Ring of Fire III Read online

  Of the six hundred souls that had fled Ayutthaya just over four hundred now remained, mostly comprising the Christians who couldn’t return to Japan. Ishida was still with them, though, and some fifty of his samurai, most now converted to Catholicism. They found work as hired guardsmen and made a living, but they too suffered in the poor economy. The Siamese, Mon and Laotian wives they had brought with them lived in constant fear of the Khmer, who were their people’s sworn enemies. Many of them also became Christians so they would not have to visit the temples outside the borders of their sad little Nihonmachi, looking to the mercy of Lord Jesus to protect them in a hostile land, just in case their Japanese husbands could not.

  When Yoriaki ran into Ishida now and again, the older gentleman always swore that one day he would lead them all back to Ayutthaya and have revenge on Prasat Thong. Despite his adopted faith telling him to “turn the other cheek,” Yoriaki secretly wished to join him if he ever really did go. The years in this subtly menacing and uncomfortable place had made him bitter. Cutting off Prasat Thong’s head and sticking it on a pole at the mouth of the Menam would be most satisfactory. One thing was sure, he had not allowed himself to grow rusty in the way of arms again. He spent at least two hours of every day (except the Sabbath) drilling with his swords. His wife watched him and said nothing against it; the activity had her silent approval now that she had seen with her own eyes that allies and neighbors could turn into deadly foes without warning. She had a long dagger of her own now, and Yoriaki had given her further lessons, just in case. When Hana was a bit older she too would learn to carry a knife, Yoriaki had on occasion witnessed the awful fates of children around Phnom Penh captured by bandits and sold into bondage. Either his daughter would kill any who laid a hand on her or kill herself, Christ have mercy on her soul.

  One bleary morning as Yoriaki began his day of paddling his little boat up and down the docks of the filthy Mekong he came around the bend to find a surprise. There, tied to one of the piers, were two very familiar looking Dutch merchant ships. Yoriaki blinked his eyes and shook his head to clear his vision. There could be no doubt. Letting out an exceptionally rare whoop of pleasure he began paddling as fast as he could, coming up astern of the big ships, wondering how they had even made it so far upriver; obviously the work of master pilots. A young Dutch boy who stood watch on the back deck of the vessel to the left turned and made a loud whistle. Thankful to the Jesuits for teaching him his letters, he was soon close enough to read the names, rejoicing to see that this was indeed Groenevisch and her partner Vlissengen Tuin, the Vlissengen Garden. These were really the ships belonging to Blom’s uncles, here in Phnom Penh after five long years!

  “You are late! I haven’t had any breakfast yet and am holding out for one of those bentos!” the familiar voice came down from the deck. Yoriaki looked up to see Blom, a little thinner, a little darker and more wrinkled of skin, but still with his great, cheerful grin.

  “I have just what you need, sir, see me on the dock!” Yoriaki secured his boat tightly, loaded ten of the banana leaf wrapped lunches into a hemp sack, then clambered up the pier’s rather dodgy ladder as ably a boy of twelve climbing a garden willow. Seeing his friend after so long filled Yoriaki with so much joy he found himself embracing the man as if he were a long lost brother, to hell with samurai discipline! The larger man embraced him back, squeezing him in a suffocating bear hug until Yoriaki flailed feebly for release.

  “You missed me then, Yo-san. I am so glad! I thought maybe you had forgotten your old friend. I am sorry it has taken me so long to come back.”

  “Never mind!” Yoriaki reassured him. “I am so happy to see you, Blom-san, truly I am. Here, your lunch,” he said thrusting the sack into Blom’s meaty hands. “Don’t even think about trying to pay me for it, I owe you far more than a meal, or even two! I know your enormous appetite, I’ve put in a few extra, some for later or to share with your mates. Thank the Lord you are still alive and standing before me, it’s a blessing!”

  “I feel the same way, my friend, besides, it’s been far too long since I’ve had any food as good as your little peach’s cooking. Is she well?”

