Grantville Gazette Volume 25 Read online

  There had to be a new play commemorating the events that took place in early September. Immediately. The end of the Ram Rebellion had been so spectacular. The taking of the Freiherr von Bimbach's castle under the leadership of Noelle Murphy as the youthful heroine, and Judith Neideckerin, as a formerly complaisant mistress who, because of the villain's cruelty to her mother, turned upon him and became a heroine as well. That might not be exactly what the newspapers had reported, but it made good drama and was close enough. Plus Eddie Junker as the youthful hero, since every play needed one.

  Tom was writing Judith's dialogue. Dick was writing Noelle's dialogue. And Eddie's, since almost all of Eddie's scenes involved Noelle. Every now and then, Massinger would poke a finger at one of them and tell him to have the character say "something along these lines to whomever."

  Tom was also writing dialogue for Constantin Ableidinger as the Ram. Dick was also writing dialogue for Else Kronacher as the Ewe (Massinger had decided that the new play would sublimely ignore the fact that she had not been present at the culminating events—for the sake of dramatic symmetry, she had to be).

  Massinger was writing the dialogue for Anita Masaniello.

  Antonia insisted that no matter what had happened in the field outside the Freiherr's castle when Frau Masaniello faced down von Bimbach and his evil adviser Lenz, she did not wish to be depicted as giving birth, even offstage.

  Massinger wondered, reasonably enough, why not. After all, on their troupe's tour from Calais to Grantville, she had, in the course of various plot elements in his earlier plays, been the object of attempted father-daughter incest and the victim of two rapes, had endured an abduction for nefarious purposes, and had experienced numerous other catastrophes (all of which took place offstage, of course—she merely reappeared in the next scene looking wretched and disheveled while someone described the agonies she had suffered). Not to mention her portrayal of the Emperor Domitian's lustful wife in The Roman Actor, which had been superb. Antonia was capable of crying out, "Libidinous beast!" on a level with the most accomplished actresses of the day. Why quail at depicting the pangs of parturition?

  Antonia still declined to give birth, even off stage. Firmly. So. In the play, Anita Masaniello would not be a nine-months-pregnant negotiator. She would be a presentable negotiator as accorded with Antonia's preferences and baby Diana would not come into the matter at all.

  "Faster, faster, Mike," Massinger called. "I need the stage design for the scene in the field outside Bimbach's castle at once. We must play Bimbach the Buffoon at least once before we leave Bamberg. Preferably more than once, so that by the time we get to Bayreuth, it will go smoothly."

  "Rehearsals. What are rehearsals?" Mike muttered to himself. "We don't need no steenking rehearsals when it's a Massinger production in full steam." He paused between strokes in his sketch. "Ms. Higham would be having cat fits."

  Bayreuth, late September 1634

  "At least we finally got out of Bamberg," Philip Massinger smiled at his wife. "Are you happier now that we have fresh audiences.?"

  "Margrave Christian has responded very generously to your dedication of Bimbach the Buffoon to him. Even though, I fear, each performance demonstrates that you cobbled it together rather hastily from a half-dozen other plays in between the newly authored lines."

  "The margrave is a true patron of the arts. Not to mention that I portrayed him as playing a most noble role in the events of earlier this month. I can improve upon it during the winter and add some more original lines."

  Antonia always complimented her husband when it was his due. That was one of her unbreakable rules for happy, successful, pleasurable matrimony. "Yes. Even as it is now, the introductory scene is most impressive where Margrave Christian tells Meyfarth and Weckherlin that he has not made up his mind to join the USE to seek advantage, but as a matter of sincere conviction. 'True dignity is never gained by place, and never lost when honors are withdrawn.'"

  Tom interrupted. "According to Melchior and Otto, who got it from their sister Martha, who got it from Pastor Meyfarth, who was there, that's not exactly how the conversation went."

  Antonia frowned quellingly. "Very generously. Very generously. Very generously. To quote Mistress Higham during one of the rehearsals of Oklahoma! last spring, 'Can you get that through your thick head, Tom Quiney?' We can hire a wagon to take the railroad car for William Jennings Bryan's scenes back to Grantville, and then on to Magdeburg."

