little unfocused. "I'm quite familiar with the subject, you know. I estimate she'd get at least two-thirds of the vote, in any district in the province. If she ran in the city itself, she'd almost certainly go unopposed. The Crown Loyalists have given up there, for all practical purposes."
"I'll be damned," said Ed. He realized, not for the first time, that because he'd always remained in Grantville since the Ring of Fire that he had a tendency to underestimate the impact that the time-transplanted Americans were having on the seventeenth century. In some places, at any rate.
"Anything else?" asked Mike.
"No. Unless you'd like to hear the latest Grantville gossip."
"Oh, horrors," said Becky, leaning forward. "But start with something pleasant."
"Pleasant, it is-at least, if you enjoy the exploits of rambunctious girls. You know Denise Beasley, don't you?"
"Such a sprightly lass," said Becky. "What did she do now?"
On the Reichsstrasse between Arnstadt and Erfurt
Wackernagel was doing explanations at the front of the first ATV. Cunz Kastenmayer was doing explanations at the back of the rear ATV. The drivers were standing by the doors, pointing at first one thing and then another. The soldiers, who were standing around, trying to look casual, were surrounded by a lot of boys and a few girls who had already had their turn in the vehicles but wanted to know more about how they worked.
Henry Dreeson was on a bench, leaning back against a tree, enjoying the shade and letting them have at it.
There hadn't been this much excitement when they stopped in Badenburg, even though they'd done a press conference. The people in Badenburg saw various kinds of motorized this-and-that almost every day. Beyond there, though, even on the way up to Arnstadt, the first day out, this had happened every time Wackernagel called a stop. Which he did at about every good-sized village.
Henry didn't mind admitting that he appreciated the frequent stops. Not just because his hip ached, even though it did. The prostate gland wasn't what it used to be, either. Who used to sing that song? Rosemary Clooney. "This ole house…"
He hummed a couple of lines. That must have been fifty years ago, give or take a couple. Right about the time he and Annie got married. Before he understood in his bones what it was about.
Over by the ATVs a boy, ten years old maybe, blew the horn and let out a whoop of delight.
Henry had been surprised at how much interest there was in his tour. Wackernagel said that if he was doing a good-will tour, he might as well do it right from the start and all the way over. People in the villages, both between Badenburg and Erfurt and on the Imperial Road from Erfurt to Fulda, had all seen up-time vehicles going back and forth before. Lots of times. They had not, very often, seen one of them stopped, where they could take a closer look, with a driver who was willing to explain how things worked. Much less passengers who were willing to vacate the premises and let them climb in and out, let the boys put their hands on the steering wheel and go vroom for a while, or anything else of the sort.
It was sort of restful, as long as people were more interested in the cars than they were in him. He had a feeling that was going to stop once they got over into Buchenland.
Tonight they'd be staying in Erfurt. Probably no curious kids there-Erfurt had a lot of trucks, being the central supply depot for the army-but the city council was giving a dinner for him tonight and then he'd promised to do an interview for the newspaper. Newspapers. There were three, but Cunz had told them that they all had to come to the same interview.
The difference between an interview and a press conference seemed to be that at an interview, everyone sat around a table. At a press conference, he stood up in front and the reporters sat in a row.
Tomorrow morning, Wackernagel wanted them to make a stop at a little village called Bindersleben right outside the city limits. It didn't make much driving sense to stop that soon after they got started, but apparently he knew people there and had promised some kids they could have a good look at the cars.
It was probably a good idea to do it this way, with all the stops. He was glad Wackernagel had come up with the idea. Good PR. Cunz was writing up a kind of trip diary saying what they did at every village and sending it back to the Grantville papers. It listed the names and everything of the kids who came to look at the ATVs. The Times had promised to send copies of the those issues to the villages, so parents could buy copies of the Grantville paper with their children's names in it. Ed Piazza would like that. It would make people who didn't have the time or money to visit the Grantville Fair to see machinery feel more connected to the government. That sort of stuff. It was a lot more personal than watching a truck on the road or looking up and seeing an airplane flying overhead, or even having a crystal set and hearing about it on the radio. Ed believed in personal.
Of course, Ed was thinking about the election.
And his driver was waving. On the road, again.
Someone had told him that Cardinal Richelieu had hemorrhoids. So bad that five or six years ago, when the king of France took down La Rochelle, they'd had to put some kind of a stretcher between the seats in a carriage so he could ride to the siege lying down on his stomach. Made that sort of pained expression on the man's face in all the portraits people had looked up in the encyclopedias a little more understandable, he guessed.
He was going to have the same kind of expression on his own face before he got into a bed tonight. Even with an ATV that had padded seats to ride in. It was a hell of a good thing that he wasn't trying to make this trip sitting on a hard wagon bench.
He grabbed his cane and heaved himself up.
Vacha, on the Reichsstrasse
His driver was slowing down and the car behind, the one with the soldiers riding in it, was pulling around, ahead of them. Henry looked more closely. There were a half-dozen men hanging around the little guardhouse. Those weren't kids interested in looking at cars.
Wackernagel cussed something in German. Must have been a good one, because Henry hadn't ever heard it before.
"It's a divided town," the driver said. "The crossing's always been a bone of contention between the abbots of Fulda-that's the SoTF now-and the landgraves of Hesse-Kassel, so they say. But I know for damn sure that our people cleared this motorcade with their people in advance."
"But Hesse-Kassel is in the USE. Verdammt! " One of the reasons Cunz Kastenmayer said he was glad that he'd gone into law rather than theology, aside from the money he expected to earn, was that he was free to indulge in the occasional profanity. If not in his father's hearing. "And don't think that Wilhelm V isn't making the most of it. Think how much extra acreage he grabbed for himself last spring, all the way over to the Rhine. Under color of doing a good deed for Gustav."
