Chapter 1
Henschleben
Late summer, 1634
Once again Sunday had come, and once again Dora's father was waylaid on business as they left church. Dora smiled to herself. The way things were, a little unexpected business was nothing to complain of. And it gave her a little more time to get the cake ready to go into the Dutch oven.
She looked at it, and thought for a moment. Maybe if I slice one of the pears this way, and arrange the pieces around the edge . . . She really wanted something at least a little special for Matthias's visit. It was so seldom they saw him the last few years. There was an ordinary stew for the mid-day dinner, already simmering on the hearth.
It was too bad Mama wasn't back from visiting with Dora's older sister Mathilde in Straussfurt yet, but with any luck she'd be home in time. The walk was short. But her absence meant Dora wouldn't be bumping elbows as she worked, either. With only the one table for both working and eating, the kitchen wasn't really cramped, but two people working there needed to be careful how they moved. All the rest of the ground floor was the smithy out front. The hearth and the forge shared the chimney in the inside wall, back to back. The smithy wasn't any bigger than it needed to be, either.
With no forge work on the Sabbath, she'd left her cap on the chest upstairs. Her hair tumbled free to her shoulders as she worked.
Plenty of light was coming in through the open window. She hummed happily to herself, with half an ear for the birds twittering in the pear tree behind the house and the leaves stirring in the breeze.
That came to a sudden stop in a burst of raised voices, right outside in the kitchen garden. It was the last thing she expected to hear. She put down the pear she'd been peeling on the cutting board and hurried to throw open the side door, with the knife still in her hand.
"You astonish me, Matthias Ehrenhardt! I thought you had better sense. I would never have expected this from you!"
"Herr Hammel―"
She put one hand on the door frame, as she looked down at the two of them wide-eyed. "Papa, what is it?"
Her father was standing with his face jutting out toward Matthias and his hands on his hips. With his green coat carried over one arm, his blacksmith's arms and shoulders showed even through the shirt. "Our young friend has just delivered the news that he proposes to forget all about finishing at the university and going on to study law. Instead, he is now to devote himself to alchemy at this new school nobody's ever heard of!"
Matthias had grown into sturdy manhood in the last five years, nearly level with her father, but even so, he was almost recoiling before the force of Papa's voice and stance. Dora had an instant to notice the unfamiliar style of the brown trousers he wore, that fell in a straight line from waistband to ankles. He got his tongue back. "For heaven's sake, Herr Hammel, it's chemical engineering, not alchemy! I've enrolled at the Imperial College of Science, Engineering, and Technology in Magdeburg. Uncle Berthold himself agrees that it's the opportunity of a lifetime. The possibilities are breathtaking!"
Papa snorted. "The possibilities, the imagined possibilities―"
Dora started down the stairs. "Matthias―" Her apron strings snagged on the door handle and threw her off balance, then tore loose. With four uneven stone steps, no hand rail, and nothing for her foot to come down on, she pitched forward.
Matthias moved like lightning to get under her. He got there, but there was no time left to get his feet planted properly. Down he went on the damp dirt, with a cabbage underneath him and Dora on top. She remembered the knife at the last moment and tried to throw it aside.
Papa rushed in to pull her off Matthias and onto her feet. While she was still straightening up, he swung back to Matthias and seized him by the left arm, rolling him forward. "Careful, there! Your arm is cut. You don't want to get dirt in it." He bent down and paused. "This must be cleaned and bandaged. Dora, we need rags boiled in water. You remember the new pamphlet on caring for injuries, yes?"
"Boiled . . .?" She caught sight of a patch of blood, starting to spread high on the sleeve. "Oh! You're hurt! I― I'll build up the fire right away. I know we have some clean rags." She started back up the stairs, with one hand clutching her bruised shin.
"Good. This young paladin―" Papa gestured with his thumb "―has been wounded in your service, and it's our Christian duty to tend to him." He gave him a thin smile. "These other matters can wait, but we must speak of them afterward." He reached down and picked the knife off the ground, before it could hurt someone else.
∞ ∞ ∞
Thomas Hammel gently helped Matthias off with his sleeveless doublet and then his shirt, uninjured arm first, and put aside everything in his mind but the task at hand. The slice was high on the left arm, a little over an inch long, but shallow enough not to need sewing—a good thing, since neither he nor his daughter had ever sewed living flesh. There was a little bleeding, but not so much as to demand the risk of touching the wound with unwashed hands.
Matthias sat down on the steps outside so that he wouldn't drip blood on the floor while they waited for the boiled water and rags. The shirt rested in a bucket of cold water so the bloodstain wouldn't set until they could deal with it. This wasn't how Thomas had imagined the visit would go. For certain, their guest hadn't either.
Finally, some of the boiled water was cool enough so Thomas could wash his hands and Matthias's arm. With that done, Dora fished out a small scrap of cloth on a fork and waved it in the air to cool it, then dripped a little red wine on it. There were better disinfectants nowadays according to the first aid pamphlet they had, but this was what they had in the house, and promptness was important in cleaning an open wound. Thomas took it and gently wiped around the spot, and the injury itself. "I'm sorry if this stings, Matthias."
Matthias hissed for a moment.
