A small valley in the mountains south of Kaprun, Archbishopric of Salzburg
February, 1630
A full moon was standing above the small alpine valley, its silvery light reflected by the blanket of snow Frau Holle had thrown over the landscape from the skies. In most places, the white cover reached the height of a full-grown man or more, but here, in the lee of a huge boulder, the rocky ground was showing through. Not much could be heard above the biting wind, besides the rumbling of a waterfall higher up in the valley. Not much, until the knocking of a small hammer pierced through the night.
"Shh! Don't make that much noise, Stumpy. The old bastard will hear us." The speaker was a tall, thin man, covered in a heavy gray cloak. He looked around furtively.
The smaller, rotund man he addressed snorted, half angry, half amused. His partner always worried too much. Personally, he was much more bothered by the freezing temperatures then by the minuscule risk of being heard. He pulled his own cloak closer. It would really suck to die of fever, just before they could land their biggest coup ever.
"How on Earth do you want me to break up these rocks? Sweet-talking them? Besides, you worry too much, Beanstalk. First of all, he's an old man. Second, he'll already be asleep. And third, we are a mile away from his farmhouse and out of sight, with a waterfall covering any noises. So let me concentrate on what we came for."
With that, he went back to the task. A half hour later . . .
"Eureka!" said the beanstalk, looking over his partner's shoulders.
"Since when do you speak Greek? But you could be right. I'll have to test it first." With that, Stumpy picked a small bottle out of the backpack standing next to him, carefully making sure nothing had leaked. Some acids were nastier than others, and this one . . .
A few minutes later, he announced the result. "We found it. Finally."
"So, it really is gold, little guy? Not pyrite, as you claimed when that little goat driver told you about it before you decided to slit his throat just in case?"
"Nope, it is real, all right, Beanstalk. As real as the ring in your ear. You can bet your sorry ass on it."
"Well, that's great and all. But now we have another problem."
"I know. The old mountain goat is much too headstrong to sell his farm. Doesn't know what's good for him. We probably couldn't even pay him off to keep his mouth shut, either." Stumpy shook his head, almost despairing before so much stupidity.
"Well, he thinks he doesn't need any more money."
"Everybody needs more money. And he desperately needs money, my big friend, he just doesn't know it yet."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, let's just say his son will soon require a new roof over his head. And houses are expensive."
Kaprun, Archbishopric of Salzburg
A Thursday afternoon, late February, 1630
Outside, the snow lay a foot high, and a freezing wind drove through the village. But inside the smithy it was always warm, as long as the charcoal fire in the center of the room was lit. He'd probably hate that fire in the heat of August, but right now it was like the promise of paradise.
"So, we are agreed?" Master Gottfried Eder asked, towering over his guests like a giant of legend.
Matthias looked at his father for a moment, then nodded. The two grown men shook hands.
"Very well. Matthias, I expect to see you on Monday morning, half an hour after sunrise."
"I will be there, Master Eder."
****
On the way back home, Matthias studied his father from behind. While not as massive as Master Eder, he still was six feet tall, with blond hair like his son. A life of hard work hadn't bowed him, though. Matthias knew it had carved deep lines into his face.
Suddenly, Matthias's father stopped, turned, and put his hand on his shoulder. He left it there for a moment, then squeezed it.
"We made the right decision. Master Eder will be a good master for you, even if he is a widower. He's a fully qualified master and well-travelled; he knows a lot and is a fair and honest man. For that, I am willing to put up with you another three years." The twinkle in his father's eyes showed Matthias that he was joking. Unlike his mother, he clearly was happy his firstborn was going to continue to live with the family, even if he wasn't to be a farmer like his father.
It wasn't that his mother didn't love him just as much. But he had three sisters his mother needed to take care of. Maria Christina, two years younger than him at age eleven, and the twins, Carlotta and Elisabeth, called Lotte and Lisl, both five years old. They were a lot of work and his mother had been looking forward to having him apprenticed with a master who could take him into his own household. Alas, Master Eder's wife, a friendly woman half the size of her husband, had died from a fever a year ago, and there was nobody else to run his household. No surviving children. Not even a sister. So, Matthias would be his sole apprentice and continue to live with his parents.
If Matthias' father owned the fields he was working, things would be different. But the lease would end seven years from now. Their new owner, son of a rich farmer from Bischofshofen, had told them in a courteous and friendly manner that he wouldn't renew the lease after that date but rather work the fields himself, together with his other possessions. Other ground wasn't available anywhere near, and it was unsure if anything would become available over time. Thus the need for Matthias to branch out into a new profession.
"I know. And I will do my best to become the best blacksmith in the district."
His father weighed his head. "Maybe. But there will also be other options. There are many specializations for smiths you might want to choose from later. But that's three years down the line, so let's not worry overly about that right now."
When they got home, little Maria was waiting for them outside the small wooden house, just saying goodbye to Heidrun, the neighbor's daughter. She had not liked the idea of Matthias living elsewhere at all and was anxious to learn whether that fate was now avoided. When Matthias smiled at her and nodded, she let fly a cry of joy and jumped up to hug him. Her enthusiasm almost made him fall and sit down in the snow. His father's hand steadied him just in time.
"Slowly, slowly. Look, you dropped your puppet." That caused a cry of dismay. The ungainly thing, made from wood and wool, was her most prized possession and she quickly recovered it from the snow. Mother had made it and it had two different faces – a happy and a sad one. Maria clutched it tightly in her small hands. Then the three of them went inside, out of the chilling wind.
