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Chapter 8: Home

Monday, September 18, 1634


Those members of NESS left in Grantville were starting the third week of most of the men being away on the Frankfurt mission. Ursula and the babies were doing well. Anna was fretting that she had not gone into labor yet. Agathe was basically running the apartments with some assistance from Astrid.

Karl had been working at the blacksmith on a project for Neustatter. Over the summer, the Grantville Fire Department had rescued a woman partway up the Ring Wall. Neustatter had wondered how, then learned about carabiners. Karl allowed that if he teamed up with a watchmaker who could handle the springs, he could probably make one for each NESS agent.

Today, though, Wolfram, Stefan, and Karl were helping James Ennis and a work crew build the bridge.

Shortly before noon, a messenger came to the office.

“Telegram for Miss Astrid Schäubin, from Edgar Neustatter,” he announced.

Astrid paid him and read the message. Hjalmar was hurt? A battle against dragoons? She read the telegram a second time. “HJALMAR MINOR CUTS SAYS TOO SMALL TO COUNT AND DONT WORRY YOU”—Ja, that sounded like Hjalmar. For a moment, she wondered if Neustatter were downplaying the seriousness of Hjalmar’s injuries. Nein—if it were serious, Ditmar would have added something. Then she recalled hearing something about kidnappings in the Fulda area and decided to leave early for class and read the newspapers at the library.

Astrid noted that the mission was definitely behind schedule and that Neustatter’s estimated return date allowed for an equal delay on the return trip. She hoped they did not plan on fighting their way through dragoons again. She also made a note to look up the difference between dragoons and cavalry.

Then she walked over to the work site to bring the men up to date. They were clustered around one of the workmen, an older man, who was pointing something out.

“The bridge will need a support right here, unless you are going to use a rigid metal frame.”

“Absolutely,” James Ennis agreed. “I’m thinking a pair of pilings here, and a pair on the other side. Metal is out—too expensive.”

“How big around?”

“Big,” James answered. “Whole tree trunks, not four-by-fours.”

“Sturdy,” the workman muttered, “but plain. Bridges should be beautiful.”

James laughed. “Most of the time, we are just trying to get troops across a creek. It just needs to work.”

“What about a carved figure?”

“Wh-what?” James Ennis looked mystified. “Why?”

“Because once you cut a tree down, straight, unadorned wood is ugly. It ought to be art.”

“You are supposed to be a carpenter.”

“I carve. My journeyman work was . . . ”

James Ennis just shook his head. “I forget sometimes. Welcome to the seventeenth century. What do you want to carve, and how much is it going to cost me?”

“I want to carve the support, of course.”

Astrid saw James blink. “What kind of art goes under a bridge?” he asked. Then his confusion was replaced by a suspicious look. “You aren’t going to carve a troll, are you? Did Julia put you up to this?”

This looked to Astrid like a good time to interrupt. “I just heard from Neustatter!”

Karl, Wolfram, and Stefan clustered around her. She read the telegram to them.

“We should go,” Stefan said.

“Nein, we need more information,” Wolfram said. “Astrid, if the injuries were anything but minor, Neustatter would have asked me about them.”

Astrid exhaled. “Ja, he would have. Dank, Wolfram.” She read the telegram yet again. “Ja, you are right, Wolfram. I will read the newspapers at the library before class tonight. I heard about something going on in the Fulda area.”

At Grantville High School, she looked through the last ten days of newspapers at the State Library. Someone had kidnapped the up-time administrators in Fulda. Some of them had already been found. The mercenaries NESS had fought were probably involved in that. Well, if I can figure that out, I am sure those on the scene can, too. Some weeks later, Astrid decided she should have paid as much attention to the discussion about a carved troll as to trying to figure out the details of what had happened out by Fulda.

Astrid had found out how to learn more about cooking: there was a class. It had already started, but she was able to talk her way into joining it in the second week. That gave her two classes this fall. The other was an introduction to business class.

Tonight, the cooking class would be in a classroom. They were learning about nutrition. She found it interesting, but it was easy to get lost in the details of vitamins and minerals and so on. It was good to know the why behind up-timer advice, but it was possible to overdo it, to miss the forest for the trees. Sure, she could add up RDA percentages, but she also understood why some people summarized all the nutrition advice as “eat more meat and vegetables.” Or even simpler: eat more food. Astrid was thankful they had enough.

