The Tangled Web(49)

Gruyard smiled.



"You are sure the machine will be there in time?" Gruyard asked.

"As well as one can every predict anything," Holmann said. He pulled out his copy of the most recent edition of Aitzinger's Itinerarium Orbis Christiani, which visualized the European road system for people who planned to travel. For the past half-century, nearly everyone had recognized the Cologne reporter's atlas as a very handy book, especially when it was paired with his week-by-week summaries of current events. In a lot of ways, these had been predecessors of the modern newspaper of the 1630s. From Aitzinger until the present day, Cologne had become a center for the publication of aid-books for travelers, which meant regular employment for a lot of full-time map makers. The most popular travel guides were those which laid out the routes followed by the imperial post riders and the couriers employed by the imperial cities and various territorial rulers. By taking these as far as possible, as close to one's actual goal as they ran, a traveler could be sure of a comparatively well-guarded route, even in the middle of all the disruptions of war.

Drawing his finger along one of the routes, Holmann indicated the path that the duplicating machine could be expected to travel from Tyrol to Fulda. "At the moment, there are no major obstacles to commerce. Through Switzerland as far as Basel; then down the Rhine as far as Mainz; then up the Imperial Road to Fulda." He shrugged. "If the machine is delayed, then the pamphlet will appear a couple weeks later than planned. Otherwise, fortune has been with us."

Gruyard nodded. "It was truly fortuitous that Hoheneck received the feelers extended by von Schlitz when he did. The connection with Menig at the paper mill is good. The one thing that I worried about, that might allow the authorities of the New United States in the Stift to trace the pamphlet to its origins, was the need for anyone who was to use the duplicating machine to purchase so much paper. How many people other than printers buy more than a quire at a time? But where is there naturally more paper than in a paper mill? They will tear apart every printing shop in Fulda searching for the plates or indications that the plates were there."

He smiled.

"So don't worry about your stencils." Holman waved his hand. "I have contracted with a private courier with a good reputation for their delivery. That will be more discreet than entrusting them to the Swedish-run postal system. His name is Martin Wackernagel."

Youthful Restlessness

Gelnhausen, late April 1633

"David Kronberg," Jachant Wohl said, "looks like a rabbit."

Her younger sister Feyel looked at her. "That's a horrible thing to say. You are probably his future wife, at least if our parents and his have anything to say about it."

"He does look like a rabbit, though." The third Wohl sister, Emelin, at ten, was young enough to announce that the emperor had no clothes on and still get away with it. "He would still look like a rabbit even if Jachant liked him."

"I've never seen a rabbit with black hair," Feyel pointed out. She was determined to play the part of a fair and impartial witness. She was even more determined to do this since her own marriage was already satisfactorily arranged and her betrothed husband did not resemble a rabbit in the least.

Emelin was not going to give up. "His nose is long. His cheeks twitch when he chews. He is short and round and has big ears."

"There aren't all that many people available for you to marry, Jachant," Feyel pointed out practically. "If the Kronbergs aren't rich, they are far from poor, and David will inherit from his uncles as well, since neither has children. 'Der dicke Meier' has to have quite a bit of money. He is master builder for the whole Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt."

Jachant rested her chin on her hand. "Fat Meier looks like a rabbit, too. It runs in the family. I doubt that our parents would want me to marry a man who looks like a rabbit if his parents were poor. David Kronberg would give me children who look like rabbits."

"Papa and Mama are concerned about your well-being," Feyel said. "There is nothing wrong with David Kronberg."

"He wants to be a postal courier. Who ever heard of a Jewish postal courier?" Emelin asked.

"Everyone in Gelnhausen has heard of the idea, at least, since he said that he wants to be one. Don't worry, Jachant. His parents will make him give it up." Feyel patted her sister's shoulder.

"They can make him give up doing it. Can they make him give up wanting to do it?"

Feyel frowned. "Jews do travel around. Think of famous families, like the Nasis. Or the Abrabanels."

"Sephardim. They don't count." Jachant tossed her head.