Chapter 1
What kind of name is that?
Wurzberg, State of Thuringia and Franconia
January 1634
“Russo! Hey, Mary Russo! Mary? You in there?” The door to the storage room in the basement of the Wurzberg Rathaus banged open. It was followed by a blast of icy cold January air, which made the candle waver in the near darkness.
“Yeah, I’m in here, Albrecht. Close the door! I was just starting to thaw out.” Mary Russo straightened up from her small standing desk in the corner of the storeroom and wiped her eyes. She didn’t want Albrecht to see that she had been crying. She snuffled and blew her nose into a handkerchief and cleared her throat. “I think I’m getting a cold,” she said, sniffing. “I’ve only been here a week and I’m already coming down with something…”
Albrecht was a down-timer and a co-worker of Mary’s. He was an okay guy, as far as Mary knew, she had only met him a few days ago, when she first arrived from Grantville. It would be embarrassing to be found crying in the cold and dark basement of what was basically the city hall for the town of Wurzberg. She was the new kid here, nineteen years old, just out of basic training, graduated early from high school, and dropped into what her superiors must have thought would be an easy job. Sort out property records. Simple enough. And property records by themselves were nothing to cry about. She was crying about why they were so messed up. The town of Wurzburg, with a population of maybe fifteen thousand people, had in the last four years, murdered around 900 of its citizens for witchcraft. Beheaded some of them, then burned the bodies. Burned many of them alive.
She was reading the records of a family. They had an eight-year-old girl, and an eleven-year-old boy. They had confessed, after torture and examination, to having sex with a demon. Eight and eleven. The word “examination” had chilled her to her bones. Their parents watched them burn after they were “mercifully” beheaded, and then they were burned themselves. Alive. Next to the still hot ashes of their children. She found the accounts in a wooden box marked as trash, behind some crates, where it was tossed, forgotten. There were many more files. Hundreds more. She leaned against the little desk, one of those stand-up desks like Ebenezer Scrooge had his employee stand at all day in the cold and the dark, with the records scattered around her. Stacks. Piles. File after file of torture, death, and burnings at the stake. Children. Women, rich people, poor people, actors, tinkers, tradesmen, burghers, the daughter of the Burgermeister, priests, a girl who was described as the “prettiest girl in town,” old women, young men, it didn’t end. File after file after file. She held the notes of the torturers in her hands, the list of questions, the list of answers. The signatures. All routine. Neatly written. Stamped. Initialed. Countersigned. She couldn’t stop sobbing as she read.
Many records had disappeared when Swedish troops took the city, stolen away by the retreating Catholic troops and clergy. But some were left, hidden or forgotten. And it was Mary’s job to find and sort through them. Figure out who was going to have to pay the taxes. Because that’s what a government did. Figure out the taxes. And until they figured out who owned what, they couldn’t figure out who should pay the taxes. And they needed the taxes. She thought she joined the military, like nearly her entire graduating class, and was going to fight for freedom. Justice. The American Way. Instead she was in a dark and cold basement, reading accounts that broke her heart, to see who owned property. For taxation.
It would have been far easier to shoot someone.
Albrecht was waiting patiently for her in the door. “Did you find some good information in here? They took a lot when they left, burned files too.”
Mary pointed at the files stacked around her, and the empty wooden crate on the floor. “I think they left this crate, or forgot to burn it. It’s marked with an ‘M,’ for mull I think. Trash. So crap got stacked on it, and it got buried down here. Maybe that’s why people ignored it.”
“What are the files?” He picked up one of them and started to leaf through it. They were remarkably thin.
“Witch trials.” She was managing to hold it together pretty well, she thought, after what she had been reading all morning. “Copies, anyway.” She sniffed again and rubbed her eyes. There was little light in the room other than the candle. Illumination managed to leak in through a small, grubby window that was high on the wall. Since she was in the basement, she could see the feet of people walking by the window during the day.
Albrecht nodded enthusiastically. “That’s great! Almost all of these were missing. Captain will be happy you found them. We have been shorthanded here, and it’s nice to have someone to dig through some of the areas we just haven’t had time to do.”
“Glad I can help. So, what did you come down here for?”
He laughed, holding the file. “Almost forgot. Captain wants to see you. He’s up at the castle in his office. I will box these up and take them upstairs.”
She grabbed the file she had been reading. The name on it was “Hoenegg.” “I will take this one to show Mister—err, Captain Eckerlin.” She folded the rag paper bundle and stuffed it into her backpack, the same one she had been carrying since before the Ring of Fire, when all she was concerned about was what courses she was going to take in high school, and how soon it would be until she got her driver’s license. It seemed like an eternity ago.
