Grantville Gazette, Volume 66 Page 4

  The side of the boy's head exploded, and he slid boneless from the saddle. Hartmann looked toward the enemy that was now shooting at his men. From what movement they could see, they had thought maybe a hundred men were there. Considering the fire they were taking, he revised that to maybe six or seven hundred, half firing with the other half handing preloaded rifles forward. But they couldn't keep that up for long. There weren't enough rifles in all of Germany. They had to get closer! "At the double! Close to range!" His men jogged forward.

  Hartmann ran into, then through the cloud of smoke, and still his men followed. Seventy-five yards, closer, then he shouted for a halt. The men were already leveling their muskets.

  Suddenly he felt a blinding pain and went down on his back. Something hit the ground beside him, and he recognized the plumes from his own helmet. An arquebusier had put two holes in his helmet, and no doubt through his head as well.

  Someone grabbed his arms. It was Müller. He wanted to tell the man to run, to pick up the musket he had dropped and keep fighting! But even though he could see the world still, he knew he was dead. No one survived a musket ball going through his head. The man was breathing heavily, trying to drag his sergeant to safety. Then there was a meaty thunk, and Müller went over backwards.

  Somehow Hartmann rolled on his stomach. Perhaps the old stories of revenants rising from the dead were true. He crawled his way to the young man's side, lifting the body to his lap. Something far smaller than a bullet had punched through the breastplate he wore.

  "Don't worry, lad." He whispered. "Once we have won, they will see to that." He heard a whooshing sound, and streamers of smoke shot up from behind the hill ahead. His eyes tracked them to where they exploded in the tercio.

  The tercio was collapsing. The battle was only minutes old and the tercio was breaking! He sat there stupidly watching the men throwing away their weapons to run faster. His own men had broken when he went down, though a dozen or so were still scattered around him. There was a horn, and the enemy cavalry charged out, moving to cut off the retreat. Some kind of two-wheeled snarling carts, ridden like horses, came past him headed to the camp as well. Then with a rumbling, huge war carts came around the hill to follow. Over at the road, the Protestants were rallying and charging toward the camp.

  The camp. The children! He gently set Müller down, then pushed himself to his feet. He had to do something to protect the ones he had sheltered for so long. Staggering, he walked toward the distant camp. As he passed the dead officer, he picked up the wheel-lock. He would need it.

  ****

  "Will you get a load of this?" Addison Miller commented, motioning with the barrel of his rifle. The trucks had stopped. The Protestant mercenaries were hunkered down being good little POWs. Bobby Hollering looked around at the man trudging toward them. He wore some kind of bandolier with wooden tubes strung from it, and the left side of his face was bloody from a nasty scalp wound. He also held a wheellock with two more hanging from his belt.

  The man stopped, eyes coming up, looking at the camp and the men before him. Then he angled to go around them.

  "Halt!" Bobby shouted. He racked the bolt on his rifle. The man merely looked at them, then at the weapon in his own hand. Several men aimed, but the man just stood there, looking at the weapon as if trying to remember what to do with it. He finally got the hammer down against the wheel, but he still hadn't lifted it.

  "Tut unserem Lehrer nicht weh!" A high-pitched voice screamed, and they jerked around, looking at the pitiful tents. Six children, the oldest maybe eleven, were running from the camp screaming at them. They passed around the men, and hugged the injured man. He looked down as if counting them, and collapsed to his knees, then slumped over.

  But they weren't beating on him or screaming. Now they were making consoling sounds, the girl, all of maybe eight, was wiping his face with her skirt. A couple of the boys were facing the Americans defiantly, shouting the phrase again and again.

  Addison walked over, picking up the wheellock before stepping back. “Now how do you—” He yelped as the gun went off, the bullet going God alone knew where.

  Hartmann looked up. The children, they were safe. He could die in peace now. A hand with some cloth was wiping his face, and he looked up. Black hair, not gold, but he was still confused. "You should be in heaven, Anna, not here."

