Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette .Volume XXIII

Fernando began stroking Maria Anna's hair. "What kind of company?"

"A cheese and chocolate factory."

"Cheese I can understand, I know you love cheese. But chocolate? I thought you hated chocolate."

"Only the kind I tasted in Vienna. It was very bitter. But Katherine assures me that the chocolate I tasted will bear very little resemblance to what 'Royal Maria Anna's Cheese and Chocolate Factory' will produce here in Brussels. After our tennis match on Thursday we will go to Essen House to sample some of their products. I'm looking forward to it."

"Perhaps I should come along."

Maria Anna laughed. "I don't think you'll have time. You'll be spending your hours soothing the feelings of the Brussels guilds about the Essen treaty."

Fernando growled. "They seem to have forgotten what Isabella and Albert did to them in 1619."

"I don't think you'll need to go that far. But they certainly don't feel the same way about us as they did the archdukes."

"Hmmm… 'Royal Maria Anna's Cheese and Chocolate Factory.' It does have a certain ring to it." Fernando's hand moved lower on her body. "But all this talk of food has made me hungry for something else."

"Fernando! Come here, you beast!"

Inn of the Silver Swine, Brussels

"Bitch! Harlot! Have you read this?" Arthur Jones thrust the letter across the table.

George shook his head, then pretended to read. "No, of course not." Ha! Not only have I read it, I helped compose it, you sniveling twit.

Three weeks in the company of Arthur Jones had been the most trying of George Goring's life. It wasn't just that Jones was a drunk. He was a talkative drunk. A whiny drunk. One who demanded the attention of all those around him (especially his new best friend, George Goring) so he could itemize in enormous and nauseating detail the endless wrongs done to him by his enemies. The list of which seemed to extend from his own father to his wife to nearly every human he had ever come in contact with.

Boyle is going to owe me a brigade for this. George looked up from the letter. "So, she offers a judicial separation I see."

"Judicial separation!" Arthur sneered. He tilted the tankard of beer and swallowed three times before slamming it back on the table. "And won't that make me a laughing stock at court." Arthur poked the letter in George's hands. "The whoresome bitch even refuses to see me. She'll deal only with you."

Arthur belched. Then smiled. "We'll see about that, my friend. Indeed we will."

"Careful, Arthur," George said. "You're not in England here. And Katherine has some powerful friends who dote on her. I think it best if you let me handle the negotiations."

"Negotiations!" Arthur spat contemptuously. "What is there to negotiate? Either she comes back with me to England or I'll beat her bloody, I swear I will. And as for that American friend who is poisoning her mind… I'll kill that little conniving strumpet."

George had to sigh. "Arthur, that's why she left you in the first place." Although, truthfully, it was probably the mental abuse that drove Katherine away. God knew, George was sick of Arthur's company after only three weeks. And Katherine had endured him for over a year.

"Ridiculous!" Arthur said, taking another three swallows of beer. "I never used a cudgel on the trollop. Just my hands. Not even a fist. Slaps only. Nothing but light chastisement, George, I swear it."

Then, like a torch being thrust into a river, the anger and hate in Arthur's eyes went out.

Oh God, here comes the self-pity again.

"Please, George, please. Help me? I love her, George, truly I do. Help me convince her to go back to England with me. Please?"

George sighed again. "All right Arthur, let's work on your next letter."

A brigade? Even that was insufficient. Perhaps a barony as well.

"Let's start by you professing your undying love and devotion, Arthur."

Essen House

Nicki Jo Prickett was just beginning to climb down from the first wagon when Katherine Boyle emerged from the doorway and threw her arms around her.

"Nicki!"

Nicki laughed and hugged her friend. For a second her eyes watered. God, how I've missed you, my love.

Katherine squeezed her tighter, taking her breath. "Whoa! Careful there Katy. I'm a bit fragile after this trip."

A young boy jumped down from the second wagon and ran over to them. "Katy!" Robert Boyle jumped into his sister's arms.

Nicki laughed again. "Think he missed you?"

Katy kissed her brother on the cheek and then lowered him to the street. "I missed you both terribly. But we have to get the wagons unloaded as quickly as we can. The Brussels' city council is strictly enforcing its ordinances against blocking the streets the next two weeks, what with all the visitors coming to see the festival."

"Festival?"

Katy nodded. "The Joyous Entry of Fernando and Maria Anna as the new King and Queen in the Netherlands. Very Burgundian. And very useful in terms of its political utility. Isabella and Albert did it when they became the archdukes. Lots of theater, pageantry, triumphal arches, tableaux vivant, and so on. You'll love it."

"I'm sure." Nicki said. She sighed to herself. She loved her life in the seventeenth century, but there were times…

Even with the help of the servants at Essen House the unloading of the wagons took almost an hour.

Finally Nicki and Katherine found themselves alone in the large kitchen.

"So, did you bring the tennis racquets like I asked you?"

"Of course," Nicki said, "and my last can of up-time tennis balls. But what's the story? I know you couldn't say much in your radio transmission given the limited time Hainhoffer allows for personal messages, but still…"

"The story is, my dear, that you have a match tomorrow with the queen in the Netherlands. And she and I have been practicing."

Nicki couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Oh, great. You know I hate playing down-time tennis. Yuck."

"Oh, no. She wants to play it by up-time rules. She's even had the court behind the Coudenberg palace laid out according to up-time dimensions."

"Now that's different. Do I have to throw the game for political reasons?"

"Not at all. Maria Anna seems pretty reasonable, for a royal. In fact, I think she'd probably resent it if you didn't play your best."

Katy's face clouded. "But we have other problems, I'm afraid. Arthur is here in Brussels."

"Arthur?" Nicki tried not to frown. "Your husband, Arthur? What the hell is he doing here?"

"Attempting to get me to come back to England with him. He has my brother-in-law, George, the one who married Lettice, with him."

"So what are you going to do?"

"Stall," Katy said, "until we leave for Essen. I don't think he'll follow us there. George is clearly helping in that regard. He hasn't said so, but I think he has instructions from my father to keep Arthur away from me. He is acting as the go-between during the negotiations." She grimaced. "So-called negotiations. I even offered to admit to adultery so he could get a judicial separation. He was not inclined to accept, according to George."

Nicki reached for Katy's hand, worried. "Any second thoughts?"

Katy shuddered. "None. I know I've told you about Arthur, at least a little. But if you really met him…" Katy shook her head. "No, I don't want you to meet him. And I certainly don't want to see him ever again. He was horrid. Truly, utterly horrid."

Women up-time had been abused. But from Katy's stories, Nicki had learned that physical and mental abuse of women in seventeenth century England was much more the norm than it had been up-time. Unlike many Protestant states in Europe, women in England couldn't even get a legal separation unless they could prove the physical abuse was life-threatening, which was difficult to do. And of course, there were no shelters for battered women as there were up-time. So women just suffered. And endured. A few-a lucky few-with sympathetic relatives and enough money were able to escape their abusive relationships. But most didn't.