1635-The Tangled Web Read online

  Frankfurt am Main

  "How's business?" Martin asked.

  Crispin came in from the work room, tossing a batch of pamphlets and placards onto the table next to the newspaper. "Wretched, wretched. One cat that gave birth to a two-headed kitten; two political satires in verse, both short; a new hymn; six advertising flyers, and a 'wanted' poster. How to make your own back-yard sundial. That's all the new orders that have come in since you left. The gossip is all about the new 'duplicating machines' that the Italian sold. Escher already has his running and Freytag is assembling the one he ordered.

  "A lot of the guildsmen would like to see the 'duplicating machines' prohibited, of course." Crispin started to thumb through the packets that his brother-in-law had brought in. "But if you ask me, that's hopeless."

  "Why?"

  "They're simply too small. Even smaller than a normal press, and that can be loaded onto a wagon easily enough. What weighs us down as printers, if we need to move from one place to another, is transporting the lead type to set up a new shop—all the different fonts and different sizes; storage bins, everything. With these stencils, you can have the little machine anywhere and if a printer somewhere else makes the stencil and sends it to you, you don't need the type in your shop. Myself, if I could get hold of one, I'd develop a sideline in producing the stencils and selling them. It's a lot less weight when you ship one out than a bale of pamphlets or placards. Let the shop at the destination pay the freight for bringing in the paper and ink."

  "They still need paper, don't they?" Martin asked.

  Crispin gave him the same kind of look he would give a two-headed cat. "Of course, but paper is no problem. You can get paper anywhere. Just about every town in the Germanies has a paper mill. Think how much paper is just carried through the mail, for goodness sake. And used for newspapers."

  Bonn, Archdiocese of Cologne

  "Here are the stencils for your pamphlet and placard. I have drawn boxes where the woodcuts go, in the proper size. The woodcuts are separate; each one will have to be stamped into each copy separately. I couldn't get good enough resolution when I tried to include them in the stencils. That will take more time than all the remainder of the production put together. Each box that I have drawn is numbered. Each wood block is numbered. If your contact in Fulda messes up the production, that is his fault and not mine."

  Alain van Beekx, formerly of Antwerp, forger of magnificently authentic documents and maker of extraordinarily filthy etchings, was now, at the request of Felix Gruyard, expanding into the production of stencils. It had taken him a couple of weeks to master the stencil technique in full, even with Vignelli's personal guidance, but he was now confident that his print shop could produce as many as anyone chose to order from him in a quite timely fashion.

  Gruyard smiled.

  "You are sure the machine will be there in time?" Gruyard asked.

  "As well as one can every predict anything," Holmann said. He pulled out his copy of the most recent edition of Aitzinger's Itinerarium Orbis Christiani, which visualized the European road system for people who planned to travel. For the past half-century, nearly everyone had recognized the Cologne reporter's atlas as a very handy book, especially when it was paired with his week-by-week summaries of current events. In a lot of ways, these had been predecessors of the modern newspaper of the 1630s. From Aitzinger until the present day, Cologne had become a center for the publication of aid-books for travelers, which meant regular employment for a lot of full-time map makers. The most popular travel guides were those which laid out the routes followed by the imperial post riders and the couriers employed by the imperial cities and various territorial rulers. By taking these as far as possible, as close to one's actual goal as they ran, a traveler could be sure of a comparatively well-guarded route, even in the middle of all the disruptions of war.

  Drawing his finger along one of the routes, Holmann indicated the path that the duplicating machine could be expected to travel from Tyrol to Fulda. "At the moment, there are no major obstacles to commerce. Through Switzerland as far as Basel; then down the Rhine as far as Mainz; then up the Imperial Road to Fulda." He shrugged. "If the machine is delayed, then the pamphlet will appear a couple weeks later than planned. Otherwise, fortune has been with us."