****
"Matthias! Wake up!" The urgency in his father's voice let him snap to full awareness in an instant. He sniffed. Smoke. Fire! He looked around, alarmed, but couldn't see any flames. So there was still time to put on his shoes and outer clothing. He half-saw, half-heard his parents do the same with his three siblings on the other side of the big bed he shared with them.
Suddenly, the wooden wall that almost touched their neighbor's house erupted in flames. In the light they provided, he saw his mother throwing the few valuables and documents they possessed into a bedsheet. Father picked up the twins. His voice was astonishingly calm. "Matthias, take Maria and lead her outside."
Matthias nodded and did as he was told. When the two of them got to the unpaved street, they turned around. They could see their neighbor's house ablaze, with flames licking up to their own roof and that of the building higher up in the street. Then his mother came out the house with the linen bag on her back, followed instantly by his father, the twins on his arms.
He let out a little sigh. They had made it all out in time. Dimly he was aware of cries of ‘Fire!' and men and women preparing a bucket line to the nearby creek.
"Liselotte!" A cry of despair. Liselotte was the name Maria had given her two-faced puppet, inspired of course by the names of the twins. A tug, a twitch, and Maria had freed her hand. She ran back into the now brightly burning house. A moment of shock—then Matthias ran after her. Tried to, rather. A steely hand snatched him by his neck, another gripped his belt, and together his father's callused hands threw him back into his mother's right arm, which clamped down on him like one of these newfangled vises, one of which he had seen in Master Eder's shop. Her left arm held the twins just as close. Desperately he turned his head, and out of the corner of his eyes he could see his father ripping two buckets from his fellow villagers. He drenched a linen sheet in one of them and emptied the other over his head. Then he ran into the burning house and was gone.
****
Two days later, on Saturday evening, the relevant parties met in Kaprun castle. The office was simple: floor and walls of grey stone, plain wooden furniture and stacks and stacks of paper, with lots of red tape around them.
To start, Master Eder gave his report on the events. As the blacksmith, he knew most about fires in the village and currently also was village headman anyway. Eder concluded:
"The fire clearly started in the Bolender house. I think it was caused by an oil lamp, but I can't be sure. All in all, it could have been a lot worse. Our fire-fighting equipment worked well, and everybody helped as they should. Still, four houses have burned down. Yet except for the house where the fire started, there are only two dead: Martin Heckler and his daughter Maria. Both died because they went back into the burning house. In addition, Eduard Bolender and his wife are dead, but their two children live, without even a visible scar. So, we are missing, mourning, four of our own.
I have personally taken in the surviving members of the Heckler family. My house is plenty big enough, it stood half-empty for too long. Matthias is scheduled to start his apprenticeship with me on Monday anyway, and his mother can cook for all of us. The Meier family has moved in with their in-laws for now. But they have enough money to get started on a new home soon. Can't say the same about the Michaeli family. And there's simply too many of them. They might be forced to move their children to their relatives in Zell am See while they rebuild slowly."
"And the two orphans, Lars and Heidrun Bolender?" Pflegerichter Thomas Gabriel, Pfleger for short, was the church-paid administrator, judge, and castellan of the district of Kaprun. Also standing in his office was Vicar Melchior Mauser. Originally a Capuchin monk, he had just been sent from Salzburg City in the north of the Salza valley to make sure the peasants were all well-instructed in the tenets of Catholicism and, just as importantly, that no Protestants were hiding out among them. A gray-robed clerk in the corner took notes on a little standing desk.
"For now, their aunt has taken them in. But she won't be here in spring; she'll be going back to Salzburg City. So, they will go and live with their grandfather on his Alm."
"Are you sure that is a good idea?" Mauser asked. The farm in question was located in a small side valley, halfway up the mountains, far away from everybody else. The kind of place where a distrustful inquisitor might expect secret Lutherans to hang out.
Eder shrugged. "The elder brother is of the reasonable sort. He'll be sixteen soon, and I think he can keep an eye on his little sister, while he learns the farm business from his granddad. That farm is pretty big, with plenty of goats, a handful of cows, and a little lake full of fish. So, at the very least they won't starve."
"Wait. Isn't that the valley where little Peter went missing last year? You know, the goat driver?"
"Not really. He never picked up the goats of Old Bolender that day. I am sure about that, because tall Heinrich, the cheese merchant, went up that same day to talk deliveries and saw the goats himself, with Bolender complaining a bit about Peter not being on time. So, Peter went missing before he got to that valley. Could really have been anywhere. And if a bear got him, his body might have been dropped a dozen miles from here."
There weren't many bears left in the Alps, but those survivors roamed far and wide and could be dangerous even to a grown and armed man. A twelve-year-old kid like Peter wouldn't have stood a chance.
Pfleger Gabriel nodded, then addressed Mauser. "So, was it witchcraft or was it an accident?"
"No signs of witchcraft that I could find. None at all. Only unsubstantiated rumors." If Vicar Mauser didn't like that, one way or the other, he didn't let his feelings show. He wouldn't go into the details of the rumors, either.
Master Eder just grunted at first, then jumped in. "Very mean-spirited rumors. Spread by people who for one reason or another have an old grudge against the old man. I haven't been able to nail down the source, but there's another rumor, saying the first one gets spread around because he doesn't want to sell his valley to others who think there might be some silver or gold to be found. But if his grandchildren go live with him, he will have even less reason to sell."
Gabriel raised his eyebrows. "Any gold would belong to the archbishopric, anyway."
"So it would. But then, the kind of people who are likely to be spreading such rumors wouldn't bat an eye at stealing from the archbishop either."
