David looked at her. "Even if you don't remember it, you must have heard them talking. Would you live that way?"
"If I were with you," Riffa said. "If I could go to Fulda with you . . . In the New United States, I have heard, we do not need to be vergleidet. Or, we are vergleidet by their 'constitution' itself, and not by any prince."
David looked at her with some surprise.
"My father brings home newspapers."
"When I get a job there, as soon as I can, I will come back for you. What will your parents do when you go with me?"
Riffa shook her head. "I don't know. Come with us, perhaps."
"That would be nice."
She smiled down at him. Then she went back home to the cottage marked with the sickle and he went to Fulda, invisible fireworks bursting within his head.
Ups and Downs
Schlitz, June 1633
Bonifacius Bodamer was standing outside his grist mill, waiting for the mail.
It was Martin Wackernagel's opinion that Bodamer was usually standing outside his mill waiting for something, while his men did the heavy work inside. Maybe he had worked harder at an earlier stage of his life, when he was a mill hand rather than a mill owner. In any case, he also served as steward of the Ritter, Karl von Schlitz, along this part of the route. To get from Eisenach to Fulda, a person went through Schlitz. That was just how the road ran.
This morning, Bodamer had other men with him.
Wackernagel perceived signs of rank. Just as a precaution, rather than simply handing the packet over to Bodamer, he pulled up his horse, dismounted, and bowed with what he hoped was the appropriate amount of respect for whomever they might be.
The two older men ignored him. The two younger men gave him a look which said that they were willing to ignore him now that he had made a reasonably appropriate obeisance, but would not have ignored him if he had failed to do so.
There were a lot of people like that around.
The two older, unidentified, men were chuckling to one another. Bodamer chuckled with them, obsequiously. He forgot to take the packet of mail that Wackernagel was still offering to him.
Liesel, Bodamer's daughter, came out of the mill and took the packet.
"May I water your horse?" she asked.
Wackernagel was still dismounted. "I would be grateful, ordinarily, but this monster is a bit frisky. I'm afraid that the millrace coming out of the pond is likely to spook him, so he will have to wait for a while."
"We have a barrel and leather bucket, right in the back of the building."
"Angel of mercy." He bowed to the girl with a flourish. "Show me where your barrel is, if you would be so kind, and I will lead him around."
"Who is with your father?" he asked once they were safely out of sight.
"Herr von Schlitz, our ruler, with his two sons."
That explained the arrogance.
"The other man, the one in green, is Lorenz Mangold. He is a city councilman in Fulda. He has been here several times, lately, talking to my father."
The chuckling that had been going on in front of the mill expanded into uproarious laughter.
"Something's funny."
"It's a pamphlet," Liesel said. "A satire. They are enjoying it a lot."
By the time they were done with the horse, the knight and his two sons were gone. Mangold was still standing there, waving some pieces of paper at Bodamer.
There was no reason for Wackernagel to go back and talk to them. The only words he heard were, "I wrote this one myself and I am very proud of it. I'll be happy to cover the costs, given how reasonable they are turning out to be."
Barracktown bei Fulda
At supper time, Martin turned in to the Hartke cottage. Dagmar the Dane always picked up anything he had for Barracktown when he came by. She always fed him, too.
A certain scurrilous pamphlet was the topic of the day.
"I tell you," Dagmar was saying. "According to my husband, Mr. Wesley Jenkins, the civilian administrator, was truly furious. He ordered all the placards torn down and sent soldiers to Neuenburg to bring the members of the Special Commission back to Fulda."
"Why so angry?"
"It showed one of his staff in a scandalous position with the abbot of Fulda. And named her."
"Ah," Wackernagel said. "Yes, I can see that. Was a military escort really warranted, though?"
"Maybe not. Even probably not. Most of the time, the roads here are fairly safe now. Although, just yesterday, Helmuth's daughter Gertrud went into Fulda itself and was accosted by the older son of Ritter von Schlitz."
Wackernagel frowned. He had seen that man just this morning, up at Bodamer's. "Were his father and brother with him?"
"In Fulda? I do not know. Not, certainly, at the time when he called Gertrud a slut and soldier's whore and pointed to the placards saying that the same fate waited for her. Other people in Fulda started pointing at her and calling her the 'up-timer's whore' too."