Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette. Volume XX

Bertha just patted him on the shoulder as she went to look for a mop. "You're a good boy. Stupid, but good."

Annabet met Johann when he came home the next night. He had no more bruises, but he did have a fresh scowl. He slammed the door behind him.

"What's wrong, now?" she asked.

He kicked a chair. "No one will give me paper or ink on credit. I have nothing to print on."

"You will." Annabet took the heavy purse she'd been carrying all day out of her apron pocket. "I want to go into business with you. I want to be a full partner and not just your clerk."

"What do you mean?"

"I sold all the linens from my dowry chest," she said. "One of the cooks where Bertha works is fumbled-fingered when it comes to fancy work. But she's thrifty and has plenty of coin instead. She's also in love, and her sweetheart just made master. He's ready to marry, and her dower chest was half empty. I emptied mine and filled hers for a good price. That, added to the money I earned working for Frau Koch. .." She grinned while he gawped. "I will buy the paper and ink and give you half for your Committees of Correspondence. You will use the rest to print patterns for me."

Johann stared at her. "Why?"

Annabet's mouth pinched. "I grieve less for Gottfried than I do for the house we would have had and the children. All the men my age are either betrothed or married. I don't want to wait for a young one to earn enough to take a wife. That leaves widowers with children." She shrugged. "It's not my first choice, but I'm tired of being considered a child when I'm not.

"I will have a better chance of getting married quickly if I have money rather than goods." She held out her arms, fingering the hems of her sleeves. "With this American lace, I will look wealthy. By selling your patterns and making my own, I will be wealthy." She looked at her brother then picked up a pamphlet. "I read your Rights of Man and Common Sense. It's starting to make sense." She dared him with a glare of her own. "Will you deny me the same chances because I am a woman?"

Johann closed his mouth and swallowed. "No." He looked at her then began to grin. He grabbed her in a hug. "We will change Hamburg!"

Annabet snorted. "We'll try."

"Annabet, where are we going?" Bertha asked the next evening.

"To check on Johann's shop while he is traveling." Annabet met a drunkard's leer with a glower. "He managed to buy supplies, despite the council's orders that the paper and ink sellers were not to do business with him."

"That's to be expected." Bertha watched the street while Annabet wrestled with the key. "They like money, too. So why are you checking on his shop?"

"Johann is like a new mother with her first baby. He is afraid something will happen to his press while he is gone. He had to go to Grantville to buy more lace patterns." She shoved the door open. "He is hoping to bring back double what he did last time."

Once inside, Bertha looked around. "I expected more mess."

Annabet lifted the canvas sheet covering her brother's machine. "No one has broken the press. Yet."

"Give them time."

Annabet settled on a stool by the window and pulled out her latest crochet project.

"What are you doing?"

"You've seen me crochet."

Bertha tapped her toe. "Why are you doing it here?"

"I promised Johann I would watch his shop." She looked up and saw her friend's expression. "No, I am not getting soft headed. If the city council's thugs come with hammers and pry bars, I won't get in their way. I'll just offer to sell their wives and sweethearts my lace." She tipped her basket to show off the tidy bundles of crocheted edgings.

Bertha regarded Annabet for several minutes then dragged a bench into the light and pulled out her spinning. "I didn't know foolishness was contagious."

Three days later, Annabet looked up to see a very large man with a crowbar and ink-stained hands blocking the door. Two men with cudgels stood behind him.

"Is the printer here?"

Annabet realized that talking bravado was different from facing down thugs. She lowered her work to her lap wishing Bertha, anyone, was with her. "No."

The crowbar-wielding man looked at the sheet-covered press before examining her. "Where is he?"

"Halfway to Grantville."

"When is he coming back?"

"I don't know," Annabet said.

The city council's enforcers muttered back and forth between themselves, then left. The remaining man stepped in and closed the door. "When did he leave?"

Annabet looked him in the eye and lied. "Two weeks ago."

The man frowned at her. The door swung open and hit the stranger in the back. He spun to face his attacker.

"Annabet! Annabet, you must help me." Wilhelmina dodged around the man. "How do I fix this?" She thrust a knitted object at Annabet. "It's all matted." The maid that followed her looked frightened. She skittered her way past him.

Annabet glanced at the scarf. "You scrubbed it in hot water, didn't you?"

"My little sister smeared jam on the end. How else…" Wilhelmina broke off and bit her lip.

Annabet sighed. "Once wool is fullered into felt, you can't undo it. Scrub the whole thing until it's even. Then when it's…"

"Quiet," the man bellowed. "Is this a print shop or a sewing circle?"

"Neither. It's a crocheting circle," Annabet told him. "And a lace shop." She shook out her work before folding it and tucking it into her basket. "You may as well sit. I won't have time to speak with you until I help these girls with their problems." Ignoring him and his dumbfounded expression, she turned back to back to Wilhelmina. "Fuller the whole length. Dry it, then bring it back. Close your mouth, child. You look like a fish."

Wilhelmina, glancing from the man, who was still standing, to Annabet and back, did as she was told, then babbled and shoved her friend forward. Tongue-tied, the girl just thrust a wad of string at Annabet.

Annabet rolled her eyes. She untangled the project and found a misshapen lace collar. She smoothed it out on her lap, examining the design. "You are decreasing here and here." She pointed at the mistakes. "Do not do that. When you get to the end of each row, chain three, turn it around, then continue the pattern. You must always chain up to the next row." She handed it back. "Rip it out and start over." She scowled at the girl's moan. "Don't argue. You'll never get wed with that in your dower chest."

"But I followed the instructions!" The maid dug in her bag and pulled out a battered piece of paper. "Here."

Annabet read the paper and sighed. She pulled another one out of her basket and checked her notes. "You must have bought an early pattern. Johann fixed that mistake when he printed it the second time." Annabet exchanged the bad pattern for a good one then shooed the girls off. She turned back to the stranger and made a point of straightening her elaborate lace cuffs and smoothing her apron which was edged with wide bands of more lace.

"Is there something you want?"

"That printing press."

Annabet gave the man a second, closer look. He had ink-stained clothes and looked old enough to be a master. If so, he was one of the young ones.

"It belongs to my brother," Annabet said. "I'm not allowed to sell it."

"Are you allowed to talk about the Committees of Correspondence?"

Annabet considered the man a third time. From the age and amount of stains on his clothes, she thought he was married to a lazy wife-if he was married at all. She started toying with her crochet hook.

"Who is your master?"

"Herr Groenenbach."

"Friend to the mayor and uncle to Gottfried?"

The journeyman printer sneered, but nodded. "My name is Paul Klaussen. Herr

Groenenbach is too lazy to want to train a new apprentice and too cheap to let me do it for him." His sneer turned into a snarl. "But he's more than willing to buy his friends on the council round after round of beer." He bit off the rest of what he was going to say.