The Grantville Gazette - Volume 1 Part 16

As Minnie started a skipping rendition of "Wildwood Flower," Benny said, "Y'know, Ed, if you felt like it, you could radio down to Grantville and ask someone to bring me up my autoharp when they're coming. Dave and Doreen have got the key to my bedroom. It's in there. I rented out the rest of the place. We're doing pretty good here. I think we'll stay to the end of this foofara, so there'll be time for it to catch up with me."

"Sure, Benny, I can do that. People go back and forth every day, so it won't take long."

"Minnie should do real good on the autoharp." Benny studied his calluses. "It might be that you'll be hearing from her ex-boss. I helped her run away."

"Might be?"

Benny grinned. "I don't guarantee he'll figure out that I'm the one who helped her. He didn't seem to be the sharpest knife in the drawer. I expect he's more likely to think it was a young guy who wanted to put his hand up her skirts than an old guy who wanted to put her hand on a fiddle bow. But anyway, he was as mean as a generous skunk and she's better off working for me, even if she was indentured to him for another three years."

"Where were you when you, ah, provided this a.s.sistance to a damsel in distress?"

"Minnie wasn't distressed. Minnie was mad. He'd promised to pay out her wages yearly and went back on the bargain-said that according to the law, he didn't have to pay until her indenture was up. She only stole what he owed her-not apfennig more. Well, I watched to make sure that's all she took. Left to herself, she can be a lying little sneak, but what can you expect? She's the first real, live, foundling I've ever come across. I thought that was real interesting. She's going to be the best fiddler I've ever taught.

Oh, the other? Somewhere up around Halle, on the other side of the river. I'd hitched a ride on a barge."

Somewhere up around Halle, on the other side of the riverequaled Saxony. Mentally, Ed moved the concept ofpossibly needing to bail Benny out to a slightly higher rung on his ladder of priority items for the Department of International Affairs.

Waving to them both, he picked up his beer and joined Cavriani, who had acquired two bratwurst as well as a beer, plus two of Ed's staffers for company. Ed joined them happily. Among the advantages of being a Roman Catholic "personal observer" at a Lutheran conference was that he never had to sit among the head table guys when the topic was theology. They only needed him when the subject veered into politics. Behind him, he could hear that Benny was handling the fiddle again. Minnie started to sing "Coal Miner's Blues." By the time the lunch break was over, they'd made it through "Bury Me Beneath the Willow" and a bilingual version of "When the Roses Bloom in Dixie Land."

They had also attracted a new audience that Ed recognized-the delegation of Tuebingen theology students. Minnie started to sell music again, while Benny treated them to "San Antonio Rose."

It was hard, hard, hard to go back to Professor Osiander, who, when they slid into their seats a few minutes late, was announcing that: "Christ, who is the purest bridegroom of His church, does not share His love, as expressed in the sacrament, with those who have vain and blasphemous opinions."

Osiander explained the rationale which had led the Tuebingen faculty to this conclusion in the most minute detail, with frequent references to theConcordia Triglotta , throughout the afternoon. He defined "church" and he defined "sacrament." He defined "vain" and he defined "blasphemous." He advanced comparative instances of usage of the words in the Bible, both in Hebrew and in Greek, along with variant translations into Latin and German.

Then he defined "opinions."

Ed had picked up a rumor that there had once been an attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate Professor Osiander during one of his sermons. Nowif I had been on the jury... he thought. On his right, Leopold Cavriani was sleeping quietly.

Cavriani, in fact, had not been sleeping. He had been pondering the question of who had been doing the German translations for Benny Pierce. He thought that Secretary of State Piazza must be so familiar with the words of Benny's songs in English that he really hadn't paid any attention to the German lyrics.

Cavriani had paid attention and he knew enough of both languages to catch that, "When the roses bloom in Dixieland, I'll be coming home to you" bore a reasonable relations.h.i.+p to"Als die Rosen naechst im Suden bluh'n, kehr ich ein, mein Schatz, bei dir."

But the next verse of the English, which talked about birds singing music to the sweetest girl that the boy ever knew, bore no relation at all to:"Wenn wir endlich von dem Kriege ruh'n, kehr ich ein, mein Schatz, bei dir!"

The English words said nothing at all about finally resting from this war. There was a reason why he had made that "ensure that an idea spreads" comment to the American. He'd been vaguely disappointed that Piazza hadn't picked up on it. This evening, he thought, he would see where the old man and the girl went after they packed up in the market square. It would be interesting to find out who their a.s.sociates were.

