"My cousin Hans—" Huss began.
"Is a road contractor," the rider retorted. "He has visions that the New United States will pay him money to make the roads around Fulda look like the roads around Grantville. Fat chance."
"It wouldn't have to be all the roads. They could just start by improving the main mail routes to that standard . . . Some are already fairly good. Think about that comfortable stretch from the monastery of Thulba as far as Hammelburg on the Franconian Saale out at the edge of the Abbey's lands."
Martin's thoughts wandered.
Maybe, now that the king of Sweden and his new up-timer allies wanted more than just a field post system for the army, van den Birghden would become a consultant to many of the king of Sweden's allies. Maybe, the post office would need many more civilian carriers who would do for the CPE what the Thurn and Taxis did for the Holy Roman Empire.
Unless politics got in the way. There were advantages to being an independent courier. Sometimes, it was better not to work for the government. Martin had kept right on riding the Imperial Road in 1627 when the fortunes of war and pressures of politics had forced van den Birghden out as postmaster in Frankfurt.
Van den Birghden was a Protestant. Before the war started, it had been acceptable for a Protestant to hold an important job in the imperial system. Van den Birghden had enemies. The charge was that he had been spying for the Protestants—telling them what was in confidential letters that important imperial officials and commanders sent through the postal system. He had fought being fired, of course. It had taken them several months and several hearings to get rid of him. Ferdinand II replaced him with a Catholic, even though a lot of influential people from the archbishop-elector of Mainz to General Tilly himself had advised the emperor to keep him on.
Martin had kept on riding the Imperial Road when the king of Sweden's forces swept through in the fall of 1631 and reinstated van den Birghden.
While it was all going on, while the politicians fought over control of the postal system, Martin had kept riding. He might not be as fast, but his customers knew him and trusted him. Riding this route was a lot more than a living. Riding this route was his life.
"Across the top of that pass before you get to Speicherz . . ."
"Over another mountain in order to reach the Schondra . . ."
"Additional teams needed at Brückenau . . ."
"New bridge across the Sinn . . ."
The voices ran over and into one another.
"David," he said. "I hate to interrupt this thrilling conversation, but there's something you may want to know."
"My father has changed his mind?"
"Not exactly. Zivka zur Sichel and her daughter Riffa are at the Hartkes."
David Kronberg practically flew out of his seat.
Martin had deliberately built enough time into this run that he could stop and talk to Veit Huss and his cousin. Mail coaches would not be practical for a long time, Veit admitted, so what alternative was there to a mail monopoly? A regular freight wagon, such as Veit himself drove, was not suitable for the mails. It was simply too slow. The roads would not be ready for post chaises for a long time.
He kept thinking. The imperial cities had tried to hang onto their own messenger systems. It hadn't worked, because of the pressure that the grant of an imperial monopoly to Thurn and Taxis had placed on them.
Some of the territorial rulers still ran their own messenger services. Brandenburg, on the eastern edge of the CPE with interests far to the east in Prussia, outside the Holy Roman Empire, had its own good-sized office with over two dozen riders. Even inside the CPE, the electors of Brandenburg felt safer sending important correspondence between the branches of the Hohenzollerns in Berlin and those in Franconia by way of people whom they paid themselves. Not everyone was entirely sure that van den Birghden had been innocent of those charges of spying, after all.
But working for Brandenburg would take him off his beloved Imperial Road. If necessary, maybe things could be managed, but he would rather not.
Or maybe he could hire on with a freight line. The official postal system carried letters, sometimes whole sealed bags full of letters, but it didn't carry packages. If he located a long-haul line that carried from Frankfurt to Erfurt, he would move back and forth along the road more slowly, but at least he would move.
What would customers pay for the transport of light packages? Light enough that a man on horseback could carry several? Packages that did not really need a wagon and team, but were too bulky for a mail bag? Urgent packages?
Martin laughed, imagining a woodcut that depicted him on a horse with ten or a dozen lightweight packages tied to his back and his saddle, sticking out in all different directions. One hanging from his ear, perhaps. For a lot of horses, that would take some getting used to. A man would need the right kind of horse, steady and reliable.