Before she went across the bridge and up the hill to the castle, or more accurately Festung Marienberg, she took a moment to walk over to the town square, where the Marienkapelle was located. In front of that church was the place where they burned the witches. It was only a dark spot on the dirty ground now. Today was not a market day, but Mary knew that even on a market day, no one would set up stalls in that spot. The first thing the up-timers did when they came in, after the Swedish Army occupied the town, was to tear down the pyre. It was a semi-permanent installation, like a fire pit and gallows combined. She looked at the dirty spot in front of the large Catholic church and said a quiet prayer for the Hoenegg family.
She turned away and made her way across the old stone bridge over the Main River, and up the hill to the administrative offices located in the Marienberg Fortress. It was a brisk ten-minute walk. The cold air helped to clear her head, and her tear-clogged sinuses. The fortress was taken by Gustav Adolphus’ troops when they swept through Franconia in 1631, shortly after the Ring of Fire brought Mary and the town of Grantville back to this time. Gustav’s troops were not kind to the fortress, and it still showed in the area around the building, and in the condition of the interior. It had been thoroughly plundered, which was about standard for armies in the here and now. Some rooms were burned, scorch marks showing on the outside where the smoke had poured out. There were a couple of wings of the buildings that were still gutted and open to the weather. The SoTF military liaison offices occupied only a small area of the building, and she headed for the second floor where Captain Eckerlin had his office.
She trotted up the stairs and went into the front room of the offices. There were a half dozen people in the outer office, and it was at least somewhat warmer with the heat generated from the fireplace and the bodies. She took off her up-time winter ski jacket and stocking cap and hung them up on a coat tree. She checked her “uniform,” which in her case was an up-time army shirt from her dad, with “Russo” on it, jeans over long underwear, and her own up-time boots. She checked in with the down-time receptionist, and she was ushered in to see Captain Eckerlin.
She marched in carrying her backpack, stopped in front of the captain’s desk, and did a standard, “Private Russo reporting for duty,” followed by a salute. It sort of felt odd. She had been in the army for less than two months, and Lowry Eckerlin had been her neighbor from down the street. She had known him since she was probably five years old, and as a kid had eaten more than a few peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at his kitchen table in the summer, with his wife and his daughter Katie. Which added to the whole odd feeling as she stood in front of his desk, saluting.
He stood up and smiled broadly at her. He looked a lot thinner than the last time she saw him back in Grantville, his down-time uniform shirt hung loosely on him. He also looked a lot older than the middle-aged dad she remembered. He still wore the pants of his old police uniform from up-time, as well as his service Glock on his belt. He had been a policeman in Fairmont before the Ring of Fire, and he was basically the same sort of thing here. In charge of security. “At ease, Mary.” He came around the desk and opened his arms wide. “Come here and give me a hug, kid. How’s your mom doing?”
Mary smiled and hugged him back. “Thanks for asking, sir. She is doing pretty well. Dad is working on some drugs with the Stones, and she hasn’t got any worse. So we are okay with that.”
“That’s great. Good to hear. Your dad doing okay too?” He went to his office door and closed it with a smile at the receptionist outside. His office was small, with one wall full of windows and a fireplace against another wall, a blaze burning warmly. There was little ornamentation, other than a battered up-time file cabinet with a sturdy lock welded to it, his desk which looked like a salvaged table that was half charred from fire, and a couple of mismatched chairs. There were some framed certificates on the wall, one of which was a service commendation from his days on the Fairmont police, the other was his Associate’s degree in Criminal Justice. Along with the pictures of his family, there was one thick file on his desk, tied with red tape, and stamped “SECRET.”
Mary took all of this in quickly and answered him. “He’s doing great, he likes teaching and he feels he is making a big difference. Everyone else is about the same. How about you? Er—you, sir?”
“Everyone is good, Mary. Thanks for asking. Busy, you know how it goes.” He pushed one of the chairs in front of his desk closer to it. “Sit down; I’ve something to show you. And forget about the ‘Captain,’ you can call me Lowry.”
“Well, Capt—er rather, Mr. Ecke—err, gah! This is hard. And weird. Can I call you just Mr. Eckerlin like I used to when I was a kid?”
He smiled. “Sure. You know the old joke, call me anything you like, just don’t call me late for dinner!”
Mary laughed. Mr. Eckerlin always had the worst “dad jokes” in the neighborhood. “I can work with that!”
He sat at his desk, and his smile faded to a serious expression. “I didn’t call you here for a social visit Mary.” He touched the file in front of him. “I want to—” there was a sharp knock on the door and it opened a crack. Mary heard the receptionist.