"My life hasn't been much, really," Benny said to Cavriani. "I graduated from eighth grade, but that's as far as it went. Fought in the Second World War. Down in Italy, it was-your name sort of rings a bell, but we've got a lot of Italians in Grantville, too. Got married. Mary Ann's family came from Lebanon. She was Catholic. I've got to say that bothered me a bit-we were Methodist teetotal at home and I was really brought up on the 'no popery' line. But she switched over, so it was fine. I used to play "The Romish Lady" in her honor. Hmm... haven't played that one in quite a while. Maybe I can polish it up tonight. If you come by the market tomorrow, I'll play it for you."

Benny stopped talking for a moment to eat before his grilled cheese sandwich got cold. "These aren't bad, are they, Mr. Cavriani? They aren't burgers, but they aren't bad. Do you really want to hear more?

Well, I worked in the mines most of my life. After the mine exploded at Farmington in sixty-eight-that was bad, seventy-eight men killed; only four got out-Mary Ann carried on 'til I gave in and quit. I was forty-seven then and went to driving the trucks; did that for twenty-three years. I'd figured on keeping on 'til she could collect her social security, but she died in ninety-two, before she'd even applied. I'd fiddled all my life, but after I lost her, I started fiddling pretty much full time. Galax; other compet.i.tions. Even did a few gigs at the big Tamarack tourist center down by Beckley. Wish you could have seen that place-it had quilts, jams, hand-carved duck decoys. You'd have liked it, I think. A marketplace with a roof over the top."

Benny looked at his new friend, who nodded solemnly. Cavriani wasn't able to identify half the references, but they weren't going past him. He was storing them in his mind, to be written down later in the evening and checked out as soon as he had a chance.

Cavriani glanced at Minnie, who quite obviously didn't understand what Benny was talking about either.

But, right now, she didn't care. Cavriani had ordered two whole sandwiches and a large gla.s.s of milk for her. Minnie was apparently a focused woman: she was definitely going to finish eating it all before the men stopped talking and left the Freedom Arches. For a minute, Cavriani was afraid that she'd try to cram that last half-sandwich into her mouth all at once and try to wash it down with the rest of the milk, but Benny started talking again.

"Well, anyway. Then we landed here. Sort of cramped my style, at first, but then I figured that I could hitch a ride on the carts going off to markets and I started b.u.mming. In the beginning, all I could do was instrumentals. A guy can't sing with a fiddle under his chin. Sometimes, I'd put the fiddle down for a couple of minutes and do a verse. That went over okay, I guess. But I knew it would be better if folks could understand the words."

The old man had ordered a kettle of boiling water for a beverage, and had dropped some odd dried roots into it. He poured some of it out into a mug and rinsed his mouth.

"Sa.s.safras tea, if you're wondering. I told you I was brought up teetotal. Still am. Want to try some?"

Cavriani had consumed stranger things when he was doing his training in the firm's various branch offices. His digestive system still remembered Aleppo well. "Aendere Laender, aendere Sitten," he murmured. "How did the Americans say it? 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do.'"

He nodded. Benny poured three mugs and gave the third to Minnie before continuing.

"At first, I just did the towns and villages around Grantville. After about a year, I guess, I worked myself all the way up to Magdeburg, mostly playing one night stands-stayed a little longer in Erfurt when I pa.s.sed through. Well, anyway. In Magdeburg, I met this kid who's a friend of Jeff Higgins' wife. He writes poetry in German, and said that if I sang my stuff for them, he had a friend who would copy it into sheet music. I could sell that, and make a bit more. And he'd translate the words of some of them into German for me, free. Real nice of him, I thought. He did three that first trip, but every time I run across him, he's done a couple more."

Cavriani nodded. His face showed genuine interest. Benny loved an audience.

"I didn't do so good at singing the German words, but most people didn't care. At least, they got the idea. Then I found Minnie. She can really sing them. He brought four new ones for me when he came down for this foofara. So he's the one you want to talk to, I guess. Name's Joachim. Let me write it down-they spell it like that, but they say it just like Yok.u.m in the L'il Abner cartoons."

Benny was starting to wind down. His hands met behind his neck and he pushed his elbows and shoulders back.

"Well, Mr. Cavriani, I must say that it's been a pleasure. I do thank you for the invitation. But I'm getting to be old bones. If I'm going to polish up "The Romish Lady" before tomorrow, we'd better be going."

"The pleasure was all mine," said Leopold Cavriani. He meant it. Sincerely.

It was Benny's favorite hymnbook. His grandma had a whole stack of them, bound in red oilcloth covers.

Apostolic Hymns. A Collection of Hymns and Tunes for all Occasions of Religious Wors.h.i.+p and Social Singing. Containing Selections of Upward of Fifty Ministers, Music Teachers, and Singers.

And a Comprehensive Gamut by Prof. Blackburn, Pilot Oak, Ky. , edited by Elds. J. V. And R. S.

