by Eric Flint
Yossie stared briefly at the shiny silver clip that held the paper to the board and at the strange pen. The paper had questions on it, though, and it seemed that he was required to answer them.
The idea of printing a form with blank spaces to be filled in by someone else was not entirely new to Yossie, but he had never encountered a form like this before. Names of people traveling together? Number of carts or wagons? Place of origin? Place of destination? Merchandise for sale? Do you seek refuge in Grantville?
Some of the questions were easy, others required squeezing in quite a bit in a small space. Professions of travelers? Merchant, teacher, printer, and butcher was the best short answer Yossie could give in the space available.
Yossie felt a bit foolish because his handwriting looked almost illiterate. Part of the problem was trying to write with such a strange pen, and part of it was writing while standing holding a clipboard. The real problem, though, was that he had to write his answers in the Roman alphabet, not the comfortable Hebrew alphabet that he had grown up with. As Yossie worked through the questions, he realized that he was better at setting type in Roman letters than he was at writing them out by hand.
The rest of the group arrived shortly after Yossie had handed the finished form to one of the men. For the next few minutes, he answered questions from his friends, frequently by saying that he didn't know the answer. He was so busy describing what he had learned that he hardly noticed the return of the guard who had taken the paper with all of his answers.
"Welcome to Grantville," the man said, reading awkwardly from another sheet of paper. "Please go down the road here. Drive carefully, and where there is space, keep to the right when there is traffic. A guide will meet you before you have gone far."
The next hour went by in a confusing whirlwind. The new road down into the valley was familiar in form, mere dirt, if unnaturally made and unusually smooth. The road at the bottom, though, was unfamiliar. The surface was too perfect, as if the entire road was a single smooth grey slab of stone. Their carts seemed to traverse it with no effort at all. There were so many strange things that it was only when they were well down into the valley of Grantville that Yossie noticed what the guards had not done. They had not demanded any silver, neither a toll for use of the road nor Jew taxes!
Their guide met them while they were passing the great mill. His clothing and weapons matched those of the guards at the border, but he was riding a horse. When he joined them, he nodded politely and then fell in beside the team pulling Yitzach's wagon.
The gigantic brick building of the great mill was imposing, but the strange woven wire fencing surrounding it signaled something stranger. There was also a huge pile of charcoal, if that was what it was. It was a far greater supply than could possibly be used by any forge or glassworks that Yossie had ever seen.
Beyond the mill was a small village, or at least Yossie took it to be a village. It was a cluster of long rectangular houses, some of them sitting on strange black wheels. The entire village sat on ground that looked freshly scraped, as if the village had only existed for a few days.
When they finally came to the town of Grantville, nothing about it was familiar. There was no doubt that it was a town, even though the houses were too far apart. Some houses were brick, but many were apparently built of sawn planks. All of the houses had too many windows, and many had panes of glass larger than Yossie had ever seen before. Strangest of all was the fact that there was no town wall. In fact, Yossie saw no signs of any defensive works.
As the surroundings grew progressively more alien, the horses and goats grew skittish. They shied away from the strange wheeled vehicles parked by the side of the road. Yossie guessed that the bright colors or the dazzle of light off of the highly polished surfaces was the problem. When one of the vehicles came into sight moving toward them, it came faster than a gallop yet it had no visible source of power.
Their guide held up his hand in warning, motioning them to the right side of the road as it came toward them. The vehicle slowed as it passed. As Yossie held tightly to his horse, he caught a brief glimpse at least three people through the perfect glass windows of the strange vehicle. After the vehicle had passed, Yossie found himself laughing at the encounter and at the antics of the goats.
They saw men, women and children on walkways beside the streets, but few people were actually walking in the streets. The men were mostly dressed like the men they had encountered at the guard post, but they also saw two men who looked like common soldiers. The women were a shock. To say that they were dressed scandalously would be an understatement. Some wore clothes that were the same as men's clothing, well tailored and close enough to the body to reveal every curve. Other women wore skirts or short trousers that showed entirely too much flesh. While Yossie could not help staring, he noticed that the men nearby did not seem to notice anything unusual.
Eventually, their guide dismounted and then gestured that they should follow. "Come, comen," he said, demonstrating how similar the word was in English and German.
A woman came from a nearby brick building to meet them. "Welcome to Grantville," she said, in strongly accented but fluent German. She turned to their guide and they exchanged a quick babble of words. Yossie guessed that it was English, and then she turned back to them. "Your wagons will be safe," she said. "The animals are welcome to eat the grass. Come in please."
She led them through a door that was made from a single perfect pane of glass. Next to that was a window that was made of an even larger pane. Just those two panes were worth a king's ransom but the room inside was obviously not a center of wealth. The table around which they were invited to sit was old and worn, and no two of the strange metal chairs seemed to match.
"My name is Claudette Green," the woman said, taking out a sheet of paper. "I'm a Red Cross volunteer. Our men at Schwarzburg say you are from Frankfurt am Main, Hanau and Bad Kissingen. Am I right?"