  “Yes, she is, well enough. The climate doesn’t agree with her and truth to tell I don’t care much for it either. Oh, we have a daughter now, Hana, which means ‘flower’! You must meet her, she will sit on your big tummy and pull that mustache of yours until you cry for mercy!”

  Blom laughed heartily and gave Yoriaki one of his jovial yet gentle claps on the back. “That’s wonderful, a little girl. I’ll bet she’s as pretty as her mother! Why, does she even know she has a fat old white-faced uncle? Won’t she be surprised. I’ll bet I have something pretty for her from my travels. Here, let’s get out of this blasted heat and have a good talk. We need to catch up. I have much to tell you, Yo-san, much to tell.”

  The two of them repaired to Groenevisch where they found some shade beneath the reefed sails and sat on a couple of handy barrels. Between bites of grilled fish and rice, Blom told him of the many journeys he had made with his uncles and polished off one bento and then a second faster than Yoriaki had ever seen anyone else manage to.

  “The reason I took so long to get back to you, Yo-san, is that we sailed all the way to Europe. Once there I had quite a bit of business to attend to, family matters and such, and my uncles needed time to straighten out their own affairs and find new cargoes to bring back here to Asia. But all that’s neither here nor there, what was interesting was the special expedition we took to the Germanies, the lands that run east and south of my own Netherlands. Something happened there and it’s rather odd.” Blom paused, his jovial face having taken on a very thoughtful expression. “You probably won’t believe me, a good Christian like yourself, but I swear it all to be true.”

  He paused again, finally prompting Yoriaki to ask, “What, what did you see there? I’ll believe anything you say now that I’ve seen you eat two bentos in the time it takes most men to have one bite!” This made the two of them laugh, and Blom seemed to relax.

  “All right, then. My uncles and I visited a town, a very strange town like no other in any corner of the wide Earth, and I’ve been to most of the corners. This was a town...from the future!” Blom’s eyes were sparkling with wonderment, like a child’s on his first visit to the pageantry of a Christmas mass. Yoriaki studied him for a moment and knew that whatever Blom said it would be true.

  “I believe you. Tell me more,” Yoriaki said, moving his barrel closer in anticipation.

  * * *

  When Blom was done it was nearly noon. Yoriaki tried to imagine the ground vehichles that moved without horses, not to mention those that flew with men inside them through the very heavens! But more than wonders such as those he pondered a society in which men were free to choose their own religion and to live as they pleased without caste and station, so like the Ayutthaya that had been lost to them.

  “It sounds like a kind of paradise on Earth,” he murmured to Blom, who having finished his tale was fortifying himself with two more bentos.

  “Well, wouldn’t call it paradise. It’s still in the Germanies, you know,” he said between bites. “But it is a good place, a place where people have freedom and rights. Plus, it’s a boom town; it has riches and opportunities that make Ayutthaya look like poor Phnom Penh here.” He looked around at the depressed city. “What a shit-hole! Anyway, I wanted to tell you about Grantville for a good reason, not just to entertain and amaze you, which it appears I succeeded at doing, by the starry-eyed look on your face.”

  Yoriaki gave his friend a confused look. “Yes, it was a wonderful tale, I am very enthralled. But what is this ‘good reason’?” Yoriaki asked him with great curiosity.

  “Simple! I think you should move there.”

  “Move there.” Yoriaki blinked at his friend in the light of the merciless midday sun that had shifted in the sky to catch them out in its blaze as they were engrossed by Grantville’s tale.

  “Yes, move the
re. To live. All of you.”

  “All of us?”

  “By my uncles’ beards, is there an echo here? Yes, Yo-san, all of you who fled Ayutthaya to this sweltering outpost of Hell! This place stinks!” With that he got up and slid his stool back into the dwindling shade beneath the mast, Yoriaki doing the same.

  “Look, I talked to some people there, including some Catholics. I didn’t tell them exactly who you were and where you were from, but I said you were Catholic refugees who had been persecuted, numbering a few hundred looking for a safe home. They just about tripped all over themselves to tell me you would be welcome there, you poor darlings, and if you came they would do whatever it takes to find you homes and get you started. I must say, these Americans are nice to the point of almost seeming ridiculous, but I can also say they really mean it, I saw their charity with my own eyes. Come, Yo-san, think on this. Surely you aren’t happy here. I’ll wager none of you are.”

