Kastenmayer shook his head and fastened on one clear fact. "Magda?"
"Our stepmother," the older brother said. "She's the daughter of Herr Karl Juergen Edelman in Jena."
Kastenmayer knew Edelman. The small piece of firm ground under his feet expanded a bit.
"She'd already baptized us," the red haired boy was saying. "Right after she married Dad, when she found out that nobody ever had done it."
A third of them are heathen rang through Kastenmayer's brain. That's what Jonas had said about gathering converts from among the up-timers. A third of them are heathen.
"And she's Lutheran, so I guess that she meant to baptize us as Lutherans."
"A valid baptism is a valid baptism," Kastenmayer said firmly. "For any variant of Christianity, whether truth or heresy, orthodox or heterodox." Some points of doctrine might be in dispute among Germany's Lutherans, but he would have given that reply if total strangers had roused him from a sound sleep at three o'clock in the morning and demanded to know the answer.
"She used water. And she said, 'I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."
"It was Magda," Ron said grumpily. "In the greenhouse. With the garden hose."
Pastor Kastenmayer, whose acquisition of knowledge about up-time culture had not yet reached the game of Clue, ignored him. "That would be quite sufficient. But I really should get it recorded in the church registers. When did this sacramental act take place?"
The two young men agreed that it had been the spring of 1632. That was before Kastenmayer had been appointed as first pastor of St. Martin's in the Fields. Before the parish had been established. He would have to get Rothmaler in Rudolstadt to enter the three baptisms into the registers there. He made a note.
"But after I killed Marius by accident and felt so awful about it, then she told me about all of the rest of it. She had this book with her. It's called Luther's Small Catechism."
"I've heard of it," Kastenmayer admitted.
"Through it, I have come to understand the doctrine of salvation by grace alone. To accept all that I owe to the overwhelming mercy of God. I am certain that I have a vocation to the ordained Lutheran ministry."
Kastenmayer stared at the boy's freckles. All of his efforts to obtain "payback" for the up-timer who had married his daughter Andrea by converting other up-timers to Lutheranism paled before this opportunity. This young up-timer, of wealthy family, coming to him. Voluntarily.
God was humbling him, he knew. Man proposes, God disposes.
The older of the two cleared his throat. "It's awfully early for Gerry to be making a final decision. Really, all that we're sure of is that he wants to go to school this winter in Rudolstadt instead of here. We thought that if, maybe, you could give him a letter of recommendation to the school there . . ."
"My mind is made up. All the way."
"Look, Gerry. You can't study to be a Lutheran preacher until, at least, you're a Lutheran. Magda said that herself. She could baptize you, but she couldn't confirm you. Theologically, you're still somewhere out in left field."
This was confusing. "Your father does not consent to theological study?"
"He didn't say no. He'll pay for it," the younger boy said. "Magda thinks it's a fine idea. And she said that I could get confirmed at the school."
"Many men do not make an immediate decision in regard to their life work," Kastenmayer said soothingly. "Consider Dean Gerhard at Jena. He completed two years of the university medical curriculum before committing himself to another path." He prudently did not add that the other path had led Gerhard to the deanship of the theological faculty, since that appeared to be a matter of some contention between the two brothers.
Kastenmayer had spoken, over the past decade and a half, with many decent young men, scarcely more than boys, who had been dragged as soldiers into these incessant wars. Some became brutes. Others could be redeemed, keeping their consciences in the face of the things they had done. This was familiar ground. "Come into my study. I'll prepare a letter to the rector in Rudolstadt for you." He paused. "While you," he said to the other one, "may and will remain out here."
God had never promised him that things would be simple.
Ron was thinking much the same thing, in a more secular manner. Sometimes, since the events of last summer, his younger brother Gerry had seemed more alien to him than Mork from Ork. Before, he'd at least been able to understand adolescent testosterone overload. This religious kick . . .