The Dreeson Incident(35)

"We're not going on past Fulda, hoping to find an inn with space somewhere further along. It's already late and we're worn out, all of us. By the time we get around the city, the places on the other side will already be full with people coming from the other direction who know there won't be places to stay in Fulda itself and pulled over early. Everybody turn around. We'll backtrack a little."



"We've already checked with every inn along here," Simon protested.



"Yeah. That's right. Follow me."





"Barracktown?" Simon Jones exclaimed.



"It's obvious, when you think about it. All those orange uniforms out guarding VIPs means a whole batch of empty bunks in the barracks."



"We can't."



"Sure we can. You're a preacher from Grantville." He pointed his thumb. "She's a famous artist from Italy." He grinned. "The obligation of hospitality. Down-timers take it seriously. Just let me nose around and find someone I knew before we left for Venice last winter. Leave it to 'Stone the Golden-Tongued' or whatever some poet in a heroic epic might call me. If I didn't learn anything else from Sandrart—actually, to be honest, I learned quite a bit from him—he really improved my schmooze quotient."





"Hell, if that doesn't look like an Old West general store! What's it doing in Barracktown? Hold up, everyone." Ron dismounted with something of a groan and tossed his reins to Gerry. He was back ten minutes later with a young down-time woman following him. With something of a flourish, he bowed to Jones. "We're in luck. It's the sutler's cabin. The new guy remodeled. Everybody left in Barracktown seems to be shopping. Reverend Jones, may I have the privilege of presenting to you Antonia Kruger. She's married to Sergeant Johnny Furbee, who goes to your church in Grantville."



Antonia produced something that might have been a curtsey, if curtseys only involved a two-inch bob rather than a sweeping bend of the knees, and averred that she was honored by the privilege. She also took Signora Gentileschi and Signorina Constantia off to her own cabin, after having hauled a couple of half-grown boys out of the store, one to take the horses to the stables and the other to take the men to the barracks.



"Told you," Ron said, as they tucked into ham sandwiches. "Piece of cake."



Gerry looked at him. "It's rye bread."



"Whatever."





Buchenland


"Y'know," Mark Early remarked. "If Freiherr von Schlitz wasn't in jail again for plotting against the government of the SoTF, he'd hate this. Absolutely hate it."



Orville Beattie grinned. "Yup. Henry's holding up real well. Rip-roarin' job of stumping. God, what a stroke of luck that we managed to get Constantin Ableidinger to come at the same time. The newspapers are eating it up. 'Handing on the torch'—ain't that how the Magdeburg paper put it? I've got to say that Jason Waters in Frankfurt has been earning his keep, too." He looked at the back of the wagon bed that Henry was standing on. "What do they call it—what the Kastenmayer boy is doing?



"Simultaneous translation."



"I thought that was sign language."



"They do it from one language to another, too. Gets the words out in the second language while the audience can still hang onto the tone of voice that the speaker was using when he said them in the first language."



"Then when Henry gets tired, Ableidinger booms at them for a while."



"We ought to get some great publicity when Henry goes down to Frankfurt to meet Ronnie."



"If we don't, Wes wasted a lot of money on flyers. Wackernagel wangled the printing contract for his brother-in-law. Jason Waters promised to get it into the Frankfurt papers. We'll send a messenger down when the motorcade reaches Gelnhausen. We're pacing ourselves. Mainz is going to radio through when Ronnie gets onto the Main barge there, so we can stage an impressive reunion    ."



"Like, 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume'?"



"Sort of. But I don't think there were any reporters at that one."



"At least one's bound to have been there. It wouldn't be so famous if someone hadn't covered it."





Wes Jenkins took his glasses off and put them safely on the nightstand. On your face or in the case, he recited under his breath. The optometrist had taught him that when he was six years old. Jim McNally would be proud of him for remembering it, he expected, but it was really sheer self-interest. He could get new frames down-time, if he had to. There were people in Grantville right now, jewelers' journeymen, mainly, studying how to make hinges, so people didn't have to wear those things that were expected to stick on the bridge of your nose by themselves, whatever they were called. But they wouldn't be lightweight titanium.