The Tangled Web(47)
Martin had offered to talk to them; to tell them about the wonderful world of the Imperial Road and all of its possibilities. David had said rather glumly that he did not think it would do much good for a Gentile to talk to them. It might even make things worse.
Today, David was even more melancholy than usual. He was being fenced in, he protested. His parents were arranging for him to marry. They were friendly with the bride's parents. Samuel Wohl—Samuel ben Aron, Samuel zur Leuchte—and Hindle Kalman had contributed a lot of money for the beautiful interior furnishings of the synagogue, the splendid, modern, baroque cabinet in which the Torah was kept. They had contributed, like the Kronbergs, to the purchase of the land where the community had its cemetery.
They were, unfortunately, just exactly the kind of people whom David's parents hoped that his parents-in-law would be. And the Wohls would never, never, never accept his wish to become a postal courier. They would never even understand it.
"I'm doomed," David said.
"Married?" Martin Wackernagel asked. "You aren't old enough to get married. You can't even be twenty yet."
"For us," David said, "that's old enough. Old enough for our parents to bind us so tightly that we will never get away."
Up and Down
The Imperial Road, early April 1633
After going past the Fulda enclave of Salmuenster, Martin had stopped in Steinau for a couple of days. He usually did. Then, past Schluechtern, he looked up at the Drasenberg, which was one of the main causes of what the Grantvillers called "traffic jams" on the Imperial Road. A rider could climb it easily enough, although, if he was considerate, he would get off his horse and walk. Freight wagons, though, had to pause and let the local teamsters attach a Vorspann, an additional team of horses, to the vehicle. Single teams could not master the steep rise.
The first thing that travelers coming from Frankfurt learned about Fulda was that the abbey's teamsters, who provided the extra horses and collected the "escort fees," had a very crude vocabulary. So did the Hanau teamsters who often accompanied commercial wagons this far. The counts of Hanau thought that their employees had a right to bring the wagons across as far as Flieden, or at the very least up as far as the Landwehr, a border fortress that was protected by ditches, a wall, and impassable thorn hedges. Fulda's teamsters, at least when there were enough of them on the spot at the foot of the Drasenberg, disputed that. The constant arguments about just who had a right to pull freight wagons up this steep spot in the road were pretty typical of what went on at any territorial crossing in the Germanies. The Grantvillers planned to get rid of this in the CPE, someone had told him. He wished them luck. No matter how many lawyers tried to negotiate complicated treaties, in daily practice the issue was decided by the number of heads, the boldness of the local men, and their bodily strength. Even in the presence of high-born lords, teamsters rarely hesitated to enter into physical contests.
Oh, well. Up the hill, finally. Across some cattle meadows and into the forest. Past the dark ravine called the "murder ditch"—Martin wasn't sure why. He had asked, but had only gotten legends. Top of the hill at the thorn field. Stop while a few wagons changed teams again. Across the "ass bridge" over Flieden Creek, past Neuhof following the old military road, and then climbing through forests again. Finally the view into the valley opened up. The road led down, crossed the Fulda River near Bronnzell, and led into the city on the right side of the river.
Martin had ridden this way so many times that he knew almost every rock in the road bed. Past Fulda, he came up to Vacha—one more crossing that was a bone of contention, this one protected by a castle and this time disputed between the abbots and the landgraves of Hesse-Kassel. To get there from Fulda, a rider rode uphill and downhill to Hünfeld, with its walls, towers, establishment of secular canons, and a Gothic fortified church. Then up the Haune Valley to the top of the pass between Huebelsberg and Stallberg (extra teams required once more) and down to Rasdorf, where wagons traded the Geleitsknechte of their Fulda escort for a bunch of Hessians. Down hill to Geisa. Buttlar, and then up the valley of the Ulster. This was so steep that anyone could see the scrapes on the stony roadbed made by the skidding wheels of braking wagons and carriages. Then, following the little Suenna River, travellers crossed the Werra.
By the time he got to Vacha, he was really glad to see it. He stopped for a couple of nights. He didn't have any urgent deliveries this time. The same for Erfurt. Nobody had any deliveries for the new Grantville leg of the trip, so he turned around and headed back to Mutti and her complaints.