Thomas continued, "This should heal well, without much of a scar. You just need to keep it covered and clean until the flesh closes. Dora, it's ready for the bandage now."
She was already cooling a larger piece. He took it, folded it into a pad, and started to apply it to the cut.
"Papa, the honey. Here!" Dora was holding out the little blue crock to him.
Thomas blinked, then he remembered. The pamphlet had said honey was a good aid to healing. Again, there were better things nowadays, but at least they had this. He spread a few drops on the bandage and set it in place. "Here, Matthias, hold this."
Dora pulled out a long, narrow strip from the pot. Thomas cooled it in the air, carefully wound it around the arm and the linen pad, and tied it off. He surveyed the result. "It seems satisfactory, Matthias. Let's go in and make ourselves comfortable around the table. I'll go find you something to wear until your shirt is washed and mended."
∞ ∞ ∞
With the cake finally set on the coals to bake, Dora stood at one end of the table with a fresh bucket of water in front of her, working on the bloodstain with her thumbnail. Papa sat on the long side and Matthias was at the far end, each of them with a cup of small beer. Papa's stained working shirt hung loose on Matthias, but it went over the bandage well enough. His other hand was wrapped around the spot, absent-mindedly massaging it.
Papa hadn't shouted since that first outburst, but he was looking at Matthias with an intense air. It made her nervous. What was this all about? Finally he spoke. "Matthias, the time has come for some very plain speaking. It might be said that your plans should be no concern of ours, and we should have nothing to say about them?"
Matthias started to open his mouth. Papa held up a finger.
"I should not have shouted. But. We've always thought that one day you and Dora would wish to marry, yes? It's never been said in so many words, but this has long been in the air?"
"Yes, Herr Hammel, now that you say so. I've never put it into words, but yes, I would wish that very much."
"Yes, Papa! That would be . . . Yes."
Papa nodded, twice, slowly. "And so now it has been put into words. Well, we are not living in a romantic fairy tale. Your virtues are undeniable, as you've proven once again. You would be good to Dora. But that is not enough, a family cannot live on air and dreams. I have always thought that with an education in the law there would never be any doubt that you could carry a man's duty to earn a living and provide for a family. At least, with as much certainty as God ever grants us in this world. But now? The last thing I heard you say was that you are not just proposing to leave the university and enter this new and untried school, chartered by a new and untried emperor, you have already done it."
Papa leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. "Look at me, Matthias. Here I am fifty-three years old. Maybe I don't look it, because my hair is still brown and I keep my beard short because of the forge. But I'm as skilled a smith as there is, and still not a master with my own shop in a good town. I never found a town with a place open that they didn't fill up with one of their own. Well, finally, by good fortune Count August has need of a smith at this new flax mill of his in Sömmerda. So, at least I am to be an Adelmeister as soon as we can pack up and move there. We will not live on the dregs of little jobs in the villages any more.
"But I want something better for Dora. When she marries, it must be to a man of proven ability to make a good living. Proven. I never doubted that you would, until now."
Matthias half-rose out of his chair, with one hand on the table edge. "You doubt me now? You know me. We've known each other always."
Papa sighed. "We knew you before the bad times came, and you had to go live with your aunt's family off in Eisenach. But you were younger then. Do we know you now? How well? And this thing you now intend to study . . ."
"Chemical engineering, Herr Hammel . . ."
"We do not know it at all. You say it's not the same as alchemy. Perhaps it will bring you success. Perhaps. We can pray that it does." His fingers tapped a few times on the table. He sat back and looked up at Matthias's face. "I do not mean to insult you, or usurp the advice of your aunt and uncle whose place it is to guide you. Do not think that I reject you as a suitor, a future suitor. I do know that you're intelligent, honorable, and kind. That, at least, has never changed." He paused again. Dora's eyes were flicking back and forth between them. "That is worth a great deal. My daughter would accept no less, and neither would I." His closed hand softly rapped the edge of the table. "But I am a father, and I have my responsibilities. If you are determined to follow this uncertain course of action to an unknowable outcome, I must not consent to a betrothal until you prove yourself in the world. You understand me?"
Matthias sat back down. He took a breath. "Yes, Herr Hammel. Of course. My love for Dora is the greatest part of why I do this! I can finish this curriculum and begin earning a living years sooner. I promise you―"
"Stop right there. You are in no position to promise anything, except that you will try your hardest."
Dora looked into Matthias's eyes, and reached across to touch his hand with her fingertips for just a moment. She swallowed. "I don't know what to say, Matthias. Explain all this to us, will you? Can you? I need to understand what this trade is, what it means. But I will pray for your success, until we can be together."
A hint of iron crept into her father's voice. "No promises from you either, daughter. I, too, wish for this young man's success, how could I not? But not all wishes come true, and some of life's lessons come the hard way. Remember that, both of you." His expression softened. "But nothing has to be decided now, nothing can be. It will be years yet before either of you can afford to marry. And now, maybe, we can talk of lighter things. You've grown up well, you look straight and strong for a scholar. How have your aunt and uncle been? Tell us what is happening in Eisenach. And then―" he looked up to Dora "―you can tell us of this new trade."