The Grantville Gazette - Volume 1 Part 18

The count evaluated the advantages of each option-carefully. Ed Piazza was a little surprised by some of the a.n.a.lysis. n.o.body else who had spoken at the whole colloquy thus far had, for instance, addressed the question of just how far any given arrangement would require the Grantville paris.h.i.+oners to walk in order to attend church.

Clearly, the count said, the first option would be preferred by the theologians from Tuebingen and Wittenberg and, indeed, by those of Jena, as well as by the clerical members of the consistory of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. However, in his capacity asLandesvater , advised also by the lay members of his consistory, he found that his duty to ensure the provision of religious services to so many Lutheran immigrants, displaced from their former homes by this tragic war, was more important than the maintenance of the strictest orthodoxy. He did not feel that he could agree to an arrangement by which St. Martin's and St. Thomas would not be open to them.

Steadily, Count Ludwig Guenther moved through the points. He had, he said, concluded that on the basis of experience with applying parity between Catholics and Lutherans for using the churches in certain German Imperial cities, the arrangement was most inconvenient for all concerned and led to ongoing, persistent, disputes and ceaseless controversies. Such an arrangement would be very difficult to administer.

The whole parity idea was new to Ed. He'd never heard of any such thing. But once more he pulled to the front of his mind the general maxim that in the 1,000-plus little political ent.i.ties that made up the Holy Roman Empire, any imaginable arrangement probably existed somewhere.

Yeah, Ed thought, contemplating Tino n.o.bili's probable reaction to any such proposal if it were inst.i.tuted at St. Mary's.I can see how it might cause ceaseless controversies .

Tino was one of the crosses he had to bear. If Opus Dei had ever invited Tino to join, he would have been honored to accept. Tino's kids had already finished CCD cla.s.ses by the time Ed took over as chairman of the parish education committee; his grandchildren hadn't been old enough yet. Ed breathed a short prayer of thanks for G.o.d's infinite mercies and brought his attention back to the count.

Who, clearly, had moved on quite a s.p.a.ce while Ed's mind was wandering.

"Thus, in the matter of the faculty appointments at both of the Grantville schools that our consistory is currently subsidizing, given that the teaching of religion to children prior to the age of confirmation rarely demands more than a good knowledge of theShorter Catechism , we will not require more than a willingness to subscribe to the Augsburg Confession, with no specification as to altered or unaltered."

Ed looked around the room and saw young Muselius smiling brilliantly. And, why not? He had just been told that he was going to keep his job. Carol Koch had formed her thumb and forefinger into a circle.

Gary Lambert's face was completely impa.s.sive.

"In regard to the ministerial appointments..." The count paused.

"While we do not believe that it would be feasible to inst.i.tute simultaneous parity, we have decided that the ministers appointed to each parish shall be, alternately, of the Flacian and Philippist persuasions.

There is sufficient legal precedent for this in the arrangements for some of the North German dioceses, whereby the administrator is alternately Catholic and Lutheran. No candidate for the ministry will be required to accept an appointment to these parishes. Therefore, any man of the orthodox persuasion who has qualms of conscience about extending communion to all of his paris.h.i.+oners may simply refuse the post. This, we believe, should be an adequate reservation in cases of conscience."

When Ed looked at the Tuebingen theologians, the expressions on their faces gave him the distinct impression that they didnot regard it as an adequate reservation in cases of conscience.

But the count was not finished. Switching from the formal "we," he continued: "I specifically wish to avoid the problem that the northern dioceses have encountered, of both Catholic and Lutheran rulers appointing young, untried, untested, and insufficiently mature men to the dioceses in hopes that they will be long-lived and extend either Protestant or Catholic control for as long as possible. Such pursuit of purely political advantage is unconscionable among those who claim to hold a divinely entrusted responsibility for the spiritual welfare of their subjects."

He looked rather firmly at the "personal observer" from the Duchy of Brunswick, who had almost single-handedly caused the Monday evening meeting at Margrave George's quarters to run so late by insistently demanding that Ludwig Guenther remove this comment.

"We have decided to apply, in these cases, a concept that is not entirely strange to our own law, and which was well established in the law of the ancient Romans, but is in practice much more frequently applied by our American friends." He bowed toward Ed-the first official recognition of his presence inside the lecture hall since the first day, when all the "personal observers" had been introduced. "The appointments to these parishes shall be five-year terms, alternating. If one inc.u.mbent dies during his term of office, another candidate of the same opinion shall be nominated by the consistory to complete the term."

