1635: THE DREESON INCIDENT – Snippet 55
Chapter 26
Rudolstadt
"It is ‘Thanksgiving’ today in Grantville, isn’t it?" Count Ludwig Guenther asked at breakfast. "A holiday. That’s why there are so few up-timers here, going about their business, even though it is a Thursday."
His wife nodded. "Dankfest. Erntedankfest, more precisely. Mary Kat says that it is a harvest festival. Or began as one. But religious, not a fair, not a Kirmess. Though surely Kirmess and Messe, as in the
Countess Emelie stood up. "Oh, how my back aches. I don’t believe that I am hungry after all, dearest. There must be some tie to the liturgy. I’ll go check in the library."
Grantville
"I’d expected the girl to come with you, but I suppose that it makes sense, since they have tomorrow off from school too, that Gertrude took the chance to go to see her sister." Eleanor Jenkins got up and looked out the living room window. "And, in a way, it will be nice to have just family for Thanksgiving dinner. Here they come."
"Who?" asked her daughter-in-law Debbie. "And, uh, it’s not going to be ‘just family,’ Mom. Not even near-family, like Chip’s Katerina."
"Wes and Clara. I see them coming around the corner. And what do you mean, ‘not just family?’
"Missy asked Ron Stone and his little brother. That was when we thought the dinner would be at our place; before we decided to have it here with you. Gerry’s come down from Rudolstadt for the holiday. They’re out in your side yard, talking to Chip, right now. When they saw that Missy was heading straight for the kitchen, they sort of ducked around coming inside and having to talk to the grownups."
She frowned, mentally identifying and classifying the Stone boys, and then looked around. "What do you think about it,
Charles Jenkins got up and looked over her shoulder. "Big brother? We couldn’t have expected him not to, I suppose. By nature, he’s inclined to go out of his way to be a happily married man. I know that you and Dad had more than a few doubts about
Eleanor looked out through the curtain again. Her older son and his new wife had paused on the sidewalk. Clara looked up at Wes’ face and gave a little skip; he put his arm around her shoulder.
"I worried about
Eleanor was still looking out the window. "Callous, I suppose. I guess that would be the best word. He never has been."
"Why ‘just as well’ for Clara?"
"I don’t want to criticize
***
One of the cooks was also looking out the window. "Here’s Dad and Clara," Chandra said.
"I get to run and hug Grandpa." Mikey was proud of his status as oldest grandchild, which brought him privileges, such as running outdoors by himself, that the younger ones had not yet earned.
"Coat, mittens, hat. Okay." Chandra opened the kitchen door.
"You really like Clara, don’t you?" her aunt asked. "No problems that your dad married her."
Chandra grinned. Smirked, more precisely. "I sent her to Ed Piazza to apply for the job in
Deborah Jenkins looked up, startled. "I didn’t know that. Neither did
"I didn’t exactly announce the plan with trumpets. I couldn’t be sure that it would ‘take.’ I was beginning to think that it wouldn’t, until Kortney Pence came home after last Christmas and reported that there was definitely a mutual attraction in place. Clara had qualms because she didn’t have kids during her first marriage, Kortney told us. She thought Dad deserved a second wife who could give him sons. Kortney did a gyne exam while she was over there in
"And now," her Aunt Debbie giggled, "us. ‘Two can keep a secret’ and all that. Talk about the blackmail possibilities when I need help from my nieces."
"Why did you pick Clara?" Missy asked.
"Well, because she’s different from Mom. At least, she’s as different from Mom as a woman could be and still get Dad interested in her."
"Well, not just that they don’t look alike. Though that’s true enough, and I didn’t think it would be a good idea to try for a rerun. Mom was so ‘
Missy laughed. "Is seven or eight inches shorter than he is with curly dark brown hair and a round face. Generally rounded. Yep. Differences duly noted."
"I’d make it nine or ten inches shorter. My knee-length skirts are floor-length on her. But they’re also enough alike. People may go around saying that ‘bad girls have all the fun,’ but they sure aren’t going to have any of it with Dad. He may see bad girls in the sense that he perceives that they exist, but he’s just not interested. He wants ‘everything nice,’ like in the rhyme. Mom was really nice, and so is Clara. But . . ."
"On the rest of it, sugar and spice, Mom was really heavy on the sugar in the mix. Clara’s got a lot more spice, I think." Chandra winked.
"Not exactly," Gerry answered Chip. "I do expect to go to the
For a minute, Chip stared at him. Then he remembered that Gerry’s stepmother Magda was from
"I’m going to have to take instruction about becoming Lutheran in order to marry Katerina ‘properly,’" he said. "When you come right down to it, in order to marry Katerina at all. There are a few things that seem to be nonnegotiable. Exactly what’s involved in it?"
All of a sudden, Gerry’s expression changed. Intent. With his red hair, Chip thought, in spite of the round face, it made him look like a setter on the point.
"Before you go back to
Gerry’s description of what he would be expected to do didn’t seem too bad. A little tedious maybe, but not bad. Chip listened for a while; then started to retaliate with an equal amount of sententious advice for Gerry.
"You really ought to take at least a few law courses," he said. "Lutheran pastors have to sit on consistorial courts, sometimes. I expect that will keep on happening as long as any of the territories in the USE continue to have state churches. You might as well resign yourself to learning this sort of stuff as well as theology."
"I mean it," Chip said. He waved his hand toward the sidewalk. "Look there. When Uncle Wes married Clara over in
***
"So that’s where the negotiations stand on the marriage contract right now,"
His wife Debbie shook her head. "They didn’t, quite. There was ‘going steady.’ Letter jackets. Class rings. ‘Engaged to be engaged.’ There was a song my father used to play. ‘Me and my girl are goin’ steady, We’re not married, but we’re gettin’ ready.’ Maybe we didn’t notice it, didn’t think of them as ‘betrothal rituals,’ because we were used to it all."
She turned, hearing a sound at the door. Katerina, the other half of Chip’s future marriage contract in person, coming down late. "Why don’t you go on into the kitchen," she suggested. "It will be more fun for you with the younger women."
I can’t wait for this book to published! I don’t expect to be a sweeping saga like 1633 or THE BALTIC WAR but the various character interplays I’ve been reading are more like 1632 and THE RAM REBELLION. Both kinds have their place in the ROF saga.
Now, the NEXT question is what will be the NEXT book on the schedule?
As of a bit over a month ago three books were partly written.
Ring of Fire 3
1636: The Torturer of Fulda
and
1636: The Grand Duke of Burgundy
And there were another ten books under contract at that time.
Excelent! We move on from the year 1634 and don’t even get stuck in 1635. Torturer of Fulda?
I might be wrong about the year on Torturer of Fulda, it might be a 1635 book, because it’s the direct sequel to Ram Rebellion, and it’s another ‘braided novel’ (that’s how I personally think of Ram Rebellion) at least I think it’s written the same way as Ram Rebellion.