“Captain, there are some Ram delegates here to see you, they say it’s important.”
He sighed. “Okay, Fräulein Fitz. Tell them I will be done in a moment. Give them some beer—or something stronger. I will be out in a moment.”
“They specifically said to remind you of your open-door policy.” The woman raised an eyebrow at the captain.
“My door is always open, just not when someone is in here. Give them my apologies and I will be out in a moment.” His face looked as if he might have regretted saying that his door was “always open” sometime in the past. Germans could be very literal sometimes when it came to that sort of thing. Especially disciples of Constatin Ableidinger. Mary smiled sympathetically. He focused back on Mary, puffing his cheeks as he blew out his breath. “Looks like we won’t have much time to chat. I need to talk to you for a bit.”
“Okay, Mr. Eckerlin.”
Eckerlin leaned back in his chair, and he looked at Mary with a half-smile. “If I said that a person is a Fugger, what would you say to that?”
Mary laughed. “I would guess that you were setting up one of your terrible dad-jokes.”
He nodded, the half-smile turning into a grin. “Yeah, some of those were pretty bad, weren’t they?” His smile faded. He looked serious, and a little sad. “But not this time, Mary. It’s actually a name.” He turned the file around so that the big “SECRET” stamp faced her.
“Seriously?” This had to be a joke.
“A very important one. No kidding at all.” He shook his head; there was no sign of humor. “They are one of the most important. You see, the Fugger—that’s what they are called, not Fuggers—want to hire a genuine up-timer.”
“Okay…”
“And, after a lot of consultations, they have requested you.”
Mary’s eyes went very round. “M-Me? But why would these Fugger,” she sniggered a little to herself at the name, “want to hire someone like me? And who the heck are the Fugger, no ‘s’ at the end??”
Eckerlin leaned back in his office chair and smiled faintly. “Good questions. First of all, they are rich. Very rich. Arguably the richest family in the world. Think Bill Gates, or Sam Walton rich, and you get the idea. Remember them?” Mary nodded. “Only in this time, they are richer than the governments.” He pushed the thick file a little closer. “It’s all in here.”
Mary purposely ignored the folder on the desk. “Okay, so they are rich. Lots of down-timers are rich. If they want a trained chimpanzee up-timer in their court, then they can just go to Grantville and hire one. Heck, Captain, one of the biggest losers in town got paid to go to Moscow.”
Mr. Eckerlin agreed. “The Fugger family at one time were financing the Spanish Hapsburgs and the Kingdom of Spain. At the same time. They financed the throne of the Holy Roman Empire for the Hapsburgs. Heck, Mary, they basically bought the throne for the Hapsburgs. They own silver mines, gold mines, they even own holdings in the Americas.” He leaned forward and gave the file a little nudge towards her, and she caught herself looking down at it. She looked back to face him. He was smiling. “It says in this briefing somewhere that the old man Fugger was the richest person that ever lived, or ever will live.”
Mary leaned a little closer to the file. “Wow. You said they were financing the Hapsburgs? Do they still?”
“Not all by themselves. Like any good corporation, they diversified. As the family grew, the assets and wealth spread out among three basic branches of the family. This branch,” he nudged the file a little closer, “is one of the three. Based in Tyrol, near Innsbruck. Have you heard of Innsbruck? They had the winter Olympics there one year, way back up-time in the sixties, I think. Supposed to be beautiful country. Anyway, the Fugger basically bought themselves dukedoms there for a stable long-term income. Silver mines there don’t produce quite like they used to.”
Mary pushed an errant strand of her straight black hair behind her ear and furrowed her brow. “If these people have so much money, why are you asking me? I mean, I assume they are connected at the very top, right?” Mr. Eckerlin nodded and leaned back in his chair. “So a request like this would come down from the very top?”
“They asked for some recommendations through back channels. Our intelligence folks got involved, and your name came up. They wanted someone who was female, and could be a teacher. We think you are right for the job.”
She sat back in her chair. “Wow.” Her brow furrowed again. “I just got here.” She thought about the dark basement with witch-burning files and frowned. “Not that I’m saying yes, but what would these people want me to do? You said teacher?”
“Yes. It looks like a teacher and consultant. Teaching is one part of the official job description. A hired member of the staff.” He paused, and chewed his lip, thinking. “We hope that you do teach. All these kids are all going to have a major influence on the future.”
She nodded at him. She knew the “hearts and minds” teams here in Franconia had a major impact, in more ways than one, in easing the transition to a democratic local and regional government. And helped to stop the witch burnings. “That makes sense. But what I don’t get is why we would want to do this. Grantville, and the Swedes. I mean, they—the Fugger—are the enemy, aren’t they?”