"This decision shall stand." The count publicly signed and sealed about two dozen copies of it that were neatly stacked on the table next to him.

"The County of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt extends its most sincere thanks to all who have contributed to its deliberations on this important matter. The colloquy is adjourned."

To the work! To the work! There is labor for all...

None of the university students, whether Jena's own or the visitors, would be attending the state dinner, of course. Now that the formal closing ceremonies were over, they were milling around, somewhat at loose ends-and, in the case of those from Tuebingen and Wittenberg, bitterly disappointed with Count Ludwig Guenther's decision. Most of them decided to have another beer, since the booths that sold beer weren't even starting their close-out.

None of the ordinary visitors who had come to Jena to have a look at colloquy would be going to the state dinner, either, but those who hadn't already started for home were still wandering around, hoping to pick up bargains from some vendor who would rather not carry his stuff home. The marketplace was also full of apprentices and day-laborers who were packing up unsold merchandise, dismantling booths, and loading carts and wagons, trying to get things out of the way before the late-afternoon formal procession from the medical school to the city hall, which was where the banquet would be held.

Aside from them, as the booths were removed, the center of the square, beyond the cordoned-off route, was gradually filling up again, mostly with people from Jena itself who wanted to see the parade. Along the sides of the square, there was an unscheduled procession of maidservants and errand boys, delivering to the city hall, which had no kitchen of its own, all the dishes that the housewives of Jena had devoted their day to preparing from the provisions brought in by Count Ludwig Guenther. After they handed the roasts and pies in, at least half of them, whether with or without permission from their employers, were not returning home, but augmenting the group of spectators.

The procession was forming up, Count Ludwig Guenther's steward ensuring that all diplomatic representatives and their guests were in their proper places-that always minimized protocol disputes. It should be coming into the marketplace in just a few minutes.

Since Benny Pierce didn't have a booth, but just an upside down keg and an old backpack, he kept on performing. The sheet music sales of "The Romish Lady" had been really good. He wanted to pick up any last-minute loose change that might be flying around.

After the wild success of the week before, he'd decided to add more old-time Gospel to his Mother Maybelle mix. In spite of the fact that any thinking seventeenth-century theologian would ask a lot of questions in regard to doctrinal issues pertaining to "certainty of salvation," he'd gotten away with: Let us labor for the Master from the dawn till set of sun, Let us talk of all His wondrous love and care.

Then when all of life is over and our work on earth is done, And the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there.

Even "Work, for the Night is Coming" hadn't caused any catastrophe.

Alas! Joachim had just given him a quickly translated German version of "Toiling On." Joachim hadn't stopped to think about the theological implications-it had just struck him as a rousing call to action, usable as a song for the Committees of Correspondence meetings with only minor modifications.

He had, unfortunately, left out the line aboutSalvation is free .

As the formal procession to the state dinner rounded the corner and the heralds in front entered the marketplace, Minnie sang:

Schaffe nun, schaffe nun!

Es gibt noch viel zu tun!

The town was tense enough, as it was. One of the apprentices, more than half-drunk, and obviously not having been present during the rendition of "The Romish Lady," suddenly yelled: "Work Righteousness! The Americans are secretly teaching Popery! Right here in Jena!"

Minnie reacted fast when she saw the first cobblestone coming. "Save the fiddle!" she shrieked, pus.h.i.+ng Benny to the ground and s.n.a.t.c.hing up the herring keg, which she proceeded to wield as a three dimensional s.h.i.+eld above his body.

Benny saw nothing wrong with her priorities. He scrabbled around the ground with his right hand until he located the violin case, pulled it over, tucked in the instrument and bow, and covered them both with his body.

Minnie's past life experiences had not been such as to give her much confidence in the civil authorities.

However, Benny had firmly told her that if there was trouble, she should call, "Help! Police!" Minnie's voice really did have carrying quality. On general principles, she switched to, "Hilfe! Polizei!" Under the hail of cobblestones, the keg was coming apart in her hands. She started throwing the staves.

Tanya and Jamie Lee were back at the inn with the radio, which was never left unattended, but the other four kids who had come to Jena with Ed were at one of the picnic tables behind the brewery booth.

