Grantville Gazette - Volume V (12 page)

"Yes, I am worried. Not about the rest of the men. Carl-Maria and Max are journeymen already. They've both commended Rudy's work. They won't be a problem. Jakob and Rolf are promising, but their work is still apprentice-level. Rolf won't be happy because he's older but he knows Rudy has more skill. Still, this brings up a problem. None of the boys are properly apprenticed. I cannot apprentice them, as I'm only a journeyman myself. And I certainly cannot raise Rudy to journeyman status."

Glumly considering these problems, Martin tapped the keg and filled two mugs.

"Ah, yes. Your status," Herr Glauber stated gravely. "Master Blacksmith Hubner has stopped claiming you are not a proper journeyman, at least."

"Oh, yes. He's choked properly on that letter you had from Masters Ritterhof and Eisenbach. Still, he's not happy with a journeyman running this shop. Especially when that journeyman is me."

"No, I've been accosted by him on more than one occasion about it. He'll not help raise your Rudy to journeyman. Fortunately there is another master blacksmith who can." With that strange statement, Herr Glauber deliberately took an immense bite of his sandwich and began chewing slowly, his eyes dancing.

Baffled, Martin tried to decipher these cryptic remarks. The only other master blacksmiths in Grantville were all close friends of Herr Hubner. Not one of them so much as acknowledged Martin when passing on the street, so it was unlikely they would help.

At last Herr Glauber finished chewing and took a long slow swallow of beer. "Ah, that's good beer. I wish I'd had enough forethought to get in on the partnership at the Gardens. Still, I am working on the building so not all profit is lost. And, I think some of these tables and chairs would do well in a beer garden."

A sly grin shifted on Glauber's face into a solid, wide grin. "Puzzled, aren't you? And you can't figure out which question to ask me first, can you? Well, Journeyman Martin Schmidt, I've had a letter. Or I should say another letter. A letter from Master Blacksmiths Bruno Ritterhof and Joseph Eisenbach."

His spirits lifting, Martin leaned back in his chair. Clearly whatever the two masters had written was good news or Glauber wouldn't be grinning. Still, a few small butterflies fluttered up from his stomach and into his throat.

"My good friends and fellow masters have decided to make a trip down to Grantville." Glauber passed his mug to Martin and waited until it was refilled before continuing. "They will be here sometime next week and they intend to stay for some time—to settle a few problems, is what they wrote. It seems that Hubner has written them, repeatedly and at great length, complaining about you and about my 'interfering' in blacksmithing matters."

"Oh." A sick feeling began to settle at the bottom of Martin's stomach. A master's complaint about a journeyman hardly boded well for the journeyman. Even if the journeyman was in the right, masters stuck together.

"It would seem that Herr Hubner has failed to understand certain points. Firstly, Bruno Ritterhof and I are old friends, very old friends. And we are related. His sister was my lovely Maria. Joseph Eisenbach is my cousin, my mother's oldest brother's son. I first wrote them about Grantville back in June. Since then they've also had word from others they trust. Neither of them are very happy with the way Hubner and his friends have behaved." Peering over the top of his mug, Glauber appeared to measure Martin's reaction.

"I see . . ." was all Martin could manage.

"It is masters' business, still, I think you deserve to know about it. Bruno and Joseph are not alone among masters in disliking Hubner's behavior. They are coming as an official delegation. Hubner will have to answer questions before masters of his craft. Unless the man is a total idiot he'll manage to wriggle out of anything beyond a fine or two. Do you think Hubner a total idiot?"

"Ah, well, ah . . . sometimes. If his temper is up. Later he often seemed to,

ah . . . regret what he'd said."

"And his temper flares up quickly and hotly, especially if his actions and meanings are called into question. Am I correct in my assessment? I have met the man several times, you know. From what I've seen he takes any questions about his work as a personal attack on himself."

"Ah, yes. Quick and hot." Martin squirmed a bit, uncomfortable about discussing a master of his craft in such a disrespectful manner. What the devil could Herr Hubner's temper have to do with anything?

