1633

'I have decided to bring my family from Sweden here to Magdeburg. My daughter, at least. Kristina, as you may know, is quite young. Seven years old.'

He glanced around the room. From their appearance, most of the crowd consisted of teenagers and people in their twenties. But, sprinkled here and there, he could see a few older ones-and a handful of children.

'Palaces are stodgy places. Very boring, for a spirited young girl. I think she would enjoy an occasional outing here.'

He brought his eyes back to Thierbach. The young man seemed paralyzed for a moment. Then, astonished; then…

His thin shoulders squared. 'She would have to learn how to bake,' he said firmly, in a voice which had barely a trace of a quiver. 'It's the rule.'

Axel looked like he might be on the verge of apoplexy. Gustav burst into laughter.

'Splendid!' he said, slapping the table with a meaty hand. 'Her mother-my wife-will have a fit, of course. So would my own mother. But my grandmother, on the other hand-the wife of the great Gustav Vasa-is reputed to have been quite an accomplished baker. I see no reason not to restore that skill to the family.'

Oxenstierna began expostulating his protests the moment they left the building. But Gustav waved him down impatiently.

'Later, Axel, later. You know as well as I do that my wife is unfit to bring up my daughter. She's a sweet woman, but… weak. How much trouble has she caused us already, by her susceptibility to flattering courtiers?'

He stopped, boots planted firmly in the muddy street, and glared down at his chancellor. 'And you also know-you've read the histories, the same as I have-what happened to Kristina. In the end, for all her obvious brains and talents and spirit, she converted to Catholicism and abdicated the throne. I won't have it!'

'You were dead in that-' Axel's hand groped in midair. 'Other history. You're alive in this one.'

The king shrugged. 'True. She still needs to be brought up among women. Part of the time, at least.' He jerked his head toward the Freedom Arches. 'Say whatever else you will about Gretchen Richter and her cohorts, they are not weak.'

Axel's face was almost red. Gustav decided to relent. He placed a hand on his chancellor's shoulder and began guiding him back toward the palace. 'Oh, do relax. I don't plan to have Kristina spend much time with that radical lot, I assure you. No, no. I'll find some suitable noblewoman to serve as her-what do the Americans call it? 'Role model,' as I recall.'

Oxenstierna seemed mollified. Gustav, looking ahead to a day filled with contentious meetings, decided to leave it at that. No reason to mention the precise noblewoman he had in mind, after all.

Alas, despite his often unthinking prejudices, Oxenstierna's own brains were excellent. Within ten paces, the chancellor was scowling fiercely again.

'Don't tell me. Gustav! You can't be thinking-'

'And why not?' demanded the king. 'I think my newest-and youngest-baroness would make a splendid companion for Kristina.'

He held up a finger. 'Given the nature of the times, Kristina should learn how to shoot.' Held up another. 'And, in reverse, Julie Mackay rides a horse like a sack. Kristina's already an excellent rider, so she can teach the baroness that skill-which, I'm sure you'll agree, is essential for a proper and respectable Swedish noblewoman.'

'Julie Mackay is in England,' grumbled Oxenstierna. 'Maybe even Scotland, by now.'

'So? She'll be back.'

'Things in England also do not 'look good.' '

'So?' repeated Gustav. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing back to the Freedom Arches. 'If I wind up having to rescue one contentious young woman, why not two?'

They plodded on in silence for a bit. Then, Axel sighed. 'Or three, or four. I never thought the day would come I'd say this, but I wish Rebecca Stearns were back in our midst. I… miss her advice. She is very shrewd, and easy to work with.'

Gustav chuckled heavily. 'Indeed. It's a bit amazing, isn't it, the way it works. Having Gretchen Richter-or Julie Mackay-as a frame for the portrait, Rebecca Stearns suddenly looks like the wisest woman in the world.'

Chapter 6

'Remember, Julie,' said Melissa sternly, 'that you don't have any antibiotics. So-'

'Will you cut it out?' interrupted Julie crossly. She folded another corner of the blanket around her baby's head. 'If I have to listen to one more lecture about this, I think I'll scream.' She gave her husband a sour glance. 'Alex chews on my ear about it ten times a day.'

Julie's Scot husband flushed. With his fair complexion and redhead freckles, a 'flush' was fairly dramatic. 'Damnation, lass,' he growled, ' 'tis no joking matter. I shouldna allowed you to come on this trip at all, much less bring the child.'

For a moment, Julie's lips parted. Melissa almost winced, imagining the retort. And how the hell do you propose to have STOPPED me from coming? You-!

Fortunately, Julie reined in the impulse. Whatever the realities of their personal relationship, Julie had learned to accommodate her husband's need to maintain, at least in public, the faзade of being the 'man of the house.' That-just as his willingness, however reluctant, to allow her and their infant daughter Alexi to accompany him on his sudden emergency trip to Scotland-was one of many compromises the two young people had learned to make in order to keep their marriage a going concern.

It had not always been easy for them, Melissa knew. The clash of cultural attitudes between a 17 th -century Scot cavalryman and a 21 st -century American woman was… awesome, at times. That wasn't helped by the fact that, on one side, Alex Mackay was a Scot nobleman-born under the bar sinister, true, but still with a nobleman's attitudes. And, on the other… Melissa had to force herself not to laugh. To describe Julie Mackay as 'stubborn and strong-willed' would have been much like describing the ocean as 'wet and salty.' A given; a fact of nature. As well command the tides to roll back as expect her to be meek and demure.

