“Well, actually, what he would like to do if he can is buy the land rather than rent it. Who owns the village?”
“Until January, the owner was Ludwig von Gleichen-Tonna, the count of Gleichen, but he died without issue and the ownership is in question. Herr Junker is running things because he holds the Lehen on the village. He got the Lehen from his mother. She was the illegitimate daughter of an uncle of Anna Agnes of Hohenlohe-Weikersheim, who was married to the brother of the count of Gleichen. Anna Agnes of Hohenlohe-Weikersheim is also the niece of William the Silent.”
Birdie wondered who William the Silent was. Someone important, obviously.
Ernst was tempted by gossip and yielded to temptation. “They say Lady Anna Agnes bought her cousin a marriage using the leases on Sundremda and some other villages. Herr Junker’s mama, she was high strung.”
Ernst wasn’t really sure about these people from the future buying his village. True, the up-timers had been fair, so far, but how would they treat the villagers if they owned the village? Would they have any need for tenants?
He decided to evade the problem, for the moment. “I really don’t know who you would see about buying part of the village.”
The soldier talked again to the up-timers then asked about buying the leases.
“That would be Herr Junker, but I doubt he would sell. He sets great store by the villages. They were his mama’s dowry.”
The soldier didn’t bother to consult before asking: “Is he the one to see about renting the parts of the village that aren’t rented now as well?”
“Yes. But, I have a question. We do more than plow, sew, and reap. Does Herr Newhouse have tools and machines that will do the other work the village needs?”
There was more discussion back and forth between the Scot and the up-timers.
“Some of it, yes,” the Scot finally said. “For the rest, he believes the village could support more non-farming families to help with the other work. Also, the Ring of Fire means that many things that would have to have been made locally can now be bought in Grantville. Brooms and such things could be bought, instead of being made here. Also, people can be hired as needed from Grantville.”
Ernst considered that for a while then nodded. “He should talk to Herr Junker then.”
More discussion took place. Then with a wink: “He also wanted to find out the rents. Herr Newhouse prefers not to bargain blind.”
Ernst wasn’t supposed to be in charge and he knew it. Mercenaries had hit the village a few weeks before the Ring of Fire and he had been sent off to Remda, while others had tried to delay the mercenaries. The delay had worked, but at a high cost. Most of the delaying force was dead. The village had been burned to the ground, and any animal they had been unable to evacuate or hide had either been butchered or taken by the mercenaries. Two days after their victory, the mercenaries had left, and the survivors had returned soon after that.
Ernst was convinced that the sickness that had afflicted the survivors was a result of their stay in Remda. During the next two weeks, disease had killed almost half the survivors.
Ernst had the village’s contracts with Herr Junker and the records of who was owed what. He knew about The Battle of the Crapper and believed it would be good to be connected to people that could defend the village. Still, Ernst was a bit nervous about the up-timers. He did show them the record books and helped to explain what each clause meant, but he didn’t tell them everything. For instance, he didn’t mention what Herr Junker had said about offering new tenants a break on the rent. The break would only be good for a few years, just to help the tenants to get started.
“Claus Junker is a good Lehen holder. He is knowledgeable and reasonable about the rent, but he is stuffy. His mother was of noble blood even if she was born on the wrong side of the blanket. He expects to be treated like a von Somewhere. We humor him, and he treats us well.”
The Scot laughed. “That could be a problem. These up-timers have enough trouble treating a real noble like a noble. I don’t know how they’d do with someone who just thinks he’s a noble.” Then the Scot turned to the up-timers to explain his comment.
* * *
“I don’t suppose you could explain what ‘Lehen’ means, can you?” Birdie asked McTavish.
“Nah,” McTavish answered. “It’s not always the same thing. Sometimes the holder of the Lehen has the right to collect rents, but the laird has the right to do all the bossing around of the folk. Other times, the holder of the Lehen does all the bossing. Sometimes the laird still lives in the district, and can put a stop to problems. Sometimes, he only comes to hunt. Tis verra confusing.”
“Are you saying that I could rent this farm, and some joker could still come and tell me how to do my business?”
“I’m not sure. Might be.” McTavish grinned. “Reckon it’ll be fun finding out, won’t it?”
* * *
“They have no concept of their place in the world.” Claus Junker complained again.
His wife Clara, though in basic agreement, had heard it all before.
With the up-timers’ proven knowledge and ability, they should have been acting like nobility. Instead, they permitted the marriage of a camp follower to one of their young men. That support was a slap in the face for all the nobility.
Claus felt this slap especially keenly because he wasn’t quite noble. His mother had been of noble blood but his father was no more than a wealthy merchant. His parents hadn’t had a very happy marriage. His father had married because that’s what his family wanted. His mother had felt that she was being married beneath her station and had virtually been forced by her family to accept the marriage. It hadn’t taken long before both had become convinced that they had gotten the worst of the deal. The result was that Claus’ mother had focused on her pedigree, clouded as it was, and impressed her son with his rank and the noble blood of his ancestry. He had been her pet, and had not gotten along with his father.
Clara had known all this for years. She was the daughter of another wealthy property owner. Her marriage to Claus, while more romantic than his parent’s marriage had been, had still had a significant mercantile component.
Sometimes Clara felt that Claus’ emotions got in the way of his normal good sense. Areas like his unreasonable rejection of certain offers from certain up-timers. Not to mention the way he objected when she ventured to offer an opinion on his business ventures. Clara had been raised to be the wife of a man of business like her father and brother, the social half of the equation and a help in business matters. Claus was all right with the social part but less comfortable than her family with the business part.
