He'd ask the Ritter's steward. Bonifacius Bodamer would probably be able to think of some healthy, practical widow from Schlitz, a good housekeeper with not too many children from her first marriage. Still of child-bearing age.
More children wouldn't be a bad idea. When Kaethe had died, she had left him with just the one boy. You couldn't rely on just one child to care for you in your old age. Not the way that things were these days. However clever a child might be, he could get sick and die. Here today, gone tomorrow. That was the way of children, even when they seemed perfectly healthy.
Menig suddenly realized one horrible thing. Now that the stencils had arrived, he would have to figure out how to use the duplicating machine.
At least, his son Emrich had already put the machine together. Emrich was just barely fourteen. He was only starting to learn the art of making paper. But with these new devices that were appearing all over the place, all the time it seemed, he was better than his father.
Emrich had figured out how to put the machine together.
Maybe Emrich could figure out how to use it.
Jodocus certainly hoped Emrich could figure out how to use the stencils. He was expected to produce several hundred placards and pamphlets within the next two weeks.
He was not a printer. He had never planned to be a printer. He had never asked for a duplicating machine. He had never asked to be involved in his lord's politics.
"Put not your trust in princes." He should have known that when the Ritter offered to invest in expanding the business, he would be calling in favors.
* * *
If the Ritter wanted pamphlets and placards, he would get them. Jodocus and Bonifacius agreed on this principle solemnly. They sat in the front Stube of the paper mill, drinking beer and discussing eligible widows. They solemnly assured one another that they were much too old dogs to be expected to learn new tricks, either of them.
"There has to be something that I just don't understand," Emrich Menig complained. "Every single time I run the tray through the rollers, to transfer the ink through the stencil to the paper, I get some ink coming through onto the top roller. Not a lot, but enough to make smears on the back of the next copy."
"You didn't complain when we were running off the placards." Liesel Bodamer, just two months older than Emrich, stopped cranking the rollers and came round to the other side of the duplicating machine.
"It didn't make any difference when we were doing the placards. They are just one-sided, to be tacked up to doors and posts and things. It doesn't matter if they have some ink smears on the back. But for the pamphlets, we're supposed to run the paper through on one side, let the ink dry, and then run it through on the other side. So if there are smears on the back of the first run, people won't be able to read the printing we put there during the second run."
"Let me look at the manual."
"If I have to release the top roller and clean it for every single sheet of paper we run, we'll never get these done on time."
"Give me the manual, Emrich!" Liesel swatted his arm. "Hand it over. Now."
"It doesn't say anything."
"Something has to be wrong with the instructions. They must have left something out."
Emrich stared at her, shocked to the core of his faith. "The manual for putting together the duplicating machine was exactly right."
"Maybe two different people wrote them. Maybe the printer just left a line out when he was setting type. There's all sorts of things that could go wrong. We just have to think."
"All right. I'll clean the top roller again while you're looking."
"While you're cleaning, think. If they really haven't told us how to fix this problem, you're going to have to figure out a way to fix it yourself."
"In this illustration, the picture of the duplicating machine doesn't match the text." Liesel handed the manual back to Emrich.
"Yeah." Emrich sat there for a while, staring at the duplicating machine.
"Are you expecting it to talk to you?"
"Sort of. Did we take everything out of the envelope that the stencils came in?"
"No. I've been taking them out one at a time, so we don't mix them up."
"Take a look, will you. Are there any extra sheets of the waxed paper, without any stencil holes in them?"
"No."
"I think we need a solid waxed sheet, on top of the paper we're printing, to protect the roller."
Liesel looked. "I don't know if that's what the picture was supposed to show, but I think it would work. It's not as if you have a paper shortage around here. Do you have any wax?"
"Some candle stubs, probably. Wherever Vati puts them to give back to the candlemaker when we buy more."