"Then I might need to remind everybody of the penalties of doing so." Pfleger Gabriel looked decidedly angry. "And you, Vicar, might add a sermon on at least two of the Ten Commandments."
Mauser nodded dutifully. "And a remark on what is Caesar's, I think."
Of course, the exact separation between what was God's and what was Caesar's could become a bit tricky in a prince-bishopric. Gabriel was quite happy leaving those details to the priest, in this case. Well, unless some gold was in fact found in his district. That would surely justify some additional hard thinking on the matter. For now, it was time to end the discussion.
"To summarize, the only potential crime we have any evidence for, negligent arson, has been committed by someone who is safely dead by now. So there is no reason for a criminal inquisition. And as these children will inherit nothing from their parents beyond ashes, I can't see them being sued by anybody, either. So I think I can safely close the official investigation here." Obediently, the clerk closed his ledger, but only after writing down the last words of his boss and drying the still-wet ink with sand, of course.
****
For Matthias, the same two days had passed in a haze and now, well after midnight, he was wide awake on his straw-covered pallet, staring at the dark wooden roof above his head. He dimly remembered how devastated his mother had been, yet was forced to pick herself up again to take care of the twins. When Master Eder showed them to their new rooms, he, Matthias, just trotted along behind them.
The funeral had not been any better. His father's burial was sad enough, but dad had gone out a hero, giving his life trying to save his daughter. That would have been something to look upon with pride—except that Matthias knew it was his fault that it all had happened in the first place. It really hit him when right afterwards they lowered the tiny coffin into the ground right next to his father's, on the Gottesacker behind the old church. It was his fault. His. If he only had held on to Maria's hand, they'd both still be alive. He had allowed two of the people he loved the most to be roasted alive. Purgatory would be the least of his problems. He surely would go straight to hell . . .
On that thought he got up, dressed and went outside. He needed fresh air, needed to be where he could not hear the little noises of his mother and the twins next door, miss the deep snore of his father and feel the coldness on his left side, where Maria's warmth used to be.
He walked without thinking. Somehow, his steps led him uphill, to the side entrance of the church. Normally, he would have turned back. He didn't have a high opinion of Vicar Mauser. To him, and notwithstanding his name, dark haired Mauser always had rather resembled a ferret. Or maybe a fox. There was a hint of red in that hair. This time, however, the thought of confronting a fox held little fear for him. Any imagined danger paled before what he was fighting with already . . .
****
"Matthias? What are you doing here at this time?" Mauser had just risen to do the early morning prayers and was astonished to see the boy. Then he reconsidered and came to the conclusion that he really shouldn't be.
"I have come to confess."
"To confess?" Only for a moment, Mauser considered telling the kid to come back in two hours. But a closer look made clear that the boy was in pain—pain of the soul, spiritual pain. And if he felt the need to confess at this time . . . "You know the way. I'll be there in a minute."
****
The dark wooden booth was tiny but clean and smelled of bee's wax. Matthias knelt down, waiting for the little window to open. He didn't have to wait more than a second.
"Now, what have you come to confess that couldn't wait for the light of morning?"
"Fa . . . fa . . . Vicar Mauser, I have sinned. I have killed two of my own family."
"You mean your father and your sister? How exactly did you kill them?"
In a low, halting voice Matthias repeated the events of that dreadful night.
"Let me see whether I understood it all. Your sister was two years younger than you, yes?"
"Yes. She was eleven. I am thirteen. Almost."
"And if your parents gave her an order, did she normally obey them?"
"Of course she did!" There was anger in the voice that came through the grate. A lot of anger.
"I am not trying to insult your sister's memory. What I am asking is whether you think she knew that she should leave the building and stay out."
"Uhum."
"I take that as a yes. Remember I can't see you nodding through the grate. So, you had no reason to expect she would run into the house again, did you?"
". . . No." A very hesitant ‘no' that was.
"And yet you did continue to hold her hand, making sure she was still there, supporting her emotionally."
"So?" The anger was coming back into the voice.
"And when she ran into the fire, your father stopped you from running behind her and try saving her, doing so himself instead?"
"Yes. I told you so already."
Normally, the Vicar would not have taken this kind of tone from anyone in the village. But this was a special case. So he swallowed his . . . yes, it was the sin of pride, he realized. How vain, thinking of his status, when this child just lost his father and sister in such a horrible way. It took him a moment to concentrate again, then he concluded, in the most scholarly and authoritarian voice he could muster: "Then, in the eyes of our Lord, you did not kill anybody."
"But . . ."
"You will hear me out." Luckily, he knew, the church was empty. A priest semi-shouting during confession wouldn't go well over with his flock . . .
Silence.
"Now listen closely. You helped your sister get outside, as you were told. You did not make your sister run back into the fire. She understood the order by your parents, but she tried to save something that was dear to her heart. Just as you tried to do, running after her. And all of you were dear to your father's heart, which is why he stopped you. Yes, maybe you could have held her arm more strongly. But that would have hurt her, and you couldn't know she would disobey your parents."
Silence again. This time, it lasted longer and was more profound.
"But if it wasn‘t my fault, then . . . how could God let something like this happen? All she wanted was the little puppet she loved . . . " His voice broke.
Vicar Mauser gave a heavy sigh. "We all die, Matthias. Some sooner, some later. Those who remain almost always think it was much too soon for those who died, and nobody knows God's plans for us. Even Jesus doubted at first, did not want to drink from the cup of suffering. But not our will, but the heavenly Lord's must be done. All we can do is trust in Him and sometimes, often many years later, glimpse maybe a tiny bit of the many reasons He must have had for guiding things in a direction we couldn't understand at the time. And you may also trust in this: Maria was a good and gentle soul, she was baptized and believed in our Savior. She certainly is with the heavenly Father right now. And so is your father, who gave his life trying to save his little girl."
