January 7 (Christmas Day, Julian), 1634, Erfurt, USE
Snow flew into the old smokehouse as he entered. Colonel David Leslie stomped the slush off his boots, leaned his SRG rifle against the wall, and closed the door behind him. He pulled his cape off, shook it and hung on the peg beside the doorway, then lit the candle stub he had left on the table this morning. He fiddled with his new iron campstove until a somewhat out of place, cheery flame took hold of the kindling.
Flopping down on his cot, Leslie pulled off his boots, examining them for daily wear and tear. "Ah, there you go, my laddy! I knew that you'd finally opened up that wee little hole. It's to the cobbler you'll be going in the morning."
At least the horses were well fed, better than any winter since he joined his uncle, Lieutenant General Alexander Leslie, on this continental adventure back in 1630. Well, not his uncle precisely. More like his father's bastard cousin who had done the family proud. The feeding certainly boded well for this season's foals. With so many mares bearing this season, his cavalry should have no problem with adequate mounts if the war continued another five years, another small miracle thanks to the Americans and their gadgetry.
Thinking about the American up-timers and all the stories they told still gave Leslie headaches. His other destiny would have been to command all Scottish forces to historic victories, only to go to defeat at the hands of an English Puritan. Then, to be knighted by the restored monarchy and be given lands and pensions, taking honor to his grave. Well for sure, with what he'd learned now of future cavalry tactics, no New Model Army of Englishmen would see the day they would crush his forces, by God.
Leslie's professional Holy Trinity these days was Stuart, Forrest, and Sheridan. Aye, those were cavalrymen's cavalrymen! First with the most, indeed! From what he had been able to gather from all those fine books, only Wilson in his massed cavalry raid through Alabama had led a mounted force as well trained as the one he was readying for the spring campaign. So many good Scottish names in that horrid blue and grey war of those up-timers.
But Leslie was engaged in his own horrid war, this one with more divisions making less sense. When he first enlisted, it all seemed so clear. Protect the Reformation against the Papist. Then he found that his men's pay was coin from the purse of Cardinal Richelieu. Now, he commanded units combining Catholic and Protestant soldiers. Nothing made sense.
Uncle Alexander had told him, "Nephew, we cannot bother ourselves with what might have happened or could have happened. We can only be true to our duty as we see it on this day.
"It's fidelity we pledged to Gustavus Adolphus and as long as he continues to show himself a leader worth following, it's fidelity we'll be giving. If he believes in these Americans, we will continue to call them allies ourselves."
Aye, and marvelous allies they had proved to be. People more loyal because Americans had shown ways of sharing the burden more fairly, of increasing the crop yields, and reducing the size of the army, while increasing it's firepower and maneuverability.
It was like that new song his men now sang. On this Christmas night, he would indeed sleep in heavenly peace.
"So, Constanzia, I understand you're seeing a radio star."
Constanzia could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks in embarrassment at her father's words. "What? Who told you that? Martin !"
Marco Garb's face broke out in a big grin as he observed his daughter's reaction. So, it was true what his stepson had been writing to him about Constanzia.
Constanzia's half-brother, Johann Martin Luther Sulzer, was fifteen years her senior and thought of himself more as an extra father than a brother. When Grantville first appeared in the world, Marco had dispatched Martin there to become his eyes in this new place. However, it was soon apparent that Martin didn't have the guile to successfully obtain the information that Marco needed. Thus he asked his youngest daughter to visit her Aunt Potentiana in Badenburg, which was close to where the Ring of Fire had appeared, and see what she could do.
Her brother had managed to get both her and her cousin Catharina jobs teaching at the high school. From there, she had done very well indeed. From the high school student partners of the Barbie Consortium to the young owners of the Other People's Money mutual fund who had recently graduated, Constanzia had smoothly used her position teaching Italian at the high school to get to know every one of the young lions of Grantville's financial community.
"No, Papa. I have not been seeing Reverend Fischer, no matter what my nosy older brother thinks. Catharina and I have attended services at his church occasionally." Constanzia thought to herself that twice a week could truthfully be described as occasionally. "But we've never been alone together a single time. Besides, what if I were? I'm over twenty-one!"
"Now, now, Tesorina, you should know by now that I trust in your judgment. Would I have asked you to come here on my behalf if I did not?" From her reaction, Marco was now certain that there was more to how his "Little Treasure" felt about this radio preacher than just spiritual.