"I think I will take Bruno's offer up and sit in. Herr Hubner may provide quite a show." Glauber grinned again and passed his mug back for more beer. "Bruno sent his greetings to you. He is full of praise for your work and states he is anxious to see this shop. Joseph has expressed similar thoughts. I think you will enjoy showing them what you have done with
Kudzu Werke
. I see no problems for Rudy if his work is up to your standards. Little side matters such as advancing a deserving young man to journeyman—well, I don't think they would have a problem with such."

"Oh, sir! It will be great if Masters Eisenbach and Ritterhof could confirm Rudy as a journeyman! Rolf and Jakob would still be without proper apprenticeships but maybe . . ." Martin took a large gulp from his own mug. The sour, sick feeling in his stomach eased.

"Oh that! As for the boys' apprenticeships, you will be able to deal with those yourself, Martin."

"But, sir! I'm only an journeyman . . ." A thought struggled out from the back recesses of Martin's mind. A thought, a hope, a wish. "Sir?"

"Is your mug full, Martin? Right then. A toast to the newest Master Blacksmith—Martin Reinhard Schmidt." His grin splitting his face, Glauber saluted Martin with his mug full of beer and drained it in one gulp. "Here, son, I've letters and documents from Bruno and Joseph for you."

Stunned, Martin reached out his hand, letting the remains of his sandwich fall to the floor. Purring loudly at the largess, the shop's cat pounced and dragged the gift under Martin's desk.

By Virginia DeMarce

"I have to decide within the week," Leopold Cavriani said. "I have no hesitation, of course, about leaving my daughter Idelette here with the Reverend and Mrs. Wiley. She will learn practical business from Count August von Sommersburg's factor, the count being one of the clients I am serving as a consultant. However, the question of her preparation in the theory of mathematics and accounting as applied to business still remains. The thought of apprenticing her to another woman is one that appeals to me. Your up-time concept of 'role model.' However . . ."

"I can't tell you whether Aura Lee would be a good person to apprentice your daughter to, Mr. Cavriani. I've only got an eighth grade education. She's got a degree from WVU and she worked for the state government for years before she married Joe. Then she worked for the county right up until the Ring of Fire. I can't judge how good she is at her work, but they kept her on at those two jobs. They were the only ones she had during twenty years. She wasn't what they call a job-hopper." Juliann Stull looked across the table at Inez Wiley and Leopold Cavriani. Cavriani noted that the woman did not have the near-perfect teeth of so many up-timers. Hers were crooked and discolored, one of them visibly missing.

"I can talk to other people in regard to your daughter-in-law's professional qualifications," Leopold Cavriani answered. "But in regard to Idelette's training here in Grantville, I am concerned with more than that. Mrs. Wiley does not personally know the younger Mrs. Stull well." He smiled. "She did, however, suggest that no one is likely to have a more realistic appraisal of a woman's character than her husband's mother. Perhaps, even, a critical appraisal. I have learned a great deal about Mrs. Aura Lee Stull—that, for example, she is one of the daughters of Willie Ray Hudson of the Grange and thus stems from a family of political influence in Grantville. I am concerned now with her . . ."

"Morals." Inez said flatly. "Ethics. 'Role model' in that sense, as well as her education and social status. Mr. Cavriani is concerned about his daughter's well-being in all ways."

"If you're thinking about that story that went around, about what happened at the restaurant in Fairmont," Juliann answered, "it's true. That's exactly what they did, her and Joe."

"If you might pardon my ignorance," Cavriani said, "what story?"

Juliann leaned forward a little, her arm resting on the back of her chair. "It was in September. That would have been 1987. Joe called and wanted us—me, Dennis, Tom and his wife and Harlan—to come over to dinner at a fancy restaurant in Fairmont. When we got there, it was all set up. Not one of those banquet rooms but a big table set up in the regular dining room. Flowers and candles on it and stuff. With Willie Ray and Vera, Debbie and Chad, Ray and Marty and their kids arriving at the same time and the waitress taking them to the same table. And I thought, 'Oh, hell and damnation.' Pardon my French, if you will, since Methodists aren't supposed to cuss. Not even to themselves."

