Months like this month. And, probably, next month.
"So, I suppose, whether you admit that she startled me or not, once more you will declare that my work isn't good enough." Her brother Dietrich Hamm, his voice as whiny as usual, had joined the fray in the back of the shop. "I can see it now. No matter what I achieve, it's never going to be good enough for a masterwork, is it? And you'll use your influence with the rest of the guild to bring the others around to your point of view. In spite of the fact that my father served as guildmaster."
"Boy, you have less brains than you do ear wax," Fraas exploded. "Your mind is like a rotten nut with no kernel."
Dietrich was completely convinced that his stepfather was trying to exclude him from achieving his mastership. Which, Helena had to admit, was not beyond the realm of possibility. The marriage contract, combined with their father's will, ensured that Dietrich would take over. According to their provisions, if Dietrich survived another three years, Willibald Fraas would be working for his stepson.
"Tickle-brained, clumsy, ill-nurtured—"
"If I am badly trained, then it was you who trained me badly."
If, of course, Dietrich had qualified as a master pewterer by then.
If not, Fraas could hang on for another ten years, until her younger brother could qualify. Willibald was cranky, obnoxious, unpleasant, and capable of making the lives of everyone around him miserable. He was not just uninterested in the changes that Karl Schmidt was bringing to the guilds in Badenburg. He was hostile to every one of them.
Dietrich, encouraged by his mother and the Bachmeier uncle for whom he had been named, wanted to pursue every one of them.
But not with any real energy, much less hard work. Part of Helena had to admit that even if everything Dietrich claimed about their stepfather's intentions was entirely true, he was still basically a dissatisfied whiner and always would be.
He wasn't a very good pewterer, either. Even if Mama hadn't disturbed him, the odds were high that the pour would have had flaws.
Which Willibald knew.
Which to some extent justified Mama's complaints about his having left it too long. He should have allowed for the distinct possibility that, with Dietrich involved in the project, they would need to pour these elaborate handles again.
Martin Wackernagel paused at the door. The best description of the usual tone that he encountered when he stopped at the Sign of the Platter might be "constant sniping." Fraas provided him with a lot of commissions, but he had a nasty temper, which was most frequently directed at his wife; then at his three stepchildren; then at his own children. Not that he was a violent man—just a hostile one. Though his life as a place-holder for his stepsons couldn't be easy.
Helena was in the retail shop when he came in. She usually was. So he smiled at her. "Over in Grantville," he said, cocking his head in the direction of the back room, "they call it 'stress.' "
Helena was more than content to find a bit of respite from the hostilities by flirting with a good-looking courier whenever he dropped in with orders and letters. It wasn't as if anyone else was seriously courting her.
So, Helena thought. Flirt I will. Twenty-six going on twenty-seven and no serious suitor in sight. Wackernagel was a good-looking man and she was old enough to know what she was doing. She deserved a little harmless, inexpensive entertainment delivered right to her doorstep.
Grantville
Since the weather was warm, Wackernagel took advantage of an outdoor "Old Folk's Music" night at the Thuringen Gardens. A man could get away with buying just one beer at the outside tables, if he sat at the edge, by the fence. With his responsibilities, he didn't have a lot of spare change most of the time.
He leaned back, listening to the band. They'd been appearing occasionally for close to a year now. One of the women got up and made an introduction of something called, "Please help me. I'm falling in love with you." It seemed like a very long name for a song. One of the men . . . Wackernagel thought a moment. His name was Jerry Simmons. Simmons started on the plea of a lover who was asking the object of his affections to reject him.
Wackernagel smiled into his beer. Now, that was unusual. He didn't think he'd ever heard a love song with that theme before. Mostly the lover was asking the girl to let him into her heart and her bed—not keep him out of it.
Simmons moved on to the second verse. The man was unhappily married but determined to remain faithful. Now, wouldn't that make the priests and ministers happy? Too bad none of them seemed be here tonight. This song could be turned into a whole sermon theme. But wait. At the end of the second verse, it looked like the guy might succumb to temptation. Wackernagel perked up. Maybe it was just as well that the upstanding Pastor Ludwig Kastenmayer was safely at home in the rectory next to St. Martin's in the Fields Lutheran Church, probably reading edifying bedtime stories to his numerous preachers' kids.