Even through the grille, Matthias looked only half-convinced.
Mauser sighed. "This topic is finished. Now, I am sure you have other sins to confess?"
Matthias did so, for maybe five minutes. Unclean thoughts about his cousin Erika were probably the worst sin among them. Mauser only had to think for a moment.
"Five Ave Marias every night for two weeks. And . . ." He put his head to the side. You are planning to go traveling when you've officially become a journeyman, three years from now?"
"Yes, pater. I promised my father to become the very best smith in the district. I can't do that without learning from the best smiths out there."
"For the first three months of those travels, you will enter the first church in every town or village you pass through and pray for the souls of your father and your sister. Are you willing to do that?" Technically, this penance didn't make theological sense. He had been quite serious when he told Matthias that he had not committed a sin by not holding his sister more strongly. On the other hand, as long as no heretics were involved, Vicar Mauser wasn't a dogmatic man. This penance wasn't a punishment. It was meant to help Matthias deal with his loss, not to dwell on the past but to look forward to the future. He wondered how long the lad would need to understand that. Not overly long, he estimated. He was a pretty bright kid, after all. Rather hands-on, instead of a bookworm, but definitely quite intelligent.
"Yes, of course."
"Bene. Ego te absolvo . . ."
****
It was hard to understand how this room had appeared like paradise to him, just a handful of days earlier. Now, despite Vicar Mauser helping him out of the deepest depths of despair, the dark red glow of the charcoal fire still resembled nothing more to him then the eternal fires of hell. But he had promised his father to become the best smith in the district, and by God, he would keep his promise.
Master Eder, coming up behind him, must have felt some of that reluctance. He put his hand on Matthias shoulder and added in a calm voice. "Fire isn't evil, Matthias. It is a tool that allows us to do wonderful things. But it is also a dangerous tool, one that needs to be kept strictly under control. I think, compared to my usual apprentices, this is a lesson you have already learned well."
"Yes, Master Eder." Too well, indeed.
"Then let us begin."
Kaprun
October, 1632
Blacksmith or knife smith? Locksmith? City, town, or village? There were so many possibilities, decisions needed to be made, but Matthias just couldn't make up his mind.
"Hold it higher up."
"Yes, Master Eder. Aaaarg . . .. "
"Not that high up, idiot boy." Master Eder put the iron rod back in the fire, then took Matthias' left hand and forced it into a barrel with fresh, cold water from the mountains, delivered into the roomy workshop of the smithy by a wooden pipe. "Didn't you look at what you were doing?" There was real concern in his voice, besides the reproach.
Matthias didn't take note of either sentiment. He was too busy suppressing the pain that was wandering up his left arm in waves. But the cold water helped. After a minute or so he could think clearly again.
"I am sorry, Master Eder. I wasn't paying enough attention. I know it was stupid, but . . ."
". . . but you were thinking about your future." Master Eder shook his head, more in sorrow than in anger. In many ways, he had become a second father to the boy who had lost his father two and a half years ago to a fire. Since Master Eder's wife had died a year earlier, and he didn't have any surviving children of his own, Matthias, his mother Elisabeth, and his two little sisters had moved in with him when Matthias's apprenticeship began. Elisabeth had basically started out as his cook, but things had slowly been moving towards courtship and, hopefully one not too far-off day, marriage. Matthias was glad for his mother, even though he missed his real dad a lot. But Master Eder had become, well, a trusted uncle, maybe. While still remaining the master, of course. For five more months—then his apprenticeship as a blacksmith would be over.
"Come over here." In a smithy, bad burns were not out of the ordinary, so Master Eder kept a salve around that cooled and helped the healing process. Layers of fresh linen were soon covering the burnt flesh.
"Enough for today. I need to go see the Pfleger anyway. We'll talk after dinner."
****
"The headman is here, your Honor." The door led into a spartan office Master Eder knew well by now.
"Master Eder! Come in, come in! And have a look at this beauty."
Pfleger Thomas Gabriel loved the hunt and, thanks to a salt merchant for a father, he also was quite well to do, unlike his colleagues. Which meant he had a lot of money to spend on fancy guns which he bought from Nürnberg or Augsburg.
Normally, he never would entrust one of his precious guns to a simple blacksmith, but there were no gunsmiths in Kaprun, and Master Eder had spent some time as a journeyman in a gunsmith shop. So, Eder had been hired to make some smaller repairs before, but this gun was special. That much was evident from the lavishly decorated and exquisitely engraved exterior already, but there were subtle signs that the gun was just as special where its interior was concerned. Two triggers, but only one wheel-lock, to start with. He almost didn't dare touch it for fear of breaking something.
"Go ahead, it's a lot sturdier than it looks. I have run through the woods with it and dropped it a few times over the years, without the gun taking any damage. Well, usually. This time around was different. Which is why I called you here."
Eder picked it up, ignoring the three-dimensional, gold-plated embellishments, and all the other ornaments. ‘1625' said the golden ink next to the lock. It felt heavy in his arms. First, he verified it wasn't loaded. With important people like the Pfleger, you never knew. They might just assume one of their servants or a jäger had taken care of that by now.
"Nürnberg?" Eder asked.
"It was a present from my father for graduating from law school. He ordered it made by Augustinus Kotter."
