Chapter 5
Magdeburg
December
Technically, the building wasn't in the city proper. It was in the new district to the west, full of light industry and cheap housing.
Matthias stood just inside the doorway, looking around at the shambles left in the ground-floor shop. He'd never been in a college chemistry laboratory before, or an alchemist's workroom either, not that it was either one yet. There was dirt and clutter everywhere. New as the building was, the plastering was full of nicks and stains. But it had drains, and it had a hand pump bolted to one of the benches, with a pipe reaching down through the floor. A well. At least the glass in the windows was intact, though the builders had put in only the cheapest kind, lumpy and greenish.
Allen Dailey, the chemistry professor, put it into words. "Well, fellas, it's not much, but it's what we've got. For that matter, it's blind luck we've got it. You'd think it'd be kinda hard to go broke running a laundry in Magdeburg, the way the place is growing." He had a look on his face that wouldn't have been out of place on an insurance adjuster. He was dressed in a worn and grease-stained one-piece garment of some rugged fabric. Well, he'd warned Matthias and his fellow student Artur Francke to expect dirty work.
He stood for a moment, considering. "Artur, you want to start by scrubbing out that big soaking vat so we can sell it? That's the last thing we need underfoot." That was true enough. In a teaching lab they'd be working with test tube quantities, and small ones at that.
"Okay, Herr Dailey."
And that was it. Herr Dailey, not Doktor Dailey. Not one of the faculty at Imperial Tech held a doctorate. They just came and taught the hard sciences because it had to be done and there was no one else to do it.
Artur went rummaging around in the grimy mess for something to scrub with.
"And me, Herr Dailey?"
"Let's start collecting the outright trash, Matthias, and get it out the door. Then we can sort out what would be worth something to a junk dealer. The sooner we're down to bare floor and walls, the sooner we can let in the carpenters and plumbers." He walked over to a smashed table that was blocking the middle of the room. Matthias followed him and picked up one end.
Finals week
The bells at a church a few streets away roused Matthias to consciousness. The light in the gray sky confirmed it―he'd overslept by half an hour. No time for anything but throwing on his clothes and picking up a roll or something from a cookshop as he passed the corner.
When he rolled out of bed and hit the floor, the first thing he saw was the coating of frost on the inside of the window. The second thing was a wool cap poking out from under the blankets on the upper bunk. He reached out and gave Germund's shoulder a shake.
"Uhh? Whuff?"
"School. We're late. I'm leaving in a couple of minutes. Don't go back to sleep." He snatched yesterday's clothes off one of the pegs on the end of the bed frame and pulled on the stockings, then the breeches. He could bathe when he came back. The third-floor washroom would have hot water by then.
It was spitting snow as he started off toward the city gate, not enough for any significant accumulation, but enough to make him walk instead of trotting.
There were a few minutes left when he stamped the snow off his shoes at the door, and hurried up the stairs.
The lecture room was much the way it had been at the start of the term, other than a few more missing bits of plaster. Herr Washaw already had a trigonometry proof written on the chalkboard. Lise Krimm, that was the short good-natured girl, raised her hand as he turned back toward the class. "Ummm, I'm happy we can use our books during the examination, Herr Washaw, I'm just surprised. I never heard of that before."
"No, probably not, Lise. Well, look, when you get out in the real world nobody's going to care whether you have every bit of algebra memorized and you can run off every solution without looking anything up. You just need to understand what you're doing and get the right answer without taking too long at it. If you have to refresh your memory on something, fine. What I want to find out tomorrow is whether you've all got a grip on algebra and you're ready to move on to calculus. Because we've got to keep moving, folks, there's a whole lot to cover.
"I see we're all here now. Anybody have anything they'd like to review? Now's the time to ask."
Early 1635
The painted lettering on the door said Imperial College of Science, Engineering, and Technology. Nothing else. It was just as well not to draw attention to a chemistry lab.
Matthias stepped in and looked around. He hadn't been there since the end of the fall term. It was quite a transformation.
The windows and floor were clean and uncluttered, and the walls were freshly whitewashed. Two rows of benches stood back-to-back with a drain trough between them. There were some stock cabinets at one end, a desk, and a chalkboard. A few oil lamps hung overhead, not that there was any need to light them at this time of day. And half a dozen oilcloth aprons hung ready on a row of pegs, to protect their clothes.
