1636 The Kremlin Games – Snippet 43
****
As it happened it wasn’t long at all, though avalanches do take time. The next pebble was dropped by Filip. “Did you know,” he said to Natasha, “that Anya is learning accounting?”
“What? Bernie’s tart?” Natasha asked. “What on earth for? It’s not like she gets paid by the . . . encounter.” Natasha wasn’t pleased with Bernie’s extracurricular activities but men were men, especially in Russia. Then Natasha noticed that Filip had stiffened.
“Never mind, Princess, It wasn’t important,” Filip said.
“I think perhaps it is,” Natasha said. “Clearly it’s important to you. Why don’t you tell me why?”
Filip did, stumbling a bit and clearly impressed by Anya. He explained about his finding Bernie and Anya studying accounting and the ensuing discussion. Filip impressed by Anya? Filip, who couldn’t see past the edge of the book he was reading and didn’t care about breast size, just brain size? Anya had a brain? Well, yes, apparently she did. That was a pretty astute observation about chamber pots and the safe emptying of same.
After Filip ran down she thanked him for his help, asked a few questions and let him get back to work. Then she thought about it a bit and had Anya fetched.
****
“You called for me, Princess?” Anya entered the princess’ office with more than simple trepidation. She was scared to death. She remembered the conversation of the night before and she was very much afraid that in spite of Filip’s assurances that it was all right here at the dacha, it wasn’t. At least it wasn’t when a great lady was looking for a reason to discipline a maid who was having a bit of fun with a guy the great lady was interested in. Women in power were dangerous to girls like her.
“I understand you’re having Bernie teach you accounting?” Princess Natasha said.
Anya thought this was a set up to punish her for getting above herself. “Yes, Princess. Of course, if you feel it’s interfering with my duties . . .”
“Not at all.” The princess actually smiled a bit. Much to Anya’s surprise.
“Ma’am?”
“I said, not at all,” the princess repeated. “I’m a bit, um, startled by it, but why would you want to learn accounting . . . considering your other assets?”
The princess was blushing a little bit as she said that. There was an edge. Natasha didn’t like what Anya was doing with Bernie. Or no. Anya realized Natasha didn’t like that she was doing it with Bernie. The princess really was jealous of the serving girl, though she probably didn’t realize it.
They talked about Anya’s observation about chamber pots. Which led to questions what else Anya had observed. They talked books. Bernie had taught Anya to read and she had picked it up well. Anya had gotten the job in part because she had a bit of English from a previous employer who had been all hands. “Why did he teach you to read?”
“Because I asked.”
“Why did you ask? I don’t mean, why did you want to know how to read, I mean why did you think Bernie would teach you?” The princess’ blush was even brighter now. “When men are, ah, with girls like you, that’s not what they’re interested in.”
“Not all men are the same, Princess, not even about that. The English merchant who was all hands never would have taught me to read.” Anya shrugged. “Bernie likes smart women. That’s why he likes you. Besides, he’s a nice man and wanted someone to talk to in his up-timer English and teaching me to read helped with that.”
They ended up talking girl talk for quite a while that afternoon and the beginnings of a friendship were put in place. Anya became Natasha’s personal maid and confidant.
****
Lazar Smirnov barely noticed that Anya’s status had changed. Lazar had his own companionship and wasn’t any more interested in politics than he could avoid. The gradual change in attitude of Filip Pavlovich Tupikov that had been crystallized by conversation over accounting books a few nights back had passed him by completely.
Lazar had his own problems. Granted, none of them were all that severe taken on their own but they couldn’t really be taken on their own. Lazar was trying to build an entire infrastructure. Storage batteries required lead plates and sulfuric acid. Enough batteries to power a spark gap transmitter of good range required lots of lead plates and lots of sulfuric acid. Not that much of a problem. Lead, after all, was not gold and improved processes for the production of sulfuric acid had been forwarded to him by Vladimir and his friend Lady Brandy Bates, G.E.D. So there was a factory on the Muskova River that producing the stuff by the gallon. Which was good, because he needed gallons for each spark gap transmitter.
He had serfs on his estates making clay battery jars to hold the acid and the lead plates. Or at least they were till a few weeks ago. Now they were planting, sowing the seeds of the fall harvest. But once that was done, many of them would go back to making the parts he needed to create an electronics industry.
