1633

Laud was not quite done with his glowering. 'A scandalous lot. Soldiers-for-hire. Sinners.'

Wentworth shrugged. 'Frankly, all the better. They'll hardly care about the fine sentiments of Parliament, now will they?'

He rose and went to a window, overlooking the great city. Then, completed his conversion of the bishop.

'They'll certainly not be given to tenderness dealing with the Trained Bands of London.'

Mention of the militia of England's capital, that body of artisans and apprentices who had caused so much grief and disturbance over the years to England's monarchs and bishops, brought Laud to his own feet.

'Crush the rabble!'

Strafford clasped his hands behind his back, and straightened his shoulders. Then, gazing serenely down at the dark streets of London:

'Oh, I intend to. Be sure of it, William.'

Some time later, over a much more convivial meal, Laud inquired as to the fate of the new prisoner in the Tower.

Strafford's face darkened a bit. 'Tomorrow, I shall try again to convince the king to have Cromwell beheaded. Pym, too, once the soldiers bring him to the Tower. And Hampden, if we can catch him. But…'

'He's an indecisive man by nature, Thomas.'

The king's new prime-minister-in-all-but-name shook his head glumly, thinking about the king he served. 'Worse than that, really. Indecisive in big things, stubborn in small ones. I think he has vague notions-probably put there by his wife-of having some sort of grand spectacle of a trial at a later date. When he can haul all of his enemies out of the Tower and put them up for display.'

'In front of whom?' demanded Laud. 'Not Parliament, surely!'

Strafford shrugged. 'That will be up to us, I suppose. Create some suitable body to replace Parliament, I mean. On that, it occurs to me-please take no offense!- there's something to be said for the French system-'

The argument which erupted thereafter was fierce enough, in its own way. But it was the ferocity of an argument between friends, enjoying the dispute, not that of a quarrel between enemies.

And so Thomas Wentworth, the earl of Strafford, was able to end the day on a better note than it began. And was able to carry with him to his bed the memory of a friendship retained, to blunt the sorrow of seeing a man he much admired fester in a dungeon, grieving a murdered wife and son.

Duty, of course, remained.

First thing tomorrow-I'll do my best to convince Charles to remove his head. Oliver is dangerous. If he ever gets out…

He drifted off to sleep, comforted by thoughts of the thick walls of the Tower. True, men had escaped from the Tower, in times past. But never men immured in the dungeons.

Strafford would have been less relaxed-considerably less-had he witnessed what a young man named Darryl McCarthy was doing at the very moment he fell asleep. For all his brilliance, the earl of Strafford-like Richelieu-had not fully grasped the nature of the new American technology. He could accept, readily enough, guns which fired across half a mile with uncanny accuracy. But still, he-like Richelieu-had the ingrained habits of men born and bred in the 17 th century. An impressive machine or device, they could accept, yes. But, without even thinking about it, they assumed that such a machine or device would look impressive.

A cannon which can destroy a stone wall does, after all. A great, big, brute of a thing.

'That's it,' said Darryl softly, turning his head and smiling up at Melissa. 'You just give the word, ma'am, that fancy wall is so much rubble and we're outa here. Assuming you can scrounge us up some transportation, of course.' He gave a skeptical glance out the window at the moat and the Thames beyond. He couldn't see the water, in the darkness of the night, but he could smell it. 'Can't say I much want to swim in that stinking river, much less the moat, even if I could make it across in the first place.'

Melissa winced. 'I can't quite believe I might destroy… I mean, the Tower of London, for God's sake. It's a world historical monument.'

'Not here, it isn't,' said Tom Simpson. 'Here, it's just another damn prison.'

Melissa nodded. She eyed the little hole in the wall which Darryl was now disguising with mud smeared over bits of stone. Once the mud dried and a little dust was spread over it, there would be nothing to indicate an explosive charge except a thin wire leading off. The wire would be disguised behind furniture-a heavy couch that Darryl and Tom said would help direct the blast-and, in any event, wasn't something that a 17 th -century guard would recognize anyway.

'Doesn't look like much, does it?' chuckled Tom.

'That's what I'm counting on.' Melissa turned away firmly. If nothing else, over the past two years, she'd learned to discipline her own 'finer sentiments.' World historical monument or not, if the time came she would have that wall destroyed. Let the middle ages and its architecture take care of itself. She had living people to answer for.

'How's the radio coming?' she asked.

Gayle looked up from where she was squatting on the floor. 'I've got the generator assembled, Friedrich's screwing the pedals down next to the loveseat, and Nelly's stringing the antenna. It's a good thing the guards can't see us or they'd think we're insane.'

Melissa made a face. 'I'm not sure they wouldn't be right.'

