Grantville Gazette-Volume XI Page 24

  No! he thought. It's lies. It must be. And yet. He could think of no reason for them to lie. At least none that made sense given the circumstances.

  The shop was in Moscow and up-scale. Guba knew about drugs and acupuncture and a number of other treatments. He had a large number of very wealthy customers, and he wasn't sure what to do. In more than one way. First, the potion for relieving the pain of swollen joints worked. He knew that; he had seen it. Mercury potions were also the only effective treatment for syphilis that he knew of. The dementia, if it was caused by the drug and not the pain, was a side effect that took multiple doses over a period of time to manifest.

  Nor did he have a replacement for the drug. Not one that was nearly as effective. He understood from some of the things the boy from the Grantville section had said that Grantville did have drugs that were effective. The little blue pills of happiness that were supposed to relive pain and restore manhood. Another called Mary Jane. It didn't matter; he didn't have them and had no practical way to get them or make them.

  Grantville

  "So what else is on the list of impossible demands this week?" Brandy asked.

  "Bernie, or rather 'one of the brain cases,' wants a computer. The patriarch wants proof of the dangers of lead poisoning and an alternative makeup, because certain women in Moscow are having fits. Also, tons of antibiotics. I'm sending him cheat sheets on how to make chloramphenicol. I have one here from the Polish section demanding a generator 'if such things really exist.' We sent one to Bernie a while back; that must be where they heard about it. So, make unreasonable demands of me, Brandy. I'm getting used to it."

  "Hmmm." Brandy considered. "Hmmm. No one has ever suggested that before, I don't think. How about a reasonable demand? How about we take off early? I want you to tell me about Moscow."

  "Why not?" Vladimir shrugged. "Why not? The demands will still be here tomorrow."

  * * *

  It was three nights after the car had left for Russia that the prince from Muscovy made up his mind he would ask for permission to marry the girl from the future. He pulled out a pen and began the two letters. One to Natasha informing her that he would be seeking Brandy's hand and asking for her help in persuading the czar. One to the czar asking his permission to marry a foreigner. The fact that his older sister had married a foreigner would not make it easier. He would wait to ask Brandy until he had permission because he didn't know what he would do if the permission were not forthcoming.

  Yaroslavich Dacha

  "Oh, man." Bernie sounded worried. "Why him?"

  Natasha looked up from her latest letter from Brandy Bates and watched Bernie for a moment. His beard had grown in rather nicely, she thought. His clothing, though. She shook her head. Just when she had thought the jeans were worn completely out, the unforeseen consequences of the sewing machine had resulted in Vladimir's gift of something called "torberts."

  The jeans had been bad enough, in Natasha's opinion. The torberts were worse and they were catching on. That's how Bernie put it, anyway. They lacked the proper drape of Russian clothes and what was the fetish men seemed to have with pockets everywhere? The torberts were, according to Bernie, just farmer's overalls made down-time to up time design. He insisted they made good work clothes.

  If that had been all they were used for Natasha wouldn't have objected. Well, not as much. But some of the other men at the Dacha were using them for social wear now, as a sort of a proclamation that they worked there. Even Bernie didn't think them appropriate for "parties and such," but he insisted he "wasn't the fashion police." Whatever that meant. He refused to explain the inappropriateness of wearing torberts into Muscovy. Bernie was Bernie. Too stubborn by half. "Why who?"

  "Cass Lowry." Bernie waved the letter at her. "He used to be a friend of mine when we played football together. I thought he was so cool. He was smarter me and was always coming up with stunts to pull. The thing is, Cass never could take anyone's advice on anything. He was going to go to college on a football scholarship. Studying was a waste of time." Bernie laughed. "I was the same way. Everything that happened to us was someone else's fault. I was right with him all through high school. It was the nerds screwing up the bell curve. It was the teachers that had it in for us jocks." Natasha wondered why teachers would have it in for jocks but didn't bother asking. Bernie was still talking.

