Things had changed in the last half year. "The Slot," a cut in the Ring Wall twenty-five feet wide, had been made with some expensive explosives and a lot of back-breaking work. Ernst had turned out what was left of the village to help. The summer harvest was in and the winter crop planted. Birdie and his tractor had done most of that work. There were changes Birdie wanted to make in crop choices and rotation. Most of the changes would have to wait till spring.
This winter, Birdie and the villagers were rebuilding Sundremda. The use of the tractor and truck had sped construction phenomenally. Most of the increase in speed was due to getting the building materials where they were needed faster. The equipment let Sundremda recover much more quickly than it would have otherwise. Birdie's involvement also meant that the village could support some extra nonfarming families.
Sundremda had been on the small side of average for a farming village. This meant that Sundremda had less than a larger village would have had in the way of support industries. With Birdie around, though, the village could afford a few more people who were not devoted to farming. Now, there was a new smith. A cooper, a brewer and a mason were moving in and setting up shop. Mostly these people selected Sundremda because rents were cheaper than they were inside the Ring of Fire. The various inhabitants were a pretty standard village complement, except for the mason.
Most villages this size wouldn't be able to attract a mason, because there wouldn't usually be enough work to keep him busy. The mason was finishing stone from the Slot to use in half walls and flooring for buildings and paving for the village square. Later, when work in Sundremda dried up, he would be able to continue his trade, thanks to the transportation available to him in Grantville. His products could be easily transported by Birdie's truck.
Mary Lee's new house kept getting pushed back on the list of things that needed building, mostly at Birdie's insistence. The Newhouse clan already had a house, crowded though it was. Birdie wanted to wait till everything was ready before building the new house in Sundremda. And he took the heat from Mary Lee because when he built the house he wanted to do it right.
Birdie's hogs had been moved to the village and were under the care of Ernst's son. Birdie was convinced that the darned pigs were learning German faster than he was. The chickens were still at the old place. It seemed as though the Newhouse clan lived with one foot inside the Ring of Fire and the other outside. For that matter, so did the people of Sundremda.
Sundremda wasn't really flat until you compared it with the chunk of West Virginia delivered by the Ring of Fire. The village itself sat on a rise that the villagers called a hill. Well, Birdie would call it a hill, too, if he had never seen a West Virginia hill. Every day Birdie took his tractor to Sundremda, and every day he waved at Greta, Ernst's wife, who was headed in the other direction. Greta drove his truck and carried most of the village kids and a few of the women to Birdie's place inside the Ring of Fire.
The village kids loved TV, children's movies, and videotaped cartoons. The cartoons were teaching them such important English phrases as What's up, doc?, Let's get dangerous, and Th-th-th-that's all, Folks! Barney, the disgusting dinosaur, was as popular in this universe as the last, much to Birdie's annoyance. Sesame Street tapes were hard to come by, but the few that were found were copied and passed around.
While the kids watched TV, and did lessons, the village women used the food processor, gas range, microwave, and other uptime kitchen gear to cook dinner for the village. It was an assembly line process. There were almost a hundred people in Sundremda now. Using the uptime appliances bought time and freed up extra labor for the village as it got ready for winter.
Birdie had started taking his paper and heading out early to avoid the noise. All those women and children in one place could make quite a racket. Once he got to Sundremda, he joined Ernst and the other farmers sitting around Ernst's new kitchen table. There, they would read the morning papers and plan the day's work.
This morning's paper had a synopsis of an article written for the "Street." The article dealt with how the Federal Reserve system worked, and how it had been implemented in Grantville. It touched on how debased many down-time currencies were. The article also discussed the relationship of goods and services, and money supply, and the effect of not having enough of either.
The article had focused on how conservative the bank of Grantville was. It read like a complaint, but in truth, the article was a sales pitch for uptimer money. It was a good sales pitch, and very persuasive. Birdie was persuaded that Claus Junker just might have fooled himself by insisting on getting the rent in down-time currency. The thought made a good start to the day.
Relations with his down-time landlord had not started well and they had gone downhill ever since. Claus didn't like most of Birdie's improvements and didn't like the influence Birdie was gaining with the other tenants. Birdie didn't like the way Claus treated some tenants better than he treated others. Claus seemed to prefer the tenants that were good at sucking up. Their relations were particularly headed downhill since Birdie had learned that Herr Junker was giving the other new renters, down-timers only, a break on the rent.
Oddly enough, elections were just finished and were still coming up. The elections for delegates to the constitutional convention had ended and the Fourth of July Party had won. The convention was in the process of editing the Fourth of July Party's platform into an actual Constitution. Most of the editing was just so the convention could say that they had actually had a hand in writing the Constitution. Meanwhile, elections for the first Congress and President had already been scheduled.
"This means that we can vote in the next election?" Greta asked Ernst. Ernst was a bit unsure and looked to Birdie for an answer.
"Don't know." Birdie shook his head. "If people have lived inside the Ring of Fire for three months they just have to register; then they can vote. Sundremda ain't inside the Ring of Fire, though."
It was a Saturday afternoon and they were gathered in Ernst's new house. This house was similar to his previous home but still different. This house didn't have indoor plumbing but it was designed to accommodate it. Before the indoor plumbing could be added, Ernst would need to install a septic tank and leach field.
The delay of the installation was partly a matter of expense and partly a matter of timing. He was waiting till spring when the ground thawed. The plumbing still needed to be installed before planting, but he needed to see if they had enough money to install it. This left the house with a bathroom but no bathtub or toilet. At the moment, there was just a covered hole in the floor that had a buried clay pipe leading outside. Birdie and Ernst had also worked out how electricity would be added when it became available.