She was going to have to talk to Neustatter, Ursula, and Leigh Ann about having a garden at the Kimberly Heights apartments. It did not need to be complicated, just what they needed most often: kale, cabbage, potatoes, onions, carrots. Up-time carrots were strange. They tasted fine, but Astrid had a hard time getting used to something orange tasting like a carrot.


Wednesday, September 20, 1634


Two days later, Astrid was spending a quiet afternoon updating NESS’ files when the office door flew open. Agathe Pfeffer burst in.

“Anna has gone into labor!”

“Is Ursula with her?” Astrid asked.

“Ja.”

“Gut. Go back, bitte. She will be nervous. You have children. Tell her everything will be okay. I will send Wolfram and then go get one of those horse litters.”

Agathe hurried off. Astrid pulled the door shut and ran off in the other direction, a short distance east on Route 250, left on Riverfront Park Road and down a steep hill. The men were working on the bridge.

She skidded halfway down the hill. “Wolfram! Wolfram! Anna is in labor!”

Wolfram’s head came up. He set down the timber he was carrying and raced up the hill toward her.

“How is she? How far apart are—?”

“Agathe just ran over and told me. She is on her way back now. Go catch up. I will bring a horse litter so we can take her to Leahy.”

By the time Astrid returned to the apartments with a horse litter, Wolfram had eased Anna downstairs and was carrying her go bag. Agathe went with them.

“As you say, I have been through this before,” she murmured. “You . . . ”

“Have not,” Astrid agreed.

“Nor anytime soon?” Agathe smiled mischievously.

“Ha! I am nowhere near old enough to marry and start a family.”

They got Anna to Leahy. The nurse who checked her in began asking questions. Her eyes widened when Wolfram rattled off Anna’s current status in medical language that was only pretending to be Amideutsch. But Astrid could tell that it sped things up. When they wheeled Anna into a delivery room, Astrid excused herself and took little Elisabetha with her. She had a pretty shrewd idea that she was going to be the one responsible for the children and for dinner.

By the time the school bus dropped off Johann and Wilhelm, Elisabetha was up from her nap and watching with interest as Astrid figured out dinner.

“Mutti says not to play with our food,” Elisabetha said.

“I am not playing with it. I am cooking it.”

“It looks like playing.”

“Do you want to help?” Astrid pointed to what would be roast mutton, mashed potatoes, gravy, and, since she had been thinking about them last night, carrots. “That is for tonight.” Then she pointed to a lot of other food that the Pfeffers had bought this morning. “That is for next week.”

“Next week? Why?”

“I am going to make something called sauerbraten,” Astrid told her. “I have to mix all this up”—she gestured at the vegetables and spices—“and soak the meat in it for a week.”

“Ewww! Yucky,” the four-year-old pronounced. In no way did this stop her from enthusiastically stirring the mixture as Astrid put it together. She just had no intention of eating it.

Elisabetha took a break from stirring. “This is a lot of food.”

“It is for when all the men come home. They will eat a lot.”

Later, Elisabetha was skeptical about the mutton, potatoes, and carrots. Astrid got her to eat a small portion by leaving off the gravy. The boys wolfed it down. Astrid had no illusion that that meant they liked her cooking in particular. They tended to eat everything in sight regardless of who cooked it. Hjalmar and Ditmar had been like that, too. The men did the same—they had been working on the bridge all day. But Ursula said Astrid’s cooking was coming along, which she took as high praise indeed.

Agathe came in late in the evening.

“Anna had a little girl. She looks just her,” she reported. “They named her Kristina, after the princess. They are both well.”


Saturday, September 23, 1634


Anna and little Kristina came home three days later. It quickly became apparent that with three infants, no one in that apartment was going to get much sleep. The nearby townhouses looked nearly finished. Astrid made a note to talk to Neustatter about that as soon as the teams returned.

The other thing Astrid had not anticipated was how much laundry three infants produced. That started to take a lot of their time, but she steadfastly refused to shorten NESS’ office hours. They did get a couple short missions in the local area. Stefan and Karl were only too happy to take them. Wolfram did not like not being able to fuss over Anna—Kristina had him wrapped around her little finger already—but Astrid thought he needed the break. Then there was a shipment that required four guards, so that day she did close the office and went on the mission. Having four agents was probably an excessive precaution, but the client insisted on it.


Wednesday, September 27, 1634


The following week, a number of prospective clients came to the office, and Astrid added several assignments to the calendar. On Wednesday, one of them let it drop that he’d seen the newspaper article. Astrid made polite noises. As soon as she closed the office for the day, she went straight to the library and searched the newspapers.