  "Then, after the football scholarship fell through, Cass blamed me for keeping him from studying." Bernie looked over at Natasha and gave a shrug. "There may have been some truth to it but other guys on the team did study and went on to college. Somewhere in there, I got over myself and started to grow up. But from the letter, it doesn't sound like Cass ever did. Now he's blaming everything on the down-timers and Mike Stearns." Bernie waved the letter. "That's what this letter comes down to. I hope no one ever reads this, Natasha. Because it's pretty rude."

  Natasha knew that quite well. It took some effort to control her expression. Cass Lowry's comments about "krauts," "russkies" and "I guess you're living in the armpit of the universe" had not gone unnoticed. Not in the least. "Brandy says it is because he was the only person who knew cars well enough who was willing to make the trip. Vladimir wanted, very much, to have someone who knew cars travel with your 'Precious.'"

  "My what?"

  "See." Natasha waved Brandy's letter. "Brandy says 'tell Bernie that Cass is traveling with Precious because Cass is the only guy we could find who wasn't doing something else.'"

  Bernie's face was a study. Part outrage, part pout. "The car is not named Precious. Are you sure she didn't say 'your precious car' or something?"

  Natasha perused the letter again and shook her head. "No. It even has the capital P. I assumed it was the name for it. At any rate, your Cass will be arriving in a month or so. We should probably arrange for you to meet him. He, according to Brandy, wants to visit us for a while. And you never know, he might help."

  Bernie slumped into a chair. "I doubt it. Don't get me wrong. Cass is smart smarter than me. It's just . . . I don't know . . . he has a knack for screwing things up. You're probably not going to care for him one little bit. Neither will Boris or Filip." Bernie shook his head in disgust. "Why did Brandy have to send him?"

  Brandy had not sent him, Vladimir had. He had been fully aware of Cass' drawbacks and had stressed the need to put up with them while he was milked for information, especially on weapons and tactics used by the up-timers. "Mr. Lowry," Vladimir had written, "is not a person we would want in our home. But he does have knowledge that could be useful to Muscovy. Try to keep anyone from killing him for the insults he will surely give." Natasha had wondered if Bernie's view would agree with Vladimir's. While there were subtle differences, for the most part it did.

  * * *

  Bernie shivered. Theatrically, Natasha thought. "Well, at least it's not a horse. It may be colder than a witches . . . ah, never mind. It may be really cold, but at least we aren't riding horses."

  "Indeed, we aren't." Natasha smiled. "And you must admit that it's a very nice coach, Bernie, very nice."

  And it was, in fact, a very nice coach. It had special springs for the skis. Outside it was cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey and the snow was still pretty deep. But the streamlined coach-on-skis had double-walled construction and a lacquer polish job that acted as sealant, as well as making the whole thing shiny as all get out. It was relatively warm inside, even if it did look kind of weird. It needed high road clearance because even the improved roads weren't exactly highways in the up-timer sense of the word. They were reasonably well-graded dirt roads with a bit of crushed rock spread over them. Plus, at the moment, a layer of snow. There remained rough bits here and there. The coach was not as high as the old west stage coaches, but was higher than a modern car. Most of the time the coach could travel ten to fifteen miles per hour. There were places, though, where they had to slow way down and work their way between ruts.

  Only a relatively small part of the design for the coach was
from up-timer information. More of it had to do with a down-timer coach maker who had joined the team after the czar had seen some up-time car magazines. Czar Mikhail had liked the idea of cars and smooth rides. He'd decided that if he couldn't have an engine, he at least wanted a streamlined design and shock absorbers.

  The coach maker, Ivan Egorovich Shirshov, had taken note of that desire. The czar had seen to that. Ivan Egorovich had arrived at the dacha with a medium-sized chip on his shoulder over the whole mess. Then he talked to Bernie and found that Bernie agreed with him. But it was no more up to Bernie than it was to him. They had gone over Bernie's car magazines, then over sleigh designs and coach designs, trying to figure out what they could do. Ivan Egorovich now had a permanent dent in his forehead from pounding it against the wall in frustration. And Czar Mikhail had a new coach. So did Bernie.

