“Never mind, Princess, It wasn’t important,” Filip said.
“I think perhaps it is,” Natasha said. “Clearly it’s important to you. Why don’t you tell me why?”
Filip did, stumbling a bit but clearly showing he was impressed by Anya. He explained about his finding Bernie and Anya studying accounting and the ensuing discussion. Filip impressed by Anya? Filip, who couldn’t see past the edge of the book he was reading and didn’t care about breast size, just brain size? Anya had a brain? Well, yes, apparently she did. That was a pretty astute observation about chamber pots and the safe emptying of same.
After Filip ran down she thanked him for his help, asked a few questions and let him get back to work. Then she thought about it a bit and had Anya fetched.
* * *
“You called for me, Princess?” Anya entered the princess’ office with more than simple trepidation. She was scared to death. She remembered the conversation of the night before and she was very much afraid that in spite of Filip’s assurances that it was all right here at the Dacha, it wasn’t. At least it wasn’t when a great lady was looking for a reason to discipline a maid who was having a bit of fun with a guy the great lady was interested in. Women in power were dangerous to girls like her.
“I understand you’re having Bernie teach you accounting?” Princess Natasha said.
Anya thought this was a set up to punish her for getting above herself. “Yes, Princess. Of course, if you feel it’s interfering with my duties . . .”
“Not at all.” The princess actually smiled a bit. Much to Anya’s surprise.
“Ma’am?”
“I said, not at all,” the princess repeated. “I’m a bit, um, startled by it, but why would you want to learn accounting . . . considering your other assets?”
The princess was blushing a little bit as she said that. There was an edge. Natasha didn’t like what Anya was doing with Bernie. Or no. Anya realized Natasha didn’t like that she was doing it with Bernie. The princess really was jealous of the serving girl, though she probably didn’t realize it.
They talked about Anya’s observation about chamber pots. Which led to questions about what else Anya had observed. They talked books. Bernie had taught Anya to read and she had picked it up well. Anya had gotten the job in part because she had a bit of English from a previous employer who had been all hands. “Why did he teach you to read?”
“Because I asked.”
“Why did you ask? I don’t mean, why did you want to know how to read, I mean why did you think Bernie would teach you?” The princess’ blush was even brighter now. “When men are, ah, with girls like you, that’s not what they’re interested in.”
“Not all men are the same, Princess, not even about that. The English merchant who was all hands never would have taught me to read.” Anya shrugged. “Bernie likes smart women. That’s why he likes you. Besides, he’s a nice man and wanted someone to talk to in his up-timer English and teaching me to read helped with that.”
They ended up talking girl talk for quite a while that afternoon and the beginnings of a friendship were put in place. After that, Anya became Natasha’s personal maid and confidant.
* * *
Lazar Smirnov barely noticed that Anya’s status had changed. Lazar had his own companionship and wasn’t any more interested in politics than he could avoid. The gradual change in attitude of Filip Pavlovich Tupikov that had been crystallized by conversation over accounting books a few nights back had passed him by completely.
Lazar had his own problems. Granted, none of them were all that severe taken on their own but they couldn’t really be taken on their own. Lazar was trying to build an entire infrastructure. Storage batteries required lead plates and sulfuric acid. Enough batteries to power a spark gap transmitter of good range required lots of lead plates and lots of sulfuric acid. Not that much of a problem. Lead, after all, was not gold, and improved processes for the production of sulfuric acid had been forwarded to him by Vladimir and his friend Lady Brandy Bates, G.E.D. So there was a factory on the Muskova River that producing the stuff by the gallon. Which was good, because he needed gallons for each spark gap transmitter.
He had serfs on his estates making clay battery jars to hold the acid and the lead plates. Or at least they were till a few weeks ago. Now they were planting, sowing the seeds of the fall harvest. But once that was done, many of them would go back to making the parts he needed to create an electronics industry.
Like copper wire to make the generators to charge the batteries, to use to make the permanent magnets to make more generators. And it wasn’t just radios Russia needed, whatever the Boyar Duma said. What Russia needed was the whole infrastructure. Even if they had only needed radios, the number of parts in a radio network was significant. The transmitter tuning coil, the transmitter spark capacitor, the transmitter spark coil, the transmitter spark generating buzzer, a telegraph key, a switch to switch between the receiver and the transmitter for the antenna, an earphone, a receiver tuning coil, a receiver capacitor—which was not the same thing as a transmitter capacitor—a grounding rod, wire going to the grounding rod. None of these things were really hard to do, not by themselves. It was just that there were so many.