It wasn’t hard to find. They’d simply been too busy with Kristina’s birth to have read the papers. All the papers had articles on the rescue of the administrators in Fulda. The Grantville Times had the human-interest stories, including one about the village of Flieden having been attacked. It wasn’t clear that this had anything to do with the kidnapping of the up-time administrators in Fulda, but the reporter sure seemed to think so. Freiheit! focused on the treachery of some of the niederadel. The Grantville Daily News concentrated on the big picture. The Grantville Freie Presse had the timeline of events and several sidebars, including the Battle of Flieden. Some of the specifics didn’t sound like how Neustatter operated at all, so Astrid maintained a healthy skepticism toward the reported details. She shared the information with the others over dinner.


Sunday, October 1, 1634


The same messenger delivered another telegram. Neustatter had sent this one from Erfurt on September 29, and it said he expected the men to arrive in two more days.

After church on Sunday, Karl went to the office while Astrid prepared dinner. NESS wasn’t open on Sunday; it was just where the telephone was.

Astrid thought they would probably eat around eight in the evening—NESS seemed to have a pattern of returning from missions or National Guard duty in the evening, and the telegram had said they would need to take care of the horses. She wasn’t sure why Neustatter had bothered to include that. It was standard procedure.

Sooner than Astrid expected, Karl burst into the apartment.

“What is it, Karl?”

“Neustatter just called the office from downtown. They came in the west side of the Ring, and they’re riding through town. He said we have just enough time meet them at the office in uniform.” He dashed next door to tell Stefan and Wolfram.

“I will watch dinner cook,” Agathe Pfeffer assured Astrid. “Go.”

Neustatter normally did not stand on ceremony. But Astrid was sure he had his reasons. She quickly changed clothes to her tan blouse and skorts, buckled her gun belt, pulled on the heavy blue coat, and hurried down the stairs while tying her halstuch.

“I think we should be in formation,” Karl said.

Shadows were starting to lengthen, and a fair number of people were out and about. Some of them were on their way to evening church services. Others were visiting or en route to one of Grantville’s restaurants. The NESS agents definitely attracted attention as they marched in pairs up Route 250 to the office. Wolfram and Astrid were in front, pistols holstered at their sides. Karl and Stefan were behind them with their rifles at shoulder arms.

Astrid could hear Johann following them, and it sounded like he was gathering up some friends from the Kimberly Heights/Freeman Street/Porter Avenue neighborhood.

Karl wheeled them into line outside the office door. He and Stefan ordered arms, holding the rifles at their sides.

* * *

A sharp whistle from Neustatter brought the wagon train to a halt. They’d left Grantville twenty-six days ago. They were tired and scruffy and, now that they were in safe territory, had gotten somewhat spread out.

“Let’s finish this mission in good order!” Neustatter called. “Team Two, take point. Jakob, do you think you can handle a horse?”

Jakob was already scrambling down from Heinrich’s wagon and moving to untie his horse from the back of the wagon.

“Lukas, Phillip, untie the colors from Lorenz’s wagon. We will ride next with the four wagons right behind us. Ditmar, Team One has rear guard. Pistols holstered, long arms out and across the saddle.

“Remember it would not have worked if Flieden had not stayed and fought for their homes and if the Fulda Barracks Regiment had not arrived—but y’all done gut. Let’s go.”

They passed through the gap Birdie Newhouse had blasted in the Ring Wall. As they rode down Buffalo Street, a few people waved to them. It was late enough in the day that Neustatter figured they could use Market Street and Route 250.

Ditmar circled his horse back alongside Neustatter long enough to tell him, “Neustatter, there’s a rank of Bretagne’s Company up ahead. I can see their buff coats and feathers in their hats.”

Neustatter was leading his team with Lukas right behind him carrying Anna’s SoTF flag. Phillip was riding behind him with the NESS guidon. As they drew even with half a dozen men of Bretagne’s Company, Neustatter heard, “Present arms!”

“Present arms!” Neustatter ordered.

He saluted, and Phillip dipped the company guidon.

“Order arms!”

Neustatter heard one person on the street ask another what that was all about. He knew. It was a professional compliment, and Bretagne’s Company had taken the time to find out NESS’ itinerary to render honors. Those in the business respected what NESS had done at Flieden.

Well, most of them. Along Route 250, the wagon train passed a couple men from Schlinck’s Company.

“Boy Scouts!” one of them called out.

“Well, Schlinck and his men are still pains in the ass,” Lukas muttered none too quietly.

