Grantville Gazette, Volume 40 (29 page)

Being related to a well-known family, he could easily start his study at the oldest university in the western world, possibly the entire world. As early as the fourteenth century, the university had expanded from the classical faculties into the
universitates del arte
,where not only arts but also natural sciences were taught.

It had been no problem for her to adapt into a strictly male world. Since she was supported by her relatives, she managed to keep away from most of the social events at the university. The women in her family were eager to observe her secret adventure.

Fortunately, her figure supported this role. Her mother had always detested when she wore boys' clothes, and she had been ecstatic when Max tried her dress for the masque. The current fashion preferred women with no breasts, which suited Max perfectly.

And since there was no custom to bathe or shower in public in Italy or the other Catholic countries, she hadn't been in danger of showing her lower body to anyone in Bologna.

Completely contrary to Grantville. The first horror came when they told her to have a shower in the so-called sanitation center
. Naked! Completely naked!
It had taken a certain amount of brainpower and dexterity to hide her front from all the other men in the showers. Fortunately, they had been in so much of a panic, nobody took a look in her direction.

And she could prove to them that her other clothes were clean enough, so she wasn't forced into one of their ghastly robes, which tended to open at inappropriate places.

She was absolutely certain that this sanitation center was the place where the American nobles chose their courtesans under the false pretext of cleaning.

When she took her first dinner in the "Thuringen" Gardens (
What have they done to the ü?
), she noticed that the American girls' fashion supported this opinion. They showed more naked flesh than any courtesan in Rome. This was obviously a kind of contest between them.

All these girls were well endowed and taller than Max. But she had heard from her cousins in Bologna that most men preferred variety in their sexual relationships, so it would be better to stay a man. At least for now. At least until she knew more about the manners and customs of these Americans.

And then somehow it was too late. Too many citizens of Grantville knew her as a man. How could she be sure that they wouldn't declare her an outlaw like they had done to some men? Wanted posters were still hanging around that showed July 5, 1631 as an ultimatum. She did not intend to be "killed with no questions asked."

No Americans had ever talked to her about their attitudes to what their magazines called
cross-dressing
. And, of course, Max could not raise that topic. She had found no American law forbidding this, but she had often heard bad jokes about homosexuals. She was nohomosexual, but how could she prove this? Her complete livelihood was at stake.

No! It had to remain
his
livelihood. It was
his
life. And except for that petty issue, it was a very good life.

And now it was over. The duke knew Max was no man. What a catastrophe!

Something in Max decided to collapse together with her world. Her last thought was "He wants
what
?"

****

Christine had the impression that the young man—the young woman disguised as a man—on the other couch suddenly could not breathe. Max's eyes widened, then suddenly closed, and her body collapsed on the couch.

Johann began to rise and it seemed that he wanted to help, but she held him back. "No. This is now women's business. You are definitely tired after this long work day and should retire to your bed. And perhaps ask the Lord in your evening prayer to give you a little more brain and understanding for women. Whom do you think you were speaking to? Your mare or your hunting bitch? Go and disappear at once! And don't expect a visit from me in your bed this night."

The underlying smile showed that these words were only meant to be half-severe.

Johann kissed her on her forehead a little grumpily, growling "Good night," and left.

Christine sat down next to Max, smiling at the young woman, then lifted Max's head and put it into her lap. As she stroked Max's cheek with her hand, she noticed that the young woman was regaining consciousness.

Dark eyes opened slightly. An absent look up to the ceiling of the room. A slight shudder like a cat feeling comfortable. Max's eyes traveled up and down, then suddenly opened wide. Her whole body flinched as if hit by a whip.

"Shhh. Be quiet! You are among friends." Christine managed to keep the girl's body down. Yes, in this moment Max looked very like a little child frightened
vom Schwarzen Mann
. Like she had become lost in the wood and expected the bogeyman behind the next tree.

"But—" Max tried to sit up, but Christine held her with strong, friendly arms and a warm hand on her cheek.

"How do you know? Who told the duke? What—"

"Shhh. Don't worry! Forget this . . .man." Christine nearly put some disgust into the last word, but then laughed ruefully. "But I think I have to confess now . . ."

Stadtschloss of the Duke of Sachsen-Eisenach, Eisenach, Thuringia

August 1633

Duke Johann Ernst von Sachsen-Eisenach showed an inappropriate haste, rushing into his wife's study. "Christine, I've got it."

The duchess looked up from the letters and books which were spread over her large desk. Her eyes could be seen over the rim of her spectacles, her gaze was half-annoyed, half-loving. "Yes,
Hoheit
, you've got it. And, if I may ask,
what
have you got?"

Irony was wasted. The duke was at full speed. "I've just received a report from Samuel's cousin Ruben in Grantville. He tells me about a young architect, who seems to strike even the up-timers with his extraordinary talent of drawing. And he is a German! And a Lutheran! Perfect!"

Christine knew that the duke's pet project of reconstructing the Wartburg in a "modern" style had nearly been abandoned because he could not find an architect who could meet his requirements. He wanted a German, he wanted a Lutheran, he wanted someone who could adapt the pictures in these up-timer books to something completely new and overwhelming and modern and majestic and . . .

She knew her husband was not a man who detested foreigners or believers of other religions, but he held the strong conviction that only a Lutheran could understand what the Wartburg meant for all the Lutherans in Germany, Europe, and the whole world.

And that only a German could understand what the Wartburg meant for all the Germans. One of the up-timer books had in fact had a note that in the year 2000 the Wartburg was calculated as the geographical center of Germany.