Eder almost whistled aloud and made doubly sure not to drop the gun. Kotter was Nürnberg's most famous—and expensive—gunsmith. He had invented polygonal rifling and all his guns were beautiful works of art. Like the one he held in his hands.
Yet his eyes were drawn to the rather simple barrel topping the wooden shaft with its mother-of-pearl inlays. Simple, but it had front and rear sights for exact aiming, so he thought it to be a hunting rifle at first. But no, there weren't any grooves in the round barrel. The—hunting musket?—was clearly a wheellock, but something was different from the muzzleloaders he knew. Was this . . . it couldn't be . . .
The Pfleger stretched out his hand and clipped open a lid that doubled as a small breechblock secured by a spring. Then he lifted his eyebrows, looking at Master Eder. But even with the block flipped up, there still was no open barrel to be seen. Just a hole in the gun, maybe two inches long, surrounded by metal. It was clearly meant as a test. Eder cocked his head and reconsidered what he knew about guns that had a way to open the barrel on the wrong end. He had only seen those in the form of falconets and other small cannons. That had been decades ago, though Nürnberg was still making modernized versions of them, he'd been told. But the principle had to be the same, so . . . he pulled at the little plug he could see and suddenly a round iron cartridge, with an open top, came sliding out of the barrel. Eder took a closer look and sniffed, then turned the cartridge around on his hand. Just big enough for a good musket load of powder and the heavy projectile.
Eder was impressed. Taking into account the time needed to prime the pan for the wheellock, with this gun you could easily shoot four times in one minute – provided you had enough cartridges prepared with powder and shot. And maybe some wax on top to keep everything in place? Fouling of course would be horrible, especially with jagdpulver, which explained why this wasn't a rifle but a smoothbore. In fact, with the open breech, you probably could simply pull a little rag through the bore with a chain . . .
"How many of those do you have?"
"Only three are left. I want you to make me some more of them, while you are working on the gun anyway. But attention! They need to fit perfectly or the gun doesn't work as it should."
Eder just smiled. That should be just the right journeyman piece for Matthias: seemingly simple, but requiring perfect attention to detail. And as far the master was concerned . . . he took another look, testing the triggers.
"I think I dropped it once too often. Something is wrong with the first trigger. It doesn't move any more. And if it doesn't move, the hair trigger doesn't work either." Gabriel informed him of what he had just found out himself.
Eder still nodded. That meant they'd have to take the gun completely apart. Good. Matthias would learn even more that way.
"I will need to take it to my shop, I'm afraid."
"Of course. And no need to hurry, I do have enough other rifles I can use for the hunt. Just make sure it works correctly again. I hope you have a safe place to put it when you are not working on it?"
Eder thought about that for a moment, then nodded again. Like most blacksmiths, he wasn't a man of many words.
****
After dinner, Master Eder asked Matthias to come with him to the smithy.
"Master Eder, why is the anvil standing on top of the toolbox?"
"Let me show you."
Eder took the ends of the anvil between his muscular arms and put it down on the floor. Even for someone built like him it was clearly a huge strain, and the box gave quite a sigh of relief. When he opened the lid, Matthias let out a loud ‘oh'. In that moment, his future was decided. He'd become a gunsmith. Nothing else would do. When he told his master so, Eder only smiled. It didn't come unexpectedly. Master Kotter's guns had this kind of effect. They almost made him wish he had become a gunsmith himself.
Kaprun
December 23rd, 1632
"Matthias, Master Eder and I have to tell you something."
"Yes?" For once, Master Eder gave a nervous impression. His mother . . . looked happy. Happier than he had ever seen her since the fire. Her blue eyes seemed to radiate under the long golden hair she normally kept hidden under a traditional cap.
"He has asked me to marry him, and I have said yes."
For a moment, Matthias froze. Then he hugged first his mother, then his new ‘father'. "I am happy for you." He was. And sad. All at the same time.
Turning to Master Eder, he lifted an eyebrow. "So how am I going to call you from now on? Gottfried?"
Eder smiled wickedly. "For now, we stick with Master Eder. The marriage will only take place after your journeyman exam. And don't worry, I will invite Master Schröder from Zell am See to witness the proceedings. We don't want anyone to get the idea there was favoritism involved, after all. By the way, the Pfleger is really happy with his new cartridges. So, I can tell you that you have succeeded with your Gesellenstück, at least."
Matthias cringed. Given that little Kaprun did not have any guilds in the formal sense, he had hoped Master Eder would just give him the Gesellenbrief without further ado, just based on his journeyman piece. But that seemed to have been an empty hope. On the other hand, if the document was witnessed by a second master, it should have more weight on his travels . . .
His mother smiled. "No time for discussing that now. I need your help in the kitchen, preparing for Christmas."
"But . . . "
His mother put her hands on her hips, her blue eyes sparkling under the blonde hair. "The stove and the pan are made from iron, and there is a fire to be lit. Nothing that a future smith can't handle, I would think?"
Looking for help, he turned to his future father, but the bastard just smirked. "Better you than me," his eyes seemed to say. Given how small the kitchen was, there was something to be said for that.