Neustatter had to laugh. “Ja, they are.”

They dropped Ernst Wunderlich off at the machine shop with a round of handshakes and rode out toward home.

Hjalmar turned his horse onto the gravel at the far end of office building and rode back past the office.

His sister ordered, “Present arms!” After exchanging salutes with the four NESS agents lined up outside the office, Neustatter ordered, “Dismount and fall out!”

Hjalmar slid from the saddle, and military protocol dissolved into handshakes and backslaps. Astrid ran up and hugged him.

“You look good. Are you really okay?”

“I was just a little cut up. It is mostly healed now.” He put a finger to his forehead where there was still a scratch.

‘Everyone else?”

“Jakob is getting better. Neustatter has a small cut to the ribs.”

Astrid frowned. “That was not in the telegram.”

Her brother shrugged. “Everyone else is fine. Tired, of course, und we are not done yet. We need to take care of the horses.”

“I remember you left here with six. Where did all these come from?”

“We captured them. It is a long story.”

“Miss Schäubin!” Neustatter made his way over.

“Neustatter. Welcome home. Is everyone really okay? Hjalmar? You? Jakob?”

“We are. Can you gather the families? We may as well tell the story to everyone at once.”

“They are at the apartments. Hjalmar said you need to take care of the horses. Dinner will be ready when you are done there.”

Neustatter smiled. “It’s good to be home.”

The men were at the livery stable longer than Astrid expected, but she did not know at the time that Neustatter and the teamsters were making arrangements for a couple more pools of timeshare horses. The delay was good, though, because it gave Astrid and Agathe time to finish preparing dinner.

Sometime later, the three teams returned.

“Smells good!” Stefan proclaimed. He looked around and did not see Ursula. “Agathe?”

“Mostly Astrid,” Agathe told him.

Astrid detected some skepticism, but Stefan did not actually say anything. She was nervous about how dinner would taste, so she remained quiet as well.

Once they began eating, though, she could tell everyone liked it. Well, everyone except Elisabetha—she was spending more time telling about how they mixed the ingredients than actually eating.

“I see you made a solid investigation,” Neustatter commented.

“I do not know what you were investigating, but this is good,” Ditmar declared.

Astrid heard a couple muttered suggestions about making her one of the regular cooks and was horrified.

But Neustatter spoke up before she could. “Nein. We need Astrid in the field and running the office. In fact, Miss Schäubin, someone from the National Guard will interview us tomorrow—they call it debriefing. I would like you there, taking notes for our files. And Stefan, Wolfram, and Karl, so that we can walk you through what happened.”

Later, Astrid spoke to Neustatter privately. “Dank, Neustatter. I want to be able to cook, but I do not want to be the cook.”

Neustatter gave a crisp nod. “I agree. Do we have missions coming up?”

“Quite a few. NESS will be busy,” Astrid told him.

“And that is why you are not the cook.”

“I had nothing to do with it. The clients read the newspapers. You were mentioned in some of the stories. At least some of the papers think the battle in Flieden had something to do with the up-timers in Fulda being kidnapped.”

Neustatter waggled a hand. “Maybe.”

“I did not know about the newspaper articles until afterwards,” Astrid continued.

“But you still scheduled the missions,” Neustatter said. “Is that not how the up-time P.I.s got into trouble all the time? No missions, behind on paying their expenses, and then needing to take jobs even when something about them did not seem right?”

Astrid smiled. “Ja, that is what happened. In stories from up-time.”

“The important points are that we can avoid that problem, and you are making command decisions.”

Astrid frowned. “I will stop if you want, but clients want to hear that we can help them. If we do not put them on the calendar at once—”

Neustatter held up a hand. “I am not telling you to stop. I am asking you to continue.”

“Oh.”

“At Flieden, Ditmar reminded me not to assume that what a prisoner was trying to say was the answer that I wanted to hear. Hjalmar rode hard to alert the Fulda Barracks Regiment. Both of them fought well, of course. But, Miss Schäubin, I remembered that NESS has three Schaubs, not two. Keep making decisions.”

Astrid nodded slowly. If Neustatter wanted her to make those decisions herself, she’d keep doing so. And the form of address he’d used . . . 

Astrid figured she ought to just ask. “Neustatter? Do you remember when you took me to lunch to ask me to be a field agent? You said you had no romantic intentions.”

Neustatter gave her a crooked smile. “Still true, Miss Schäubin. And you?”

“The same.”

“I think we are too much alike.”

Astrid’s eyes widened. “Too alike?”

