It was a neat pamphlet, full of illustrations, advising an expectant father how to build nursery furniture in his spare time. Self-improvement was the bread and butter of the small printer.
"Now, this one. Escher put it out last week. How to Make Beer at Home."
Martin picked it up.
"And this one. It's from Freytag. Sample Letters to Government Officials. Both of these have the place and printer identified. They're trying to make money, after all. But just compare the pages."
Martin did not have much luck. Crispin patiently showed him the difference, point by point.
"I think these pamphlets you brought, both the Abrabanel one, which you say that according to ben Elnathan came from Magdeburg, and the one that showed up in Fulda, were produced on these new 'duplicating machines.' "
"That means?"
"I tell you, Martin, these new stencil systems will be running small printers out of business. If I don't manage to get hold of one of these 'duplicating machines' pretty soon, my own business is going to fold. It's not as if I make my money printing large editions of thick academic books. And Escher so far hasn't even let slip the name of the man he bought it from."
"Put an ad in the paper," Martin suggested.
"For what?" Merga asked. "Crispin isn't trying to sell something."
"Say you want to buy one. Escher and Freytag may not want to tell the rest of you where they bought them, but I'd say it's pretty likely that the maker would like to sell more."
The expression of Merga's face became quite predatory. "I'm going down to the post office right now." Which she did.
"While she's gone . . ." Crispin said.
Martin looked up. It wasn't like Crispin to sound so hesitant.
"This pamphlet that the Gelnhausen rabbi loaned to you . . . the one naming Rebecca Abrabanel . . ."
"Yes."
"I don't even like to suggest it. Jews get enough trouble in this world without my adding to it. But the way that it is written. I can't help but wonder about the possibility of an apostate—a convert—writing it. First generation—one born and educated in Judaism. That pamphlet, and some of the others the rabbi had collected. They rely quite a lot upon Talmudic tropes. If not an apostate, then perhaps a university-educated Hebraist."
"Either possibility is less desirable than the other."
"You might just mention them to the rabbi, though. Rabbis are trained to think their way through unpleasant possibilities. That's part of what they do."
He couldn't leave without going upstairs and saying goodbye to his mother. Or he could, but he would regret it later.
"About settling down," she was saying.
"Look, Mutti," he said patiently. At least he made the effort to sound as if he were saying it patiently.
"It isn't just that I like being on the road, though I do like being on the road. I like it a lot. But working as a private messenger is a lot less subject to political vicissitudes than working for the imperial postal system used to be. Or, for that matter, than working for the Swedish postal system is now."
She looked skeptical.
"I wasn't dependent upon Johann van den Birghden's favor to get my job, which is just as well. I sort of doubt that van den Birghden would have hired the son of a man who worked for his main rival."
That was true enough—something that his mother couldn't argue with. Van den Birghden was not only the postmaster but also the newspaper publisher. It was the Frankfurter Post-Avisen. The only one, now. Martin's late father had worked as an itinerant salesman for Egenolph Emmel, a bookseller and van den Birghden's rival newspaperman. He had started the Frankfurter Journal in 1615.
Then van den Birghden had come to Frankfurt to run its newly established central post office for the Thurn und Taxis in Brussels. In 1617 he had founded the other paper. Emmel sued. In the course of the litigation, Birghden asserted that postmasters had a legal right to a monopoly on publishing newspapers.
"I've stayed out of the postmaster's way," Martin continued. "Van den Birghden is a busy man. Reminding him that my father ever worked for Emmel would not be a clever move. Even as a private courier, I have to work with the post offices, but it's not hard for me to avoid him. An ordinary person hardly ever has any reason to encounter the head of the postal system, especially not now that he is so busy establishing new routes. He's speeding up the field post system for the Swedish army. He's setting up alliances with the other postmasters working for the Swedes such as Wecheln in Leipzig and Stenglin in Augsburg. He's trying to speed up the links from Mainz to Hamburg and from there to Stockholm."
"Every one of those," his mother answered, "offers an opportunity for a man who is ready to settle down."