There was no style or finish to any of it. It was all built fast and cheap, but there was reason enough for that. Rumor had it Imperial Tech wasn't going to be in makeshift quarters very much longer. Everybody knew Herr Gericke had plans. All over Magdeburg, Herr Gericke's plans were turning into masonry and trusswork.
And now they could begin.
Matthias had arrived a bit early for the college's first practical chemistry session. Only Artur and the professor were there ahead of him. Artur's clothes must have been the oldest he had; one elbow was worn right through.
When Matthias set down his bag and reached in to take out his notes, his hand fell on Dora's most recent letter. It had been good to hear of her promotion. She seemed to have won the trust of her employers. It was sad about the man who'd fallen in the millrace, though. They'd been unable to find anyone with his knowledge.
He found the papers he was looking for, and turned his attention to the procedure for the experiment. Determination of the concentration of a dilute acid.
He read through it first to get a grasp of the principles, then began. The first part was to standardize the supposedly 0.1 molar sodium hydroxide solution.
Weigh the flask, handling it with clean tongs so as not to add fingerprints to its weight. From the supply beaker gently tip in about one hundred milligrams of heat-dried salicylic acid, judging as closely as possible by eye.
It wouldn't have been done this way up-time, but they didn't have the KHP standardization reagent. There were many things they didn't have.
Then weigh the flask again, and calculate the actual weight of the reagent. Dissolve it in a hundred milliliters of distilled water and weigh it again.
In with the little strip of litmus paper. Red. Okay so far.
Now the tricky part. This would have been easy with a stopcock burette, but that still hadn't come in from Geissler's in Jena.
What he had was a graduated pipette. There was a tiny bellows on it with a spring inside so he could draw in a sample. That was the invention of a local apothecary, and a touchy thing to control. But Herr Dailey had absolutely forbidden mouth pipetting. He'd given a very clear and scary description of the effects of a mouthful of sodium hydroxide. Or just about anything else you'd find in a chemistry lab.
Draw in enough of the sodium hydroxide solution to bring it up near the line. With a magnifying glass read the starting level and record it in the notebook. Position it on the stand, and let fall a drop into the flask. Agitate.
No color change. So far, so good. He added another drop.
With absolutely no warning at all a volcanic sneeze seized him, and his whole right hand clenched involuntarily. Most of the load shot out of the pipette and into the flask. The litmus turned blue before he could even get his eyes open again. He sneezed once more before he could get a handkerchief out of his pocket and begin to clear his nose. The third sneeze was a weak one, and finally he had his watering eyes back under control.
He growled something incoherent under his breath, more in the way of the idealized concept of a curse than the concrete realization of one. Well, now he had some idea of how strong the base solution was, but it certainly wasn't any kind of result he could use to titrate the sulfuric acid sample he had yet to touch.
He looked down at the results of his first attempt, and made a lopsided grimace at it. There was nothing to do but wash out the flask and pipette, and start over. He blew his nose a couple of extra times for good measure.
When he reached the same step again, he clamped the pipette into place on the ring stand, planted his feet firmly on the floor, and rested his hip against the edge of the bench. This time his thumb wasn't going to squeeze until he was good and ready.
Sömmerda
It was a cold January day, though not bitterly so. By mid-morning the streets were mostly dry, except for occasional patches of ice in the shadows and a little snow drifted up against some of the house fronts. The houses on both sides broke the wind.
Karl Reichert stood in front of the post office, waiting for Fritz Wedemann to come out. With the promotion to postmaster, Fritz had already moved from a cot in the back room to larger quarters upstairs. He'd done well for himself since hiring on with Thurn und Taxis back in Grantville. But he was a few years older than Karl, and had already served as an estate clerk before he'd had to flee the armies.
Meanwhile, Karl took in the sights. There was a decent-looking inn a couple of doors away, with a stable that housed the post horses. The town seemed to be prosperous; the houses looked well-kept. If the armies had passed through here at all, they couldn't have come in any great numbers, or stayed long.
He yawned a couple of times. It was just as well there'd been no need to get up early this morning. He and some of Fritz's local friends had thrown a noisy party below Fritz's window last night. It had gone on until the watch told them to go away and let the neighbors get some sleep.
A few of the revelers started showing up, dressed for church, yawning themselves. Karl stood out somewhat, with the modern tailoring of his best trousers. You didn't want billowing fabric if you worked in a machine shop.