  Yoriaki shook his head solemnly in agreement. “Yes, Blom-san, you are right. We all despise this place, but there has been nowhere else for us to go. The Khmer, although not kind by any means, at least leave us alone and so far no one has tried to burn down our houses. Please, give me some time to think on this and discuss it with the others. I will call a meeting of our men this very night. May we hold it here on your ship? It would be best if the women didn’t hear of this yet.”

  “Absolutely, you are all welcome!” The big Dutchman grinned widely, very pleased with himself.

  “Blom, if we should decide to do as you suggest, how will we get there? We are so poor.”

  “Not to worry. My uncles are big-hearted fools just like me. It’s already been decided. You will ride on these two ships. It will be tight but we can fit you all, plus we are a bit short on crew anyway, so you can help sail. We are bound back to Europe next, with only a few stops along the way. In any case, we shall consider your future success in Europe as an investment, and in my uncles’ case, a little Christian charity might be just what it takes to keep them from ending up in a place like this when they die.” The two of them laughed long and hard. Yoriaki grinned like a fool all the way back to their settlement, dreaming of a new faraway land full of freedom.

  * * *

  By that evening Yoriaki had whispered in the ear of the Japanese men, all of whom agreed to come listen to Blom’s proposal. They remembered Blom as a hero and benefactor during their time of trial and would hear his words with open hearts. Arriving two hours before midnight as planned they sat on the deck of the Groenevisch, enjoying the wine that the Dutchmen passed around along with what fitful river breezes cooled the muggy night. When Blom began speaking, Yoriaki acted as his translator, swearing from time to time as he went that he was absolutely sure his friend was sincere and telling the truth. The Japanese listened silently until the very end. For a long time after Blom finished no one spoke. Finally Yoriaki, himself convinced through and through that they should take this offer, spoke to them.

  “Men of Nihonmachi, please, what do you say? Surely this is an opportunity the likes of which we may never see again!” Yoriaki implored them in excited tones.

  Ishida stood up and walked over to where Blom and Yoriaki stood, giving them a brief but polite bow.

  “I have a question. If these Americans have changed the tide of history with their arrival, how did they do it? You said they landed in the middle of such a terrible war, why weren’t they slaughtered along with the rest of the unfortunates in the region?”

  Blom answered him, Yoriaki translating quietly as he spoke. “Ishida-san, not only do they have amazing vehicles and lights that burn without flame, they also have weapons of incredible power. They have guns that can shoot a hundred times, nay, a thousand times faster than any we of this century possess, and other, larger weapons of unbelievable destructive force. With their superior firepower, they were able to turn the tide of the war quickly in their ally’s favor and have affected to some degree the politics of the entire continent. You have seen that we Europeans are a powerful people in this world. What these Americans of Grantville can do dwarfs our achievements. They are feared by all who stand against them and loved by all who stand with! No one has ever seen anything like it.”

  Ishida listened carefully, his face a stony mask. He then nodded once, looked straight at at Blom and said in passable Dutch, “Thank you, sir. I shall come with you.” Then he turned to the crowd of Japanese gathered on the deck and proclaimed, “Men of Nihonmachi, I say that we follow this man to Europe. I believe all he has told us, and I believe this is our chance to leave this terrible place forever.” Ishida’s voice rose, taking on the cadence talented leaders have used to spur on their people since language began. “Ever since that accursed night when we fled Ayutthaya I have felt a great destiny awaits us, that we have been biding our time until our next move appears. Now I say it has arrived, thanks to our great friend, Blom! I have heard the wisdom in his words and am absoluely certain that Grantville, this town from the future, is where we may at last achieve the greatness that awaits us! Let us sail, let us sail yet again to a faraway land and meet our destiny without fear, we, the courageous men of Nihonmachi! What say you?”

  As one, all leapt to their feet and cheered at the top of their lungs:

  “Grantville! Grantville! Grantville!”