Whether Marco had trust or not in his daughter was not the important issue. Once his stepbrother Emanuel Sulzer and his wife's sister, whose house they were guests in on this Christmas evening, found out about little Constanzia's deviation from the Lutheran faith, it would be him, not Constanzia, who would catch hell.
When he met Potentiana's sister Constanzia Turettini, she had been a recently widowed mother of six. Her first husband, Heinrich Sulzer, had died in a horse accident. Marco had fallen in love at first sight. He even converted to the Lutheran faith in order to make her his own. Another year had brought them Jean Achille Garb, their first child together. But the next birth a year later of his beloved daughter came at the price of the life of his love. He had named the baby after her departed mother.
After some years of mourning, Marco had decided to revert to his Calvinist faith, although he had kept his vow to raise all his children and stepchildren as his wife had wished. It was good that Emanuel lived so far away. A firmer believer in the tenets of the Lutheran faith could not be found than Emanuel, who saw no good from any non-follower of Lutheranism in any way.
"Now, enough of our play. Tell me what you've learned of the investments I asked you to look into for me."
For the next hour, Constanzia gave her father a detailed run down on the young people running the investment opportunities Marco was studying. Finally, after reviewing his notes, Marco mused, "The board meeting is tomorrow. It's good to have alternatives to the capitalization call for a second steel plant location that Frederic Swisher is going to present to us."
Since the Ring of Fire, Constanzia's father had become a major player amongst the investment community of her hometown, Augsburg. He had guessed early that betting the new technology these Americans had brought would survive, no matter what happened to the Americans themselves. The investors who followed his lead had been richly rewarded, to the point that they had been able to get Marco a seat on the Board of Directors of USE Steel to watch over their interests.
It had been an amazing rise for Marco Garb, born Marco de' Gilbelli, an immigrant boy. He left his hometown of Turin with his parents for Geneva. They hoped they could practice their Calvinist beliefs there. As the Holy Roman Empire exerted its power in oppressing Protestants of all faiths, Marco moved on to the Imperial City and ancient Roman outpost of Augsburg. A city proud of its historic tolerance of different faiths. He had even adopted his cousins' Germanized version of their family name in order to fit in better with the local business people. After all, his third cousin Johann Baptist Garb was still the Swedish Resident, or as the Americans called it, "consul" in Augsburg at that time. It was Cousin Johann Baptist who took it upon himself to introduce Marco to all the important financial leaders of the Imperial City.
"Now, about this young minister of yours, I must come with you sometime and meet this man."
Late January 1634, Grantville, State of Thuringia, United States of Europe
John Grover found himself whistling as he rode his horse away from the station that evening.
Pesky little song, I just can't get it out of my head, he thought. But, I always did like "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?"
That had been last Saturday night's featured song on the Ole Timey Radio Hour. If the mail received so far this week were any barometer, it would be as big of a hit as the first show's "Silent Night." Fischer and his bunch were really tuned into the market. Since they went on the air, mail to the station had more than doubled and that didn't count the mail directly to the show itself. Requests for more broadsides on how to build better crystal sets, requests for parts, requests for more commodity prices on the morning farm reports, it just went on and on. In fact, there didn't seem to be a category of station programming that didn't have more feedback and suggestions for improvement.
He turned a corner. All this time on the air and we've only had one broadcast tube burn out. Way below Gayle's initial estimate but really close to what Art Berry had predicted if we would follow his advice about how to operate them, which we did. All in all, things are good. If that isn't enough to have me whistling a happy tune, there are the rest of the projects that GE is working on.
"… Then Chief Dan Frost pulled out his guns and shot the evil horsemen as they galloped down the street toward him. All the townspeople, maybe some of your parents even, were up on the rooftops shooting at them until they were either dead or decided to give up.
"Then they all hopped into their trucks and sped down to the school house to help out Jeff, Julie and Dr. Nichols and the others who had been holding off the other band of Croats all by themselves. And that's how Grantville fought off the Great Croat Raid."
"So children, remember that in a democracy, everyone has to respect each others rights and stand up to defend them together. Now let us pray…"
In the barracks of the Yellow Regiment, one of the troopers threw a boot at the wall. "Again he did it, Swen! You and I both were there at that damned schoolhouse and this Fischer didn't even mention the part we or Captain Gars played."
"You're too sensitive, Henrik. It is just a story told to children. He doesn't mean anything by it."
"But, he's never given any credit to the part we're playing in fighting this war on any of his shows. No credit at all. I think we should say something to Lieutenant Ivarsson."