  Gruyard nodded. "It was truly fortuitous that Hoheneck received the feelers extended by von Schlitz when he did. The connection with Menig at the paper mill is good. The one thing that I worried about, that might allow the authorities of the New United States in the Stift to trace the pamphlet to its origins, was the need for anyone who was to use the duplicating machine to purchase so much paper. How many people other than printers buy more than a quire at a time? But where is there naturally more paper than in a paper mill? They will tear apart every printing shop in Fulda searching for the plates or indications that the plates were there."

  He smiled.

  "So don't worry about your stencils." Holman waved his hand. "I have contracted with a private courier with a good reputation for their delivery. That will be more discreet than entrusting them to the Swedish-run postal system. His name is Martin Wackernagel."

  Youthful Restlessness

  Gelnhausen, late April 1633

  "David Kronberg," Jachant Wohl said, "looks like a rabbit."

  Her younger sister Feyel looked at her. "That's a horrible thing to say. You are probably his future wife, at least if our parents and his have anything to say about it."

  "He does look like a rabbit, though." The third Wohl sister, Emelin, at ten, was young enough to announce that the emperor had no clothes on and still get away with it. "He would still look like a rabbit even if Jachant liked him."

  "I've never seen a rabbit with black hair," Feyel pointed out. She was determined to play the part of a fair and impartial witness. She was even more determined to do this since her own marriage was already satisfactorily arranged and her betrothed husband did not resemble a rabbit in the least.

  Emelin was not going to give up. "His nose is long. His cheeks twitch when he chews. He is short and round and has big ears."

  "There aren't all that many people available for you to marry, Jachant," Feyel pointed out practically. "If the Kronbergs aren't rich, they are far from poor, and David will inherit from his uncles as well, since neither has children. 'Der dicke Meier' has to have quite a bit of money. He is master builder for the whole Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt."

  Jachant rested her chin on her hand. "Fat Meier looks like a rabbit, too. It runs in the family. I doubt that our parents would want me to marry a man who looks like a rabbit if his parents were poor. David Kronberg would give me children who look like rabbits."

  "Papa and Mama are concerned about your well-being," Feyel said. "There is nothing wrong with David Kronberg."

  "He wants to be a postal courier. Who ever heard of a Jewish postal courier?" Emelin asked.

  "Everyone in Gelnhausen has heard of the idea, at least, since he said that he wants to be one. Don't worry, Jachant. His parents will make him give it up." Feyel patted her sister's shoulder.

  "They can make him give up doing it. Can they make him give up wanting to do it?"

  Feyel frowned. "Jews do travel around. Think of famous families, like the Nasis. Or the Abrabanels."

  "Sephardim. They don't count." Jachant tossed her head.

  "Even if David ben Abraham Kronberg doesn't become a mailman," Emelin said, "he'll still look like a rabbit."

  Barracktown bei Fulda, late April 1633

  Derek Utt was doing his best to sound wise and fatherly. This was something of a trick, since he certainly wasn't old enough to be Jeffrey Garand's father. Maybe he could try the older brother ploy instead. However, he was the senior NUS military man in Fulda as far as rank went, and . . .

  Maybe he could get Gus Szymanski, the EMT, to have the fatherly chat.

  Cowardice in the face of . . . he thought.

  Maybe the direct approach would be best. Straight to the point.


  "What in hell do you think you are doing boinking Sergeant Hartke's daughter?"

  "Gertrud?" Jeffie looked at him.

  "Does he have any others?"

  "Not alive. Gertrud had a sister, but she died when she was a kid."

  Derek winced, remembering the little girl he had left up-time. Hannah had just started to toddle a few days before the Sunday afternoon he drove over to Grantville to go to the sport shop with his sister Lisa's husband Allan Dailey.

  Jeffie hadn't stopped talking. "Well, about a month ago I was sitting on the table at the Hartkes' one evening. Sitting on the table, with my boots on the bench, spinning yarns, and Gertrud was sitting down on the bench. I looked down and I could sort of see into her cleavage, that white thing they all wear, she had it pretty low. And she was looking up. Her eyes were about the level of my knee and she kept on looking the length of my leg and on up to where my codpiece would be, that is if Americans wore the things and even most Germans don't any more, just the most old-fashioned old men, and the idea sort of occurred to me that she might not object, so the next chance I got, we wandered off and one thing led to another."

