Home>>read The Tangled Web free online

The Tangled Web(72)

By:Eric Flint & Virginia DeMarce


"She's in school," Andrea said. "As long as the roads are bad, I think she'll stay there. Liesel may be a little hard to handle, but she certainly isn't dumb."

Wes looked at the letter, took off his glasses to polish them, and said, "Can you hang around for a day or so and then go up to Magdeburg for me? I'd like Clara to do an analysis of this before I send it on to Nasi."

"If it doesn't go beyond a couple of days. I'll send a message with Wattenbach that I'm delayed and have him cover my usual stops. But Mutti expects me home for the holidays. She'll fret if I'm not there."

Wes had a little difficult juxtaposing the concepts of "Martin Wackernagel" and "fretting mother" in his mind.



It didn't work out too badly. He got the packets to Magdeburg, hit Bindersleben on Christmas Eve, Vacha a couple of days later (he and Rufina had given the children their presents earlier in the month, on the Feast of Saint Nicholas, as was the Catholic custom), Steinau for New Year's, and Frankfurt for Twelfth Night.

He'd had practice, of course. Although some years, he made the stops in the reverse order.

Bindersleben bei Erfurt, January 1635

Something was wrong. He knew it as soon as he tethered his horse and stepped into the tavern.

"Martin. Oh, Martin," the tavernkeeper's old mother said. "I'll call the pastor." She turned toward the kitchen. "Hanni, run, put on your cloak and run. Bring the pastor right away." Then she put her hand on his arm. "Don't go to your cottage, Martin. Wait for Pastor Asmus. Don't go to your cottage. There's no one there."



"It was so sudden," Pastor Asmus's wife said. "Just last week, and we had no way to reach you. We knew you would be on the Reichsstrasse, somewhere. She had just told us that she was expecting another child. Another blessing. Then, Tuesday evening, little Kaethe came running up to Midwife Knorrin's house, saying that her mother was lying on the floor, bleeding. We called a physician from Erfurt. He came riding out in the dark and the cold, but by morning she was gone. Oh, poor Maria. Not that she isn't in a better place. But the children? She has no relatives and you are an orphan. Plus you are scarcely here more than a day in each month."

Wackernagel rested his forehead on his fists, his elbows on his knees.

"Eight years old, Kaethe," Pastor Asmus said. "Six, two; Otto not yet a year. I remember when I married the two of you, thinking that if she had family to investigate your background, they would worry about just such a thing, with you on the road all the time."

Wackernagel raised his head. "If she had family to investigate my background, the children would be with that family now."

"The Schultheiss has taken them in, temporarily. But he and his wife have six of their own. It's not a permanent solution. But there's the cottage and garden. It's not as if they will be charity cases. You can afford to have them bound out to good families. The village council and church elders are already making inquiries for you."

Wackernagel shook his head. Thinking, thinking. No. He could not endure to have them bound out. Separated from each other. They slept in a single trundle bed at night, cuddled together like a litter of puppies in this cold winter weather.

But, since he had represented himself as an orphan for so long, he couldn't say that he had family in Frankfurt who would take them.

"Or," the pastor was saying, "if you want to keep the household together, to continue its existence more or less undisturbed, all of us will be happy to try to find you another nice wife. Within the next month. I think that is as long as you can really presume on the kindness of the Schultheiss, and it takes three weeks to read the banns."

The pastor's wife and the tavernkeeper's mother both nodded solemnly.

He shook his head.

"I need to see the children," he said. He looked out at the snow-covered ground. "I can't leave my horse standing there. It's so cold. Could you bury her?"

"Don't worry about the horse," Hanni said. "On my way back from the rectory, I took him to the stable and groomed him."

Pastor Asmus answered the other question. "Not yet. She is in the crypt. We loaned her one of the church's shrouds. Burial will have to wait for a thaw. So I waited until you came to preach the funeral sermon. Shall we do that tomorrow?"

Wackernagel stood up. "I guess we might as well. Thank you, Pastor Asmus. All of you. Thank you for everything."



Rufina would not be understanding. He sat in the church, listening to the words of the twenty-third psalm. And Maria would not have wanted her children brought up by a Catholic. Edeltraud might be understanding. Growing up in an inn tended to make a young woman a little more . . . comprehending of the ways of the world. But . . . Thomas and Anna were not likely to be, and it would be a burden on the two sisters, as well, to have four more small children to care for, in the middle of a busy hostel, in addition to their own six. Plus, they were Calvinists. Maria would not have wanted her children to be brought up by Calvinists.