The Tangled Web(73)

"Our father, who art in heaven." The words of the prayer, recited by the congregation, passed over him. Almost the whole village had come to the service.

Maria had been a darling girl.



"We think it would be best," the Schultheiss said.

"No. It's not what I want for them. For me."

"What do you want to do, then, Martin?"

"Can I leave my horse in your stable, Hanni?" He turned to the tavernkeeper. "For a couple of weeks?"

"Of course."

"Then, I'll go into Erfurt tomorrow. See a lawyer about the cottage and garden—he'll come out to talk to the village council. You'll have approval of anyone who assumes the lease or buys it out, of course. Maria bought one of those new handcarts—the kind farm wives are using to take produce to market in the summer. For her cheeses. I've made friends, along the road. People who will take my children in, keep them together, long enough for me to deal with this. I'll pack them and their things in the cart, good and warm, with hot bricks and pans of coals, and take them down to Badenburg.

"I can't thank all of you enough, for everything you have done. But I just can't bear to bind them out.

"I'll bring the cart back. It's part of Maria's estate. The lawyer can put it into the inventory before I go.

Badenburg

It wasn't warm, not really. If if were April, it would be a chilly day. But it was warm for January. Helena stood on the steps, her apron wrapped around her hands, watching the early sunset of midwinter. There weren't any customers in the shop, she had caught up the bookkeeping, and right now she couldn't stand to listen to Willibald, Mama, and Dietrich in the back for one more minute.

She didn't notice the man with the handcart at first. Not until he stopped right in front of her. Even then . . . Martin did not look like himself.

"She died," he said. "Maria died. I've brought the children to you."

She picked them up, one at a time, and carried them indoors. After shooing Martin inside and telling him to get warm at the hearth.

The children were toasty. Not happy, and in the case of Otto in serious need of a clean diaper, but warm.

"It hasn't been bad, today," Martin said. "Except that my feet are wet. My boots are designed for riding, not walking."

"Well, then, take them off and put on dry socks. Surely you have some." Her voice was cross. "If you don't, I'll get a pair of Dietrich's."

She knew perfectly well that she was going to take these children in.

Just because Martin had brought them to her.

She also knew perfectly well how her mother would react. And Willibald. And Dietrich. And, for that matter, the rest of her siblings and half-siblings. Her aunts and uncles. Particularly Aunt Clara.

So much for any prospects of ever having a serious suitor. Much less a fiancé. Or a husband.

Old enough to enjoy a harmless flirtation with no repercussions. Like hell she was.

Maybe sometimes your mother and aunts really did know better.

She opened the door to the back of the shop. In the dying light, Willibald and Dietrich were clearing up the day's work. Mama, already heavy with this pregnancy, was perched on a high stool, tallying up the successful pours.

"Guess what?" she said.

Grantville, late January 1635

"Agnes just couldn't believe that Helena did it," Clara told Kortney Pence. Anything to take her mind off the prodding and poking of a prenatal exam. "Without so much as a by-your-leave to anyone else in the family."

"The man can afford to pay for their keep," Kortney said. "It's not as if she was taking in charity cases."

"But the extra work. And with Agnes pregnant again. What do you suppose happened to that poor woman?"

Kortney looked down. Clara, pregnant for the first time at thirty-nine, did pretty well in hiding her panic as her due date got closer.

Not so well that an experienced nurse-midwife couldn't detect it, though.

"Nothing that's going to happen to you," she said firmly. "I didn't get to examine her, but from what Wackernagel told Helena, I'd bet on an ectopic pregnancy." She pulled a chart of the human female reproductive system down from the top of the metal closet. "Here . . . you've seen this before. I've shown it to you. The ovaries, where you store the eggs. The womb, where the baby grows. And these—the fallopian tubes. If the fertilized egg gets stuck before it reaches the womb and the baby starts to grow in the tube, well, there's just no room. You get a rupture. Hemorrage. And, a lot of the time, death. Always, with down-time medicine. Sometimes, even up-time." She put away the chart. "But you're well beyond that. The baby's fine. Go home and harass your relatives."



The rumors about anti-Semitic demonstrations kept coming in. Wesley was involved, of course, through the SoTF Consular Service. Plus, there had been those pamphlets in Fulda. There were new pamphlets now.