Henry understood them, which he felt pretty good about, considering that when the Ring of Fire happened, his German had been limited to the title of Auf Wiedersehn, Sweetheart. "California was in the United States of America too, up-time. That didn't stop them from searching cars crossing into the state and telling people they couldn't bring in any fresh fruits or vegetables."
The driver looked at him, surprised.
"I don't care what they tell you in citizenship class. We weren't perfect. No country ever has been. No country ever will be. The thing to aim at is to get it as good as you can for as many of your people as you can. We had as many arrogant assholes up-time as you have down-time. We just made a little more effort to get a grip on them, most of the time."
Kastenmayer nodded. "The greatest happiness of the greatest number," he said in English. "We covered that in the history of political philosophy class I took last year."
Henry nodded. "I hadn't ever heard it put quite that way. But it pretty much sums up the idea."
The two sets of soldiers were still arguing. But it looked like it was going to turn into a paper war rather than a shooting war.
"Can you walk a quarter of one of your up-time miles?" Wackernagel asked. "I know a family here. I stay with them overnight every trip. It's cheaper than a room in the inn. We can go over there and get something to drink. The street's wide enough that when they finish up with this"-he leaned his head in the direction of the disputing-the-right-of-way critters-"the driver can bring the car down and pick you up. He can turn around using the alley."
Henry nodded. "Sounds good to me. I can make it that far. I make it that far from the house to City Hall and back home every day, still. The hip's going bad, but I don't want all the rest of my joints to stiffen up, too. Counterproductive."
He smiled a little. That had been one of his daughter Margie's words, too.
Hesse-Kassel's head honcho yelled something when they opened the car doors. He had an accent Henry had never heard before, thick enough to cut with a knife. Not one word in four came through. That seemed to happen every time he started to think he had a handle on the language, finally. Wackernagel yelled back in the same lingo. Whatever he said, the Hessian soldiers let them walk away without any more fuss.
But they'd already held the drivers up for a couple of hours, splitting hairs. Trying to featherbed by arguing that even if an ATF didn't need to hitch up extra horses from the Hessian teamsters to help it handle these hills, they were still obliged to pay the mandatory fee for the extra team of horses. Which, since there were two ATVs, meant that they owed the fee for two teams.
Which meant that even if they left right now, which it sure didn't look like they were going to, they wouldn't be able to reach Fulda before dark. So they might as well plan to stay the night in Vacha. Nobody in his right mind would try to drive through these hill roads with nothing but headlights to see by.
Henry intended to have Wes file an official complaint with the landgrave once they got to Fulda. He wasn't a man to let himself be pushed around.
And it wasn't just him they were trying to push around. Hesse-Kassel was a Crown Loyalist, really close to Wettin, and he was insulting the SoTF. Just to see if they'd let him get away with it, probably. He wasn't exactly farting in the face of Mike Stearns in person, but that's what this kind of idiocy amounted to.
Hesse-Kassel's nose was probably out of joint because Mary Simpson and Ronnie had gotten so much publicity in the newspapers this summer while they were kiting around Bavaria with the Austrian archduchess. Which amounted to publicity for the SoTF.
Wackernagel said they could all spend the night at this family's house, where he stayed, but it would be crowded. Henry could have a bed, but he and Cunz, the drivers, and the soldiers would have to sleep on the floor.
A couple of hours before dark, though, three companies of orange-uniformed men on horses, led by Derek Utt himself, showed up in Vacha. The Fulda Barracks Regiment was thoroughly spooked by what had happened to the civilian administrators and doubly determined that it wasn't going to happen again. They'd been camping five miles or so outside of town all week and kept a couple of lookouts in an inn on the Fulda side of the town.
The lookouts had spotted the problem. One of them had slipped out, picked up his horse from a farmer's stall, and gone down to collect the whole troop.
Sergeant Hartke was now having a few words with Hesse-Kassel's border guards.
Derek moved Henry from the outside picnic table in the friendly woman's yard over to an inside parlor in the Fulda-side inn where the scouts had been staying.
Wackernagel said he'd spend the night at the house like usual and meet them at the ATVs in the morning.
Henry nodded. He supposed the woman counted on having the income from her regular customers and Wackernagel knew it. She had three little kids, that he'd seen.
That night he didn't just have the three soldiers from Grantville staying at the same motel with him. These roadside inns were really motels, when you came right down to it. He had two orange-colored guards inside his room and a couple more standing outside his door all night.
He felt a little bit ashamed that he'd kicked up such a big fuss when Piazza insisted on sending the second ATV. Utt seemed to take the problem seriously. Real seriously.
Chapter 10
Frankfurt am Main
Ron Stone wiggled his legs around. There wasn't a lot of leg room on the barge that the crew was slowly poling up the Main River.
Joachim Sandrart, sitting next to him, had a dreamy expression on his face. Joachim had been mentally counting his future money all the way down the Rhine, since their visit to Duke Henri de Rohan.
In other words, Rohan had turned out to be a reasonable man. A reasonable man who was interested in art. A reasonable man who was interested in art and had money. The ambitious young painter's dream patron, perhaps.
"When are we going to get there?" his brother Gerry asked from the narrow single seat at the back of the barge.
Ron twisted around. "Haven't you outgrown that by now?"
"Nah. It was the first thing I learned to say in German. And Italian. Well, the second, I guess. The first thing was, 'What's for supper?' "
"A couple more hours," the crew captain answered.
Gerry subsided back into silence.
"I don't suppose we have reservations," Reverend Jones said ironically. Down-time travel did not lend itself to advance reservations.
"Rohan's secretary recommended a place. The host's name is de Ron and the inn's called Zum Weissen Schwan."