Yossie was puzzled by the term red cross; he wondered if it might be a Christian order of some kind. What puzzled him even more was how she knew what he had written on the printed form at Schwarzburg.
Yitzach grumbled. "I have never heard it called Bad Kissingen."
She frowned at a bright red book that said something like Baedecker written on the cover. "Is the town Bad Kissingen, on the Fränkische Saale river, between Bad Neustadt and Hammelburg?"
"It must be the same town," Yitzach said, "But nobody calls Kissingen and Neustadt bath towns." He paused to scratch his head. "Is this perhaps something from the future?"
The woman, Frau Green, frowned. "I think this is something from my past and your future. One or two hundred years before my time, there was a belief that bathing in mineral springs would cure disease. Over the years, many towns that had such springs changed their names to advertise the fact. Does that make sense?"
"There are salt springs in Kissingen," Yitzach said, with a nervous chuckle. "A valuable source of salt, but some people do say soaking in the springs soothes the aches and pains of age."
While the woman went over much of the information that Yossie had written on the paper at Schwarzburg, Yossie continued to wonder how the information had come to her. Certainly, nobody had passed them on the road as they came into town. As Yossie studied the woman, he realized that his initial guess about Frau Green's age was obviously wrong. She was not a young woman, but she was in very good shape. Her clothing would have seemed scandalous only an hour ago, but her skirts were longer than most they had seen on the street, and her sleeves were full length.
While Frau Green asked about rumors they had heard about troop movements, Yossie wondered about the table where they sat. It looked like wood, but the feel of the table top was more like stone, and where one corner was chipped, he could see that it was a thin layer of something like horn glued down on top of what could only be thin iron plate.
"You listed grain as something you have to sell," Frau Green said. "Is it good for planting?"
"I think
so." Moische said.
"If it is good, we need it to help save lives this coming winter. We must plant every acre we can. Raiders have stripped the valley of the Saale, so there is no margin of safety for the people. Will you sell?"
Just when Yossie expected the dickering to begin, she changed the subject. "You said you were going to Poland. I have a warning about that. The road east from here is very unsafe. We think we can defend Grantville and some of the nearby German towns, but the situation farther east is bad. Also, our history books tell us of a great battle near Leipzig later this summer."
During the silence that followed, Yossie tried to grapple with the idea of a history book from the future. Would it be like the Book of Life in which God seals man's fate at the close of Yom Kippur? Even as he thought of that, he realized that it could not be. A book written by mere men could not be divinely perfect. That was reserved for God alone.
"What would you have us do, turn back to Frankfurt?" Moische asked, breaking the silence.
"No," Frau Green said. "The history books also tell us that King Gustav of Sweden will be in Frankfurt this coming winter. Of course, our history books say nothing of Grantville being here. Our presence could change the course of the war, but for now, I believe that you would be safer here than either to the east or west."
"But," was all Moische could say. "Do your history books say how the Swedes will get from Leipzig to Frankfurt?"
"I wish they did, but no," she said. "There is no need to make any decisions in haste. You said you wanted to rest from your travels for a few days. Do so. We can find a place for you . . . "
She was interrupted by a loud ringing from an unfamiliar looking device that sat on a small desk in a corner.
"Excuse me," she said, walking over to the source of the interruption. The device stopped ringing when Frau Green picked up part of it.
To Yossie's amazement, she began to speak into the thing as if it was another person. "Hello," she began, an unfamiliar word, "Lesley Hawker?" Very faint sounds of a woman's voice replied to her words, apparently from the device itself. This strange conversation continued for a minute or two.
"Pardon me," Frau Green said, finally, lowering the device from her face. She paused, looking at their confused expressions. "This is a telephone," she said. "It is a machine for speaking to someone far away."
Yossie recognized the Greek roots of the strange word as the woman explained it in her strangely accented German. Was this the device that allowed Frau Green to learn what he had written back at Schwarzburg?
"I have found a farm at the edge of town where your animals can spend the weekend in comfort. I am not so sure that I can find as much comfort for you. There is an old barn on the farm where you could store your carts, but I have no beds to offer. I must apologize that there are many people in town who will not take guests, and there are eight of you."
Moische smiled. "We have spent nights under the stars before. Is there somewhere we could wash?"
Frau Green resumed her strange conversation using the telephone, pausing at one point to push at little buttons on the device with her fingers, and then she set it down and smiled. "It is set. Orville Mobley will be here soon. He owns the farm where you can stay, and he says you may use his bath room. He will show you where he lives on the way to his farm; the distance is not far."
It was almost sunset by the time Herr Mobley showed them to the run-down barn that would be their home for the next few days. They sent him away with two bottles of wine in payment and then the men set to work saying their afternoon prayers. At the end of their evening prayers that day, they blessed the forty-ninth and final day of the Omer.
Seventh of Sivan, 5391 (June 7, 1631)
Saturday afternoon, Yossie, Moische, Yitzach and Yakov were sitting on improvised benches in the open door of Herr Mobley's barn. They were engrossed in study when they saw a stranger approaching up the road from Grantville. The man was dressed like many of the men they had seen in Grantville in the past few days.