Church square, Kaprun
January, 1633
Around the cobblestone-lined square in front of the small, whitewashed church with its tall, spiky tower, everybody and their aunt was looking on—including many people Matthias didn't know, who had come from other villages in the area and even from Zell am See, the only real town in the district. A few of the strangers drew his eye. There was this one pair of well-dressed strangers, merchants maybe, that looked like a joke come to life: one very tall and thin, the other short and round. The other, similar pair he watched, trying to take them a lot more seriously, but partly failed at it, despite knowing better: The colonel in command of the district militia, who was also overseeing the army reserves drawn from the area, was tall, powerfully-built and looked fearsome with his sharp eagle-nose. Yet he had the voice of a mouse. The sergeant keeping order among the youngsters was small and wiry but had a roar that would do a lion proud. The contrast almost made Matthias smile—until he remembered why he was here. He looked to his left. He hadn't seen Lars Bolender since that horrible week when both their parents and little Maria had been buried. He looked good. Had grown a foot or so and clearly put on some muscle. If Lars was here . . . yes, there was Heidrun among the spectators, with her grandfather. People kept a bit of distance but didn't appear to be unfriendly to them. Then the colonel continued his speech, and it was time to pay attention, since he came to the important part.
"The threat from the north remains as great as it ever was. The Swede's empire is growing and growing. We need a strong army to keep the heretics at bay and defend Catholicism. It is time for this year's class to find out who has the honor to serve his heimat and defend the true faith with a weapon in his hand. The barrels have been prepared and checked by the pfleger. You will put your arm into the opening, grab a stone, and present it to the clerk sitting next to the barrel. If you pick a red stone, you are free to go. If you pick a black one, you will be entered into the active lists, and your military service will begin on July 1st. You have three months to provide a replacement candidate."
The last sentence caused something of a little grumble among the onlookers. The fact that you basically could pay your way out of military service if you or your family were rich enough was a constant source of disputes. Personally, Matthias didn't mind that too much, but there were others who considered it a big deal. But what was the solution? Draft everybody instead of every tenth healthy boy and have them all serve one year only? You needed time to become proficient in a craft; that was true for soldiers as much as for smiths. One year surely was too short . . . And every boy already had a nine out of ten chance of avoiding the draft. That wasn't bad, really, looked at from a "before" angle. The rich just got another, additional out to the nine everyone else already had, and they had to pay for it with serious money. This way, the family of the voluntary replacement at least received a tidy sum they could live off. Not like those families who directly lost a potential source of income to the draft. Simple soldiers didn't get paid much for the first two years beyond room and board. On the other hand, the current archbishop was keeping them at home, out of the war, and wasn't using them for any adventures, unlike that utter fool von Raitenau before him who had tried to wrestle Berchtesgaden from the Wittelsbach dynasty by force and got Salzburg invaded by ten thousand Bavarians as a result . . .
One by one their names were called, alphabetically. Lars' turn came early and he drew a black ball. That was bad. Matthias could see how he blanched. His grandfather was still healthy, but nobody knew how long that would last. And Heidrun was too young and too small to do everything a farmer had to do. She could help her grandfather, but not replace Lars for the next six years, and surely not run the farm on her own. Matthias could see how the Pfleger and Vicar Mauser put their heads together, then approached Heidrun and her granddad. It looked like they were discussing what to do now.
Then it was his turn. The inside of the barrel was dark. No way to distinguish red from black. If he drew black . . . well, there were smiths in the army, too. Especially gunsmiths and blacksmiths. They didn't even get shot at, normally. If he passed his exam successfully, he would surely be placed with one of them and could continue his training there. But traveling free for three years, learning from the best masters out there as a true journeyman wouldn't be an option any longer. He put his hand into the narrow opening of the barrel. Everybody's eyes were on him, including those of his mother and Meister Eder. The stones were cold and polished smooth from long use. He picked one. No need to drag this out. His hand came out of the barrel, opened—and showed a red stone.
****
"Hah. Now the old goat will have to sell. No way he'll be able to run that farm and take care of his granddaughter." Stumpy was rubbing his hands. His partner only nodded. They had waited long enough. Come July, the old bastard would sing another tune.
****
"Congratulations, Matthias. You have passed the exam." Matthias's friends, none of them a future smith, clapped at these words, spoken in the part of the local inn that replaced what in bigger towns would be a guild hall. By now, nobody had any doubts any longer, but it was still an important step. Both Master Eder and the visiting Master Schröder signed his journeyman certificate, then repeated its content on the first page of the pocket-sized diary that Matthias was supposed to take with him on his travels, collecting entries of the master smiths he worked for, with details on the kind and quality of the work done. The book thus served at once as a travel diary as well as an assemblage of résumés for hiring after his travels. De facto, it also replaced a passport—it wasn't a fancy document done by the archbishop's administration, of course, but in practice it was still recognized by border guards all over the Holy Roman Empire and most of Europe as valid documentation for letting him into their province or country.
"Don't lose it!" Master Eder said. The warning wasn't really necessary.
"Time for the freisprechung!" Master Schröder said. Matthias's friends clapped and shouted at that again. The major component of this tradition, as far as they were concerned, was that the new journeyman had to throw a party – and pay for it.
"Well, now, there is a problem. I don't think I can do that." Master Eder said in a serious voice. Matthias mother, standing next to him, nodded.
"What? Why not?" Matthias was confused.
"Well, legally speaking, the major consequence of the freisprechung ceremony is the apprentice leaving the household of the master. He is no longer part of the master's family, but becomes, while he stays in the shop, a simple employee."
"And?" Matthias confusion was only growing. By now everybody was looking at him like he was a dimwit.
"I have no intention of allowing that to happen. As you well know, I plan to marry your mother. So, we have decided to make our betrothal public and binding today."
For a moment Matthias was stunned. Then a grin began to spread and threatened to split his face . . . "Well, in that case I better call you father from now on. And you are right, I don't want to leave the family. Not forever, at least. So, what do we do now?"