The heavyset old woman paused and took a drink from her root beer. For her, Cavriani thought, "old" was the right word rather than "elderly." The mother of Chief Justice Riddle, the formidable head of the Grantville League of Women Voters, was "elderly." Eleanor Jenkins, the president of the Red Cross, was "elderly." Juliann Stull was just old. Old and worn, in the way old people were worn in his own seventeenth century. She was over eighty, Mrs. Wiley had told him. Tough, but old.

"So we sat there," she continued. "The waitresses brought salads and everybody sat there being real polite about what they said. Then the waitresses brought roast beef and baked potatoes with broccoli and everybody sat there being real polite some more. It's not as if the family of the state representative had a lot in common with the family of a miner who got crippled up with black lung, started drinking too much, ran out on his family, and died in a flophouse in Florida fifteen years later. I was a cleaning lady when Joe was growing up, working two jobs to keep food on the table. The only reason I ever knew that Garland had died was that the black lung people in the regional office in Parkersburg tracked me down and told me I was entitled to widow's benefits. But everybody was real polite. Especially because the restaurant had a lot of perfect strangers in it who were eating their dinners, too. Which might be why Joe and Aura Lee had the table set up out there instead of in a banquet room."

"I think I can visualize the scene," Cavriani said. He was also keeping in mind that this woman's son Joe was currently serving as secretary of transportation for the State of Thuringia-Franconia and had become, since the Ring of Fire, a man of considerable political importance and influence in his own right, given the importance of roads and railroads in the new world that was developing. Owing little or nothing to his father-in-law's influence. From the origins his mother was now describing. With Marcus von Drachhausen, the noble son-in-law of Count August von Sommersburg, who was in turn one of Cavriani's own employers, serving as deputy secretary under him. Wheels within wheels . . .

Juliann heaved herself to her feet. "I don't mean to be rude by standing up, but I've got to straighten this bad leg out every now and then. Then, the waitresses brought the pie and coffee. Before people could go on being real polite, Joe got up and said that he and Aura Lee had gotten married at the courthouse in Charleston the week before. That the state transportation department had transferred him from Clarksburg to Morgantown, that Aura Lee had quit her job with the state and gotten on as a budget officer for Marion County, and that they'd bought a house and would be living in Fairmont."

Inez Wiley smiled.

"That just sort of laid there for a while," Juliann continued. "Then Dennis called for the waitresses to bring champagne for a toast, which sort of distracted all the other Methodists into wondering whether they really ought to drink it or not, even though there wasn't any minister at the table. That brought a little relief. And the waitresses brought fancy glasses with stems and poured the champagne and Dennis toasted the bride and groom. Then Joe said, 'Plus, we're going to have a baby in March.' And Aura Lee said, 'We didn't see any point in prolonging the agony by putting off telling you that.'"

"That's what I thought, perhaps, that you needed to hear, Mr. Cavriani, before you made your decision," Inez Wiley said. "Something else to take into consideration, perhaps, is that the only other woman in Grantville who really has the academic preparation to provide Idelette with the level of training you want for her is Carol Koch. Her mother-in-law was left up-time. But, uh, Ron and Carol got married in December 1979 and Ronella was born in June 1980. So in a way, it's six of one and a half-dozen of the other. Not to mention that neither of them is Calvinist."

"Do you have any Calvinist female mathematicians or accountants in Grantville?" Cavriani asked.

"Not as far as I know. Not up-time trained ones. Ashley Jennings was brought up PCUSA-Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, which is real liberal—and joined the Church of Christ when she married Terence Sterling, which is probably worse than not ever being a Calvinist at all. Enoch would think so, at any rate." The wife of Grantville's Free Independent Presbyterian minister and by default universal Calvinist minister smiled.

"You observed Carol in action at the Rudolstadt Colloquy, of course," Inez continued. "Shortly after that, when Leahy Medical Center in Grantville began cooperative efforts with the medical school at Jena, the faculty there asked for someone to teach statistics. So Grantville sent them almost the only person we had available to teach statistics for a year. Someone told me that when the dean looked up and saw who their new adjunct faculty member was, he came close enough to dying of apoplexy that the cooperating medical team had to be called in."

"If Mrs. Koch is in Jena, then she would not be available as—what was the word—Idelette's mentor, would she?" Cavriani asked.