The Grantville Gazette - Vol 3 Part 20

I was seriously afraid he could have put himself and me in further trouble. But there is something in him I like no matter what. I find his careless approach to life quite enticing and his enthusiasm contagious. So I told him I was happy he would come along, but that he had to be careful. More troubles and he would have to travel alone.

He promised me I would not regret my decision. Beside some minor accidents, I may say he has been very discreet for the rest of the trip.

He had another surprise up his sleeve.

It happened just the morning after our talk, while we were getting ready to leave the castle. The three servants were loading our chests and the rest of the baggage on the coach roof. The driver, under his coach, was carefully greasing axles and hubs and our escort was letting the horses having a last drink.

Girolamo was nowhere to be seen.

While we were about to send one of the soldiers to check if his horse was still in the castle stable, Father Matthias saw him coming from the village holding two saddled horses by the reins.

One was his courier, Rodomonte, and the other was a smaller, but not a bit less beautiful brown mare.

When I asked him about this new addition to our party, he answered that the mare was for me, if I wanted to accept it and if I could ride her. Then Girolamo added: "Maestro, I think that once we will be alone on the road, traveling by horse will give us some advantage in speed and agility compared to renting or buying another coach."

I pondered his words and I agreed with him. So I replied that I could ride. I wasn't a master of the skill,but rode enough to stay on the saddle while following a coach. My bigger problem, I explained, was that I had never traveled on a horse for long stretches.

"Well, you will learn! These are the perfect conditions to do so. I can teach you some tricks, and you can always rest on the coach from time to time."

When I asked him the price of the mare he answered, "Don't worry, Maestro. I plan to sell the horse once we have arrived in Grantville. I have yet to see a war zone where there is not a desperate need of horses. As a matter of fact I plan to make a profit. Anyway I need to abuse your kindness again as I need another favor."

"Please speak."

"The problem is that I'm not very good with languages. I can speak a few words in French, but that's it. I need to learn more English and German and Iwas wondering if you could help."

"That will be a pleasure to me. What's the mare's name?"

"I've been toldit's Carlotta, do you like it?"

"Could be worse," I answered, while caressing Carlotta's nose.

I think we both enjoyed the possibility to use the road as a schoolroom. We both had a lot to learn and all the time spent riding, talking and prattling gave us the occasion to know each other better.

The more I knew him the more I felt that my early feelings about Mastro Zenti were true. He is quick of wit and tongue and has much more experience of this world than you would expect from a man of his young age.

He was born in Viterbo, whereis mother's relatives are renowned wood carvers. His father, Achille Zenti, was a soldier, areiter in the Pontifical Army. Girolamo speaks highly of him and he must have been a good man. Unfortunately he fell sick and died in 1619, when Girolamo was just twelve. His mother remarried soon and Girolamo was sent as apprentice inRome to learn the art of wood carving and instrument making with another artisan.The same one who is now his business partner.

He admitted not to be the first country boy who had lethimself be corrupted by the pleasures of a big town. Especially oneso seducing asRome . But, despite his introduction to vice and sin, his great natural talents permitted him to keep on his apprentices.h.i.+p. So he became a journeyman at just sixteen and a master at twenty when he produced his first harpsichord.

Since then, work and his natural curiosity brought him to travel in other states, mostly inNaples,Tuscany andLombardy . Only three years ago, with his name already established, he came back toRome where he purchased half of his former master's enterprise.

Girolamo's father wanted him to be a soldier, an officer maybe, so he started very young training in the science of soldiering. Since then he has studied with different armsmasters wherever he went. His skill is such that, once back inRome , he managed to be accepted in the sword combat school of one of the Alfieri brothers. Who, I have had explained to me, have improved the already deadly teachings of Ridolfo Capoferro, the famous fencer, and direct some of the most important salles of the peninsula. Both his pistols and his rapier, he told me, belonged to his father. Like his lifestyle, I am afraid to say, his political and religious ideas are quite radical.

Once, while we were both enjoying the vapors of a good grappa, Girolamo's tongue got loose enough to tell me ofNapleswhere he befriended one of the last scholars belonging to Brother Tommaso Campanella's circle.Eager to learn, he has been strongly influenced by the theories of the Dominican philosopher.

Even if today Campanella is a free man and a trusted advisor of His Sanct.i.ty, his students are still persecuted in the lands governed by the crown ofSpain as they strongly reject the Spanish hegemony and domination inItaly .

So Girolamo, like Petrarca, Machiavelli and many others before him, dreams of anItaly free of any foreign domination and united in a league of states. It is a dream that never became true and, I am afraid, probably never will.