"That's simple. I will pay for the party. In fact, I have invited a few other people to it. After all, it is our betrothal and you will most likely miss the wedding. Master Schröder will declare your apprenticeship successfully completed in the name of his guild. You need to sign your name into their journeyman book for that and swear to always behave as an honorable craftsman." Evidently, Master Schröder had brought that book along for the occasion.
The party that followed Matthias (and his parents) finishing the formalities would be remembered in Kaprun for quite a while.
Kaprun
February, 1633
Young Matthias Heckler was looking up at the face that was looming above him with its teeth bared. He didn't like the openly sadistic look on it. But his fate had already decided by others. Now it would be sealed. He felt the cold metal poised against his skin. With a sudden movement, his torturer lifted his hammer, then brought it down to his head.
Wham.
"Aiee!" Blood ran down the side of the dark table made from oak. His tormentor continued with his business, working his tools, unimpressed by blood and silent tears. Matthias balled his fists.
"Stop being a baby." Matthias was handed a bit of cloth dunked in schnapps. "Here, put this on. It will burn a bit but should help."
Matthias got up and did as he was told. Than he stepped in front of the mirror that was present in the small ersatz ‘guild hall' for this very purpose. He liked what he saw. The glittering gold went well with his curly blond locks and pulled the watchers' eyes away from a slightly too big nose.
"Yes, it looks good. All journeymen think so on their first day. Hopefully you will think so, too, three years from today." Matthias was told by his fellow gesellen, his comrades.
He nodded. The golden earring he now was wearing was his ultimate insurance. Only to be used in circumstances of utter need. Or to pay for his funeral, if it should come to that on the road. If he violated his sacred duties as an honorable journeyman during his travels it would be ripped out of his ear by his fellows, thus marking him as a schlitzohr—a "slit ear," someone who couldn't be trusted: a liar, a thief, a cheat . . .
Once the ear had stopped dripping blood, he removed the dirty overcoat he had been given to protect his new garments. He was very proud of his new kluft, as the ensemble of clothes was called: a robust and warm trouser that got wider at the feet so that nothing would drop into his shoes, a short vest covering a linen shirt, and a long-sleeved jacket, plus a floppy hat with a little feather. He'd get new shoes later on the trip. In his case, as a metalworker journeyman, the clothes and the hat were dyed a shining blue. Woodworkers used black.
It was a new thing, and an old thing at once: a journeyman from Augsburg, on the last leg of his journey, had passed through Grantville just after its appearance and happened across information on the way traveling journeymen had been dressed in up-time Germany for more than 200 years. Once he returned south three months later, he convinced many journeymen in the Augsburg area to take up the idea.
From there, since it was an intelligent improvement on working clothes that existed already in similar forms here and there among boaters and related crafts—for example, along the river Lech—their use grew slowly but steadily.
But once the woodworker and metalworker journeymen fraternities along the Rhine and the Danube took up the idea and distributed it through broadsheets, it spread like wildfire along those rivers and their tributaries and was taken up by a good part of the journeymen in the two fields. Other crafts were more reluctant, as it didn't necessarily fit their needs as well; they already had their own specialized working clothes.
Since most former apprentices weren't able to afford a kluft on their own, the originator of the idea had also proposed a loan scheme that was just as enthusiastically taken up by the journeymen brotherhoods. Each fraternity (woodworkers or metalworkers) would pay for the kluft (and shoes), the sum to be repaid without interest at the end of the journey. In return, the brotherhood got a percentage from the Augsburg craftsmen who produced the kluft.
Of course, even the metalworkers didn't copy the up-time clothing one for one. First, a white shirt simply couldn't be kept clean enough, especially on the road, so they and the woodworkers used a dark grey.
Second, while up-time they used mass-produced, ripped corduroy for the kluft, here and now they used the local down-time equivalent: barchent, a mixture of linen and cotton. The Augsburg region was the center of barchent production in Europe, and the Fugger family dominated the import of cotton from the Ottoman Empire via Venice. Barchent was very close to what Englishmen would call fustian—and later would have become the Americans' jeans if imported from Genoa or denim, if the cloth came from (de) Nimes in Southern France.
The third difference related to the buttons on vest and jacket that up-time had indicated readiness to work only eight hours on six days. While some journeymen used them for mostly optical reasons, he had been told that the unofficial leadership of the fraternities felt that making that kind of a demand from the masters was way premature, given the respective powers of masters and journeymen at this point in time and the general economic situation. Lack of machines equaled lack of productivity, thus a well-run business required more man-hours than in the up-time. But the day would come . . .
Hermann Donnersberger from Munich put a beer into his hand, breaking his reverie. Matthias didn't know much about him, so far. That would change soon enough. What he did know was that Hermann's father was a well-known swordmaker and Hermann himself was a messerschmied, a knife smith, by trade. Which, at least as far as apprentices and journeymen were concerned, included swordmaking, as he never got tired of explaining. He was in his second year of travels, had long black hair, broad shoulders, and twice Matthias' muscle mass. Hermann would be his guide for at least the first three months on the road, until he was sure his charge was able to find his way around the countryside without help. Given that there was a war on, that help was more necessary than ever.
Matthias already had said goodbye to his new father, his mother and his little sisters. He never remembered much of the rest of the night—his last night in Kaprun for at least three years and a day.
****
The next morning, he woke up with the biggest headache he had ever had. It felt like a giant had used him as a seat cushion. When he opened his eyes a bit, he saw Hermann's face grinning down at him. Closed his eyes again.
"Up, you lazy bastard. Time to get on the road."
"Time? What time is it?" The rooster next door hadn't made the slightest sound yet. Matthias was sure of that, at least. He wasn't sure whether he would survive that sound.