Kirkland, Fulton, Ky., a.s.sisted by Prof. A. M. Kirkland, Como, Tenn. J. V. & R. S. Kirkland, Fulton, Ky. Copyright 1898. It was thin enough to fit in the larger bib pocket of his overalls. Whenever he felt like Mother Maybelle's "Lonesome Homesick Blues" were going to take him over, he pulled it out to remember the sing-alongs they used to have.

Funny how things worked out. He had a brother and two sisters. He and Mary Ann never had any kids.

Emmie and Lester never had any kids; Lester had been dead for years and he didn't think that Emmie would last much longer-she was the oldest. Homer and Hattie's kids had been left up-time; Hattie had died in ninety-eight and Homer sure wasn't well. Betty and Fletcher had a boy and a girl, but then of those two, Louise and Bill didn't have any kids and she wasn't likely to have any now, being forty-three.

One little baby. Betty's great-grandson, Dave and Doreen's grandson, born in February. Benny had been back to see him once, already. Suddenly, he decided. He was going back to Grantville to see that little buster again before he started his summer tour.

Well. Back to the hymnal. He'd already taught the whole "Rudiments" to Minnie. What is a lyric? What is a tune? What is pitch? Treble clef. Base clef. Whole, half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes, with how to draw them. The most frequently used times, such as 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4, with how to accent them.

Rests, measures, bars; how to draw them. It was only six pages. The kid who had turned his vocal music into sheet music had acted like it was manna from heaven.

No. 35. "The Romish Lady." Benny loved "The Romish Lady." Political correctness had never advanced very far into the life he lived. He loved all eleven verses of it.

So, it turned out the next day, did the members of the Lutheran theological faculties of the universities of Jena, Wittenberg, and Tuebingen, with a.s.sorted a.s.sociates and accompanying students.

There was a Romish lady brought up in popery, Her mother always taught her the priest she must obey.

O pardon me dear mother, I humbly pray thee now, For unto these false idols I can no longer bow.

Professor Osiander cast a rather apprehensive glance in the direction of the U.S. Secretary of State.

Herr Piazza was known to be a Roman Catholic.

a.s.sisted by her handmaid, a Bible she concealed, And there she gain'd instruction, till G.o.d his love revealed.

No more she prostrates herself to pictures deck'd with gold, But soon she was betray'd, and her Bible from her stold.

But Herr Piazza was calmly drinking his beer and grinning. "Just wait," he said to Cavriani. "It gets better."

As Benny proceeded through the verses, the issue of whether it got better or worse was probably a matter of interpretation. The comparatively few English speakers in the square summarized the plot development for their friends: With grief and great vexation, her mother straight did go, T'inform the Roman clergy the cause of all her woe.

The priests were soon a.s.sembled, and for the maid did call, And forced her in the dungeon, to fright her soul withal.

"I've got to have him sing this for Spee and Heinzerling," Piazza said to Cavriani. "In it's own way, it's a cla.s.sic."

Before the pope they brought her, in hopes of her return, And there she was condem-ned in horrid flames to burn.

Before this place of torment, they brought her speedily, With lifted hands to heaven, she then agreed to die.

"You've got to admit," Ed was saying, "that it goes a long way toward explaining why two-thirds of the people in Grantville are expecting a man as civilized as Urban VIII to burn Galileo any day now. Even if they've never sung it themselves, their grandparents did. It's part of their cultural heritage."

Benny kept merrily on, as the maids-in-waiting commiserated, the victim's gold jewelry was confiscated by the avaricious inquisitors, and the raging mother reappeared: O take from me these idols, remove them from my sight; Restore to me my Bible, wherein I take delight.

Alas, my aged mother, why on my ruin bent?

'Twas you that did betray me, but I am innocent.

So the tormenters proceeded to light the fire. With her dying breath, the Romish Lady asked G.o.d to pardon the priest and the people, "and so I bid farewell."

About ninety-nine percent of the people in the marketplace in Jena broke into a mad storm of applause.

If ever there was a song with the Right Stuff, this was it.

Benny didn't have any sheet music copies of it.

Crisis. Until Ed volunteered that if Benny would lend him the hymnal, he would take it down to the printer, stay there while he copied it off, and bring the book right back. There would be sheet music tomorrow, even if some unfortunate apprentice had to stay up with a candle all night carving out a woodcut of the musical score.

Professor Lukas Osiander, Jr., really did not understand what was happening here.

Benny segued into an encore. "Mother's Bible" was always a good one.

As Ed headed for the printer's, Benny's voice called after him: "Ed, get him to copy 'Standing on the Promises,' too. And No. 261. 'Deliverance Will Come.'"

