Grantville Gazette Part 28

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 placement vis-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.

Or, in other words, the counts of Oldenburg were Philippists. Tolerant Philippists. Lax, even as Philippists went.

The Count of Oldenburg's problem was a longstanding attachment to a woman of unequal birth. Elizabeth von Ungnad was scarcely a kitchen maid-her grandfather had served as Imperial amba.s.sador to Turkey. But she was not of the higher n.o.bility. Ferdinand II's uncompromising introduction of the Counter-Reformation had driven her family out of Austria and they had found refuge in Oldenburg. By this relations.h.i.+p with Elizabeth, he had a dearly-beloved namesake son, very promising, who was not ent.i.tled to inherit Oldenburg. He foresaw that his snug, well-governed, little corner of Germany would some day be torn apart by feuding cousins from Denmark and Holstein, as Juelich and Cleves had been by cousins from Brandenburg and the Palatinate.