“Ja.” Neustatter waited a beat. “Ditmar spoke to me about it. I understand you already told him no.”

“I did.”

Neustatter nodded gravely. “NESS is family, and we are both very decisive. Imagine a husband and wife who are both used to making mission decisions. Now imagine a husband and wife whose approach complements each other.”

Astrid smiled. “I see what you mean. Except about me being a leader.”

“The rest of us had a six-year head start, Miss Schäubin. In the last two years, you have gained more than two years of ground on us.”


Monday, October 2, 1634


The men slept in the next day, getting a well-deserved break. After lunch, they gathered in the office. The SoTF National Guard had sent an older man. He was short and stocky with a lot of gray in his hair. He wore a blue uniform with two silver bars on his shoulders and a satchel slung over one of them.

“I bin Leutnant Schmidt,” he stated.

“Leutnant,” Neustatter acknowledged. “Would you like a desk to take notes?”

“Dank.”

Schmidt sat at Neustatter’s desk. Astrid was seated at her own desk and studied Schmidt as he seated himself and prepared his ink and pen. She knew those bars were a captain’s rank. By calling himself a lieutenant, Schmidt had really told them he was with military intelligence. All of NESS’ agents were present, seated in chairs or leaning against a wall.

“I would like to begin by updating you on the situation in Fulda. All of the SoTF administrators have been recovered, but the archbishop is still missing. There have been a number of developments on other fronts as well.”

“Excuse me, Leutnant, bitte,” Neustatter looked to Astrid and raised an eyebrow. “What has happened elsewhere that we should know about, Miss Schäubin?”

She turned to that page in her notebook. “The Ram Rebellion ended with the capture of Schloss Bimbach and von Bimbach himself. General Banér captured Ingolstadt. Well, bribed the garrison, it sounds like, but Banér controls the city now. Emperor Ferdinand II died, and his son Ferdinand III now rules Austria. Prince Fernando of Spain married Duchess Maria Anna of Austria, and they rule the recombined Netherlands. The USE has a peace treaty with them.”

“Dank. We heard rumors about some of that.” Neustatter paused for thought. “Was Maria Anna not missing? How is she in the Netherlands?”

“Colonel Wood flew Prince Fernando to Basel to rescue her.”

“Oh. Well done. Good for them. And none of that has anything to do with the dragoons west of Fulda?”

“Not as far as we know,” Lieutenant Schmidt stated. “Which brings us to what did happen there. How did it begin? What did it feel like?”

“We were a day’s ride west of Fulda. It was cool but not cold. Ditmar’s team was in the lead, and there were woods on the right, almost all the way up to the road. . . . ”

Schmidt took continuous notes. Astrid did not think he wrote down the entire conversation, but he might have. He asked no questions yet, letting Neustatter and the other NESS agents speak. Sometime later, Neustatter concluded, “We continued on to Frankfurt, delivered the cargo, and reported in at Flieden, Fulda, and Erfurt on our way back. Some of Leutnant Mehler’s men went with us from Flieden to Fulda with a couple wagons of prisoners who were well enough to move.”

“Dank,” Schmidt said. “A number of questions occurred to me. . . . ”

Astrid already had pages and pages of notes. The men’s answers to Schmidt’s questions added more.

“Is that everything?” Schmidt finally asked and was answered by chorus of “Ja, Leutnant.”

“Very well. First, Leutnant Mehler reported that your defense of the village was outstanding. It was exactly what the National Guard would expect of the men who seem to special in derailing the Adler Pfeffer exercise.” Schmidt gave a small smile.

“Second, we believe the mercenaries you encountered probably were connected to what happened in Fulda. A unit in support or maybe just working for the same people. I have not received the report itself yet, but a couple of the prisoners you took gave us some useful information.”

“If I might make a suggestion, sir, Hauptmann O’Brien—the one we captured—should be offered a position,” Neustatter said.

“I think you can trust we will make that offer.”

At that point, Johann and Wilhelm stuck their heads in the door, having run right over after the school bus dropped them off at the apartments.

“Are all your families nearby?” Lieutenant Schmidt asked.

“Ja, they are at the apartments right now,” Neustatter answered.

“Dank.” Schmidt turned to Willi and Johann. “Boys, I have a mission for you—if you are interested.”

Two heads bobbed enthusiastically.

“Ask your families to come outside. We will be there in a few minutes.”

Astrid was not sure what Lieutenant Schmidt was up to, and she could tell that Hjalmar was wondering the same thing. Neustatter’s expression told her nothing, of course.