  "Oh, Teacher, I am Lisle," she sobbed. She wiped the tears from her face, getting his blood on her cheek. He reached up to wipe it away, and that was the last thing he remembered.

  Late July, 1631

  Grantville

  He knew he wasn't dead. If the priests had anything at all right, he should either be hearing choirs of angels or the screams of the damned. Instead he felt as if an imp was pounding on his head in time with his heartbeat. Since he was alive, he decided to open his eyes.

  He was laying on a cot, covered in a nice-smelling sheet. Sheets of some kind of translucent material hung around him, and to the sides he could see other beds. Figures moved behind those sheets, walking down the line of cots. He felt around his body. His clothes, his weapons, his money were gone. The curtain was pushed aside, and a Moorish woman stepped through. She was looking at some flat piece she held, and when she looked up, her eyes widened in surprise.

  "You're finally awake."

  He understood her. After eleven years, he could make himself understood from Warsaw to the North Sea, or from the Baltic to the Papal States. So he knew at least some English. He merely nodded.

  "Would you like some water?"

  "Ja, please."

  She got a cup made of something he had never seen, filled it, and put a straw into it. Rather than letting him hold it, she held it where he could suck the liquid into his mouth. He sighed in contentment when it was taken away.

  "Now you wait right here, and I'll get Dad." She patted him on the arm and was gone.

  Dad? He wasn't sure what she had meant. But as for staying here, he could barely raise his hand. He ran his left hand over his head. Instead of a wound, he found a line of a scar that ran from above his left eye to his skull above his ear. "What hit me?"

  "From the damage, I would say a NATO round." Another Moor, this one male, had entered with that thin plank.

  "NATO?"

  "Term from our time. Good thing it wasn't one of your guns, or one of our hunting rounds." The man came over, sitting in the same chair the woman had used. "We found your helmet. If it had been one of yours, the bullet would have bounced around instead of blowing through." He made a motion like a square a couple of times rapidly. "Would have blown through your head as well. If it had been a hunting round, it would have mushroomed. NATO rounds have full metal jackets, so it went through, sliced you up, and went on. Though it rung your bell pretty bad."

  "I had no bell."

  "Figure of speech." Whatever that meant. "It hit making your brain bounce around inside your skull. But nothing else. You've been out of it for almost three weeks."

  "Out of what?"

  "Sleeping while your body repaired itself." The man leaned forward. "The scar is pretty much healed."

  "You are the doctor?"

  "I am a doctor, but Doc Adams stitched you up. I am just the doctor on rounds."

  Hartmann looked at the man, then at the bed. "I would pay him if someone had not stolen my money belt."

  "Stolen? No, your clothes were sent to the laundry. Your guns and the money belt are in storage for you when you get out of here."

  "Why did you not merely let me die?"

  The Moor sighed. "We don't do things that way here. Our rules of war say we must heal you if we can. Like the bullet that hit you. It is supposed to be less cruel."

  "When may I leave? And where will I be taken when I do?"

  "Taken? Every man from the battle was vetted by a woman we trust named Gretchen. She saw you. If they were bad ones, she said no, and we kicked them out. But she took one look at you back around the first of the month and said, 'He is a good man.' So as to w
here you go, mister, you can go where you want or stay. We won't stop you."

  Hartmann pondered this. No recruitment at the point of a sword? No “convert or die’? He shook his head, which made his headache worse.

  "Look, until your head is better, you are going nowhere."

  "May I have some things? I had a pipe and tobacco."

  "Can't smoke here. But I can have a wheelchair brought and you can go outside and have your smoke."

  "Thank you."

  "You're welcome, Teacher."

  Hartmann looked at him oddly. "Why do you call me that?"

  "That's what the kids called you. We finally figured out they were shouting, 'Don't hurt our teacher' when you were found." The Moor cocked his head. "I didn't think teachers traveled with the armies."