  Bernie grabbed the edge of the seat. "Hang on. We're about to hit another rutted bit. And I still can't figure out why you wanted to come on this trip, ladies. You're probably going to get frostbite on your noses."

  "The 'advance team' as you call it has made arrangements, Bernie. We will be comfortable. And I like traveling. Vladimir and I did quite a bit of it, you know, back when our father was alive."

  Aunt Sofia grinned widely. "The weather, it is not so bad."

  Bernie shuddered. If it hadn't been for the long johns, he'd have had frozen b . . . ah . . . parts by now.

  The trip to the Swedish border had several purposes. One was to investigate the road work. Road work had been continuing apace since only a month or so after Bernie's arrival. Since he had worked on the road gangs around Grantville and had a mechanical turn of mind, he had a good knowledge of the horse-drawn grader and other horse-drawn road improvement equipment. The equipment he had helped design for Muscovy had been used extensively for almost a year now and was showing real effect. The czar's highways mostly went south and east, roughly toward China. One, however, went north and west toward the coast of the Baltic Sea.

  That was the highway they were traveling. It was a fairly slow trip. They stopped occasionally to examine the road work. Most important to Bernie, though, was that the trip's second purpose was to pick up his car. It had been shipped from Grantville by way of the Baltic Sea to the Swedish-owned coast.

  Muscovy had lost this particular bit of land to Sweden a couple of decades before. Thankfully, relations between the two nations had greatly improved in the ensuing years. This was mostly because both Sweden and Muscovy disliked Poland more than they disliked each other. But, also, Czar Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov was honestly impressed with the charismatic Swedish monarch.

  Natasha had decided to join the party at the last minute, well, the last day. The amount of advanced planning needed to travel just a couple of days was mind boggling to Bernie. And this trip would take at least a month, new coach or not.

  * * *

  "I can't believe it." Bernie's voice was harsh and his nose bright red from chapping. "I can't believe it took five freaking weeks to get here and the ship still hasn't made it." Bernie stomped around the room for a bit, working off some excess energy.

  "Now, Bernie." Vladislav Vasl'yevich Vinnikov, Natasha's captain of guards tried to soothe him. "It was a long way, a hard trip at this time of year. I would imagine that it was even worse on the sea. Your friend will be here. You must just be patient."

  "Why the heck can't we just go to the coast to meet him?" Bernie threw his hands in the air. "I'm worried. Why stay here, so far from the coast?"

  Vladislav Vasl'yevich wasn't about to answer that question directly. It wouldn't be the correct thing to do. Bernie just didn't, as he himself often remarked, "need to know."

  "The villages in the area, Bernie. We should look at the villages. The soil is a bit different, perhaps. You could take notes, it would help with the development of the plows and reapers, I'm sure."

  Bernie brightened a bit, not much. "Well it's, something to do anyway. Sure, we'll go take a look."

  Natasha, who had been quiet for a few moments, added, "As well, Pavel Andreyevich would like you to design your plumbing for his home. He is most interested in it. And you are invited to utilize his banya, if you wish."

  Bernie grinned. Banya's were certainly a way to get warm. Overly warm, if the truth were known. Bernie hadn't quite been able to make it to the third level of the banya back at the dacha, not yet. Nor had he quite had the guts to roll around in the snow afterwards, although he had progressed to dumping buckets of not-quite-cold water on himself. Banya's were sort of a sauna, but not quite; sort of a steam room, but also not quite. And the first time Filip had shown him the use of the venek, well . . . that had been sort of a revelation.

  "Sounds like a plan." Bernie sniffed. Cold always made his nose run. "After four hundred miles in this kind of freaking cold, a banya sounds really good."

  * * *

  Natasha smiled as Bernie left the room "That might have been more difficult."