As we filed out the door, she heard Neustatter quietly ask, “Formation, sir? Colors?”

“That would be appropriate.”

Astrid decided that was the tone of a man who was up to something.

Neustatter raised his voice, but only a little. “Otto, point. Wolfram, rear guard. Ditmar, Hjalmar, colors. Twos.”

NESS slotted into formation smoothly. Astrid recognized it was a good formation for marching down Route 250. Flanking guards were not necessary; they would just end up in the opposite lane or in someone’s front yard. They turned onto Freeman Street. With a sidewalk from Freeman Street to Kimberly Heights, it did not take long to reach the apartments. Agathe and the older children had come downstairs, while Ursula and Anna and the babies were on the landing outside the door.

Neustatter maneuvered them into a single rank.

Lieutenant Schmidt removed something from his satchel before setting it on the ground. He stepped forward and raised his voice to the level of “official announcement.”

“Corporal Edgar Neustatter, having fought through a near ambush and captured enemy personnel and horses, then led his force to the nearest village where he organized the defense and sent for reinforcements. Under his leadership, the militia repulsed an attack and held until reinforcements arrived. He was then instrumental in defeating two companies of dragoons. His actions reflect great credit on himself, his men, and the State of Thuringia-Franconia National Guard. Edgar Neustatter is hereby promoted to leutnant.”

NESS uniforms had shoulder straps, so Lieutenant Schmidt pinned the lieutenant’s insignia there. Neustatter saluted crisply. Schmidt returned the salute.

For once, Astrid could read Neustatter. He seemed stunned. The rest of NESS started clapping.

“I understand that in the up-timers’ civil war, they put the names of battles they fought in on their flags.” Schmidt nodded toward where Hjalmar stood with the NESS guidon. “That is . . . unofficial, of course. But unofficially, you might think about adding Flieden.

“If you remember anything else, get word to me at Camp Saale, bitte. Excellent work.”

With that, not-Lieutenant Schmidt was gone.

NESS agents clustered around Neustatter, congratulating him. Once they had dispersed a bit, Astrid stepped up. With a mischievous smile, she said, “Congratulations . . . sir.”

Neustatter just shook his head and gestured at his new rank insignia. “I am sure I do not need this.”

“I think the National Guard recognized you ought to have it,” Astrid told him. “Und maybe they need you to have it. . . . Neustatter, where they need you, that’s home.”

“Could be.” He gave a lopsided grin. “I suppose I have made the occasional comment about what officer ought to do and not do. Reckon I ought to put those into practice, since you are right—we are home.”

* * *

The men had a week before the next mission.

Neustatter, the teamsters, and the livery stable worked out an agreement. NESS ended up with a percentage of the ownership in two timeshare pools of six horses each. As Johann put it, they got first dibs when they needed horses. Plus, unless all three teams started riding out on missions at the same time, they’d probably make a modest amount of money. The teamsters owned a percentage of the same pools. Since they seldom needed riding horses, they’d probably make a bit more than NESS. But they’d use some of that to buy into a pool of draft horses, which would give their company added stability. The livery stable certainly didn’t mind having another dozen trained horses available. It was a good deal for everyone.

The other big project that week was the bridge. The main supports were in, and the main trusses were in place. Karl fashioned the few metal braces required. The planks were next, and the rest of the men could help with that. The carpenter painstakingly made sure they were all straight. He started adding the railings. He had carved them with little figures about six inches high at each pole. Astrid recognized a dwarf, a Brillo, and a mermaid, among others.

She decided to leave those details out of the letter she was writing to Pastor Claussen. It would take pages to explain the relevant parts of up-time culture. This letter was already long, with the births of the babies and an account of the Battle of Flieden. She hoped it wasn’t too much trouble for Pastor Claussen to pass their news on to friends and family, especially to Anna’s mother and father. They ought to know they were grandparents.


Sunday, October 8, 1634


Kristina was baptized at St. Martin’s, too. Eighteen days old was late for a baptism, but Wolfram and Anna had waited for everyone on the NESS mission to return. All (Anna excepted) were at St. Martin’s on Sunday. Stefan and Ursula were the godparents, of course.

It was a lovely ceremony.

Astrid stopped in at the other apartment to congratulate Anna.

“Danke.” Anna grinned. “Now you need to find a young man.”

“Ha.”

Astrid thought she had better things to do—like finally remembering to take some reloaded brass to Georg Meisner to see if multiple sets of toolmarks really were visible on the casings.


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