She manipulated Claus subtly, which didn’t come naturally to her. Still, she had had a lot of practice over the years. “Yes, Husband, but we must still deal with them, like it or not. They have the force of arms to coerce our compliance. Besides, they don’t seem to have the subtlety of nobles. With care, these up-timers should be easy enough to manipulate to our profit.”
“And how, my dear wife, do we profit by the loss of our lands? The Ring of Fire took land that had been in my mother’s family for over a hundred years and replaced it with this West Virginia. The Ring of Fire left people that will not recognize my claim or pay my rents. How does that profit us? Now, to add insult to injury, this Newhouse person calmly informs me that he would like the rest of Sundremda to add to what he’s already living on.”
“All these things haven’t been decided, not yet. The up-timers talked about reasonable compensation when they met with the council,” Clara answered. “Besides, it’s all the more reason to do business with them. Doing business offers the opportunity to regain at least a part of what we have lost. If we refuse to talk to them or deal with them, how can we persuade them that our claims are truly just?” This isn’t going very well, Clara thought as she spoke.
The paper Claus was waving about as he talked was the problem. The paper contained an offer to buy both the land and rents for five farming plots in the village of Sundremda. Herr Newhouse wanted to gain clear title to the land if he could. He offered what Clara considered a fair price for it. If that wasn’t possible he wanted to buy, for less money, the rents for the same five farming plots. Failing that, in turn, he offered to rent the five plots for a lot less money.
It was clear that Mr. Newhouse wanted to actually farm the land, whether as owner, Lehen holder or tenant. The offer was for far more land than would normally be used by a single farming family, and it included provisions to treat the “tractor” as a replacement for several teams of horses. How did one judge the value of a tractor? If tractors were as good as the reports suggested, perhaps it could replace several teams of horses.
The offer was a godsend for the Junker family. The village farms would be fully rented and that would be a windfall. The Junkers had expected to lose most of the rent this year and probably next year as well. This farmer, Mr. Newhouse, had done his homework. He was offering what the other farmers in the village paid, maybe a little less, but that was understandable, given the circumstances.
Claus’ problem with the offer was that it came from Mr. Newhouse. Mr. Newhouse’s farm within the Ring of Fire was on land that would have been part of Sundremda, if the Ring of Fire had not happened. Claus had inherited the Lehen for that land from his mother. To Claus, it seemed the Ring of Fire had deposited squatters. Worse, they were squatters who then refused to pay his lawfully due rent. The fact that the land that was there now was worth considerably more than the bit of forest that had been there before only made it worse.
“Very well, then. We will see if we can profit from these rich up-timers.” As Claus sat down and began to write, Clara shook her head and retreated. You could only push Claus so far before he snapped back hard. At least he would respond, and perhaps he was even accepting the offer.
* * *
The letter to the lawyer representing Birdie Newhouse was polite enough.
“Please inform Herr Newhouse that there is no one available at this time from whom he could purchase the property in question. Further, I will not consider the sale of the rents in question because they are an inheritance from my noble mother and have great sentimental value. Finally, the Ring of Fire has caused an unfortunate loss in revenues by removing lands owned by my family for generations. Herr Newhouse is now living on some of that land. Due to this loss, I will be forced to charge higher rents to new tenants than had previously been my policy. Surely, with the greater efficiencies of his mechanical arts, he can afford these higher rents.”
The letter went on to suggest a rent four times as high as Birdie’s original offer.
The letter came at a bad time. Birdie was having some problems of his own. The old tractor was high on the repair list because farming equipment came right after military needs, but that didn’t change the cost of the repairs. The tractor was going to have to be taken completely apart and several parts would have to be especially machined before the tractor would work again. The tractor would also need to be converted to the use of natural gas. The cost of repairing the old tractor left Birdie stuck between a rock and a hard place.
If he had the old tractor fixed and then sold it to the grange Willie Ray was setting up, he might break even on the deal. To make any profit from selling a tractor, he was going to have to sell the newer tractor. Birdie would have to sell the tractor with the enclosed cab, heat, air conditioning, tape deck, and more horse power. Birdie loved that tractor.
So, when the lawyer from Badenburg brought Claus Junker’s counter offer, Birdie was quick to suggest that Claus Junker depart to have intimate relations with an aquatic avian that quacks. This, in the cruder form that Birdie used, was Birdie’s favorite expletive phrase, and was also the main reason he was called Birdie. Well, his given name, Larkin, might have had something to do with it, too.
After refusing Junker’s counter offer, Birdie then proceeded to go looking for better deals. The news was not great. It turned out that buying land mostly amounted to buying it three times. First, you had to buy the land, then you had to buy any Lehen that existed on the rents, and finally you wound up buying out the contracts with the tenant farmers. This didn’t just mean three price tags. It meant getting lots of people to agree. All the people involved knew that one holdout could blow the deal. It took lots of money or lots of clout or both. Birdie imagined that it was something like putting together a big real-estate deal up-time. Just renting he could do. He could lease four or five sections and end up with about the same amount of land to farm, but those sections were spread out among two or three villages. Birdie wasn’t the only up-time farmer looking for land.
Grantville wasn’t a farming community because it was in a part of West Virginia that wasn’t farming country. The hills were too steep and the valleys too narrow. When the few farmers in the area realized that they needed to grow more than hay for their horses or corn for moonshine, and especially after Willie Ray-that duckfucker-had gone around pointing out the benefits of renting land, most of them started looking for better land to farm outside the Ring of Fire.
* * *