Mr. Eckerlin leaned back in his chair again. He smiled and nodded slightly to give her encouragement. “Where have the troop movements been this fall? Where have people been going?”
“Well, a lot of guys have gone north. I got a friend in TacRail that’s up there, along the border with Poland. And there are some with Wallenstein too. But still north. With Bavaria still messed up, and the Duke Bernhardt hunkered down south of here, I was thinking that I was going to do a lot of paperwork. Not much action, excepting a Ram Rebellion or two.”
Mr. Eckerlin nodded ruefully. “I think you’re right. Most of the action is going to be north. Poland, maybe more. I dunno, it’s way above my pay grade. This is all off the record, you understand.”
“I understand.” She pointed at the big red “SECRET” stamp on the cover of the two-inch-thick file. “But what about my mom? There are some things I need to do once I get out of the army. I mean, I don’t regret enlisting, everyone did it, and my parents agreed it was the right thing to do, and it pays okay, but I need to take care of my mom. How long will this take?”
“They are looking for a two-year commitment.” Then he leaned forward, with his dead serious expression again. “And you also understand that you will be expected to write a lot of letters home. Detailed letters. Occasionally encoded letters, depending on the content.”
“A spy?” She felt her heart skip a beat or two. She didn’t know if it was because she was frightened, or excited.
“Well, technically you would still be in the army.” He shrugged slightly.
“I see.” She swallowed. Her mouth was a bit dry.
He pushed the file all the way towards her, to the edge of the old scorched table. Mary saw concern and kindness in his eyes. “I’ve known you since you were in diapers, Mary. I can’t order you to take this job. There are some dangers. That’s the world we live in now. But you should think of your mother. It’s one of the reasons I pushed for you. You’ll still be drawing your army pay, and the Fugger will be covering your room and board, clothing, travel expenses, and a very nice salary—and I mean a very, very nice salary that should take care of your mom for a long time. I mean, they are willing to pay a lot of money for this position, it’s all in the file.”
She paused and looked up at what had been, before the Ring of Fire, simply “Mr. Eckerlin,” her down-the-street neighbor when she was a kid. Now, he was a tired looking man, handling things far more important than he ever imagined. Making decisions that would echo down the centuries. Maybe she could too, somehow, with this job. That was an intriguing thought. Plus, her mother and her whole family needed the money; that was true. But—“Is it because I’m Catholic that they are looking at me? One thing I’ve learned with this assignment is what religion you are counts for a whole heck of a lot when dealing with down-timers. I mean, one of the reasons they sent me here to Wurzburg, is because I’m Catholic. I assume these folks are Catholic too?”
“You would be correct. With a hotline to the pope. And part of the deal is that they will protect you from the Inquisition.”
“The—Inquisition!? Holy crap Mr. Eckerlin! I thought that was only in Spain.”
“No, in Bavaria too. And this is on the border of Bavaria and what we used to call Austria. But don’t sweat the Inquisition thing, they are not nearly as powerful as they used to be, nothing to worry about. It’s all in the briefing.”
She gave him a sideways glance. “I s’pose I should make a joke here about nobody expecting the Spanish Inquisition, but that’s usually your department, the bad jokes.” They both smiled for a moment.
“Well, this time it’s no joke. They have it in the contract, and a lot of lawyers have already looked at it.”
Mary shook her head and thought about the box of files she found. “I guess there’s nothing funny about those guys at all. The Inquisition. The witch trials here in Wurzburg were bad enough. With the Inquisition, when the accused is found to be a witch, and they always are, any money, land, or business they keep. Self-sustaining system. We have a lot of people in Venice, Vienna, and Rome, and all over the place and they don’t bother us, do they?”
“No, they don’t. But it’s one of the things our people were concerned about, so we negotiated it up front. Lots of lawyers, of which Germany has an excess, I’m learning.” He rubbed his forehead. “And there will be a month or so of training before you go. We will give you a lot of background on the family, and some espionage training for encoding and decoding documents. Nothing with too much skullduggery, mostly communication and procedures training. It isn’t like you are going to be an assassin or anything—you are going to teach a bunch of kids, and adults, and let us know if anything interesting happens.” He paused, then tapped the thick bundle in front of her. “You really need to read the files, Mary.”
She hesitated for a moment, and thought of her mom, who really needed the money. And if these Fugger guys were for real, and worth that much, then maybe she could take care of her mom the way she needed to be taken care of. And if she really thought about it, sitting in a cold basement looking through tragic tax records was brutal, and at the same time as boring as anything. Really boring. Finally, she reached for the file.
“One more question.”
“Shoot, Mary.”
“Mountains, right? You think I could take my skis?”