The colloquy came to order.

Maybe Grantville's ELCA members should have thought again before they elected a delegate whose maiden name was Unruh. Her responses to the colloquy discussions had been-disturbing. "Unrest" was a pretty mild description of the reactions that Carol's contributions to the dialogue at the Rudolstadt Colloquy had caused.

As in the matter of what she now presented as the ELCA response to Professor Osiander's exposition of the doctrine of ubiquity. The ELCA delegate's response was, as usual, brief. Carol Koch's maternal grandfather had been a pastor, but her father had been a newspaperman.

"We thank Professor Osiander for his extensive explanation of the doctrine of ubiquity. Jesus said, 'Unless you become again as a little child, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.' I'm pretty sure that no little child has ever understood all the fine points that are so important to Professor Osiander.

I'm pretty sure that no little child ever will. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill!"

Carol sat down.

Joachim von Thalheim's eyes were glittering with enthusiasm. He had thrown himself into Committee of Correspondence politics wholeheartedly-but even among his colleagues, there were so few who really appreciated what he was trying to do. Most of them just didn't see political propaganda as an art form.

Not even Gretchen. He looked across the breakfast table at the guy Benny Pierce had sent over to his room the evening before.

"So, you see, just look here." Joachim pulled out the English and German words to "When the Roses Bloom in Dixieland" and placed them side by side. "Down here."

I've been saving all my money, to buy a little cabin home for two.

"Now," he said, "I've translated it as,'Ich werde all mein Geld ersparen.' That's good, in itself. Most people will understand it that way, literally, just like the original words. But for a mercenary, his pay is his 'Gelt' and they sound exactly alike. If we're lucky, he'll hear the song somewhere and start thinking that he can save up, and then when he's discharged, he can go home and see if there's a girl for him to marry instead of turning to banditry."

"Isn't that expecting a bit of deep thought from your average mercenary?" Cavriani asked sardonically.

"Oh, I don't expect that it will have any effect on most of them. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained. It's not as if it costs us anything. And every mercenary who does go home and settle down after the war will be one less problem for Gustavus Adolphus. One less problem for Grantville. One less problem for all the rest of us."

Joachim, clearly, would have been more than happy to explain all the ramifications and potential multiple subliminal levels of meaning, allegorical and anagogical, of every single line. He was a product of the same educational system that had produced Professor Osiander.

"I'd love to talk about it again," said Cavriani. "But I have to get over to the meeting. Perhaps this evening?"

"That's fine. I've got some people to talk to this afternoon, and that could run into supper. Eight-ish to nine-ish, at my place?"

"I'll be there," said Cavriani. "Probably closer to nine-ish." He started to leave; then turned back as if something had just casually crossed his mind. "'Geld' versus 'Gelt' may not cost your organization anything. But you and your friends still have to eat. I know some people who might be willing to pay a fee for Italian translations of your German versions of these songs. If you're interested, I'll be glad to put you in touch."

Count Anton Guenther of Oldenburg called upon Count Ludwig Guenther of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt.

Upon behalf of his cousin Emelie of Oldenburg-Delmenhorst, who freely consented, he announced that she was delighted to accept Count Ludwig's marriage proposal.

With the foundation of the long-standing ties of blood between the two families reinforced and renewed for another generation, the two counts were able to proceed to further discussions. Each realized that the other had a problem; each realized that the other had something to offer in the way of a solution.

In spite of its strategic geographical placementvis-a-vis Denmark and the Netherlands, Count Anton Guenther's prudent management had kept Oldenburg neutral throughout the war. Well-he'd bribed Tilly to stay out of his lands with a gift of lots of the famous Oldenburg horses. It had been worth the cost. He had added Varel and Knyphausen to his domains. He had obtained an Imperial grant for the Weser River tolls that added substantially to his income.

There was some suspicion by orthodox Lutherans that he harbored crypto-Calvinist tendencies. Not just plain crypto-Calvinist tendencies, but Arminian, Remonstrant, crypto-Calvinist tendencies. Over the past three generations, Oldenburg had repeatedly offered sanctuary to men tossed out of the Netherlands by the stricter Calvinists. Justus Lipsius had thanked his host by complaining that the town "stank of brown coal and bacon." Count Anton Guenther's grandfather had replied calmly that this smell only signified that all of his subjects were prosperous enough to have a warm fire and meat for supper every night. Within the last few years, Hugo Grotius had enjoyed full run of the count's library while he was temporarily between employers (or, depending how one looked at it, on the lam). Oldenburg's sympathy for those in religious difficulties was sometimes extended even more widely. Jan Amos Comenius had spent some time in the library of Anton Guenther's neat little Renaissance-style residence.