Pete, Joel, and Zack headed over toward Benny Pierce at a dead run. Staci grabbed a tub of very dirty dishwater from the back of the booth and dumped it over the head of the guy who had started it.

The police had been positioned to guard the procession of notables. To get to the scene of the fight, they had to go through the crowd on the south side of the parade route, toward the booths lining the edge-since these weren't in the way of the procession, they were the last ones that would be taken down.

It was slow going. The crowd was starting to turn to see what was going on. Parents with children were trying to go at a perpendicular angle to the police movement, to get them out to safety.

Somebody yelled, "What's going on?"

At the edge of the crowd, the reply came. "Papist spies! Somebody found a nest of Papist spies!"

Several dozen day laborers who had been working on dismantling the booths on the west side didn't have the obstacle that faced the movement of the police. They came around the edge of the crowd, not sure what was happening but anxious not to miss it, whatever it might be. One of them took a look and added another cry. "That girl's a thief! She stole money from my uncle in Dieskau. I recognize her. Thief!

Thief! Thief!"

Then, to add to the general confusion, he shouted: "Hilfe! Polizei!"

Loudly.

Somehow, "Papist spies" had become "Imperial spies." The cry was spreading through the crowd, rapidly mutating into, "Imperial a.s.sa.s.sins! There are a.s.sa.s.sins here!"

The Tuebingen students, however, kept the original focus: "Work righteousness! Popery!" They threw themselves into the melee, swinging canvas tote bags that, by now, were weighted down not only with the Concordia Triglotta but with two treatises by C.F.W. Walther and any other miscellaneous books and merchandise they had bought in the marketplace. The Wittenberg students regarded this as an omen: they followed.

The two counts and the "personal observers" from the other princ.i.p.alities all had military experience. So did most of their invited guests. Who were, of course, wearing their dress swords. Which they drew, coming to the a.s.sistance of law and order by following the path that the police had blazed through the crowd and yelling for the spectators to get out of their way.

Most of the august and dignified theologians had partic.i.p.ated in at least one riot during their student days. Additionally, they felt a certain responsibility for their current students who appeared to be, given the number of academic gowns being worn by those involved in the fracas, right in the middle of things.

They plunged through the crowd after the swordsmen.

All in all, it took Count Ludwig Guenther's steward quite a while to get the procession re-formed. Dinner was delayed by three hours.

"Well, Mike, that's the way things ended up." Ed was finis.h.i.+ng his debriefing. "The colloquy was about the dangers that orthodox Lutherans perceive coming at them from creeping Calvinism. That's what this 'crypto-Calvinism' is, when you get right down to it-Calvinist ideas sneaking into Lutheranism. The riot-well, it wasn't. So don't haul Erika and the others who are in Jena to train their police over the coals. We'd warned them, German and American alike, to be on the alert for anti-Calvinist slogans that might precede an outbreak of violence. There just wasn't any logical reason for them to have their ears open for, 'No Popery.' Not even though it's a good, all-purpose call to an urban riot in most Protestant cities in the here and now. If anything did break out that evening, we expected it to be aimed at someone in the procession, so they were all sort of looking that way, over toward the far side, where they could hear the trumpets. It was just a perfectly ordinary riot, as far as anyone can tell. Conspiracy theories to the contrary."

"Give me the body count again." Mike sighed.

"Not as bad as it might have been. All things considered. Quite a few bruises and broken bones, but those heal. The bad thing is that most of them are little kids who just got trampled. It would have been worse in a closed area, but that market square is pretty open, with lots of exits. My boys got Benny off the scene and behind one of the buildings. He was a bit shaken up, but not hurt. The fiddle's okay.

Minnie has a concussion-we think she got that from a cobblestone. At best, she'll have a scar from her hairline down into her left eyebrow. At worst, she may lose that left eye-Doc Adams says that it's too soon to tell. Those things make mean weapons-it sort of makes you realize why city fathers in this day and age aren't fully convinced of the merits of street paving."

"Tell me," said Mike, "just how Minnie became a citizen of Grantville. As far as I know, she'd never set foot in this town."

"Oh, that." Ed looked a little abashed. "I didn't think of it myself, I'm sorry to say. It was a great idea, though."

"What idea?"