"Hello!" the man called, as Yitzach and Yakov closed their Bibles and set them out of sight. They had heard that word hello often enough in the last few days to understand that it was a neutral greeting.
Yossie and Moische got up to greet the stranger.
"Good afternoon," the man said, in the clearest German they had so far encountered among the people of Grantville. "I should introduce myself. I am Albert Green. My wife Claudette has been helping with the Red Cross. She told me that you met with her on Wednesday afternoon."
"We did," Moische said.
There was an awkward moment of silence. Yossie wanted to ask what the Red Cross was. The mere presence of the word cross in the name suggested that it was a Christian organization, and that made him cautious about the topic.
"Well," Herr Green continued, "I came up here to welcome you to Grantville, and to say that if you wish to stay in town, the Red Cross has found more permanent places that might be good for you."
"What is this Red Cross?" Yossie asked, curiosity overcoming his reluctance to invite conversation that might touch on religion.
"It is an organization, a charity that is devoted to helping the victims of war and disasters. In the world we come from, it was founded in response to the horrors of the great wars of the nineteenth century."
"What kind of place have you found for us?" Moische asked, turning the conversation away from dangerous ground and interrupting Yossie's next question.
"You are eight?" Herr Green asked. "How many families are you?"
It took them a while to explain that they were really three independent groups. Along the way, Yossie found himself explaining that he and his sister Basya were not Yakov's children.
"Let me see if I understand," Herr Green said. "Joseph, you and your sister, Basya—that name is strange to me—are from Hanau. Jacob here is also from Hanau. And that is the only reason you use Hanauer as your last name?"
"Yes," Yossie said. "What did you expect?"
"In America, where we come from, and in Europe in our time, last names were always inherited. I am Albert Green because my father was named Green, and my grandfather before him. The people I have studied about in this time, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli and other churchmen, they had family names too."
"Many Germans do," Yossie said, carefully avoiding the far more natural word goyim.
"Well, let's return to the question of housing," Herr Green said, abandoning what could have become a dangerous topic. "When the Ring of Fire brought Grantville here, some families were out of town, and their houses now sit empty. Also, there are some houses that have been empty longer. Grantville was not a prosperous town, and people moved away. If you were one big family we would have difficulty finding a large enough house, but if we can divide you between two smaller houses, it should be easy."
"Surely you do not propose to simply give us houses?" Moische asked.
"No, Moses," Herr Green said with a smile. "There will be a," he paused, "I don't know how to explain a mortgage, a loan to pay off. After the loan is paid, you will own the house."
Yossie was somewhat taken aback by the man's smile. It was not the fact that he was smiling that bothered him, but rather, the perfection of his teeth. "So how do we earn the money to pay off this loan?" he asked, remembering their discussion of the financial risk of spending the winter in Prague.
"Get jobs. Joseph, you are a strong young man, do you have a trade?"
"I worked for a printer in Hanau."
"Perhaps you could be a printer here. What Grantville really needs, though, is strong men who are willing to work in the coal mine. I think we will be able to employ any man who is willing and able to work. Coal, or what we can make from it will be essential to our ability to defend Grantville against the war that now surrounds us.
"Moses, you are another strong young man, do you have a trade?"
"I am a merchant, as much as that is possible with the war."
"A shopkeeper?"
/>
"No, I travel, buy here, sell there. The war has ruined trade, though."
Herr Green paused, and then smiled, "It may be that your services will be valuable. There are things Grantville will need to buy from the world around us, and things I think we will be able to sell.
"Isaac?" he asked, turning. "What about you?"
Yitzach paused before he answered. "I am a butcher, and in Kissingen, I was also a cattle merchant."
"People will always want to eat," Herr Green said. "Grantville may need a butcher. Your services may be quite valuable if you know the cattle markets of the region well enough to buy beef to feed us.
"Jacob, you haven't said much," he went on, "what is your trade?"
"I worked a little for the same printer as Joseph, but my main job was as a teacher."
"What did you teach?" Herr Green asked, interested.
"Mostly, reading and writing to young children, but I have also taught," he paused. "I have taught Bible to older students."
Yossie knew that Yakov's awkward pause had been a stumble over the words Talmud and Torah, neither of which was a word appropriate for use in a conversation with an unknown Christian.
"Good," Herr Green exclaimed. "I have also taught Bible. Right now, though, Grantville needs German teachers. Do you think you could help in our school, teaching German to our children, or even to adults?"
The old rabbi was startled. "It would be permitted? You do know that my German, well, it is not the local dialect."
"We have a whole town full of people who speak nothing but English and need to learn German, and we have only a very few who speak the language. I may be the only one who has studied German the way it is spoken in this century. Indeed, I have noticed that your accent is different from the local Germans, but that seems a small matter when you are an experienced teacher.
"Are there any questions you have?" he asked changing the subject, and then he immediately interrupted anything they might have asked. "Tomorrow is Sunday. If you want to go to church, I can help. Grantville has many churches. We have a Catholic church and several different Protestant churches."