Finally the front door creaked open and Fritz appeared, buttoning a fine-looking blue coat and looking just a little unsteady on his feet. Fritz was wearing a moustache these days, but no beard. "There you are, Karl! I wasn't sure you'd be able to come, until I saw you yesterday. But I'm glad you managed, even if that was some wild Polterabend you and the boys threw last night."
"Heh-heh, you do look properly frazzled. But there's a little bit of a lull at the shop, so they let me get away for a few days. I wouldn't want to miss my old friend's wedding. Congratulations, Herr Postmaster, you've come up in the world since they decided to stick you here." He looked up at the bright blue sky, and clapped Fritz on the shoulder. "It looks like it's turning into a fine, warm day for it. Or as warm as it's going to get. And here they all come."
In the space of half a minute, the groom's procession seemed to condense out of thin air. The old street filled from side to side with a chattering throng of twenty or so. There was clanging, whooping, and laughter. Someone reached over Karl's shoulder with a tankard of good ale. The rest started chanting, “Drink! Drink! Drink!”
“Not on my wedding day! You want to deliver me to my bride sloshed to the gills?" He took one draft and passed it back. ”You have the rest."
A church bell rang the quarter-hour, and it was time. As Fritz led off, somebody in the crowd started singing.
Oh, farewell fickle maidens, who come and quickly stray
Such pleasure in the meeting, though parting rules the day
And left with sweet remembrances, as fine as such can be
It would be so much finer, if one would stay with me
By now, the fiddler in the procession had the tune.
Hand in hand I do-si-do'd with Janie at the dance
But she told me she was leaving, to mend her husband's pants
Snuggling on the front porch swing with Annie was such fun
But she only talked of potted plants, I guess she's not the one
Oh, farewell, Carolena, she left me with a smile
And good bye, lovely Annabelle, she only stayed a while
Clementine's all married up, and likewise Rosalie
Now the Yellow Rose of Texas is the only girl for me
I fell for sweet Cornelia, I met her on a train
But she got off in Galveston to catch a boat to Spain
But rolling on to San Antone, as sunset turned to night
In the moonlight by the Alamo I found my heart's delight
Then strolling by the river, true love has took its course
She can charm a bashful catbird, or shoe a skittish horse
She can lasso bulls and stallions, that's what she did, you see
And the Yellow Rose of Texas is the only girl for me
Oh, farewell, Carolena, she left me with a . . .
One of the men in front of Karl asked, "What happened, Wendel? That's exactly the way we heard that song on the radio. I thought you were going to take it and work in the names of all the old loves of Fritz and Antonia!"
Wendel, that was the middle-aged weaver he'd met last night, laughed, "It's not finished. I'm having trouble getting it to scan in German. But don't worry, Samuel, I'll manage it before the celebration is finished."
"I hope so. I want to see the looks on their faces when you mention the ones they think nobody remembers."
Wendel cupped his chin in both hands and put a ludicrous imitation of a frown on his face, in a caricature of intense concentration. "All right, all right, I'm working on the tricky parts. Now you sing something."
Samuel laughed and sang,
Bist du des Goldschmieds Töchterlein
Bin ich des Bauren Sohn, ja Sohn
So zeug dein beste Kleider an
Und sprich, du wilt zum Tanze gahn
Und zeuch mit mir davon.
Über ein´ breite Wiesen
Über ein schmalen Steg, ja Steg
Und hast du mich von Herzen lieb
Dein treues Herz mir Glauben gibt
Und zieh auch mit mir weg.
Darum du zartes Jungfräulein
Zieh du mit mir davon, davon.
"Ich will zuvor mein Mutter frag´n
Rat sie mir das, so will ich's wag
Und ziehn mit dir davon."
Fritz let that go on to the end, before he finally broke in, "A hopeful song of love, but it's time we should start singing something we don't mind the bride's procession hearing! If you'll all indulge me,"
O Heiland, reiß die Himmel auf!
Herab, herab vom Himmel lauf!
Reiß ab vom Himmel Tör und Tür;
Reiß ab, wo Schloß und Riegel für.
O Gott, ein Tau vom Himmel gieß,
Im Tau herab, o Heiland, fließ!
Ihr Wolken, brecht und regnet aus
Den König über Jakobs Haus! . . .