Johann wanted to restore this image. And—according to other of these infernal books—he didn't have much time for this. He had, after his brother's death last month, learned that there were only a few years left until his own death, sometime between 1636 and 1640.

He intended to finish the reconstruction work in time for the one hundred twentieth anniversary of Martin Luther's nailing of the ninety-five theses to the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. He wanted to live at least up to October 31, 1637.

His investigators had not found a cause of death in any book, so he had no idea if the death was avoidable. He had already decided to change his diet drastically. Someone in Grantville had told him that Jewish kosher food—
kashrut
—was much healthier than the fat meals the German nobility was accustomed to. Fat was bad for the heart, they said.

So he had urged Samuel's wife Ruth to take over the kitchen. And the result was . . . not bad.

But back to the current issue. Christine asked absentmindedly: "Do you know the name of this formidable guy?"

"Oh, yes. He's Maximilian von Pasqualini. It seems he is a great-grandson of the famous Alessandro Pasqualini from Jülich. And since Alessandro immigrated in 1549, he's a third generation German."

"No, that is not possible. They are nearly extinct and in this generation there is no Maximilian. Or do you speak of Maximiliane, the daughter of Alexander and this Brabant girl, Maria?"

"What?"

"Do you need my hearing aid? Or don't you believe in my expertise?"

None of the two possibilities applied to the duke in the moment. His hearing was much better than his wife's, and he would never dare to question her knowledge in the genealogy of Germany's nobility.

In fact, as was obvious from the content of her desk, she maintained extensive correspondence with many other courts in Germany, not only to get the newest gossip, but mostly to be up-to-date with all births, marriages and deaths in the upper and some of the lower nobility.

Many worried prospective mothers-in-law wrote her to get a partner-horoscope for their children and the prospective spouses. So she mostly knew at least date and place of birth for all of them. And since she had done that for more than thirty years, she had collected an enormous amount of data. In her memory and in her books.

Christine rose, went to one of the shelves and seized one of the heavy tomes. She dropped it on the desk, turned some hundred pages, and pointed.

"Look here! The Pasqualinis from Alessandro till today. Here is Alexander von Pasqualini: May 13, 1605, three o'clock in the afternoon in Wesel. Maria van Megen gives birth to a girl christened Maximiliane. And above: Dead, dead, dead, all older children deceased. And below: Dead, dead. All younger children deceased.

"Over here is Johann, Alexander's brother. Died in 1615. No living children. Those are the facts."

"But—"

"There is no but. Either your wonderful young architect is an impostor or a woman. What is worse for you? And don't say something wrong."

This was a very peculiar moment. He wouldn't dare to fail now. "Ah . . . ahem . . . if 'he' is in fact this Maximiliane woman, she would be a German and a Lutheran?"

"A German of course, born in Wesel, do you remember? A Lutheran, possible, and I can verify this. As far as I remember the duchies of Jülich-Kleve-Berg were very mixed before the succession war, but if your spy in Grantville tells you that she attends the Lutheran services, there is nothing which forces her to do so. And I can ask for the whereabouts of Maximiliane."

Stadtschloss of the Duke of Sachsen-Eisenach, Eisenach, Thuringia

September 1633

Christine von Hessen-Kassel showed an inappropriate haste, rushing into her husband's study. "Johann, we've got it."

The duke looked up from the sketches and books which were spread over his large desk. His eyes could be seen over the rim of his spectacles, his gaze was half-annoyed, half-loving. "Yes,
Hoheit
, we've got it. And, if I may ask,
what
have we got?"

"Are you kidding? Here it is, and here." Christine put two large sheets of paper on the desk before her husband.

Johann Ernst could see a large amount of connected boxes and triangles on the first one, with many nondescript scribblings at the edges. The other one contained a multitude of concentric circles with many straight lines in the innermost one. Many more nondescript scribblings. The duke could identify the symbols of the zodiac in the outermost rim. And more to the center were the symbols of the planets. But there were more than the common eight ones.

"What is this?" he asked.

"Oh, my Lord, give brain to the men! These are horoscopes."

"I know that this is a horoscope." He pointed to the first one. "Living next to an astrologer for thirty-five years didn't leave me a complete ignoramus. And as far as I can see, this is the birth horoscope for someone born May 13, 1605 in Wesel—this is Maximiliane. Right?"

"I love you!" Christine passionately kissed Johann's cheek. "You are so clever!"

She sat down on her husband's lap, hugging him with one arm and pointing out details on the other sheet.

"This is the same horoscope up-time style. Since there is no up-time astrologer available, I had to learn it from the books. And it was an enormous amount of trouble to calculate all the correct positions for the new planets and moons. Fortunately somebody came up with a horoscope program for their wonderful computers and they charged only one hundred dollars for the complete calculation and printout."

Only
, the duke thought. Then aloud, "And what did you learn?"

She produced another horoscope.
More dollars.
It contained more lines in the middle in blue and red and black.
Color print.Many more dollars.

"This is a triple-partner-horoscope. I was astonished that the program could produce this. It tells about the connections between three persons. Can you see the complete triple conjunction in the seventh house? This is won-der-ful!"

"Oh, yes. What?"

Her left arm stopped hugging, and her hand gave him a slap on the back of the head. "You stupid man." Then she kissed him—more passionately—directly on the mouth.

He could live with occasional slaps, when they were followed by this kind of kiss.

"The conjunction in the seventh house is the strongest sign for emotional compatibility." This was her teaching voice. He knew he had to concentrate on the subject. "And here is Venus ruling the fifth house. And the fifth house is the—"