"Benny adopted her. Right there in the alley. Things had quieted down a bit, but the 'Thief! Thief!' guy was standing over her and the Jena police were going to arrest her and send her back to Saxony to be tried. Cavriani suggested it-he thinks fast. He asked whether, since Americans had so many other Roman laws, like public offices with terms, they also had the Roman ability to do adoptions that put the adopted child on the same footing as a natural one. Carol Koch looked at him and said, 'Sure.' He's a notary-apparently it comes in handy for a guy who does a lot of procurement. He wrote out the papers then and there. Then the boys witnessed it."

"And how did the, umm, 'Thief! Thief! guy' take this development?"

"Not very well. The Jena police seemed more or less inclined to take his side. That was when Carol bent over, took a running start, and rammed him in the b.a.l.l.s with the top of her head. It distracted him-and them-long enough that we were able to toss Benny and Minnie into the government truck that had brought you and your guests up to Jena to attend the state dinner. Sorry about that, by the way. But we figured that those two needed fast transportation more than you did. Right then and there, anyway. You'll probably be hearing from the guy's uncle. I bailed Carol out. She's feeling rather smug that she finally got to use one of the techniques she learned in the self-defense for women cla.s.s that Ron sort of made her take. Not that I'd really cla.s.sify the way that she used it as 'defensive,' but she says that she was defending Minnie, 'so it counts.'"

Ed stretched. "How was the dinner, by the way?" The exigencies of his post-riot diplomatic activity had caused him to miss it.

"Pretty stiff. The seating was according to protocol, which meant that half of those who were seated next to one another weren't on speaking terms. Since I was the only head of state there besides the two counts, I got to talk to the Oldenburg guy. He seemed pretty pleased with the outcome."

"He ought to be pleased," Ed said. "He engineered it."

"You know," Mike commented, "this isn't the way that the story is supposed to turn out."

"What do you mean?"

"It's backwards from what we expect. It's the liberals and the progressives who are supposed to revolt against the forces of princely tyranny, ally with enlightened ideas, and forge onward toward future progress. Melissa calls it 'the Whig interpretation of history.'"

He leaned back, smiling slyly. "I wish that Melissa was here, actually. I'd really love to see her face when she gets the news that the theological liberals are still happily in bed with the established-church guys and the ultra-orthodox are showing every sign of running with 'separation of church and state.'"

Ed frowned. "That's not quite right, Mike."

"What's not quite right?"

"Theological liberals." Ed thought a few second; then said: "The word 'liberals' is wrong. Really, the Philippists-the 'crypto-Calvinists' that the orthodox Lutherans are so opposed to-or at least a lot of them-aren't any more 'liberal' than the orthodox. They don't believe their doctrines any less. They just think that fewer of them are essential. They'll be just as stubborn about the ones that they do consider essential."

"Oh, grief!" said Mike. "Well, 'it's a great life, if you don't weaken.' Let's get back to work."

Ed went back to his office. Sitting on a bench outside the door was Leopold Cavriani, who smiled pleasantly and asked, "Would you be interested in talking about Naples, now?"

Ed studied him for a moment.Cavriani Freres de Geneve-facilitators.

"I'd ask who you were working for, at the moment," he said dryly, "but I'm sure the answer would confuse me even more than the fine points of theological doctrine argued at the colloquy."

Cavriani's smile now bore a remarkable resemblance to that of a cherub.

Ed shrugged. "Sure, why not? Let's talk about Naples. 'O brave new world, that hath such people in it.'"

RADIO IN THE 1632.

UNIVERSE.

by Rick Boatright

Introduction.

The military and diplomatic radio situation in Europe at the end of the novel1633 is a result of a unique combination of the authors' needs in the story line, the limitations imposed by the authors' choice of town to base Grantville on, and other historical accidents which left us with a wealth of some technologies and a dearth of others.

There are four important elements to the radio background of the 163x series: the environment that the planet and solar system provide due to Eric Flint choosing to start the series in the year 1632, the people of Grantville, the physical resources they have available, and the goals of their government.

The Radio Environment From a political perspective, 1632 occurs during the Thirty Years War. From a social perspective, 1632 occurs during the "Early Modern Era." From a biographical perspective, 1632 features players who are still household names, such as Cardinal Richelieu, Galileo, King Charles the First, Oliver Cromwell, etc.