Just about in time. They turned the corner into the square, and there was the bride's procession coming. There were a few dozen people with her, dressed in their finest, many of them singing and dancing. It was a bit less raucous than the groom's, though.
Antonia Maria Hassloch looked altogether stunning, with an elegant affair of silver wire, white enameled flowers, and glittering crystals atop her dark hair. The wedding crown was most likely the "something borrowed." By the look of it, she seemed to have friends worth knowing. There was a tiny chip at the front flashing amber and violet as her head turned in the sunlight. Could that be the fabulously rare Ring's Fire? She was wearing a yellow silk gown beneath her coat, and an expression on her face that blended happiness, humor, and quiet dignity. In her hands she carried a small sheaf of wheat and a crystal glass with salt in it. The young girl dancing along beside her was probably her daughter Walpurgia from her first marriage.
The song changed again. This time both processions sang together, with the flute in the bride's procession weaving counterpoint around the fiddle.
Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott,
Ein gute Wehr und Waffen;
Er hilft uns frei aus aller Not,
Die uns jetzt hat betroffen.
Out of all Martin Luther's hymns, Karl's favorite. And so they arrived at the St. Bonifatius Kirche, where Pastor Altenburg stood waiting under the eaves in front of the doors.
∞ ∞ ∞
Karl looked around. Der Goldene Adler was living up to its name, with the afternoon sunlight streaming in through good-sized windows. The tavern was one of the most pleasant places he'd visited. The front room had wood-paneled walls instead of the usual whitewash, and generous ceilings. There was a tile stove keeping away the day's chill. Friends and relations and co-workers seemed to have brought most of the food, but even so, Fritz and Antonia had to both be doing well to hold their celebration here. Or maybe they'd wangled the room through the bride's connections in the town.
As one of the grandmothers ladled some salted cod in cream sauce next to the roasted vegetables on his plate, a warm sweet voice spoke behind him. "So, Karl Reichert, it's good to meet you at last. Fritz has often spoken of your times together in Grantville, in the early days."
He turned, holding the plate close to keep from bumping anyone. The bride's smile matched her voice. "Good things, I hope, Frau Hassloch."
"Oh, yes. I hope we can talk some more, after I greet the other guests. Meanwhile, my sister Agnes here would like to dance. Will you partner with her?" Agnes almost bounced on her feet, and threw him a quick smile.
"With pleasure." He smiled back and bowed slightly. If anything, Agnes was even prettier than her older sister. She was slender and closer to his own age than most of the women at the reception. "You might have to teach me, I'm not sure what dances you do here."
"Nothing you haven't seen before, I hope." Her hand darted out and speared a piece of sausage on the end of her fork, while she eyed a drummer and a man with a Dudelsack settling into their seats beside the fiddler and the flute player. The lines were starting to form.
∞ ∞ ∞
Half an hour later Karl retreated into a corner to take a breather. That last dance had been . . . energetic. Agnes waved gaily and pulled a baker's apprentice onto the floor. They found a place as the next set formed.
A conversation off to one side suddenly caught his attention. An older man was holding forth to a pair of sober-looking burghers, "There could be some decent profit in having a lathe like that in the mill, after Bosboom leaves and takes his away. I'm getting some good work out of it, now that I've got the hang of cranking the tool out as I go along, so I can get a straight shaft."
Karl frowned. Something was wrong, there. "Excuse me. Did I hear you right? Did you say you have to keep riding the crossfeed to get a straight cut?"
"Er, yes." The man looked him up and down, doubtfully. "You know something about that?"
"Yes, I'm a journeyman machinist. I trained at Davis's, in Grantville. I was an apprentice clockmaker before that. What kind of lathe are you having trouble with?"
"It's an engine lathe, according to the pictures in the book I have. The plate on the front says 'Kudzu Werke.' "
"Umm-hmm. They make good machines. That shouldn't be happening. It sounds to me as though it's not set up right. Did you follow the factory manual?"
The man gave Karl a sharp look. "Factory manual? So there is supposed to be one? All of a sudden, some things start to make sense. There wasn't one with it, but the mechanic who was supposed to work the thing drowned. It belongs to this Dutch consulting engineer, who's never handled it much himself. Well, what can you tell me, if you wouldn't mind?"
"Actually, I can show you, then you'll know next time. It's not all that hard. Oh. My name is Karl Reichert."