  Dick propped his chin on the heel of his hand. "It was ingenious of Mike Mundell to design that center swivel on a jack, so that when we don't need it as a railroad car, we can just rotate it and the other end can serve as a small stage when we stop in villages."

  "Or as the floor of a balcony." Massinger jumped up. "Or a podium in the Roman Senate, if we should decide to play The Roman Actor next season. The throne room pedestal in The Great Duke of Florence. The executioner's platform in The Old Law. Or . . . What did Mike call it, Mariah?"

  "Multi-purpose. A multi-purpose facility."

  "Plus we got to put the Thorntons in it," Dick said. "In the Buffoon, I mean. And Pastor Schaeffer. Practically every pompous sentence he's ever uttered. Well, at least the sentences that Otto and Melchoir knew about—Schaeffer has probably said a lot of other stupid things in his life. They were a little pissed off when we didn't put those characters into Franconia!, so they should be contented now. I sent them a copy to print."

  "Ah," Tom thumbed his nose at his brother. "What is contentment? Should we consider its true meaning? Is Dick Quiney truly content when he kisses Christina Pittlin? Or has he not yet attained true contentment? Will he catch her or she catch him? Watch out, brother dear. But married once, a man is stak'd or pown'd, and cannot graze beyond his own hedge."

  Dick pulled at one leg of the stool on which Tom was sitting. It tipped and he landed on Mistress Antonia's ledger, wrinkling up the open pages. Christina, moving fast, tried to rescue the inkwell. But failed. Most of the ink spilled to the floor. The rest of it, she dumped in Tom's hair. From his position on his back on the floor, he chanted, "Dickie dotes on Stina. Dickie dotes on Stina."

  Massinger shook his head.

  To all married men, be this a caution,

  Which they should duly tender as their life,

  Neither to dote too much, nor doubt a wife.

  He kissed Antonia's cheek. She patted his and ordered Tom, as the instigator, to get up, call a maid to clean the spilled ink, and then to go scrape the carbon block and make her some more.

  Mariah leaned against the window frame, ignoring them. "Just how come is Ludovic back in your good graces? I see that he will be singing Curly this evening."

  Antonia frowned. "In all truth, Mariah, he sings better than Tom."

  Christina turned around. "Plus, we have had our revenge. We made him carry the bodice in his own hands, explain to the seamstress precisely how it came to be ripped, and forced him to pay whatever charge she deemed appropriate under the circumstances. Nor do I think that either you or I will have difficulty with his hands again."

  Massinger stood up. "What is more, he quoted my own words at me. 'I must be bold to tell you, sir . . . 'tis tyranny to overcharge an honest man.' I have to admire such impudence. As for Anna Maria . . ." He looked at his wife, but it was Christina who answered.

  "We owe our thanks to Mike again. He has explained to Ludovic that in Grantville, Anna Maria is the foster daughter of a woman of the Masaniello family. The foster daughter of Anita Masaniello's first cousin Shawna, to be exact. Mike explained to him about Italians, and the 'mafia,' and things like that. He even managed to refer to Harry Lefferts—although he admitted to me privately that as far as he knows, although Lefferts' mother's father was Italian, he was not related to the Masaniello family. Still. Since Ludovic has also memorized his lines for Bimbach the Buffoon and knows very well that Frau Masaniello is of high status and higher determination when she confronts a villain . . ."

  Antonia nodded. "We have
a good lead tenor again. We simply have to be practical, Mariah. Tenors do not grow on every tree. Tom will be a very good actor in his prime, probably better than Ludovic, but for now he is only sixteen years old and the same is true of his voice. If he over-strains it now, trying to fill a theater, it will be useless by the time he is twenty. We have to plan ahead."

  Remembering Tom, she looked down. He was still sprawled on the floor.

  "Get up, you worthless lazybones, and do as I have told you."