  Hartmann shook his head again. "It is merely what they call me. I am the one who teaches the young men how to fight. And protects them until they can."

  "Well, it saved your ass when they piled on you. One of the guys was ready to pop a cap in you when you came up with that gun." The Moor made a note on the flat piece he had gotten from the young woman. He poured some water, then pulled a bottle of some kind from his jacket and shook two pills out. "Here, for your headache. In the morning we will be moving you from here to another facility."

  Dutifully he swallowed the pills with some water. Then he lay there until he fell asleep again. He was still wondering why young goats would call him anything.

  September 28, 1631

  Grantville

  Hartmann spent much of his time sleeping. He would wake up enough to eat, but even that tired him. The one time he was awake enough to ask for his pipe again, he was helped into a chair with large wheels and pushed through the hall to the outdoors. But his clay pipe had shattered when he fell on it. He thought he wouldn't be able to smoke, though one of the people attending him gave him a cigarette that once.

  A social worker, whatever that meant, came to talk to him, explaining what had occurred. A town from the far future had been dumped into Germany. It was weapons of that future that had slaughtered his comrades so readily. He would be allowed to get well. He could even stay if he wished. When asked if he wanted to join the army defending this new place, he merely shrugged. He was told the children, even some of his comrades had asked to see him, but he refused. He'd always hated looking weak; it meant you were prey. When he was well, he would find them.

  He was constantly amazed by the entire town’s attitude on how to treat him. Instead of letting him lay on the bed in his own filth, they would bring what they called a bedpan and whisked his waste away. They bathed him at least twice a week with a cloth. That more than anything else made him sure they were not of this world. The building appeared to be for the care of the elderly, more than he had ever seen in one place before.

  But lying in bed palled. The week after he had awakened, he was walking, though as slow as a man at the end of his life. But he grew stronger, and today his things had been brought. The clothes were cleaned and repaired, and the money belt lay atop them. The gems he had saved over his years were still there, along with the silver and gold coins he had put into it. He felt it must be a nursing order sworn to poverty and meaning it. Perhaps he could speak to whoever was in charge and find a place for Lisle.

  They even brought his weapons. The caliver, the wheel-locks; he remembered picking up the one from the dead officer so now he had three and his sword. He armed himself and walked out. There was a long counter they called a desk for some reason, with a couple of women dressed in scandalous attire working in front of odd boxes. He stopped, fumbling in the pouch on the belt. "Please. Who do I pay?"

  "Oh, you don't have to pay."

  He shrugged, setting down the coins. "Then this is for the order. Do you have places for a child? I have been watching over some children."

  "Order?" The woman talking to him looked confused, then her eyes widened. "Oh, no, this is not a religious order. Just a geriatrics clinic. We take care of the elderly."

  "Then is there a monastery?"

  "We don't have one in town," the other woman replied.

  "Then I must find a Jew. Where is the Rathaus? Somewhere I can find guild masters who can take apprentices?"

  "Why do you need a Jew?" the second woman asked sharply.

  He shrugged. "If I am to sell a stone to pay for their apprenticeships, I would need a Jew. At least if I want an honest appraisal."

  "Appraisal?" the first one asked.

  Hartmann reached into his belt and laid one of the rubies on the counter.

  The women stood, looking at it, and their eyes widened.

  "It looks like it’s maybe three carats!" the second one said.

  "At least!" The first one leaned back. "You'll have to see Mr. Roth. He's the jeweler. And, yes, he's Jewish." She nudged the coins. "You don't need to leave these, either."

  "Thank you." He put the money and gem away, and walked to the door outside. The first time he had seen this town, this Grantville, he had been amazed. Streets as smooth as ice, buildings of such size that he had not tired of looking at them when he went outside. It was afternoon. He would have to find somewhere to sleep for the night, then find the children—

  "Lehrer!"

