Chapter 2
Short Goodbye
Grantville
Late April 1634
“Three days isn’t enough time to catch up, Mary. This whole thing is happening way too fast.” Addie Russo was a frail woman, but direct, so her statement was just that. A statement of fact, tinged with regret, trying not to induce guilt in her daughter, only pass along her frustration. The two women, mother and daughter, stood in the tiny kitchen in the Russos’ three-bedroom ranch style house. “Your father isn’t going to be able to see you before you leave. He’s at the hospital in Magdeburg teaching this week, and he won’t be home until Sunday at the earliest. Can’t you stay so that he can see you, at least?”
“No, Mom. They want me there as soon as possible, so I’m flying out in the morning on the Monster. A seat opened up. I thought I was going to have a few more days, but they said ASAP, so ASAP it is. And the sooner I get there, the sooner I will start to get paid. I will be there before lunch, if the weather is good.”
“I’ve been so worried about you since you enlisted in the army. I was worried that you might be shot, or captured.…”
“…Mom, we have been over this before. I was stationed about as far from any action as you could get. Frank Jackson had to let us girls enlist, but he didn’t have to put us any place where we might get hurt. The duty in Wurzburg wasn’t what you could call exciting. But the money was okay, and it all came here like I planned.”
Addie poured herself some hot water for tea, and one for her daughter. As she got the tea caddy out of the cabinet, she lost her balance slightly and clutched at the countertop. Mary saw it, and ignored it. She knew her mother wouldn’t want to make a fuss, so Mary kept quiet.
Addie turned back to Mary, and began to fix the tea. Mary could see that she was holding back her emotions. Addie chatted nervously. “Dear Lord, these down-timers like the most gaudy flower arrangements we can come up with. And the colors! Never knew that Baroque was so ugly sometimes. It’s wild some of the stuff they like. Worse than the 1960s with all of the bold and bright stuff. And what we can get for arrangements now is pricing most folks out of the market. Trouble is, there aren’t enough flowers, and we are starting to get into making silk and paper ones. Origami too. The louder the better.”
Mary stood up from the kitchen table, took the teapot from her mother’s hands and set it aside. They hugged for a time. “Mom, all the money I make is coming here. You should be able to hire someone to come in and look after you a couple of days a week, and if you need to visit doctors, there should be no problems. I’m doing this for you and Dad, you know that, don’t you?”
They stood and hugged in the tiny bright kitchen. Finally, her mother broke the embrace, turned to the sink, grabbed one of the dishtowels hanging nearby, and wiped her eyes and then her hands in quick succession. She finally turned back to face Mary. “Are you sure this is what you want to do? Fly away to the middle of Austria and play nanny?”
“Well, first of all it isn’t Austria. At least not yet. It’s Tyrol, controlled by Claudia de Medici. It’s her kingdom, or dukedom, or some such thing. She’s the regent, her son is technically the ruler. But she is in charge.” Mary took both of her mother’s hands in hers. “Mom. I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I’m not even twenty. I didn’t know up-time and I don’t know down-time. But, what I do know is that whatever it is I choose to do will be harder than what it would have been back home. Nobody—nothing is equal, things are all out of kilter and angled towards those with the positions. Maybe that’s why I’m going there, to see how it’s supposed to work with the folks who run things in this world. The muckety-mucks. You always said it wasn’t what you knew, but who you knew, didn’t you?”
“They don’t even have plumbing.”
“Mom. Seriously. They didn’t in Wurzburg either. And I’m taking cheat sheets. Plumbing is one that always gets asked about. One of the Nasi spy-clan gave me a batch of them from the library, including some stuff on accounting, the Federal Reserve System and a bunch of others. All in a folio. Also some other books, and some things for decoding messages and such. Most of it will have to come overland, though—I need to keep it light for the airplane. I can’t take much luggage.”
“Wear something nice on the plane, and maybe someday we can come and visit you.”
“I will. I don’t like skirts, haven’t worn one in years, don’t want to wear one now. Besides, who knows how far I will have to ride, or walk or whatever, before I get there?”
Her mother sat down at the table, and started to stir her tea. She finally smiled a little. “Will you really be living in a castle?”
Mary nodded, sitting next to her. “Yes, that’s what they say. Tratzberg Castle, about 15 miles out of Innsbruck on the Inn River.”