Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette.Volume VII

Both Colette and Amy saw that the curtains were closed when they reached the house. They walked into the living room. Several lit candles were spaced around, giving the room a soft glow.

"Josh?" Colette's voice sounded nervous.

"Be right there. Have a seat on the couch, please."

Amy and Colette sat down. When Josh walked in he was holding something behind his back.

Josh switched to French. It is the better language for this.

"Colette Dubois, I have loved you from the first day I saw you in the parish hall. I tried to tell myself that it couldn't happen, that love at first sight is impossible, an illusion. But it isn't. I want to share my life with you, and be a part of yours."

Josh brought his hand out from behind his back and got down on one knee. In his hand was a wide-mouthed brandy snifter with a flower floating in water. On the flower was a diamond ring.

"Will you marry me?"

By then both Amy and Colette were crying. In the back of his mind he could hear his grandfather's voice. "Good job, boy. Good job."

Through her tears Colette smiled. "Yes, Josh, I will marry you."

Five minutes later they had their first fight.

"Lawyers!" Josh stomped around the room. "We don't need any stinking lawyers!"

"It's customary," Colette said stiffly. "I made a mistake with Etienne, I was young and immature. But we each must hire an attorney to negotiate our marriage contracts." Colette's voice softened. "Please Josh, this is important to me."

Josh sighed. "Tell you what, we can play a game of chess. Whoever wins gets their way."

Colette laughed. "I have a better idea." Her eyes turned smoky. "A wrestling match. Whoever dies the little death the most, wins."

Colette turned to Amy. "Would you mind waiting on the porch for Colas? Josh and I need some privacy to discuss this." She grabbed Josh's hand and began leading him into the bedroom.

Colette won. Josh found he didn't mind losing at all.

What he did mind, however, was that Colette insisted on real negotiations for their agreement. And that, while negotiations were going on, Colette felt it would be unfair to sleep with him since it might affect his judgment.

Wonderful, he grumbled to himself. I rediscover how great sex can be with a woman I'm in love with, and she cuts me off.

Fortunately, the negotiations only took five days. Father Mazzare, rather ruefully adapting to the times in which Grantville found itself now, abbreviated the six months of premarital counseling that had become standard up-time to what he could fit into calling the banns on three successive Sundays. On September 10, 1631, they were the first persons to be married in St. Mary's church since it was renamed.

"No, no!" shouted Henri. "Thrust, not slice! And watch your balance! You look like a headless duck flapping its wings!"

Colette smiled. A brief scuffle with ruffians in Erfurt on their honeymoon had prompted Josh to seek Henri's assistance in learning the proper modes of seventeenth- century combat. Henri had arrived back in Grantville in early September. He had also brought the first disbursement of Simon Dubois' estate, some two thousand guilders.

Colette turned back to her conversation with Amy. "So you don't like this Walter Miller?"

In July Greg Ferrara had convinced Amy to become an apprentice chemistry teacher at Grantville High School. What he had not told her, however, was who the teacher she was apprenticing with would be.

Amy rolled her eyes. "God, the man belongs in a geriatric ward! He actually fell asleep in sixth period yesterday!"

"What about Alexandra?" Colette smiled. Alexandra Selluci was the other new chemistry teacher at the high school.

"She's not too bad," Amy said. "I think I could actually learn something from her. I told Tonya today that we have got to switch at the end of the quarter. No way I'm putting up with Miller for an entire semester."

Colette looked over at the stove. "So how does the chicken look? I'm getting hungry." Colette had never learned to cook. Even when her mother had been alive Simon Dubois had hired servants to do both the cleaning and cooking.

Amy opened the oven door for a quick peek and then closed it. "Looking good. I just wish we had more spices."

Most of the spices available in Grantville when the Ring of Fire struck had been either used up or were being hoarded by cooks unwilling to part with them. This was particularly true given the fact that many spices taken for granted in the twentieth century were very expensive.

Colette moved to set the kitchen table and glanced back at Amy. "Where's Bart? Still working at the foundry?"

Amy nodded. "Yup, since he helped Josh get the two beehive ovens and the shell of the crucible steel building up, he's spent all of his time on getting the cupola furnace and the foundry started. He's got some partners for that, but they don't know much about casting. The smelting season is about to start and he wants to be ready in case they can get some cast iron from the local blast furnaces."

At that moment they heard Bart's voice in the living room. "Hello, anyone here?"

"Back in the kitchen, Dad. Is Mom coming?"

Bart walked into the kitchen and shook his head. "Nope. Colette Mora got sick at the cafe and Sebastian begged her to come in and help. Business is picking up for them."

Amy opened the oven door again and smiled at what she saw. "Chicken is ready. Better call the boys, Colette."

After dinner, conversation turned to the major topics of the month

… Breitenfeld and business.

"I really don't see how our arrival could have changed the outcome at Breitenfeld," Josh pointed out. "Gustavus Adolphus will win and Tilly will be driven from the field. But the farther away in time we move from the Ring of Fire the more likely things will change, especially as we begin interacting with people outside Thuringia."

Colette nodded thoughtfully. "So my letters to Annette, my uncle, and Marie de Gournay will change history?"

"How could they not?" Amy asked. "In our history you were probably killed, from what you told me. Things are going to be way different now that we're here. And that probably means that a lot of the people who were born in our history, even the famous people, won't even exist in this universe. No Newton, no Einstein… nobody we're familiar with who was born after the 1630's."

Colette sat up in dismay. "But that means no Euler!"

Bart laughed at the expression on Colette's face. "Right, no Euler. Who's Euler?"

Colette glanced around the table. Every single person had a blank look on their face. She sighed.

Jerry Calafano had loaned her numerous books on mathematics including biographies, textbooks and problem books. She had spent hours each day reading, problem solving and pondering the mathematics of the future. Of all the mathematicians she had read about, she most identified with Euler. Not because she thought she had the same genius, but because Euler had seemed to love all of mathematics as she did, for the mere ability to challenge the mind.

"Euler," Colette said, "was the most famous mathematician since Archimedes. He averaged more than eight hundred pages of manuscript a year. Even when he lost his eyesight in 1771 he still kept publishing, dictating his thoughts to a secretary." Colette shook her head sadly. "No Euler. I will miss him."

Josh laughed. "Colette! He hasn't even been born yet!"

"True, but still…" Colette got a thoughtful look on her face.

Oh oh, thought Josh, I'm beginning to understand that look. "Colette, what are you scheming?"

Colette's face turned innocent. "Scheming? Nothing. Just thinking that I must do something to make sure people do not forget Euler in this universe." She patted Josh's hand. "Do not worry my husband, it will not affect us."