Then, too, they were both very young. Alex in his early twenties; Julie still months away from her twentieth birthday. With all the advantages of being in late middle age, and separated by far less in the way of a culture gap, it was not as if Melissa herself and James Nichols hadn't had their share of domestic quarrels.

Feeling a little guilty that she'd occasioned this latest clash, Melissa groped for words to soothe the situation. Dammit, woman, you're supposed to be a peacemaker on this mission. You're not a '60s college radical any longer, cheerfully poking the establishment.

Grope, grope. The truth was that Melissa found agitation and troublemaking a lot more natural than being a diplomat. She couldn't find the words.

Fortunately, Julie had other characteristics than stubbornness. One of them-quite pronounced, in fact-was affection. So Melissa was spared the need to play the role of peacemaker. Julie suddenly smiled, slid an arm around her husband's waist, and drew him close. A wet and enthusiastic kiss on the cheek drained the flush right out of Alex's face. And immediately put another one in its place, of course. But that was a flush of pleasure, not anger.

Nor embarrassment, even though Julie's display of affection was quite public. They were all standing on the quays where the ship from Hamburg was moored. The Pool of London was crowded with stevedores and sailors and people waiting to embark on other ships. But Alex was not disturbed. Not at all, judging from the way his own lips sought Julie's.

One of the things Melissa had learned, in the two years since the Ring of Fire, was that people of the 17 th century were far removed from the prim and proper attitudes of that later era usually labeled as 'Victorian.' That had surprised her, even though she was a history teacher by profession. Without ever having thought much about it, Melissa had assumed that European culture got progressively more 'Victorian' the further back you went in time. She certainly would have expected the early 17 th century-the heyday of religious zeal; the era of 'Puritanism'-to have been one characterized by tight-lipped reserve on all subjects, and sex in particular.

The reality was quite otherwise. The primness of social customs in the 19 th century had been a recent development, occasioned by the Wesleyan Methodist response to the horrors of 18 th -century English city life, and its spread onto the Continent through the Pietist movement. Melissa had discovered that people of the 17 th century were actually quite earthy-even bawdy. If the Scot cavalrymen who stumbled onto Grantville soon after the Ring of Fire had found the clothing of American women rather scandalous, they hadn't thought their 'modern' casualness about sex to be peculiar at all. They themselves, like most people of 17 th -century Europe, had a relaxed attitude about sex which had far more in common with the mores of late 20 th - and early 21 st -century America than either did with the Victorian era.

More so, in some ways; even incredibly so, to someone with Melissa's upbringing and attitudes. She could still remember the shock she had felt when she discovered that one of the widowed farm women near Grantville had sued one of her employees because the man, coming upon her bent over in her vegetable garden, had cheerfully taken the opportunity-as the euphemism of a later era would put it-'to have his way with her' despite her vehement protests.

The shock hadn't been at the fact of rape. Melissa was no sheltered girl, and rape was common enough in 21 st -century America. It had been the attitude of the woman herself which had appalled her. True, the farm woman had been furious at the man, for acting like such an oaf. But she had not filed criminal charges of rape. She'd simply stormed into the courthouse to demand that the crummy SOB be placed under a bastardy bond to provide child support in case he'd gotten her pregnant.

The case had been quite notorious in Grantville, at the time, because it had caused something of a firestorm in the already-turbulent attempt to forge a unitary legal code for the new society being constructed. On this question, as on many others, where modern Americans tended to see things in terms of personal rights, 17 th -century Germans tended to see them in terms of property and its obligations. The fact that the man had violated the woman herself was a matter for anger, to be sure. But the real outrage was that he had endangered her property-by, possibly, begetting an unwanted child on her which would be a continual drain on her none-too-substantial resources. Even the culprit himself had seen it in those terms. On the stand, he'd admitted quite freely that he'd been hoping to embarrass his employer into marrying him and thus giving him a secure lifetime interest in the farm.

In the end, the case had been settled on the woman's terms. And, while Melissa had been angry at the time, in retrospect she wasn't sure the lout of a handyman wouldn't have been better off spending a few years in an American prison-with time off for good behavior-than being stripped of every penny and possibly locked into what amounted to a condition of involuntary servitude for two decades.

Remembering that episode as she watched Julie's kiss turn into something very demonstrative-Alex's face was almost beet red, now, but he was returning the kiss with enthusiasm-Melissa found herself fighting down a laugh again. O brave new world, that hath such people in it! There were things she detested about 17 th -century society; others, which she had found herself coming to treasure, almost despite herself.

Disease, however, was not one of them. And the fact was that Julie was taking a real risk in bringing her child on this voyage. As a rule, people of the time left their children behind-especially infants-whenever they traveled anywhere beyond their immediate vicinity. Rebecca and Gretchen hadn't even considered bringing their babies along on their own mission. Leaving aside the very real danger of piracy and highway robbery, there was the ever-present risk of disease whenever a child was exposed to strange populations. Even without travel and unnecessary exposure, a third of all children born alive did not survive their first year; fully half died before the age of five.