The Tangled Web(40)

"While you peek out the window? No way!"

"Clara!"

"Either both in the back of the pantry or both peeking out the window. Andrea has told me all about equal rights for women. That's in the constitution, too."

"It doesn't mean," Wes said with some frustration, "that a man can't take care of his own wife."

"It means he can't keep her from having any of the fun. Anyway, I can hear the Fulda Barracks Regiment anthem. No one else sings it." She came up to the window. "Look, I can see the banner too. Orange and white. They've finally figured out where we are."

"Well," Wes said, "that's more than I've managed to do. I was wondering, all the while we were working on those hinges, how we would find our way back. It's nice to have the cavalry come to the rescue. Or the mounted infantry, I suppose, if you want to be technical about it."

"You were their rock, their fortress and their might,

"You, Lord, their captain in the well-fought fight."

Wes frowned. "Derek really shouldn't have let Veleda Riddle pick out an anthem for the regiment, even if she is Mary Kat's grandmother. Why did the only kamikaze Episcopalian in the United States of America have to live in Grantville? They're usually pretty sedate and uptight, but if Veleda has her way, Fred will have to use his reserved tennis figurines for Episcopalians on his map."

Clara leaned her head against his shoulder. "Once we tell them that we married each other, we will have to fill out a lot of paper work, you know."

He cleared his throat. "Maybe we should just tell them that we're going to get married when we have a chance and then do it properly."

"If you think that I am going to move back in with Andrea while her little lawyer spends six weeks or three months drawing up a proper betrothal agreement and marriage contract, you are crazy, Wesley. There isn't even a Lutheran church in Fulda to read the banns."

"But . . . Clara, I'm the administrator. I should be setting a good example, and all that. And I don't want anyone to think that I am treating you with less than complete respect."

"You think they will consider it to be more respectable that I have been in this pantry with you for so many days and we don't tell them that we have married each other?" She turned around.

After the way she kissed him, he agreed that he would be a crazy idea to even suggest such a thing as having her move back in with Andrea. But.

"Oh may your soldiers, faithful, true, and bold,

"Fight as the saints who boldly fought of old.

"And win with them the victor's crown of gold."

The horses disappeared behind a hill on the curving road. The singing faded. Pretty soon, the lead horses were in view again.

"Maybe we could have a church ceremony later? I'd really feel a lot better if we had a marriage license from Grantville and Reverend Jones said the words. Even after the fact."

That much, she conceded, could happen. Whenever they went back to Grantville. It would make the lawyers and bureaucrats happier. The main reason they hated do-it-yourself marriage was that it did not leave a record and caused all sorts of subsequent arguments if it turned out that one partner was already married to someone else, or if one or the other party tried to back out. "Not that either of us ever would."

She was still facing him, her arms around his neck. She kissed him again. He agreed it seemed unlikely that either of them would ever try to undo their marriage.

They listened.

"And when the fight is fierce, the warfare long,

"Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,

"And hearts are brave again and arms are strong."

The strains of Ralph Vaughan Williams's "Sine nomine" rang through the Reichsritterschaft of Schlitz.

"The golden evening brightens in the west.

"Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest."

Wes picked up the garden spade. As soon as they got close enough, if the Fulda Barracks Regiment ever stopped howling out their anthem long enough that they could hear him, he would start banging on the bars to save them time in figuring out where he and Clara were in the building.

He shook his head. That blasted song really stayed with a person. He'd heard it before, he was sure, but couldn't remember what the name was. He'd have to ask what it was called.



"I've had enough."

Wes told the whole staff at once, at the regular morning meeting. "Now that Harlan has agreed to cover Andrea's cost overruns in the land titles department, which I fully agree turned out to be worth it in the long run, I've asked Ed Piazza to relieve me, and he's agreed. I'm going back to Grantville to take over the consular service. Our people still manage to get in enough trouble that the State of Thuringia-Franconia needs its own consular service. With Clara, since her job as liaison has sort of been ended by circumstances."