Discussions and gossip, riding cla.s.ses and languages learning didn't distract us from our primary goal, traveling.

For the first two weeks, we had been blessed by very favorable weather. Not too hot, and with some scattered rains that wet the dust on the road without making it too muddy.

The traffic on the Flaminia is never scarce. Mostly it consists of merchants carrying goods and farmers bringing their animals or their crops to the nearest town. We were well aware of the chance of worse encounters along the road. Maybe because of our military escort or because of the papal insignia painted on the sides of our coach, we never met any trouble.

The road is quite large and well drained. Two carriages can pa.s.s side by side and the grades and slopes are never too harsh even when crossing mountain ridges.

We crossed northernLatium and entered inUmbria . We crossed a greatRomanBridge at Narni and slowly climbed theSommaPa.s.s which brought us into theterritoryofSpoleto .

Spoleto, once the capital of the Longobard Duchy, is a magnificent town. We stopped there to rest for a day at the guest quarters of the Monastery of Saint Luke and found the time to visit theTowersBridge and the Cathedral. We didn't neglect the rich food. The area isrenown for its trout and famous black truffles.

In the monastery we learned of a local legend. The locals say that Pope Innocentius III, here on a visit, miraculously made a spring of icy water gush out from the cloister floor. This spring is said to be able to restore fully the health and stamina of any weary traveler who drinks it. It is superfluous to say we filled our bellies and our canteens.

The day after, just outside of Foligno, we encountereda infantry regiment going to Urbino. The old duchy has been the most recent addition to thePapal States territory, having been ceded to the Church by its last aging duke seven years ago. We managed to travel with the soldiers as long as possible. Our trip became slower, but even safer.

The Via Flaminia is an open air treasure for any student of architecture. Along its way it is possible to see and visit hundreds of vestiges of ancient roman buildings: tombs, bridges, theaters, road markers and much else.

Two of them made a deep impression in me. One is the River Furlo Gorges, where the road has beencompletely carved into the mountain rock by the work of thousands, I imagine. In one place where frequent landslides made the road unsafe, the Romans carved two long tunnels into the mountain so that the road could be kept always open. The tunnels are used even now. It is an amazing show of the skill of the ancients.

One of the Jesuits, a lover of history, found it amusing to see the pope's ragged regiment marching on such a road. A road used by the Roman legions to crush by surprise the army ofHannibal 's brother at the River Metauro battle and by Na.r.s.ete's Byzantines to intercept and defeat Totila's Goths many centuries later.

Povera Italia!

The other vestige is less impressive, being a simple stele placed in the marketsquareofRimini , the town built where the Flaminia ends and the Via Emilia begins.Simple, but of no less historical value. The stele says:

The dictator Gaius Caesar, having crossed the Rubicon, addressed his comrades-in-arms in the civil war here in the forum ofRimini.

I don't know if the stele is real or a fake carved much later. Some claim it isfake , but I found it fascinating anyway.

Once it leftRimini , our road followed the Adriatic coastline towardRavenna andFerrara , in the lower riverPo valley. Being so close to the mouth of the biggest Italian river, the area is filled with marshlands and swamps. It is a dreadful place, haunted by malaric fevers and pellagra caused, I've been told, by the terrible swamp fumes. Not even the night brought us any relief from the hot and humid weather. All the time, but especially in the hottest hours of the day, we were continuously attacked by armies of mosquitoes. Only the occasional winds from the sea brought us some relief.

After four days in such a miserable state we finally reached the nice town ofFerrara and could rest comfortably in the governor's palace.

The next day we crossed thePo on atraghetto and finally left thePapal States . After a fast inspection at the customhouse and after paying a surprisingly low tax, we entered the Venetian Terraferma.

It was in the lowPolesine, that we learned from other travelers of the destruction of the Dutch fleet in a great naval battle and of the Spanish invasion of the United Provinces. The winds of war were blowing again in northernEurope and we were traveling toward the center of the storm.

The news left us with a dark and gloomy mood that neither our fast pace on the well kept Venetian roads, nor the security provided by the Capelatti patrols, nor the good hospitality we received inVerona , could lift from us.

The fact that we were traveling in an area full of refugees from the Duchy of Mantua didn't help. That town was brutally sacked by an imperial army three years ago. More than one-third of the duchy'spopulation was murdered or died from the plague brought by the imperial conquerors. This was the same plague that spread all over northernItaly . What was once one of the wealthiest states of the peninsula was reduced to ruins. As a matter of fact, it was the sack ofMantua and the fear of another 1527 that made His Sanct.i.ty's government hastily increase the defenses aroundRome and add more troops to its armies.Venice seems the only safe place left in northernItaly .An island of peace in an ocean of war. Will it last?

