Helena shook her head. "He isn't married. He'll still need a wife before he can take over as a master. The guilds won't change that rule. Someone needs to run the household and take care of the apprentices he brings in. Say that he does apprentice Hanswilli in a few years—would you want him living somewhere without a master's wife to look out for his welfare?"
"Well, let Johann find his own wife. It doesn't have to be me. Maria Anna Fraas would do fine. She's only three years older than I am, but she's Willibald's half-sister, even if she is twenty-five years younger than he was. She's our own cousin, too. Aunt Anna Catharina Bachmeierin's daughter, even if that aunt did die so young that I don't even remember her." NaNa grinned a little maliciously. "And I know she wants to get married. It's all she talks about. I expect she would marry a gelded ox if he agreed to put a ring on her finger."
"That says where you think you can get money. And how you think we should handle the shop." Clara looked at her niece again. "What do you want to do with the money once you have it?"
"I want to take my share and go to Grantville. Study to be an apothecary. I've talked to them, already—Raymond Little, the man's name is. And to Frau Garnet Szymanski at the Tech Center. I have to learn to be a nurse, first. Then I can apprentice at one of the 'pharmacy' businesses. It would take a long time, at least three or four years until I can start the apprenticeship, but I can do it."
She looked at the others, her expression an echo of Jergfritz's. "I know I can."
"Where will you live?"
NaNa relaxed. Just the question meant that Helena had surrendered.
"With us, this year." Aunt Clara answered the question for her. "Until there is room in Bamberg for the Bureau of Consular Affairs to be moved. After that . . . Lenore will be going to Bamberg even before we do, but I'm sure that Chandra—Wesley's other daughter—will be happy to have another adult in her house."
So much for complete independence, NaNa thought. But Chandra, whatever she was like, had to be a big improvement on Johann Drechsler as a prospective roommate.
"My share of the mortgage money coming in from the shop . . ." Helena said. "You'll have a big household to support in Frankfurt."
"Not that big," Wackernagel said. "You and my four children."
"You're forgetting Hansjerg and Herburgis. Plus a wet nurse for Herburgis. For quite some time, yet. If you think that I'm going to raise my half-sister on pap . . ."
"Of course not." That answer came fast. Fast enough to suit his—betrothed.
"You can't let your other children starve, so whatever you've been contributing to those households will have to keep going to them. I trust that you do have whatever money you got from selling Maria's cottage and garden put safely away for her children?"
"Yes." Wackernagel nodded. "With the mayor and pastor of Bindersleben as trustees, along with a banker in Erfurt."
"Good enough. Now about my share of the money from the mortgage . . ." Helena looked at her future husband consideringly. "Your income should be going up. With my share of the income invested, you can start expanding your business to include additional riders and small packages. You mentioned that idea, once, when we were talking in the shop, last summer, when you first began flirting with me at the retail counter of the Sign of the Platter. However . . . before you get the use of my money, there's going to be a prenuptial contract. Ironclad, believe me."
She looked at Cunz Kastenmayer. "Draw one up. I know you can use the money. I'll have a licentiate look it over, but paying him for that will be cheaper than paying him to do it from scratch."
"Helena," Clara asked that evening. A little anxiously. "What are you going to do if his other two wives die? What if you end up having to take their children into your household, too?"
Helena winced. She would really rather not think about that prospect. But she was a realist, so she had thought about it. "Open a school," she said a little snippily.
Which should have ended that particular conversation, but Aunt Clara wasn't a woman to let well enough alone.
"What if he has . . . you know . . . more children? With them?"
Helena's mouth tightened. "I can't see that it's any worse than whoring around. Which men do, often enough, when they are away from home. Probably better, since he's not likely to catch syphilis from them and bring it home to me."
"But . . ."
"Leave it be, Aunt Clara," Helena said firmly. "He's a courier. I won't see significantly less of him than if those other women were not in the picture. And I will be, after all, the legal wife. Plus, unlike Maria, I know the truth. Unlike her, I will have leverage if Martin gets out of line. Not to mention that since I have family here in Badenburg and in Grantville, I'll have a good reason to travel with him occasionally to see my brothers and sisters. To see you. Check up on what he's doing when he's out on the Imperial Road. And with whom. I know what I'm getting."