Gretchen would be gone some day, of course. Probably, Anne thought, with as many regrets as Anne would feel, if she had to leave. Amsterdam was the place where Gretchen Richter had finally come into her own. The place where she'd learned to make herself and her skills match her reputation; where she went from a famous but uncertain firebrand and orator to a superbly capable organizer and revolutionary political leader.
Which meant, in turn, that it wouldn't really matter to Anne whether Gretchen was still here in the flesh or not. Firebrands are very visible, but they leave few traces behind. Gretchen's footprints would stamp Amsterdam for at least two generations, and probably forever. Deep enough, certainly, that if any guild doctor or apothecary returning from exile was foolish enough to protest Anne's medical practice, he'd be lucky if he just got out of it with his shop turned into a wreck. The journeymen and apprentices who were the backbone of the city's CoC were in no mood to tolerate any presumptions by returning guildmasters. Not any longer; not after they withstood the might of Spain, while their former masters fled into exile.
Anne took Adam by the arm again and resumed walking. "But what will you do? Adam, I really don't like the idea of you leaving for long stretches on diplomatic missions."
He grimaced. "Neither do I. But I probably won't have any choice, dearest."
Anne took a deep breath. "Uh . . . How's your testosterone level doing, at the moment?"
He looked down at her, curious. "No worse than ever, I'd say. Why?"
This time it was she who stopped, disengaged her hand, and turned to face him squarely. "Okay, fine. Then let's cut through all of it. Here's the truth. If I put my mind to it—yes, even with children—I can turn this half-assed medical practice I started on the side, more to keep from getting bored stiff than anything else, into a serious money-maker. I wouldn't even have to gouge anybody. I've already got such a long line every time I open my door that what I really need to do anyway—I'll ask Mary Pat if she thinks Beulah MacDonald is up to leaving Jena for a couple of months to come here and walk me through it—is set up a real medical clinic. Eventually, maybe, the city's first hospital worth calling by the name. You follow my drift?"
He frowned. "I'm not sure I even follow your idiom."
"Oh. Sorry. I forgot we were speaking English instead of German. Easy for me to lapse into American slang when we do that. What I meant was, do you understand what I'm proposing? We both stay here. You only take diplomatic missions that won't keep you from home for . . . what's reasonable? Two months?"
He shook his head. "You have to allow at least four, Anne, for anything serious. Even if I'm going no farther than a hundred miles."
She thought about it. "Okay. I can live with four months. Six, tops. But that's it."
"That would mean I'd be unemployed most of the time."
"Don't be silly. You just do the work you really want to do, anyway. Your mathematics. And—pardon my English—fuck whether or not you're getting paid for it. Who cares? I'll make enough for both of us."
He looked away. "Let me think about it."
"Sure. How long?"
"Um. Two days?"
"Make it four."
He laughed, and they went back to walking. After a few minutes of companionable silence, Adam cleared his throat.
"Do you think that was really true? What Rebecca said, I mean, concerning Gretchen's—ah, what was the phrase?—rigorous and ruthless methods for preventing pregnancy. Granted that Gretchen is the dominant one of the couple, but I wouldn't have thought she could keep her husband that much under her thumb." He looked a bit alarmed. "I trust that you have no such plans?"
Anne grinned. "You haven't seen any signs of it so far, have you? Relax. I'm a doctor, remember? Well, nurse—but that makes me one of the few doctors worth calling by the name, in the here and now. I've got other ways of handling that little problem. Which I've been using since the first time you finagled your way into my bed, not that you'd ever notice. Men. So would Gretchen, if she'd follow my advice. But you know what she's like. Politics aside, she's almost a reactionary. The old methods work, so why mess with them?"
Adam had the grace to look a little embarrassed. "I had wondered, actually. But . . . ah . . . since you didn't seem concerned . . ."
"Ha! Men, like I said. And besides, you're wrong about the rest of it, anyway. The part about Gretchen and Jeff, that is."
"How so?"
"She's the flamboyant one of the two, no doubt about it. And since she also knows what she wants to do with her life and has the determination of a glacier—and Jeff really doesn't care otherwise and is willing to go along for the ride—you make the mistake of thinking there's dominance involved. There really isn't, Adam. I think Gretchen would be quite lost without him. He's her anchor, you could say."