  He spun at the shout. A vehicle, what they called a bus, had pulled up, and children were pouring into it from a building nearby. One of the long-haired boys was running toward him, a brightly colored pack of some kind on his back. An instant before he was hugged, he recognized the child.

  "Lisle?" He held her at arm's length. "Why are you dressed in boy's clothes? It is a scandal!"

  She laughed, a sound that made his heart brighter. "Oh no, teacher. These people don't care how you dress!" Her hands fluttered over his head, then she was hugging him again. "Finally you are well! You are well, true?" He nodded.

  "The boys. Where are they?" He asked.

  "We do not live in the same place. All of us will soon be living with families who can take care of another child, but no one could take six of us!"

  He stood. "Now that I am well again, I will see about getting you all apprenticeships. Do you know where I must go to ask?"

  "But what about school?"

  He sighed. "I cannot afford to send all of you to school, dear one. Perhaps Michael. But not all six."

  "But they do not charge for school here. All of us are in school. Well except for Dieter. He is too young yet. He goes to daycare."

  "He goes to somewhere they watch him?"

  "Oh, it is what they call a place for children who are too young to go to school." She stepped back. "Come, Lehrer. Come see where I am living now!"

  ****

  The building had been recently constructed with bunks along the walls, and a woman in proper clothes was seated at a desk near the door. She stood, striding toward them. "Lisle! Why did you not take the bus?" she demanded.

  "I am sorry, Frau Lenz. I saw my protector when we were camp followers. He has been in the hospital all this time."

  The woman looked up, and her stern gaze softened. "You are der Lehrer?" She walked over, taking his hand. "God will thank you for saving the children you did."

  "Perhaps," he replied. I believe that God and Satan have spent the last thirteen years sitting in a tavern, drinking beer and playing chess with humanity, occasionally changing sides on the board when some damn priest boasts of His support so He can say He is with all of us. At the moment He is probably too drunk to watch what I do. "Do you know where the boys are?"

  "Oh, they are in the next building. There was no orphanage here, no monastery or convent, so my husband and I offered to take care of them with help from other women who needed work until they find homes for the children."

  "Then who pays for them?" he asked sharply. "The church?"

  "Oh, no. They have something called 'social services' which deals with such things here in Grantville. The people pay for it with their taxes."

  He snorted. All well and good, but charity only
went so far. "I must find a jeweler named Roth. I will help."

  "You are but a soldier! How can you help?"

  He opened his belt and slid out the six stones he had. "With these once I have sold them."

  "It is very generous. But I would keep most of it for yourself. There are enough good honest people in this town to deal with most of our needs. They have taken old clothing from their own people to dress them, though some have become too much American." Lenz commented, glancing down sternly.

  "It is more comfortable to dress this way," Lisle protested.

  "Lisle," he said.

  She looked down, chastened. "I am sorry, Frau Lenz, Teacher."

  "Don’t you have studying to do, little one?" The girl ran off.

  "We have heard so many good things about you, Teacher."

  "It is a title, not my name. I am Richard Hartmann." He looked at the stones, then put them away. "Now, this jeweler. Where is his shop?"

  "You must have passed it on the way." The woman went out and directed him.

  ****

  The middle-aged man looked at the stones through a small glass he screwed into the hollow of his eye. "Yes. Fine stones."

  Hartmann shrugged. "Whenever I had too much weight in coins, I would buy stones from a Jew if I could find one." He shrugged again. "They weigh much less."

  "I understand." The man took a machine on his counter, and began punching small buttons. "Do you have a bank account yet?"

  Hartmann snorted. "Only a fool puts money in a place that will be the first target of a sack."

  "Then you have no money."

  Hartmann lifted his hand and opened it.

  "All right, no money from Grantville." The jeweler opened a drawer, taking out a folder, then began to write. "They are not faceted, though they have been cut. I can buy them as is. But I do not keep that much cash available. I will write you a check… a letter of deposit. Take it to the bank and they will assist you."