  "True." Vladislav Vasl'yevich nodded. "I wonder what delayed the ship."

  They had planned not to reach the border till after the car was already there, but didn't want it waiting too long. Natasha had spent a worried week thinking up things to keep Bernie occupied. As yet, Muscovy had been able to recruit a total of one up-timer. That up-timer was Bernie Zeppi. Cass Lowry was a temporary hire.

  Czar Mikhail and Patriarch Filaret were quite insistent that Bernie not leave Muscovy territory. At the same time, Mikhail Romanov expressed a personal desire that Bernie not be made to feel abused or trapped. Natasha was stuck with the job of keeping Bernie from leaving Muscovy while keeping him from realizing that he couldn't.

  It was important that Bernie remain willing to stay in Muscovy. Bernie was in regular correspondence with Brandy Bates and his own family in Grantville. A sudden end to those letters would be reported to the government of the USE, most likely. Muscovy, decidedly, didn't want to annoy the USE at the moment.

  * * *

  "What did you do, Cass, beat the damn thing with the tire iron?" Bernie felt like he just might cry, manly or not. The car! The poor car. "What the hell happened?"

  Cass Lowry glared at him from beneath the hood of his camouflage-fabric parka. "Everything you can think of, dude. Everything. Hail. Freezing rain. A goddamn storm at sea. Not to mention that we had to make the trip in the middle of a frigging war. The Dutch were occupying a fair chunk of the coast and blockading part of the rest. So don't bitch at me. I got the damn thing here, didn't I? Not to mention the drums. And let me tell you, those were a ring-tailed son of a bitch, they really were. And expensive! You'd never believe what Yaroslavich had to pay for those fifty-five gallon drums, not to mention what's in them."

  Bernie decided yelling at Cass wouldn't help. But, the car! What had happened to the car? "Look at those dents, man. It looks like someone took a baseball bat to it."

  "More like baseballs." Cass demonstrated with his hands, making a circle of his fingers. "Big freaking hunks of ice the size of your fist. Nothing I could do, either, Bernie boy, not a damn thing. I tried. Even brought some blankets, but I only had enough to protect the glass. Figured that would be hard to replace. Besides, you can beat out the dents. You know that. Remember what the car looked like back when you bought it?"

  "It sort of was a mess, wasn't it." Bernie grinned. "What the hell, you're right. We can fix it, probably. And I'm happier than you know to have fifty-five gallons of gas, I promise you. And motor oil. That's a bonus I didn't expect."

  Cass smirked. "I told Brandy. I told her and that Vlad the same thing. 'It's not going to do any good if you just send the car,' I said. 'You've got to send some gas and oil.' It cost Vlad a bundle, Bernie. But he did it. And there's a whole pile of boxes in the wagons, too. Everything anybody could think of to send you is in a box or wrapped up in the trunk of the car. Brandy hit every garage sale and junk sale she could to find stuff to send you. And books—you'll never believe the books. Piles of them."

  Bernie grinne
d. "Great. We need every one we can find. Come on. Let's go get the introductions over with. Things are kind of formal around here, Cass. You need to watch your step. Just follow my lead and things will probably be okay."

  * * *

  "Natalia Petrovna Yaroslavicha, may I introduce, Cass Lowry. Cass, this is Vlad's sister, Natalia Petrovna. And this is her aunt, Madame Sofia Yaroslavich."

  Bernie thought he'd done a credible job on the introduction until Cass opened his big mouth.

  "If you're Vlad's sister, why isn't your name Natasha? That's what Brandy said, Natasha."

  Bernie sort of kicked Cass in the ankle and made a face at him. "I'll explain later." It came out as a hiss. "Just say hello, would you? And be polite, damn it."

  Cass glared a bit, but nodded. "Ma'am, I'm pleased to meet you. I did bring a load of letters for you. They're from your brother and Brandy. And there are some presents, too. They're in one of the boxes."