Anyway, we decided to stop inVerona a little longer to make some small repairs to the coach before reaching the mountains. It was then that I discovered another of the many talents of which Girolamo is endowed. It seems he is possessed of a remarkable financial shrewdness.

Over the past five years, Girolamo has used large part of his savings to finance a portion of some Venetian mercantile expeditions in theBlack Sea . While very risky these expeditions produce high profits when the s.h.i.+ps return, because goods are sold at many times the initial price. Reinvesting the profits the same way he managed to earn quite a sum.All this without actually touching a single coin, any operation being done in bonds secured by some of the most important Venetian banks. Once inVerona he came to know that the Nasi family has a branch open in Grantville. So he visited the Veronese branch of the same bank to exchange part of his finances for letters of credit to be used in the American town.

"This should be enough," he told me that evening while we were crossing Piazza delle Erbe and walking back to the inn. "I think I can buy enough supplies and tools to open a decent shop in Grantville and hire some helpers. I think I know where I can find the best timbers of the wholeAlps ."

TheAlps ! If G.o.d should choose a throne to sit while in this world, it would be there.Because there is no other place that sings more clearly of His power and of the beauty of His creation.

Once the repairs to our carriage were done and the coach ready, we leftVerona on the road that we followed up to theDanube . The road follows the River Adige and it brought us closer and closer to the border. So, while the plains became hills and the hills became mountains, we left the Serenissima Republica and entered the Episcopate of Trento, the southernmost province of the Empire.

It took us two days of easy riding to reach the city where we received hospitality in theCastleofBuonconsiglio , residence of the Bishop Prince. During the evening we had the occasion to admire in awe the halls where the Council sessions have taken place and to learn more about the status of the war inGermany .

TheAdige valley offered us a magnificent landscape that gave us true moments of joy. The river cuts a straight, deep dent in steep mountain ridges that are interrupted only by other, smaller valleys created by its many tributaries. Small, neat and beautiful villages are scattered around the valley and many castles have been built to guard the road from higher ground. Our eyes did feast on the charming countryside: from the gentle slopes of the foothills covered with vineyards and chestnut orchards to the lush alpine grazing land: from the dark green fir forests to the gray rocky peaks of the mountains.

I loved the wine produced in these valleys. It's called Welschriesling and it is dry, fragrant and fruity.A perfect companion to wash down the dust from our thirsty throats.

The valley is quite large south ofTrento , but the further north we went the closer we came to the mountains. In the Episcopate people still talk a strongly accented Italian, but, once pa.s.sed the small town ofMezzocorona , we finally entered theTyrol with its German-speaking inhabitants.

Where theAdige meets the river Eisack we finally reached the town ofBozen , and ended the first part ofour trip. Girolamo and I would follow theAdige to Meran and theReschacPa.s.s , while our other companions would take theBrenner Pa.s.s road towardInnsbruck . The weeks spent on the road together helped the growth of a sincere friends.h.i.+p among us. I remember fondly the laughter and the constant good humor of young Matthias, potbellied Father Einrich's pa.s.sion for chess and Italian food, the sincere admiration and deep knowledge that Father Dietrich had for anything Roman. I hope that their trip ended as well as ours and I plan to write them soon to learn how they fared.

The day we separated, we woke up very early to celebrate a moving ma.s.s at the beautifulChurchofSaint George . We felt necessary to thank Our Lord for the safe pa.s.sage He had granted us until and to ask Him to make the second part of our trip as safe as the first. Only then, reluctantly, we separated.

The rest of the morning was spent inMerchants Road looking for two mules and two packsaddles to carry my baggage and other supplies we just bought. Girolamo and I left Bozen in the heat of the early afternoon and reached Meran that night.

We had planned to travel to Schlanders in the morning and try to make Glurns the same day, but bad weather stopped us. When we left, the entrance of theSchnalsValley , well protected by a grim castle, was on our right. Above the valley the sky began to turn black. Thunder and lighting started striking the mountain slopes all around us. We arrived in Schlanders barely before the squall line. Then rain, hail, and gusts of wind poured down the valley. We found refuge at the Gold Eagle Inn in the outskirts of the town and decided to stop for the day.

It turned out to be a good decision. Resting at the inn, we enjoyed a tasty amber beer and filled our bellies with some Obermoosburgkeller-a pork s.h.i.+n roasted on the spit that is as delicious as its name is hard to p.r.o.nounce. I decided to take my traveling spinet inside and, after the meal, I began tuning it (Girolamo made the process much faster) before I enjoyed myself trying to arrange some simple tunes.