Copper wire to make the generators to charge the batteries, to use to make the permanent magnets to make more generators. And it wasn’t just radios Russia needed, whatever the Boyar Duma said. What Russia needed was the whole infrastructure. Even if they had only needed radios, the number of parts in a radio network was significant. The transmitter tuning coil, the transmitter spark capacitor, the transmitter spark coil, the transmitter spark generating buzzer, a telegraph key, a switch to switch between the receiver and the transmitter for the antenna, an earphone, a receiver tuning coil, a receiver capacitor — which was not the same thing as a transmitter capacitor — a grounding rod, wire going to the grounding rod. None of these things were really hard to do, not by themselves. It was just that there were so many.
There were four radios in Russia. Two that Lazar had made and two that had been imported. Of the two that he had made, one was here at the Dacha and one was in the Kremlin. But Lazar was also building, a bit at a time, the infrastructure to build more radios, faster. They would have one for the Gun Shop by month after next, and by then — if all went well — they would be turning out about one spark gap transmitter a month. It would be a while before the government got the network it desired.
In a vague way Lazar Smirnov knew that he was making central control in Russia much easier, but he didn’t give it much thought. That the increasing awareness of the rights of people in other parts of time and space were making the ties to the land insufferable to some and others were increasingly threatened by the notion of freedom? That, he didn’t notice at all.
“They ended up talking girl talk for quite a while that afternoon and the beginnings of a friendship were put in place.”
So Natasha, too, has a brain. Even one that can think past her own jealousy, and can cope with new ideas. Excellent. And Anya clearly has a good brain: “Bernie likes smart women. That’s why he likes you.” Hard to imagine any better way to defuse Natasha’s jealousy.
I really enjoyed this snippet because I, too, like smart women. That’s why I married one.
‘Kremlin Games’ versions of Anya and Natasha are friends now; upgraded from the ‘BitK’ versions.
And the Dacha technology can be misused by totalitarion regimes; who’d of thunk!!
/Rob
Very interesting snippet. Of course, I wonder what happens if Natasha decides she wants to supplant Anya at some point.
3: Simple. She gets an offer she cannot refuse, politly dumps Bernie into Natasha’s lap and heads off to become accountant-at-large for the family. With the understanding that if she comes back, BAD THINGS happen.
I am *so* looking forward to getting my copy of this book. Which should happen in the next week or so.
“Lady Brandy Bates, G.E.D.”
Had a real chuckle at that one.
Smart girl: learning to read, write and do sums in two languages, two sets of writing and two sets of numbers. In a (long) winter, no less. Smart girl, or else Bernie is a very good teacher (which I am inclined to doubt).
@5 Amazondotcom indicates that it is being released on June 5th.
I’m am so looking forward to this. Is the 5th of June the worldwide release date, or just the USA?
FWIW, the final ebook is already available at baenebooks.com
With Lazar Smirnov making “central control” in Russia easier and Filip (and others) learning to respect serfs, things are going to get worse for the middle class (minor nobility). They can’t compete with the wages and/or conditions that the tsar? czar? (I still don’t know which way I want to spell it) can offer the serfs for employment. This leads, IIRC, to the tsar and serfs being somewhat allied. These changes will probably be good for both of them in the short term and just the serfs in the long term. I just hope that the October Revolution gets avoided in this timeline.
@11 — Terranovan
I suspect that a revolution is unavoidable, but it won’t be televised.
11: There is no “middle class” as we think of it ATT in Russia. We have the Ranked families, and we have serfs. Even a low Ranked family is so far above the serfs that there is no middle to think of. Those with power could see that “arising tide floats all boats” and profit from the arrival of industrialization and the freedom of the serfs to become weathy enough to afford more food (and pay for it, rather than get it for free as they do now). Those who fight will lose, either when the revolt comes, or when they suffer the fate of Poland and get crushed by neighbors who did and thus can afford modern armies.
Slightly off topic, but have the Up-timers told anyone about the atomic bomb yet?
Charlie, anybody who visited Grantville could learn that the atomic bomb existed.
It’s not something the up-timers could really hide.
For that matter, the existance of chemical/biological warfare is known to down-timers along with the knowledge that Grantville won’t be trying to create such weapons.
Of the top of my head, knowledge about creating atomic/chemical/biological weapons is the only knowledge that the up-timers try to restrict.
Dowloaded the book onto my Nook on Friday, and finished it today (the final version of the book, not the eARC). Wow! What a story. And it’s begging for a sequel. Drak, do you know if EF has plans for a sequel to this book?
For those of you celebrating Memorial Day, have a great holiday!
Chemical and bioweapon knowledge I can certainly see, but I don’t see any point to restricting atomic information. It is just so out of reach in terms of the resources needed.
I agree that it’s unlikely that anybody could create an atomic bomb anytime soon and I’m not sure if the info needed to build one has been restricted (or if it is available in Grantville).
However, knowledge that atomic weapons existed is impossible to retrict.