Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette.Volume IX

This distance was so set that people referred to it as " una posta ." The main route from Rome to Brussels had ninety-six post stations; the one from Antwerp to Nurnberg not quite so many. Customers could buy printed schedules and maps of the routes, as well as fee schedules, at any post office. They were posted on placards in the offices, as well.

The point was that the businessmen in any town could rely on the regular arrival of the postal courier, blowing his horn to announce that he was there. It was scheduled. "Mail day" structured the life of the towns that had post offices. Learned men, merchants, bureaucrats, clergy, and ordinary people had all become accustomed to being able to send out their correspondence on time, carried by someone whose actual job was to get it where it was supposed to go.

The imperial post and the Swedish field post were built on the assumption that horses and riders could maintain the desired speed for only a limited distance without damaging their future usefulness. Wearing out a horse was fine for emergencies, when speed was of the essence. The military field post that van den Birghden ran out of Frankfurt for the Swedes now could get a message from Frankfurt to Hamburg in five days. Reliably. On the Imperial Road as far as Eisenach. Five days for two hundred fifty miles; twenty post stops where the letter was passed off from one horse and rider pair to the next. And a lot of tenacious negotiation between the postmaster and the rulers of all the various territories along the way to get the routes established and the stations set up, but now the mail left each city regularly, twice a week, in addition to the special letters that were carried by Swedish dragoons. Der Postschwede, people called those men. The "mail Swede."

That was an amazing achievement. Martin could see why a Swedish general might want to get a message from Frankfurt to Hamburg fast. Once it got to Hamburg, after all, it could go out to Stockholm by boat. Although now, with the famous up-timer radio, maybe they could transmit the essence of the matter that way and let the post riders proceed at a more reasonable pace. But a lot of urgent things still had to be on paper-documents with signatures and seals, bank drafts, commissions for military officers.

If there wasn't any emergency, however, it was a bad idea to wear out a good horse. Martin admitted that changing horses at a postal station was all right. A fresh horse was a good thing for any courier. But changing riders did not appeal to him. He wanted to keep going.

"Oh well," he said to Crispin over breakfast, "I'm riding out again this morning, so I won't have to worry about it for a couple of weeks."

"Do I need to smile nicely at your future bride while you're gone?" Merga asked.

Martin shook his head. "I'm escaping free and clear one more time. Mutti had a little list, but I managed to avoid meeting any of her candidates."

He jogged off toward the livery stable. Merga shook her head as she watched him go. Marty was nearly thirty-five, after all. It was time for him to think of settling down.

On the Road Again

Gelnhausen, late March 1633

Martin Wackernagel's mother had often predicted that the boy's curiosity would be the death of him. She had predicted it regularly, frequently, all the years that he was growing up. She still predicted it.

So far, it hadn't been. It was still with him, though. It caused him to try to learn everything he could find out about the towns and cities through which he rode along the Imperial Road.

Coming up from the valley of the Main River, through Hanau and Isenburg territory, he reached Gelnhausen. According to the histories, in another world-a world in which Gustavus Adolphus had been killed in November 1632-Gelnhausen, in the summer of 1634, had been so devastated and destroyed by raiding Croats sent by the imperials, that it became uninhabitable and uninhabited for a time.

In this spring of 1633, with the king of Sweden alive, the town sat here, safely tucked within the well-defended borders of the Confederated Principalities of Europe-the CPE. Martin's mouth quirked. Ambitious name, that-Confederated Medium and Small Principalities of North and Central Germany would be more accurate. Nonetheless, the trial Croat raid sent toward the miraculously arrived city of Grantville the previous fall had been so effectively turned back by the king of Sweden that it now seemed unlikely that the emperor's commanders would try any such large-scale razzia into the valleys of the Werra, the Main, and the Kinzig, even if they could place their light cavalry in a position to begin one. Martin wondered if any of Gelnhausen's city fathers had studied the up-timers' records and realized their good fortune.

In that other world, there had been a boy of eleven or twelve years old whose name was Johann Jakob Christoffel Grimmelshausen. He had grown up to write a novel, perhaps the most famous one written about these wars. Martin had asked, unobtrusively. Yes, the boy was here. What would he write now, if not the Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus? Would he write anything? It was as if all the foundations of the world were melting under him, Martin thought sometimes, and he could not predict the shape they would take when they became solid again.

One thing that he could still rely on in Gelnhausen was that David Kronberg would be hanging around the post office. David had been hanging around the post office for the past ten years-maybe a bit more. Whenever the mail came in, no matter what frantic efforts his parents made to keep him away, he managed to elude them. David did not care if it was a Thurn and Taxis imperial post rider or a Swedish dragoon or a private courier such as Martin himself. He loved the post office. He wanted to know what was in the news; he wanted to know the gossip.

Kronberg. Or Kronenberger, depending upon the mood of the clerk recording the event in question. Or David ben Abraham. He was a son of parents who were prominent members of the Jewish community in this small imperial city. It wasn't a ghetto, really-not a separate miniature town within a town such as existed in Frankfurt. A neighborhood. Distinctive, but a neighborhood.

Martin, curious as always, had asked questions. There had been a Jewish synagogue in Gelnhausen for at least three hundred years. The current building was fairly new, built only thirty or so years ago. David's uncle, a man named Meier, had worked on it. He was now a builder in Frankfurt. Curious, Martin had looked him up; had even gotten to know him, in a way. It was easier for him than it would be for most Gentiles. His brother-in-law Crispin's grandfather had been a convert. Convert, as the Lutherans saw it; apostate, as the Jews saw it. But Crispin still knew people in Frankfurt's ghetto-he had been able to direct Martin to Meier Kronberg, Meir zum Schwan.

Unlike Meier, David's parents had not left Gelnhausen for the big city of Frankfurt. They would not leave Gelnhausen; would not think about having their son leave Gelnhausen. They definitely did not want to think about their son becoming a postal courier. Even in the atmosphere of the new CPE, Aberlin Kronberg, otherwise known as Aberlin ben Naphtali and Aberlin zur Lilie, and his wife Bessle Zons were having a lot of trouble thinking new thoughts about employment opportunities for their son.

Martin had offered to talk to them; to tell them about the wonderful world of the Imperial Road and all of its possibilities. David had said rather glumly that he did not think it would do much good for a Gentile to talk to them. It might even make things worse.

Today, David was even more melancholy than usual. He was being fenced in, he protested. His parents were arranging for him to marry. They were friendly with the bride's parents. Samuel Wohl-Samuel ben Aron, Samuel zur Leuchte-and Hindle Kalman had contributed a lot of money for the beautiful interior furnishings of the synagogue, the splendid, modern, baroque cabinet in which the Torah was kept. They had contributed, like the Kronbergs, to the purchase of the land where the community had its cemetery.