The Dreeson Incident(36)

He picked up the conversation again. "I'm worried about them both, Lenore and Chandra. Bryant Holloway was never the man I'd have picked for Lenore at all, not that I had anything to say about it at the time. And Nathan's been so . . . standoffish, lately. Like for the past year, at least, from what I can pick up from her letters. They're both out of town all the time. It's hard on a young woman to have to bring up her children alone, to be mother and father both."



"You can't live their lives for them. Especially not at ten o'clock in the evening when you are in Fulda and they are in Grantville." Clara slipped under the comforter. "Think about the good things. How well your idea for the speaking tour is working out."



"I didn't really expect people to be quite so impressed with Henry. After all, he's just a small town mayor. Not some dramatic or charismatic political figure."



She curled up and tucked her head under his chin. "That's why he impresses them."



"You've lost me."



"The people who come to hear him are village and small town mayors and councilmen too, mostly. And their wives. Or ordinary people who aren't even on the councils. Almost all of them. It's important that he isn't some remarkable and alien hero. What you would call a superman. He's average size. Short and a little scrawny, for an up-timer, but average size for the seventeenth century. He isn't as young as he used to be. He walks with a cane. He faces a lot of the same problems that they do, such as tight budgets and people who constantly complain to the point that there's no pleasing them. He doesn't pretend that he has all the answers. He just says that he does his best and keeps on trying."



Wes snuggled her in a little closer and kissed the top of her ear.



"No, don't distract me. I'm not done yet."



"Finish up, then."



"For people like these, Mike Stearns or Hans Richter may be an inspiration, yes. Constantin Ableidinger is an inspiration, too. But Mr. Dreeson is a comfort. They know, most of them, in their own hearts, that they will never be heroes. He shows them that they don't have to be, to be good citizens. To be a valuable part of the USE that we're trying to build."



"I hear you."



"He doesn't glorify what he has done in Grantville. He doesn't say anything about being part of a great miracle. He just talks about local government—says that he was mayor before the Ring of Fire and he's kept on being mayor. Doing the same job to the best of his ability. Nothing fancy. Nothing new and special. The same man, doing the same job. That is what he shows them."



"Sometimes, maybe, that's all a man can do."





Chapter 14





Scotland


The news of an official peace treaty between Gustavus Adolphus and the king in the Netherlands had not improved Antoine Delerue's mood. The arrangements between the Swede and Denmark the previous summer had been bad enough, but this was appalling.



The simultaneous arrival of two letters from Guillaume Locquifier had ruined the day altogether. Their arrival was simultaneous because the first one had been delayed in transit, waiting in a bin in the office of that fool Mauger in Haarlem until he had a wine shipment ready to go out to Glasgow.



"Locquifier is an idiot. Can't he make up his own mind about anything?"



Michel Ducos shook his head. "I did, very specifically, instruct him not to take any action without my consent."



Delerue frowned. The problem here was that Michel's personality was so forceful and intimidating that people tended to overdo his instructions. But it was an old problem, and not one for which he'd ever found a good solution. Michel was simply too valuable to the cause for Delerue to be willing to risk a sharp clash with him.



He looked around the room. André Tourneau was arguing with Levasseur and the other two Lyonnais silk weavers. Mademann, the Alsatian, was, as usual, off by himself.



"The time is not yet ripe for us to act," Ducos said firmly. "And in Frankfurt, of all ridiculous places. What kind of symbolism would Frankfurt bring to our great undertaking?"



Delerue decided he was probably right. The situation in France still needed to mature. Gaston needed to consolidate his base of support. Although Delerue wasn't sure how much success the king's brother would have, given the naturalization of that very capable Italian Mazarini. The one who, after the debacle in Rome, had moved to France and was now throwing his diplomatic talents behind Richelieu. And his talents were not inconsiderable.



Delerue picked up what he had been saying earlier. "The proposed treaty terms . . ."



Tourneau, who had once been a steward for the de Beauharnais family, broke off from his argument with Levasseur and waved a hand. "Are very unsatisfactory! Why hasn't Henri de Rohan at least issued a public condemnation of any idea that France might accept them?"