But what truly caught Maria’s attention was the description of two other artists. One was Rachel Ruysch of Amsterdam. Her father was Anthony Frederick Ruysch, a professor of anatomy and botany. Much like Maria’s father. And apparently, he passed on some of his scientific knowledge to her, because the book said, “Ruysch brought a thorough knowledge of botany and zoology to her work.”
Maria also thought much about Maria Sibylla Merian. She had come to art by the more usual path, being the daughter of an engraver and the step-daughter of a flower painter. Merian had published her first book, a collection of flower engravings, when she was only twenty-three—younger than Maria. But Merian’s great passion was to understand and depict the life cycles of insects, especially moths and butterflies.
In 1699, Merian actually traveled to fabulous Suriname, in South America, on what the Americans would call a “government grant.” The result was her masterpiece, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium.
“Lolly, about the Ring of Fire. I know that it has already changed history. Gustavus Adolphus doesn’t die at the battle of Lützen, and all that. What happens to the people who would have been born after the Ring of Fire? Are they still destined to come into the world?”
“It depends on when and where they were born,” Lolly replied. “The effect of the Ring of Fire diffuses out from Grantville. We think it would change the weather around the world in a matter of weeks, even though actual news would travel more slowly.
“And it doesn’t take much to change who is born. A soldier leaves his mistress a day earlier than in the old time line. A couple fails to meet, and the two marry other people. A person’s father or mother dies earlier than in the old time line, because an army takes a different path, or a plague ship comes to a different port.”
“The people I am thinking of, one was born in 1664, and the other in 1647.”
“Not a chance, then. Even if their parents were alive in 1631, and married to each other, they will have different children.”
After Lolly left, Maria thought further about the question she had raised. Neither Rachel Ruysch nor Maria Sibylla Merian would ever brighten the world. Their contributions would be limited to the fragments imported from the old time line.
The more Maria thought about it, the more it seemed that, though born in an earlier age, she was their intellectual heir, and that it was her duty to posterity to make a similar contribution. And, with her father and husband both dead, she had a degree of independence that was unusual for women her age.
Suriname. Also known as Guiana. The Wild Coast of South America, between the Maracaibo and the Amazon. There was a Dutch settlement there, she was sure. Her ex-husband, a merchant, had mentioned it more than once. And Catarina, Adolph’s wife, was from a commercial family; she and her kin might know more.
Perhaps it was worth consulting one of the Abrabanels, too. Maria could do more than just draw nature, she could collect it. Was there something in Suriname that the up-timers wanted badly enough that they might pay to send Maria there to look for it? The Abrabanels would know, she was sure. And, as the daughter of a Dutch doctor, she didn’t have the usual Christian prejudice against Jews. Well, some, she admitted, but after more than a year in Grantville, she had been forced to rethink a lot of what she had been taught.
And she mustn’t forget that the library might have books, or at least encyclopedia entries, that would reveal facts not naturally known to anyone of her time.
What would Adolph say if she announced that she was going to Suriname? Even if she were joining a Dutch household there? Oh, the conniptions he would have.
That was just the icing on the cake, as far as Maria was concerned.
Delaware River, near modern Philadelphia, January 1633
David took command of the shallow-drafted Eikhoorn, and left its former skipper, Jan, with the crew of the Walvis, to build and run a shore-based whaling operation. He also had the Walvis and its boats, should he need to take refuge from the Indians.
David, in the Eikhoorn, sailed up the Zuidt River, and, near Jacques Island, the going became rough. The temperature dropped sharply overnight, while they were at anchor, and, the next day, the nineteenth of January, they found the river to have almost entirely crusted over with ice. They had to pick their way, looking for open leads or, if those were absent, areas where the ice was thin enough for them to crash through. The ship shuddered at each attempt, making the crew more than a bit nervous. If the ship foundered, they wouldn’t survive long in the icy water.
“A whale (walvis) would be more at home here than a squirrel (eikhoorn),” David joked. The crew laughed, but their mood soon turned somber again. David tried heading back downriver, but the ice there seemed even thicker.