  "If you get her pregnant," Derek said, "you are a married man. Trust me on this, Jeffie. She's not a whore and she's the daughter of one of the other sergeants in the regiment."

  "Hartke hasn't said anything to me."

  "Damn it, Jeffie, that's because he's assuming that if you get the girl pregnant, you'll marry her. It's the way it seems to work around here with respectable people, and what's more, if they have something like an age of consent, Gertrud can't be over it by much. I'm involved because in spite of the fact that you work with Hartke and have ever since he joined our forces after the fight at Badenburg, you haven't made much of a try at figuring out things like that—about how things work with the down-timers. And Hartke hasn't made much effort to figure out how they work with up-timers. But Dagmar damned well has and she gave me an alert on this. I can't afford to have you tick Hartke off. He's too important in keeping discipline among the down-time troops."

  "Oh," Jeffie said. "Dagmar."

  Sergeant Hartke was a Pomeranian. His wife—his second wife, actually—Dagmar was a Dane and had been the widow of a Dane when she married the sergeant. She regularly pointed out that when she got involved in all of this, the Danes were the glorious champions of the Protestant cause in this mess and the Swedes were nowhere in sight. Her first husband had been killed in the Danish defeat at Lutter am Barenburg in 1626.

  In the five years between that and her marriage to Sergeant Hartke in 1631, Dagmar had survived five manless years in the train of various Protestant armies, fairly intact, by not missing a thing. She definitely had not missed the Garand-Gertrud connection. She had been very verbose about it, as Derek recalled.

  "Errr," Jeffie said. "I know that Gertrud isn't a whore. She's living at home with her family. Actually, we haven't quite gotten to the point yet where I could get her pregnant. Almost. I'm working on it, so to speak, but there's not a lot of privacy going around. That first time we wandered outside, once we got there, I was wearing an overcoat and she was wearing a cape. We both had on hats and boots. I was wearing long johns; she had on six woolen petticoats. About all we managed to do was pull off our gloves and poke our fingers at some of each other's more interesting parts, so to speak, before we headed back in to the fireplace."

  "Maybe," Derek said, "It will be a long winter." He could always hope.

  "The ground is still pretty cold. There's still snow under the bushes. Not to mention that the leaves aren't fully out. When the weather gets a bit warmer and the bushes get bushier—then I'll get my hopes up. Other things are already up every time I see Gertrud."

  Derek looked at him. Jeffie's grin was totally unrepentant. But . . .

  "In that case," Derek said firmly, "I hereby order you to have a talk with Gus Szymanski tomorrow, if you haven't had one yet. Maybe he has some ideas about down-time techniques for delaying the probably inevitable."

  Jeffie jumped up.

  "I did not say 'dismissed.' "

  "Sorry, Derek. I mean, sorry, Major Utt."

  Derek sighed. Being military administrator in Fulda tended to be short on spit and polish. It was hard to impress a subordinate who somewhere deep down thought that you really were and really always would be just the little brother of one of his high school teachers.

  Gelnhausen, May 1633

  Riffa, daughter of Simon zur Sichel, looked out of the window. There was no especially beautiful scenery to keep her anchored there, but the view included David Kronberg, who was sitting on a bench and looking at the clouds.

  She sighed. Some people said that David Kronberg was very odd. Most of the Jews in Gelnhausen said that David Kronberg was very odd. Riffa didn't think he was odd. Different, in an interesting sort of way, but not odd. If you had a husband who was a postal courier, he would come home bringing a lot of news.

  Emelin Wohl, last week, said that he looked like a rabbit.

