"I wanted you to know that I would be proud to be married to you. Even if Jachant Wohl will not. I just thought that I would like you to know that before you went away."

Now he looked up.

"Jachant Wohl won't take you, you know. Not if you leave. Her parents won't let you have her, either.

Have you thought what you are doing? She's the best match in Gelnhausen. Pretty. Rich."

"You're prettier." The tone of David's voice carried full conviction.

Riffa had been about to say something else. Her mouth had been open. After a few seconds, she closed it, trying to remember what she had planned to say.

"Not richer. Is it true that you are going to the New United States?"

"To Fulda, yes. To talk the up-timers there. I'm pretty sure that I can't get a job with the munic.i.p.al couriers here in Gelnhausen. The messengers are all one another's relatives. They look out for each other.

But I've spent enough time watching, all these years. I know as much about what they do as anyone could who hasn't actually done it."

"All by yourself, someone said. Without even a letter of introduction."

"I'm not quite that foolhardy, no matter what some people think. Martin Wackernagel, the courier, gave me a recommendation to a Major Derek Utt. Wackernagel is acquainted with some of the people there."

"There's no Jewish community in Fulda."

"I know."

"How will you live, then?"

"Without one, I guess."

"Have you ever talked to my father?"

"No. Should I have?"

"He's a peddler, you know. That's why families like yours look down on him. After the Jews were expelled from Hanau in 1592, my grandfather went peddling.Unvergleidet , without a charter of protection from any Christian lord. My father did, too. When the duke let the Jews come back in 1603, my grandfather and father didn't come back. They kept peddling, from Denmark to Switzerland. Not fareast, but sometimes west into Alsace. I was born on the road. There was nomikvah for my mother to cleanse herself in forty days. Not for over a year. I don't remember it well. I was eight when he obtained permission for my mother and me to stay in Gelnhausen when he is traveling. You could have asked him, some time when he was here. Asked him what it will be like for you now."

David looked at her. "Even if you don't remember it, you must have heard them talking. Would you live that way?"

"If I were with you," Riffa said. "If I could go to Fulda with you. . . . In the New United States, I have heard, we do not need to bevergleidet . Or, we arevergleidet by their 'const.i.tution' itself, and not by any prince."

David looked at her with some surprise.

"My father brings home newspapers."

"When I get a job there, as soon as I can, I will come back for you. What will your parents do when you go with me?"

Riffa shook her head. "I don't know. Come with us, perhaps."

"That would be nice."

She smiled down at him. Then she went back home to the cottage marked with the sickle and he went to Fulda, invisible fireworks bursting within his head.

Ups and Downs June 1633 Schlitz Bonifacius Bodamer was standing outside his grist mill, waiting for the mail.

It was Martin Wackernagel's opinion that Bodamer was usually standing outside his mill waiting for something, while his men did the heavy work inside. Maybe he had worked harder at an earlier stage of his life, when he was a mill hand rather than a mill owner. In any case, he also served as steward of the Ritter , Karl von Schlitz, along this part of the route. To get from Eisenach to Fulda, a person went through Schlitz. That was just how the road ran.

This morning, Bodamer had other men with him.

Wackernagel perceived signs of rank. Just as a precaution, rather than simply handing the packet over to Bodamer, he pulled up his horse, dismounted, and bowed with what he hoped was the appropriate amount of respect for whomever they might be.

The two older men ignored him. The two younger men gave him a look which said that they were willing to ignore him now that he had made a reasonably appropriate obeisance, but would not have ignored him if he had failed to do so. There were a lot of people like that around.

The two older, unidentified, men were chuckling to one another. Bodamer chuckled with them, obsequiously. He forgot to take the packet of mail that Wackernagel was still offering to him.

Liesel, Bodamer's daughter, came out of the mill and took the packet.

"May I water your horse?" she asked.

Wackernagel was still dismounted. "I would be grateful, ordinarily, but this monster is a bit frisky. I'm afraid that the millrace coming out of the pond is likely to spook him, so he will have to wait for a while."

"We have a barrel and leather bucket, right in the back of the building."

"Angel of mercy." He bowed to the girl with a flourish. "Show me where your barrel is, if you would be so kind, and I will lead him around."

"Who is with your father?" he asked once they were safely out of sight.

"Herr von Schlitz, our ruler, with his two sons."

That explained the arrogance.

"The other man, the one in green, is Lorenz Mangold. He is a city councilman in Fulda. He has been here several times, lately, talking to my father."

The chuckling that had been going on in front of the mill expanded into uproarious laughter.

"Something's funny."

"It's a pamphlet," Liesel said. "A satire. They are enjoying it a lot."

By the time they were done with the horse, the knight and his two sons were gone. Mangold was still standing there, waving some pieces of paper at Bodamer.

There was no reason for Wackernagel to go back and talk to them. The only words he heard were, "I wrote this one myself and I am very proud of it. I'll be happy to cover the costs, given how reasonable they are turning out to be."

Barracktown bei Fulda At supper time, Martin turned in to the Hartke cottage. Dagmar the Dane always picked up anything he had for Barracktown when he came by. She always fed him, too.

A certain scurrilous pamphlet was the topic of the day.

"I tell you," Dagmar was saying. "According to my husband, Mr. Wesley Jenkins, the civilianadministrator, was truly furious. He ordered all the placards torn down and sent soldiers to Neuenburg to bring the members of the Special Commission back to Fulda."

"Why so angry?"

"It showed one of his staff in a scandalous position with the abbot of Fulda. And named her."

"Ah," Wackernagel said. "Yes, I can see that. Was a military escort really warranted, though?"

