1634: The Bavarian Crisis

USE."

Maxine squeezed her arms around his substantial waistline.

"Come on, honey. It's just a business trip. We have a lot of stuff to offer them. Pumps and stationary steam engines to run the pumps. A bit of explosive to open the closed shafts. Improved rail design for the carts, to bring it out faster. I won't be running into any trouble."

Ed Piazza started for home, saw who was on the bench outside his office, and grinned. "Leopold. I didn't know that you were in town."

"I wasn't until this afternoon," Leopold Cavriani answered, leaping up to shake hands. "Be flattered; this is my second stop. The first was to entrust my oldest daughter to the Reverend Wiley and his wife. Idelette is almost seventeen, now. This spring and summer, she will learn your language and ways; the next two years, she will go to school. Then, if all is well, she will train in the office of a businessman. Probably with Count August von Sommersburg's factor. The count has a permanent office here in Grantville, now. His factor has been among you Grantvillers long enough that he is willing to have a daughter of a business partner as one of his apprentices. At least, he says so now. If he does not say so then, why, we shall be flexible." He grinned himself.

Flexible. Flexible could be the Cavriani motto, Ed mused. Aloud, he asked, "So what is our friend the noble concrete bandit up to now?" Sommersburg was not only making a mint from the slate quarries that he owned on the Schwarza river above Grantville, but was also up to his neck in cement, concrete, and related construction projects in Magdeburg.

"Diversification," said Cavriani happily. "Quite a lovely word. I like it almost as much as 'facilitator.'"

"Diversification into…?"

"Mining," said Cavriani. "Mines involve moving so much rock, you know. The count is financing one of your entrepreneurs in an effort to obtain more iron supplies from the Upper Palatinate. That will involve a lot of rock, of course. The count hopes to develop ways in which to make a profit from the by-products of a mining enterprise. By-products that the miners themselves find uninteresting. Waste products."

"'Waste' products that down-time miners find uninteresting, but that might, just possibly, find a market in up-time technology."

"Possibly, just possibly."

"Well," Ed said, "come on home with me for dinner. I'm sure Annabelle can find something extra to put on the table."

As they went down the stairs, Ed asked casually, "Which entrepreneur"?

"Ollie Reardon. He is far too busy to go to the Upper Palatinate himself, of course. He will be sending one of his trusted co-workers. A man named Keith Pilcher. I haven't met him yet. I'm looking forward to the trip. We will be stopping in Nurnberg to pick up my son Marc. He is coming with us. This should be an excellent chance to give him his first real experience in negotiations. A routine matter, to be sure, but he will have a chance to meet some influential people, both up-time and down-time. And the Upper Palatinate seems to be settling down very nicely under Duke Ernst. He can get a first-hand view of how rapidly we can hope for economic reconstruction to proceed once a region is no longer a war zone."

"Bernadette," Maxine Pilcher asked, cornering the juvenile officer in a booth at Cora's during lunch. "What is this all about?"

Bernadette looked at the newspaper. Maxine's attention was fixed on a legal notice which stated that Mrs. Veronica Dreeson had appeared before Judge Maurice Tito with a petition for the legal emancipation of her granddaughter, Miss Anna Elisabetha Richter.

"What is that woman up to now?"

"Don't hope for scandal," Bernadette answered. Grantville had been considerably enlivened for the past three years by occasional flare-ups when the divergent educational philosophies of Ronnie Dreeson and Maxine Pilcher came into conflict. "It's no Hardesty-type case. I'd call it a bit risky, but it's perfectly prosaic and she probably knows the girl better than anyone else does. Annalise is going to be running the St. Veronica's schools this spring and summer."

"Annalise is what? Seventeen?"

"She just had her seventeenth birthday. Last week, in fact. Ronnie petitioned to have her emancipated so that she can make binding contracts. And she's providing Annalise with a full power-of-attorney to handle all of her affairs while she's gone."

"Gone where? And why not Henry?"

"As they headed out of the courtroom after Maurice granted the petition, I heard Ronnie say, 'ask Henry if you have any questions, but remember that he's a very busy man, so don't bother him unless you have to.' Which is, I presume, why Henry isn't being stuck with the schools. On top of everything else that he has to do."

"But," Maxine asked, "where is Ronnie going? For so long, anyway? I know that she travels around to visit her 'schools.' They're springing up all over the place, like mushrooms." She grimaced. "Or toadstools." She grinned. "Toad-schools. But she could visit them all and still come back to town, in between. Magdeburg is the farthest away."

"She'll be gone much longer this time. Not day trips, not week trips. She's heading off to the Upper Palatinate to see whether she can get anything from her first husband's estate. There are a whole batch of Grantville people with business there this spring, plus the Voice of America is sending back a batch of newly trained down-time radio operators to Duke Ernst and Mary Simpson is going. There's no reason to expect any trouble, of course, but Admiral Simpson and Mayor Dreeson apparently thought that it would be better for the ladies to travel with some military escort. And, of course, Ollie was just as happy to include…"

Bernadette had been about to add, "Keith and Mr. Cavriani." And to ask, "hasn't Keith mentioned it to you."

Clearly, he hadn't. Bernadette realized why.

"Ooooooh, nooooooo," Maxine howled. "Keith is not traveling with that woman."