  Riffa sighed. Objectively she had to agree that he looked sort of like a rabbit, but it was a really cute rabbit. The kind you wanted to take in your arms and cuddle, stroke its fur, feel its long silky ears. Snuggle it up to your bosom, where its little pink nose and whiskers could tickle your . . .

  She pulled her thoughts back into order. Everyone knew that his parents and Jachant Wohl's parents were trying to make a match. Talk about having all the luck. Jachant would get to marry him, without even trying.

  Not that there was the slightest chance that Riffa could ever marry him. There was no point in having impossible dreams. Her parents, Simon ben Itzig also called Simon zur Sichel and his wife, did not move in the same social circle as the Kronberg family. After all, Papa was just an itinerant peddler. It was the generosity of the Jewish community that allowed Mama and her to stay in Gelnhausen when he was traveling. They didn't really belong here. Or anywhere.

  Often, she wondered if she would ever marry at all. Who would offer for her but some smelly, childless, old man who was hoping for better luck with a young, healthy, second wife?

  David was looking at the clouds with one eye, visualizing pictures as they floated across the sky. With the other one, he kept monitoring the little cottage marked by a sickle over its front door. If he was really lucky, Riffa might come out to go to the well, or run an errand for her mother, or something. If she did, he could watch her until she turned the corner. Maybe he could even watch her come back.

  For years, he had thought that the Thurn and Taxis postal station was the most interesting thing in Gelnhausen. For the past few months, the cottage with the sickle had given it competition.

  Someday, perhaps, he would do a great and daring deed. Something heroic. After that, Riffa zur Sichel would smile at him. Would smile down at him. She was about two inches taller than he was.

  Preferably, that would happen before his parents married him off to Jachant Wohl, because if it did not, it would not be proper for him to smile back.

  It occurred to Riffa that if she offered to do the marketing, the route would take her past the bench where David Kronberg was sitting. Maybe he would look at her.

  "Mama," she said.

  He looked at her. Not directly, of course, but she could feel him looking at her.

  He would be the father of such adorable babies, like plump, fluffy little bunnies. She could feel even now how delightful it would be to hold them in her arms.

  Just before she turned the corner toward the marketplace, she managed to wiggle a little as she walked along carrying her basket. She hoped that he was still looking, but she could scarcely turn around and check.

  Fulda, May 1633

  Jodocus Menig looked up from his work, irritated. Someone was pounding on the door and he was not expecting any customers. His paper mill was on a stream about a half-mile outside the Fulda city walls. Most people with whom he did business had no reason to come out here; he met them in town to take orders and such. He made his o
wn arrangements with a teamster to haul the deliveries and he knew that he did not have any scheduled for today.

  Wiping his hands on his apron, he ran to the front. It was the courier—Wackernagel was his name—with the large envelope he had been told to expect. Menig signed for it himself. His wife was dead. As he signed, he thought that he would have to do something about remarrying. It was nearly impossible for a man to carry on a business if he didn't have a wife.

  He didn't want a Catholic wife, though, and most of the marriageable women here in and around the city of Fulda were Catholic.

  Jodocus Menig came from Schlitz. He had moved his business down to Fulda when the up-timers took over, because the Ritter, Herr Karl von Schlitz, had offered to invest some money if he would make the move. Schlitz thought it would be a good idea to have a man in Fulda who could keep an eye out on developments for him, now that the up-timers had opened the city to Protestants again. The Ritter had considered Menig a good choice. Fulda didn't have a paper manufacturers guild, so all he had needed to do was lease the site and get the permits to erect the buildings.

  He'd ask the Ritter's steward. Bonifacius Bodamer would probably be able to think of some healthy, practical widow from Schlitz, a good housekeeper with not too many children from her first marriage. Still of child-bearing age.

  More children wouldn't be a bad idea. When Kaethe had died, she had left him with just the one boy. You couldn't rely on just one child to care for you in your old age. Not the way that things were these days. However clever a child might be, he could get sick and die. Here today, gone tomorrow. That was the way of children, even when they seemed perfectly healthy.