Chapter 9

On his way home, moved by a sudden impulse, Mike swung away from his normal route and walked past the complex of trailers where, the year before, Gretchen's somewhat peculiar extended family had lived. 'Officially'-which really meant whatever the rather fearsome Gramma Richter said-it had been known as the 'Higgins residence.' Jeff had married Gretchen Richter, very shortly after the Ring of Fire, and her grandmother Veronica had insisted on the proper marital protocol. Proper, at least, by American standards if not her own. The fact that Gramma herself thought Jeff was much too young to be a husband had been neither here nor there.

Privately, Mike-like most people in Grantville-had thought of it otherwise. Depending on the circumstances, either as 'the boys' place,' since Jeff's friend Larry Wild owned one of the trailers and his other two best friends Eddie Cantrell and Jimmy Andersen lived there also; or 'the Richter place,' since Gretchen and Gramma Richter's huge collection of relatives and unofficially adopted orphans had moved in after the wedding. Since Jeff and Gretchen's wedding, the confusion had deepened. To native- born Americans, Gretchen was now 'Gretchen Higgins' and that made it the 'Higgins' place.' But 17 th -century Germans did not follow the custom of a woman assuming her husband's last name, so for them it was still 'Richter.'

Mike couldn't help but chuckle. There had been plenty of time he'd thought of the place simply as 'Gretchen's Lair.' If ever Mike had met a tigress in human form, it was that young woman.

He stopped for a moment, and stared at the trailer complex. Everything had changed since then, and Mike wasn't entirely sure how he felt about it. Granted, the changes had all been positive ones-the inevitable transformations brought into peoples' lives by marriages, childbirths, and other duties and obligations. Still, he found himself missing the rambunctious energy the place had had in the days immediately after the Ring of Fire. Perhaps more than any other place in Grantville, he'd always thought that trailer complex was the brightest symbol of a hopeful future.

But… things change.

Call them the Higginses or the Richters, they were all gone now. The trailers themselves were still full of people, but these were tenants. Several related German families, as Mike understood what Gramma Richter told him. He didn't know them personally.

Again, he chuckled. Gramma now managed the complex for Jeff and Larry, in their absence. Knowing Veronica, Mike was quite sure the new tenants paid the rent promptly, and in full. It would be unfair to label the woman a 'scrooge,' but… she had a proper and thoroughly Teutonic notion of the value of property.

He glanced at his watch and saw that he was coming home a bit earlier than usual. So, moved by another impulse, he walked across the street and turned down another. He was heading in the opposite direction from his own house, now, but he didn't have far to go.

Less than a minute later, he was standing in front of the very large two-story house owned by Grantville's mayor, Henry Dreeson. The house was on a corner, and the new gas lamp situated there had already been fired up.

Mike studied the lamp for a moment. He had mixed feelings about that also. On the one hand, he understood and agreed with the logic of moving away from Grantville's profligate use of electric lighting. The problem wasn't the power supply, as such, which would last indefinitely. The problem was much simpler, and somewhat maddening-as most of Mike's problems were. Sure, there was plenty of power. But power doesn't do you any good once you run out of lightbulbs-and those, like so many 'small' things 21 st -century Americans had taken for granted, were now in very short supply and very difficult to replace.

On the other hand… it also seemed stupid to have to fall back on 19 th -century technology when they knew everything they really needed to know in order to make such things as lightbulbs and other types of lighting fixtures. But, that was the reality. It was the old, well-known if not always accepted, distinction between science and engineering. The simple fact that you understand the scientific principles involved doesn't necessarily mean that you have the technology or the economic resources to do anything about it.

So the decision had been made to start switching over to gas lighting; and Henry Dreeson, being the mayor of the town, had taken the lead in having the first new gas lamp installed in front of his own house.

Mike heard the door open and swung his eyes toward it. Henry Dreeson himself was emerging and coming down the stairs toward him.

'Hi, Mike!' The elderly man saw what Mike had been examining, and smiled. 'Oh, stop fretting. The next thing you know, you'll be wallowing in the classic problem- toilet paper.'

Mike grimaced. 'Don't remind me.'

Henry was still smiling, but there was a trace of apprehension in the thing. 'Is there any news? I mean-'

Mike shook his head. 'Nothing bad, Henry. So far as I know, Gretchen and the boys-and Becky and Rita and Melissa and everybody else-are fine. That's not why I came over. I just… I don't know. I guess I wanted to see you, and Ronnie, and the kids. It's nothing pressing, if you're busy.'

But before he'd even finished, Dreeson had him by the elbow and was marching him up the stairs.

'No, no! Come in! Ronnie'll be glad to see you. Of course, you won't know it, from the way she'll fuss at you about letting those 'innocent babes' wander around loose all over war-torn Europe, but-'

The old man grinned. 'Hey, what can I say? I'm crazy about the lady, but I'll be the first one to admit my new wife's something of a harridan.'

'Oh hell, Henry, I wouldn't call her a harridan, exactly, just-'

But now Veronica Dreeson was standing in the doorway herself, hands planted firmly on her hips, and glaring down at the two men coming up the stairs.

'So! They are all dead, yes? I warned you!'

'Not exactly a harridan,' muttered Mike. 'Just… close.'