In a short time I discovered I wasn't the only one with an instrument in the inn. Girolamo produced a flute he had hidden somewhere in his bags and an inn employee and another customer joined us with a violin and a Venetian guitar. After a little practice, our improvised ensemble began to get along quite well and we started playing. We began with some minuets and gavottes, then we pa.s.sed to some old pieces of Francesco Da Milano and other popular ballads and we went on with some simple dances.

The innkeeper kept providing us with beer and food and seemed quite happy. As news of our improvised concerto reached the rest of the town, the inn became crammed full before dinner.

So much beer had his effects on us and I realized I had drunk too many mugs of it when I began to sing and roughly translate in German some lecherous lyrics written under false name by Adriano "the abbot"

Banchieri.

I see already the disappointment on your face, Father. But it was a nice, fun and innocent night and if I must spend more time in Purgatory for that so be it! After somuch road we deserved some rest, I think.

During the concert we discovered that one of the musicians was traveling to Fussen, in southBavaria , and we decided to cross theAlps together.

His name is Johannes Fichtold and he was returning back home after having finished his apprentices.h.i.+p inPadua . He went toItaly to learn to build lutes and guitars the "Italian way," with the back of the lute constructed with many narrow ribs glued together. His family owns a lute maker's shop, and young Johannes is going to work back there. Hearing this, Girolamo smiled like the catwho ate the canary. Fussen is the place where he planned to order the timbers he wanted to use in his new enterprise.

The next day, despite our hangovers and the muddy and slippery conditions of the road after the storm, we managed to go at a sustained pace. We began amore steady climb along theVinschgauValley , riding in part through mountain forests and in part among cultivated fields and apple orchards. Above thevillageofSchluderns we enjoyed the view of the Churburg, a magnificent castle guarding the entrance of the Matsch valley.

Our morale was incredibly high, but we were abruptly sent back to the sad state of the contemporary world on our approach to Glurns. The town is a little architectural jewel in the crown formed by theAlps , but all its beauty was spoiled by a set of gallows near the east gate and by the rotten corpses hanging from them.

As we approached the gruesome scene, a group of soldiers wearing dark green uniforms and large hats told us to stop. They looked formidable with their very long muskets and an impressive array of blades.

"Jaegers!" said Johannes, while the soldiers came closer. "They are the local militia.Fiercely loyal to the emperor and incredible marksmen."

The soldiers asked for our pa.s.sports and wanted to know where we were headed and the reason for our trip. Once satisfied by our answers one of them, who looked like their commander, gave us a warning, "The corpses you see hanging here are part of a band of bandits that are marauding this area.

Deserters from what once was Tilly's army. Once on the pa.s.s, watch out for your lives. Unless," he added with a grin, "you can pay for the services of his Imperial Majesty's hunters."

"And how much would this service cost? "I asked.

"Three golden ducats for each one of you, two for the animals.Four expert guides will guide and protect you up to Nauders, the first town beyond the pa.s.s".

"Sto fijo de 'na mignotta!This is robbery!" said Girolamo, luckily in Italian.

"Please close your mouth," I told him. "I'm sure you are more than able to defend all of us. I don't want to have potential enemies ready to ambush us along the road and hostile militiamen behind our back. We can afford to pay and I am ready to do it. Dead people cannot waste money. That's a privilege of the living."

I was surprised by my firm tone of voice. And apparently so was he, because he managed to remain silent while I finished dealing with the sergeant. The next morning we would be escorted beyond theReschenPa.s.s.

The fact that endless people since the beginning of the world have used this road is probably because crossing the pa.s.s is not very hard. But for a small slope before thevillageofReschen , the road climbs its way gently along the hills and the mountains. Even the top part of the pa.s.s is surprisingly easy, as it maintains more or less the same alt.i.tude for half a dozen miles.

At the end of the day, after the long ride among woods and meadows, we made camp in an empty barn just above the little town ofNauders . We were tired, but proud of the progress we had made.

It may have been because of the presence of the Jaegers, but nothing bad happened along the way. Iwas quite wary of all those horror stories about travelers left with their throats cut in some roadside ditch.

The company of the soldiers was more pleasant than expected. These are not bloodthirsty monsters.

Even if widely recruited as scouts by the imperial armies, they are mostly just hunters or woodsmen who spend part of their time defending their land and families. Not only did they not rob or murder us, as Girolamo feared, but they cheered us up with their numerous hunting stories and mountain tales. I particularly appreciated a story about a holy white steinbock who lives in the area, but this is not the time to tell it. Their knowledge of the land and of the flora and fauna is also extraordinary.