"Thomas Hammel, and glad to make your acquaintance. I'm the blacksmith at the flax mill by the river, the Adelmeister. Will you have a little time after this affair?"
"I could take a look now, if you like. I'm only cooling down anyway. This will be going on for hours yet, so I don't mind missing a few minutes."
"That's very good of you. All right, I'll just tell my family where we're going." He led Karl to a small knot of people by the back door and launched into a quick introduction. "Herr Reichert says he can show me how to make Bosboom's lathe run better. We're just going over to the mill for a few minutes."
The man's wife―Klara Maierin―gave him an amused and knowing look. "Of course you are." She looked like a woman who'd seen a lot of life and a lot of human foibles.
The daughter, Dora, looked at her father with keen interest and turned to follow. "I'll try to keep it from taking all afternoon, Mama, but I have to see this."
"Yes, well, enjoy yourself, dear." She watched them leave with a knowing smirk.
∞ ∞ ∞
It was no more than a five-minute walk to the flax mill, mostly between bare fields resting through the winter. Thomas Hammel swung open a small door near one end, and beckoned his daughter and Karl inside. "So, here it is. How does it look?"
Karl took in the scene. It was a long, narrow room with tall windows along the north and south sides, and a generous ceiling. There were a couple of rows of machines he wasn't familiar with―that had to be the textile machinery. Up near the head end of one line shaft, near the big doors, stood the lathe, a drill press, and a couple of large tool chests on wheels. Wisps of flax fibers nested in every crevice and corner a broom couldn't easily reach.
"Well, Herr Hammel, it looks like a Kudzu Werke lathe, an early model, just as you said. Good solid machine. If anything, the bed casting is a little heavier than the ones they're building now. It looks like it's been treated well, but you need to wipe a little oil on the ways. It's getting dry." He rocked the carriage. A little more play than there should be, but that was minor. They hovered over his shoulder as he bent down for a closer look. "And here's our first problem." He pointed to the machine's feet, where they rested on the iron base. "The leveling screws are missing. It's just bolted down to the stand. That's why the bed is twisted and it won't cut straight."
"Twisted? This cast iron behemoth? It looks straight as an arrow."
"Much straighter than any arrow, Herr Hammel, but nothing in this world is perfectly rigid. For a fine precision machine like this, even the bending of a strong cast iron frame under its own weight has an effect we can measure. The leveling screws should have come with it, though." He held his thumb and forefinger a hand-span apart. "They'd be about this long, with a hex in the middle and threads on both ends. Seen anything like that?"
"Papa, I think I might have." Dora started rooting through the drawers in the nearest tool chest. "These?"
"Eureka." Karl leaned in to look. "And right there is the rest of the hardware that goes with them. All right, that saves us the trouble of making them. We'll have to lift it off the base to get these underneath, and we don't want to take a chance on dropping it. Can you get a hoist, some planks to rest it on, and at least four strong men in the morning?"
"Well, yes, but I thought you were one of Fritz's friends from out of town. Don't you have to leave?"
"Oh, I don't mind staying a couple of hours to get you through this. I hate to see anybody held back by something this simple. But there's one more piece of bad news. You're going to have to move it away from the freight doors. It will never settle down if drafts keep hitting it and the temperature is always changing."
Father and daughter looked down the rows of machines. It was obvious what was going through their minds. Where were they going to put it, without disrupting the whole layout?
"And that, my friends, is why I must lead you through setting up the machine properly, instead of just doing it myself. You'll be leveling it by yourselves again, after you decide where to fit it in." He paused for a moment. "You know, I'm really impressed that you've gotten so far with nothing but a textbook to learn from. If you can get a chance to go down to Grantville for the basic machine shop course at the Tech Center, you should take it.
"You'll still need the factory manual, though. I'll write down the address so you can send for it. There are a good many other things that will need attention if you want to keep this mechanical gem working its best." He patted the headstock casing.
The smith spoke softly behind him. "That's very kind of you."
When Karl turned to face them again, there was something about the way Dora Hammelin was looking at him. He found himself looking back. A pretty, nicely-formed girl wasn't at all unusual, but there was just something about her . . . level-headed, he supposed. She turned and glanced toward her father. "But there's no more we can do right now, yes? Mama will be waiting for us. And your friend Fritz might be missing you."
Karl grinned. "He's probably too busy, but you're right. Let's go back and join the dancing."