Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette.Volume XIII

They were fairly certain that it was safe to tell the Adduccis that they were Jews. Shortly before the two Bavarians had arrived, Yossie had even begun to think that it might be safe to tell Thomas. Now though, the arrival of the Bavarians made it clear that there was no safety.

While Yossie's recovered his composure, Thomas was losing his.

"Why d'you care 'bout this place, this Magdala?" Karl asked.

"Because I was there!" Thomas choked out. "For a month, I thought I'd found a new home on the road between Jena and Weimar, and then your damned foragers burned me out."

"I was just a pikeman!" Karl said. "Not a general."

Thomas grabbed Karl by the throat and shoved him hard against the chimney of the forge. "It was pikemen like you that killed my daughter!"

"Stop," Yossie shouted. "Karl didn't kill your daughter."

"No," Thomas said, slowly loosening his grip. As he let go and backed away, he looked almost as beaten as Karl.

Yossie found that he was shaking. As he offered a hand to Karl, he wondered what had come over him. From childhood, he'd been taught not to interfere in disputes between Christians, and he was fairly certain that Karl would be among the last to come to the aid of a Jew.

"We didn't go east of Weimar," Fritz said, in Karl's defense. "We were in Erfurt, then south to Ilmenau and Badenburg."

Thomas' anger at the Bavarians was a shock. Yossie had known that Thomas was avoiding talking about his family, but he had always seemed to be a very calm man.

"Come on, folks. We have tongs to make," Thomas said, with a sigh. "Work is easier than yelling at each other."

Shortly after they set to work, Bob Eckerlin stopped outside the forge to watch them. He stepped inside when they put the iron back in the fire to reheat. "Thomas, Joe, I need you to make something."

" Was?" Thomas asked.

"Can you come take a look?"

Thomas looked at the iron in the fire and then at Yossie. He hesitated for a moment, and then handed him the small hammer. "Joseph, see what you can do."

As Thomas walked away with Bob, Yossie realized that he'd just been promoted. He wasn't entirely sure he was ready to direct the work of the two Bavarians, but he had to try.

He took hold of the cold end of the bar they'd only begun to forge and pulled it from the fire, setting the hot end on the anvil and tapping it with the small hammer. They'd begun work beating the handle to shape, but it was still far from the long graceful taper that was their goal.

Even with the heavy leather glove he wore on his left hand, each hammer blow sent a shock up his arm. Only when he held the work-piece at exactly the right angle against the anvil was it bearable. The iron cooled quickly. After five blows of the heavy sledge, it was already time to put the work-piece back in the fire.

"How long you been with these foreigners, these Grantvillers?" Karl asked.

"I came here," he said, and then paused while using a piece of rebar to mound the burning coals over the iron. "It was a month ago, just before Pentecost," he finally said, remembering the conversation with Pastor Green that Sabbath afternoon.

"What d'you make of these Grantvillers? Do you believe their story about the Ring of Fire?"

"I have no reason to doubt it," Yossie said. "The first rumors I heard called it the pit of Hell, but that's because I came from the south-west." He pointed out the open side of the smithy toward the dark cliff of the ring wall. "To the folks living up there, one moment there was a high hill here, and then bang, they were looking down at Grantville."

"You believe that story, that it just happened with a bang?"

"I was on a hill outside Kissingen that Sunday afternoon. That's a town three or four days west of here. I saw something." He paused. He'd never told anyone this story. "It was a flash to the east, as bright as the sun, and as brief as a lightning bolt, but perfectly round, the size of an Imperial thaler sitting on the horizon. The iron is hot, let's get to work."

Thomas came back into the smithy as they were finishing forging the taper of the handle. He watched them until they finished hammering, and then took the cold end of the bar from Yossie and inspected their work.

"Not bad," he said. "Start forging the handle on another bar while I make what they need."

"What do they need?" Yossie asked.

"This broke," Thomas said, holding out two pieces of iron. "It was a brace for part of the coal-washing machine, and it broke because there was only one where there should have been two."

As Thomas went into the shop building to look for an iron bar, Fritz picked up a piece of coal from the bin beside the hearth. "They wash this?" he asked puzzled.

"That building is all for coal washing," Yossie said, pointing to a large building that seemed to be made entirely of rippled metal. "I don't understand how coal can be washed, but they are having some trouble making those machines work."

When Thomas came out of the shop building, Yossie, Karl and Fritz were hard at work. As soon as Yossie put his work-piece in the fire, Thomas took over the anvil, and for some time after that, Yossie and Thomas alternated at the anvil while Karl swung the hammer for both of them.

When they finally took a break, Yossie spoke. "Thomas. You never told me about your daughter." The question on his mind was an innocent one, but by the end of the day, he would regret speaking.

Natasha alighted from the carriage at her family's dacha outside of Moscow, along with her aunt, Sofia Petrovna. Both were wearing full regalia, "dressed to the nines," as Bernie put it. Aunt Sofia served as her chaperone, necessary in Moscovy's culture. While her brother, Vladimir Petrovich, was away in Grantville, someone had to assume responsibility for the lands. That responsibility fell on her. Young for it she might be, but she and Vlad were the last of their branch of the family. It was a wealthy branch. Thankfully, she and Vladimir had been raised by a free-thinking father who had been rather enamored of the west. She had been educated alongside Vlad. Fashionable or not, someone had to take care of things.

Aunt Sofia turned to Boris. "Well, Boris Ivanovich, what do you suppose Bernie has done this time? I thought the stinks and noises from his bathroom were quite enough. What now?"

Boris smiled. "One never knows, not with Bernie Janovich Zeppi, my lady. We shall just have to see. I am most concerned that he be well-behaved for the visit. And, Bernie being Bernie… one never knows."

"It's not Bernie we need to worry about. It's the nerds," Natasha corrected. Boris knew she was right. What he was worried about wasn't really Bernie. After a good bit of pressure and growing interest in the Dacha, the Grantville Section of the Embassy Bureau, and the new products that were coming out, Boris and Natasha had arranged a tour of the Dacha for several people who had been pushing to see and know more about it. On the one hand, Boris had no objections. On the other, some of the spectators were very opposed to the changes that were happening in their society. He feared they might use this visit as an excuse to protest more. The problem wasn't just Bernie or just the nerds or even just the information coming from Vladimir. It was a combination of all of them.

The czar and czarina, Patriarch Filaret, several members of the cabinet and some of their wives, arrived over the next few hours and had to be provided quarters in the Dacha for their stay. The normal inhabitants of those rooms had been moved into outbuildings, and even into a large, heavy, double-walled tent. Natasha greeted each guest as they arrived.