"Maybe not. Even probably not. Most of the time, the roads here are fairly safe now. Although, just yesterday, Helmuth's daughter Gertrud went into Fulda itself and was accosted by the older son ofRitter von Schlitz."

Wackernagel frowned. He had seen that man just this morning, up at Bodamer's. "Were his father and brother with him?"

"In Fulda? I do not know. Not, certainly, at the time when he called Gertrud a s.l.u.t and soldier's wh.o.r.e and pointed to the placards saying that the same fate waited for her. Other people in Fulda started pointing at her and calling her the 'up-timer's wh.o.r.e' too."

"Then?"

"Then Captain Wiegand came along with some of the Fulda militia and took her into theRatshaus ,"

Jeffie Garand said. He had his arm around Gertrud's shoulders. "She stayed there until the day was over and came back home with her father. According to Wiegand, von Schlitz was angry-tried to draw his sword on the captain. But the militia had other more urgent a.s.signments, so they couldn't stop to deal with him the way he really deserved."

"Exactly what," Wackernagel asked, "was this placard about?"

Dagmar produced one. She had several. The soldiers had obeyed the orders to tear them down, which did not mean that they had destroyed such entertaining reading matter. And, in any case, they could be used to paper the walls of the cottages. The more layers of paper a woman pasted up on the wall, the fewer drafts would come through in the winter.

She had several copies of the pamphlet, too. She gave Martin a couple. He tucked them into his saddlebags.

They were about to start eating. Whether Sergeant Hartke was home yet or not, a meal could be kept warm only so long. A minor riot appeared to break out by the entrance to the compound. Jeffie jumped up and ran out; then came back with Hartke.

"I finally threw that sutler out," the older man was saying. "He's been trying for weeks to overcharge really drastically on the thread and notions for making the rest of the new uniforms and I've already warned him three times. Tell everyone tomorrow, Dagmar. He's not to be allowed back. Have some of the women take everything out of his cottage and throw it on the ground just outside the entrance. If he wants it, he can come and haul it away. If he doesn't bother, then it's free pickings."

The conversation meandered back to the scandalous pamphlet and stayed there all through the rest of the meal. Wackernagel headed back down the road. There would still be a couple of hours of daylight and he didn't want to waste it.

Gertrud Hartke and Jeffie Garand wandered out of the compound, up in the direction of Menig's paper mill. They had discovered a rather nice stand of bushes there a couple of weeks before.

"Jeffie," Gertrud asked. "Can men really do all the things that those woodcuts in the pamphlet showed?"

"Not, um, precisely. No."

She didn't say anything.

"If you would really like to know what wecan do, I'd be glad to demonstrate the whole procedure, so to speak. Think of it as a lesson in up-time scientific method. The hands-on experimental approach to finding out."

Gertrud thought about it. Up till now, she had really sort of been teasing Jeffie. He had made it so plain what he wanted from her, but at the same time he had been so unbelievably well-mannered about it, that she couldn't resist teasing a little. But. . . . If all those people in Fulda already thought that she was a soldier's wh.o.r.e, why shouldn't she be one? Especially his?

"Okay," she said.

"Gertrud," Jeffie said. "You know what?"

She shook her head no. It was too dark to see, but he felt her hair move against his chin.

"Last winter, Derek-Major Utt, that is-said something. He said that if I got you pregnant, I was a married man."

"Oh."

"I'm not as forgetful as people sometimes think I am."

Gertrud snuggled in. She wouldn't have minded being a soldier's wh.o.r.e. Not really a lot, at least if Jeffie was the soldier. There were plenty of them in Barracktown. But a soldier's wife would be better. She wondered how long it would take for her to become a married woman.

Gelnhausen Martin Wackernagel found it odd to pull into the post station in Gelnhausen and not see David Kronberg waiting. He finished his business and prepared to start out.

There was a young woman standing outside. "You are Wackernagel?"

"Yes, that's me."

"Have you seen David Kronberg?"

"I pa.s.sed him at Neuhof. He was heading for Fulda, just as he planned."

She smiled. "Do you know where he will be staying, in case my father might wish to find him?"

"I told him to stop at Barracktown. Sergeant Hartke just threw out one of the sutlers, so there's a cottage standing empty. I expect he can stay there a few days until he finds a job. If David's already gone when your father gets there, tell him to ask for Dagmar. That's the sergeant's wife. She'll know where he is."

Riffa went home and talked to her mother. A sutler thrown out. A cottage. Zivka went to bed thinking.

Could she afford to wait for her husband to come home? A sutlery. A permanent business for an honest man. A home, perhaps.

Hanau "Ask him in person," Meier zum Schwan had requested. "I've written a letter for you to take, explaining the details. But please deliver it in person and tell him how urgent it is for me."

So here he was, talking to a rabbi. Martin Wackernagel smiled to himself. At least he knew the history.

Jews had settled in the county of Hanau long ago. About four hundred years ago, probably. They had been expelled not long ago, in 1592. Then Count Philipp Ludwig II came into power in 1603 and he changed it again. He invited Jews back to his capital city-only wealthy Jews, to be sure, but Jews. He let them build a synagogue; he issued a charter defining their legal status and protecting them. The community had grown steadily. From ten persons in 1603 almost fifty families now.

Including the rabbi.Der d.i.c.ke Meier wanted him to come to Gelnhausen to arbitrate the dispute within the Kronberg family.

"Isn't it a bit late?" Martin had asked.

"No. That's why David left when he did. Before it became too late; before someone said something that could not be retracted. Though Jachant Wohl came perilously close with her words about vagrants."