Still grinning, Hermann grabbed Matthias by the neck and pulled him to the next water barrel. When Matthias' face broke the surface again, he was widely awake. And he definitely didn't appreciate the even wider smile on Hermann's face. Of course, his shoulders were just as wide, which maybe explained why Matthias refrained from doing something about the smile.
"Almost five o'clock, I'd say. There is some grey light in the east, anyways. Time for us to leave, before the sun rises and everyone else gets up."
Five o'clock? Matthias sighed. That wasn't too bad as a general proposition, but it still meant he'd only had two hours of sleep tonight. And Hermann had already promised him they would walk the required distance of 30 miles from home in one day. On two hours sleep, that would be a nightmare . . .
****
Having packed his backpack, Matthias was on his way to meet Hermann on the highway to the east of the village, when a man clad in black left the church and passed the other way. When he saw Matthias, he stopped.
Matthias was slightly alarmed, but much less so then he would have been in the same situation three years ago. Standing before him was Vicar Mauser. Back in 1630, most people would have said he resembled a weasel in his looks. By now, he had accepted that there were no serious numbers of hidden Protestants left around and had more or less settled in as a parish priest. He instructed the children in their letters and religion, held mass regularly, and fulfilled all the other duties of his office. The village was rather content having him, and if they did compare him to an animal, it was a fox. There was a shimmer of red in his dark hair, as Matthias had noted years earlier. Recently he had even started to develop an interest in the earthly well-being of the parish, helping the peasants to negotiate a lower price for the goods they had to acquire from a range of merchants passing through.
"Ah, Matthias. I had hoped to speak to you before you leave and wish you well on your travels. A confession booth just isn't the right place for that, not even considering questions of anonymity . . ." A slight smile was playing around the priest's lips. In a small village like Kaprun, any thought of anonymity at confession was simply a mirage, as they both knew.
"Thank you, Vicar Mauser. It is a somewhat daunting task that lies before me, even if many others have mastered it before, and your blessings will surely help make it a little less threatening."
"Still worried about having to make your own decisions?"
Matthias nodded.
"No better place to learn that than traveling abroad. Don't worry, young man. I am sure you'll do just fine."
They prayed together for a moment, and Mauser made the sign of the cross in blessing.
"Don't forget: on the road, when you are done with your penance for the day, there is nobody stopping you from adding to those prescribed prayers for your father and sister. A prayer for yourself, I mean. Here I have a little present for you. I asked Master Eder to make it so it fits the color of your kluft."
Matthias was speechless. He was holding a small crucifix in his hand. The crucifix, like the chain it was attached to, was of a bluish shining metal he didn't recognize at first look. It had the weight of iron, but was covered by something . . .
What astonished him even more than the present was the offhand remark on the kluft. Normally he would have expected the Salzburg authorities to forbid the outfit outright, but from what he had heard, the up-time journeyman on the photo that had been brought to Augsburg and reproduced on the broadsheets had carried a crucifix on a chain around his neck, in plain view of the photographer and thus the world. So, the kluft was qualified as the apparel of a "good Catholic up-timer" and the Salzburg inquisition went back to chasing Bibles printed in the German language.
And now Vicar Mauser was making sure that he was wearing the same, safe outfit. Whether that was to protect him from spiritual danger, to reduce inquiries from distrusting officials, or just to make sure everything was according to its natural order, Mathias did appreciate the gesture. Should he ever get to Calvinist territory, it would be easy to hide the small cross below his shirt. Until then, it would help protect him openly.
As Matthias got ready to depart, Mauser spoke again.
"I would like to ask you a favor, though."
"Of course, Vicar Mauser."
"If I understood you correctly earlier, you will make your way along the Enns valley in Styria at first?"
"Yes, that is our plan for now. First to Bischofshofen, from there to Radstadt and Schladming, then following the Enns all the way down to the Danube. "
"In this case, I have here a letter for my brother. He is a monk at Admont Abbey and in charge of its library. I could send it through church channels, but that would take many weeks, given that he is a Benedictine monk, and I am a Capuchin turned vicar. The imperial post simply is too expensive for me to use it for a private letter."
Matthias almost whistled. Admont Abbey was famous for its library—the biggest cloister library in the world. There were rumors they were planning on a huge new building to hold all the books. Even the old library would be worth walking far and wide to see all on its own—and it lay directly on his planned route. And now they had a chance to actually be permitted entry and get a short look around.
"It will be my pleasure, Vicar Mauser. No problem. It's right on our way. But . . . "
"Yes?"
"I wonder . . . my mother will worry about me. If I stay in a place for longer, I can use the journeymen brotherhood to let Master Eder and thus her know from time to time that I am all right. But . . ."
"Of course you can give a letter for her addressed to me to my brother. He surely will send it on. In fact, you can do so at most Capuchin cloisters. However, as I said, any such letter will take many weeks to arrive here."
"That's all right. As long as I write regularly, she'll get a letter every few weeks. That will help her a lot, I am sure."
"Then by all means, send me these letters, and I will give them to your mother."
****
Where the highway left the village, Hermann was waiting for him, leaning against an old fir. "Are you ready?"
Matthias took in the village he had called home for all of his existence. No sign remained of the big fire that changed his live so much just three years ago. And from now on, everything would be new, different. It was exhilarating and frightening at the same time. In the distance, he could see the church tower of the next village they'd be passing through. The first step of many on his way of penance. He took a deep breath. After that, he was finally able to say, "yes."
Together, they took the first step east. And thus began the next phase of his life . . .
****