  * * *

  "I like that part of the play," Eddie Junker said, standing in the common room of the inn where he and Noelle were staying. "After Bimbach's execution, where they have the mercenary look at Otto Schaeffer and say, 'If you like not hanging, drown yourself; take some course for your reputation' and Schaeffer answers,

  Death hath a thousand doors to let life out.

  I shall find one.

  'Tis the only discipline we are born for;

  All studies else are but as circular lines,

  And death the center where they all must meet.

  Mariah Collins nodded. She wished that Eddie had noticed her part, even though it wasn't—very large. Antonia had played Anita, of course. Anna Maria had appeared as Noelle. She had been fobbed off with Judith, who appeared in only two scenes, and then only as a foil for Noelle. It was pretty hard to be noticed on a stage when you just stood there like a clod while another actress told you to dry up the tears you were shedding for the fate of your aged mother.

  Eddie kept right on with his literary criticism. "Those are nice lines for Margrave Christian, too, when he rebukes Schaeffer:"

  He that kills himself to avoid misery, fears it,

  And, at the best, shows but a bastard valour.

  This life's a fort committed to our trust,

  Which we must not yield up, till it be forced.

  He is not valiant that dares die, but he that boldly bears calamity.

  "Everyone in the audience will understand that this brave and valiant layman, allied with the noble Emperor Gustavus Adolphus, understands the Bible better than the . . . well, he's a pompous ass of a preacher who claims to be a better Christian than others just because he graduated from theology school."

  "I can't say that my family was ever much for going to church." Mariah started to say something more. She stopped, trying to figure out how to complete the statement she had started without offending Eddie. She had no idea what his religion was, but one real difference between the twentieth century and the seventeenth century was that no matter how they behaved, all the down-timers seemed to belong to some church and you never knew when they might get touchy about it. She'd found that out while she was working for the geology survey.

  Plus, Eddie Junker behaved very well, so maybe he was really attached to his religion, whatever it was. And . . .

  "Ever much" was an understatement. On her mom's side, the Baxters, her aunts and uncle had gotten converted at some point, at a big revival meeting at the Church of Christ that Aunt Della's husband went to. After that, they hassled her mom to get converted, too, so she hadn't seen much of them. Mom hadn't taken well to being hassled. On her dad's side, except for her aunt Samantha, who was more like a cousin because she was only five years older—one of Master Massinger's renegados, clearly—and who had married Steve Jennings a couple of years before the Ring of Fire and agreed to join his church, no one in her family ever went to church at all. Well, except for other people's weddings and funerals. Left to themselves, the Grantville Collinses got married at the courthouse and buried from the funeral home. Her cousin Gayleen had even talked Ron Sanderlin into dropping out of his church when they got married, on the grounds that the women there just weren't her style. Which was perfectly true.

  She didn't want to offend Eddie. What she'd seen of him so far, she really liked. But she didn't want to tell him lies, either. At one of their rehearsals, one of the guys had recited a really good line for this kind of situation.

  I am driven

  Into a desperate strait and cannot steer

  A middle course.

  "Uh, well," she finished. "I guess that's a good thing. I'm glad you liked the play."

  "Uh." Eddie was stymied, too. Noelle was his good friend but Mariah was . . . a little different. As in, maybe available. "I, uh, have to go back to Bamberg for a while, just as soon as things are sorted out here. But I won't be there forever. I just have to close out some stuff with the CoC and find someone else to teach English to the apprentices. That is. When I get back to Grantville, could we have a date? Or will you be off on tour somewhere?"

  "I'm not really an actress. I only signed on as Ado Annie for the summer. It seemed like it would be more interesting than certifying ground conditions for silo sites. Most good work for the geology survey isn't right around Grantville, any more. The area's been pretty well covered. So when I find another decent-paying job, it'll probably be somewhere else. Wietze, most likely, considering the problems they've had this summer. Or up around Stassfurt. But . . . yeah, if I'm in town. Sure."

  They stood there, looking at each other? Now what?

  It was something of a relief when Noelle walked in.