  Do It Once and Do It Again

  Terry Howard

  Wietze Oil Field, August 1635

  “Hannsi, I’m telling you, you’re sitting on a gold mine,” Hermann said.

  “And I’m telling you, you’re crazy,” Hanns replied.

  “No, I’m not.”

  Hanns was dressed no better than, if as well as, a prosperous farmer. Hermann was dressed in a color-fast, light mud-brown—what the Confederates called butternut and others called khaki—long-sleeve, button-down, collared shirt, like the up-timers wore. A local seamstress was selling them as fast as her sewing machine could turn them out. The oil workers wanted to look the part and that is what they decided the part should look like. The two men sat drinking at a table in the Wild Cat Bar and Grill, which had just changed its name to reflect the mood and vocabulary of their up-timer customers, and they had just expanded to better serve the Wietze oil field community. The owner overheard a conversation once. Once was enough.

  “This place needs more tables.”

  “Yeah, but where else, close by, can you go?”

  “Well that’s true enough for now. But, I’ll tell you this, if he doesn’t add on it won’t be true for long.”

  * * *

  The oil worker waved a hand at the south wall, beyond which the oil works lay. “Hannsi, you’ve seen what they’re doing out there.”

  “So? What has that got to do with me?”

  “Look, you’re the one who owns grandfather’s rights,” Hermann said.

  “Just what are you going on about?” Hanns asked.

  Hanns and Hermann both were thoroughly familiar with their grandfather’s “rights” and all of the circumstances that surrounded them. They were fully aware of the fact that downward mobility was much more readily available to the nobility than upward mobility was to the commoner. Not that grandfather had been all that high to begin with. At this point in time there wasn’t a whole lot left.

  Three villages’ worth of land was leased out for ninety-nine years or three generations, whichever came first. But grandfather had mortgaged the rents. His second child, a daughter, was, to use an up-time expression, drop dead gorgeous. He spent money he should have put elsewhere to send her to the court of Henry Julius of Brunswick, duke of the principalities of Wolfenbuttel, Göttingen and Calenberg, where she could be seen. The investment paid off. She married well above her station to a widower. Before the investment could be capitalized the daughter died in childbirth.

  The third child, also a daughter, was even prettier than her sister. Having done it once, Grandfather knew he could do it again, so he mortgaged the rents to send her to court, where she caught the
eye of a young visiting Hochadel. She claimed he was a prince. Before the fairy tale could unfold the graf was thrown from his horse and broke his neck. It happened on the day she told him she was with child. Home she came in disgrace with an unacknowledged, unsupported bastard in her belly.

  When the manor house caught fire, grandfather died rescuing something that he valued as much as life itself. To say that the first child, a son, rebuilt the manor house is misleading. He tried, but the replacement was a pale reflection of what the old house had been. The son, Hanns’ father, supported a wife and four children, of whom only Hanns and one sister survived, along with his sister and her whelp, in what might graciously be called genteel poverty. The manor, along with a lot of hunting, barely kept them fed. Anything of value went for cash, as cash was needed from time to time, while the family waited for the leases to lapse so the sold rents would revert. The right to a tithe of the grain the villagers sent to be ground in the mill on manor lands helped feed the family, after a miller was paid, of course. The wood lots were watched very closely to see to it that only those who had a right to cut wood did so and then only in the allotment that fell to them, and the tenants knew better than to even think about hunting the game. The right to hunt belonged to the landlords, and the family in the manor spent a great deal of time watching every right like a hawk, in order to collect every last half-copper coin they had coming.

  There was no going to court for Hanns. There was no going to a university either. His education ended with what he learned at the local grammar school in the nearest village. A tutor for even one season was out of the question. Hermann received the same scant education his cousin did. In better times Hermann might have gotten a better education and made a life as an officer in the military. In better times, without an education, he might have raised a mercenary unit and made his way in the world. But outfitting a company took money. In better times he might have joined someone else’s outfit as an under-officer but equipment took money. In better times he could have scrounged old equipment out of the attic and gone off as a mercenary but what survived the fire was long gone for cash.