From Naders the road brought us to Landeck and from there it crossed many other valleys and small towns until, a few days later, we left the Duchy of Tyrol and entered the Bavarian town ofFussen .

Fussen, built where the River Lech meets the Via Claudia Augusta, is apparently another of those numerous small towns scattered all along the river valleys of this mountain area. They all share common features: one or two thousand souls at most, a circle of walls, a small cathedral and a small fortress. Even if the wars inGermany and inItaly have reduced the flow of travelers who pa.s.s by this town, what remains is enough to grant prosperity to their inhabitants.

What makes Fussen special is the fact that in the last fifty years it has become the home of some of the most famous lute makers of our time. The vicinity of theAlps with their huge reserve of valuable timber and the closeness to important trade routesmake it the ideal place to build instruments that can be sold throughoutEurope , fromSpain toPoland , fromDenmark toSicily .

Once in town we received hospitality from Johannes' older brother Hans, a respected member of the lute makers' guild. The guild not only controls the sale of any instrument built in town, but also watches very closely the trade in timber, making sure that the best planks of yew, oak, cherry, and fir not leave the town.

"Oh, we will see that!" Girolamo told me with a bellicose light in his eyes. "The guild member that can keep me away from what I want still has to see the light of this world."

As a matter of fact, the bargaining must have been harder than he expected because he more or less disappeared for all the duration of our stay in town. He was busy meeting guild members and the owner of the local timber mill, pleading, flattering, threatening, whining and G.o.d only knows what else! But at the end he obtained what he wanted, a good number of planks of very good timber to be sent to Grantville in the shortest possible time. Only later did he tell me that he had been able to obtain the wood supply only by agreeing to enter the guild and to pay a huge annual sum to have such a "privilege."

I used those days to visit the town and its surroundings. I saw from a distance theHohenshw.a.n.gauCastle , but I far more enjoyed a visit at the small Saint Anna Chapel where I was struck deeply by some wooden panels painted with scenes of a Dance Macabre. That artifact seems made to direct our thoughts toward the precariousness of life and it seemed very appropriate for what I had seen in my first days inGermany . Here life is lived under a constant threat.

These people seem to have lost hope in the future. They appear to feel it is likely that the future will bring destruction or a violent death. This is a small, rich town, where everybody should be happy and busy enjoying the many gifts G.o.d gave them. Instead fear, no matter how well hidden, is the most common emotion among the locals. Fear of an army sacking and pillaging their pretty homes, fear of plague and famine. Fear of an unwanted war upon which they have no control.

After three days we left town. Girolamo was furious at the terms he had to accept to get his timber.Nothing seemed to cheer him up, not even the smart jokes of Johannes who had decided to come with us (with the blessing of his brother who saw profit in expanding his business close to the fabled Americans) and who seemed as eager as we were to visit the American town.

All kinds of rumors about war followed us all the way to Landsberg and then on toAugsburg .

Somebody was saying that thekingdomofFrance had raised a huge army nearStrasbourg and was ready to invade northernGermany . Others were saying that one hundred thousand Swedes and their fiendish allies were already across theDanube directed towardUlm and Wien and killing everybody along the way. Someone hinted that it was the Spanish that were coming through the Valtellina and now were in Baden-Wurttemberg, ready to defend to the last man the Catholic population.

We learned to not give much credit to all these rumors. As a matter of fact, the only soldiers we saw at that time were a regiment of Bavarian troops training just outsideAugsburg 's walls.

InAugsburg we had another proof of the anguish Bavarian people were living in. While we were heading toward the Jesuit Collegium, we were stopped in Maximilianstra.s.se by a large procession of people praying for the defeat of the Protestant forces. All the confraternities of the town, members of all the religious orders, seemed to have united for the event. The air was full of supplication; religious songs and Kyrie were sung and statues of many Saints and of the Virgin Mary were carried toward the cathedral, Dom St. Maria. Even having spent all my life inItaly , I had rarely seen such a strong display of public faith. My companions and I were so struck that we followed instinctively the procession until we saw all the statues enter into the beautifully carved gates of the church.

All the roads to and fromAugsburg are full of refugees. Only the fact we were on horseback and able to leave the road in the most crowded sections made us move as fast as we did. Anyway it took us over three days to reach Donauworth at the confluence of theDanube and the river Wornitz and to finally find the rival armies.

The town is at the border betweenSwabia andBavaria , and is located along the last navigable point on theDanube . At the moment, Donauworth is in Bavarian hands and the big garrison and the heavy fortifications seemed to show the will of Maximilian's troops to remain here. However, the fact that Swedish soldiers were a few leagues away from the town walls didn't help our pa.s.sage.