  "I'm here, finally. At least I think I am. I thought that meeting would run forever. Am I late? Not? Oh, good. But almost. I just have to run to the privy and wash my hands. I can skip lunch. Nice to see you again, Mariah—it's been ages. I saw Bimbach the Buffoon yesterday afternoon, with Eddie, but it will be a lot more fun seeing The Americaness from backstage. Thanks so much for inviting us. At least the girl who was playing me is a dishwater blond, too. You aren't much over half Judith's real size. It was just so funny to watch it all. Or more weird than funny, maybe." She vanished through the back door and, presumably, up the stairs.

  Mariah looked after her. "We didn't really know one another that well. Noelle grew up in Fairmont, mostly. I think she was a junior in high school when her mom moved back to Grantville. Maybe a senior. Anyway, she was a couple of years ahead of me. Quiet. Sort of, 'I dare you to say a word about it.' She's going back home next, isn't she? When?"

  "She's leaving Bayreuth in a week or so, but she has some work to do on the way."

  "Even so, she has to be as nervous as a cat. I'll make you a bet, though. By the time she gets there, she'll be so calm and controlled that no one will ever dream she went through a spell of yakking like that before she sucked in her gut and faced them all."

  "All who?"

  "Grief. She hasn't even told you, has she. And you're her friend, from what I hear. At least as much as she's ever had a friend. Her parents got back together."

  "This is bad? This isn't good?"

  "She's . . . never met her dad. Her mom was married to someone else."

  "I will be kinder to her for the next week."

  "She probably won't appreciate it."

  "That's okay."

  * * *

  "I'm going home," Noelle said, "but you'll probably get there first. You're going the long way, but the roads are better. I'll be riding by way of Kronach and Saalfeld, stopping to look at some things that Matt Trelli and Johnnie F. want me to take a peek at. So here's the address of Joe Stull. He's my uncle. It's sort of complicated, but anyway, I've heard from Steve and Anita that everything came out in the wash at my grandma's funeral last July."

  Massinger took the slip of paper and thanked her.

  "You can tell him I sent you. Joe's mother, my grandma, Juliann Stull her name was, had a stash of old 33 rpm records and the turntable. I expect they're still at her house."

  Massinger nodded, waiting patiently for the point of this.

  "Your play this afternoon. The Americaness. Since Franconia! has made you quite a bit of money as a musical, I thought you might be interested in putting some up-time music into The Americaness, too." Noelle looked a little uncomfortable. "Uh. Dick and Tom told Eddie and me your motto about 'immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.' You don't mind?"

  "Not at all." Massinge
r bowed. "The line is my own."

  "Grandma had an old original cast recording somewhere in that pile of 33s. Well, she had several, but only one that's important for what I'm trying to tell you. The songs were pretty cute, there was a good role for an actress about Mistress Antonia's age, and one for a pretty soprano to stand around and look cute."

  "What is the name of this . . . album . . . that I am looking for?"

  "Oh, gosh. Didn't I write it down? It was about a lady ambassador. Like Sharon Nichols in Venice, now. Or Anita in Bimbach. So I thought that maybe you could make something of it. The name was Call Me Madam!" There isn't any copy of the play there, but the back of the album case gave a sort of general summary of what happened in each act. Ask Joe to let you into Grandma's house to listen to it."

  Massinger now understood. "Before we left Grantville last spring, there was a cast party at the home of a man named Joseph Stull and his wife Aura Lee. Their son Billy was the stage manager for the production of Oklahoma! in which Dick and Tom sang roles. He is the Secretary of Transportation for the State of Thuringia-Franconia. Is there some connection between the honorable secretary and your uncle?"

  "Huh? Oh, yeah." Noelle was a little taken aback. "They're the same person—Grantville really wasn't a very big town before the Ring of Fire."

  PART III

  DRAMA II

  Grantville, late September 1634

  "Of course, they've missed the first few weeks of school."

  For Lisa Dailey, who spent her days doing those things that assistant principals do, prominent among which was monitoring attendance, missing the first few weeks of school was a grave misdemeanor.

  "They'll miss the last few weeks of the semester, too. Philip—Master Massinger—plans to go to Magdeburg for the Christmas season. He's already booked a guild hall in advance."