All this gave the house an odd, half-finished look. That half-finished look was common to the new buildings in Sundremda.
"I have been following the election discussions. This is an important right. To vote is also a responsibility of proper citizens. We should vote," Greta insisted pedantically. Greta could do pedantic better than just about anyone Birdie knew.
Birdie looked at Greta for a moment. He knew that the outcome of this election was pretty much a forgone conclusion. On the other hand, Greta was right. Voting was even more important now than it had been uptime.
"Yes. Yes, it is, but I don't know how we'd go about it." Birdie had sort of fallen into the role of village leader. Partly it was because he was an uptimer and partly because he owned his own land even if he rented land in the village.
"Well, don't you think we ought to find out?" Mary Lee asked, utterly unimpressed by Birdie's newfound status.
"We have discussed this in the village. We all agreed that we wish to be citizens of the New United States. We approve of the Bill of Rights," Greta concluded with certainty.
Liz Carstairs looked at the petition with a sort of bemused incomprehension. The first line read, "A petition to be annexed by Marion County, New United States." The document went on to give the reasoning behind the request. Sundremda wasn't an independent town but rather a village that was part of a county that no longer existed. Since the death of count Gleichen, who died without heirs, his county had ceased to exist. Legal authority over the territory had gone back to Ferdinand II, the Holy Roman Emperor. Actual ownership of the land was, in this case, a function of legal authority over it. If Ferdinand II continued as the government then he owned the land. If he didn't, then who ever was the government owned the land. In effect the village of Sundremda was public land with a permanent Lehen on it.
Ferdinand II's claim was impractical since Ferdinand II didn't actually control this part of the Germanies. Accepting the emperor's authority wouldn't really be in the best interests of the New U.S., either. For the emperor to own land butting up against the Ring of Fire was a bad idea. The document also pointed out that six of the signers were already citizens of Marion County. Even though the signers didn't actually live in Sundremda, they were still legal renters since they were members of Birdie's family.
The document also pointed out that Marion County was the closest county to Sundremda. It gave assurance that the people of Sundremda would abide by the laws of Marion county and the New U.S. Then, the document went on to provide the dimensions of the territory and even included a map. Finally it was signed by every person living in the village of Sundremda, not just all the adult males or even just all the adults. Apparently every person in the village signed the petition, including one three-year-old, who signed with a hand print. The signers gave their name, age, and gender. The signers included, of course, Birdie and Mary Newhouse, their two sons and two daughters-in-law. Apparently, the Newhouse babies hadn't signed on the dotted line.
This petition was going to have to go to Mike. While attitudes toward the Holy Roman Empire were not favorable inside the Ring of Fire, the fact remained that Grantville wasn't actually at war with the Empire, officially. True, Grantville had protected a town from Tilly's mercenaries. Grantville had also protected another town from mercenaries who no longer worked for anyone but themselves. Grantville had cooperated with troops employed by the king of Sweden in doing that protecting, but there wasn't a state of war between the still forming New United States and the Holy Roman Empire.
If the New U.S. approved this petition, a state of war with the Holy Roman Empire would exist. Annexing another country's territory is pretty much universally a casus belli, even when the folks who actually live there ask to be annexed.
On the other hand, there might be two or three mental defectives who actually thought Grantville wouldn't be at war with the HRE before long, but not more than that. Besides, Grantville had already offered to admit several cities to the New U.S. As soon as one of those cities accepted admission, it would mean the effective annexation of that city.
As it turned out the people of Sundremda didn't get to vote in that first election. President Stearns had tabled the matter till after the first elections, and then had presented the petition to Congress. Congress had accepted the petition and several others like it. This set at least one precedent of acquisition of territory by the New U.S. So, the people of Sundremda would be able to vote in the next election.
Egidius "Eddie" Junker shook his head, but only after he left his father's office. Eddie liked the uptimers. It was a point of considerable tension between him and his father. They didn't talk about it much. Neither one wanted a breach in their relationship.
"Michel, please have Shadow saddled. Father wants me to visit Sundremda again."
Eddie had picked up the uptime habit of being polite to servants, but not where his father could hear. Eddie was a charming young man, and an excellent rider. He had been a student at Jena when the Ring of Fire happened. He had first encountered Grantville on one of his monthly trips home. The battle of Jena had strengthened his admiration for the uptimers. Eddie was rather less concerned over his ancestry than his father. Nor did he see any reason to be constantly checking on Herr Newhouse.
The ride to Sundremda was pleasant and easy, even if the road from Badenburg wasn't improved all the way. Eddie had known the villagers of Sundremda all his life. He remembered well what the village had looked like before the raid and after. This new village looked like it was going to be a much more prosperous place, when it was finished. The villagers seemed to be leaving quite a bit unfinished till they had everything ready. They had carted, or rather "trucked," a lot of stone from the gap to the village and had a mason finishing stone for floors and the bottom half of walls. Most of the houses had places where the stone floors weren't installed yet. The snows had slowed the work, mostly limiting it to what could be done from inside.
Herr Newhouse was friendly enough, considering the circumstances. "How's school?"
"Confusing, Herr Newhouse. Everyone is trying to figure out what the Ring of Fire means. Especially in the college of theology, but all of us do the same, really. Every time I go back I get questioned on everything. My father wishes to know what this petition for annexation is about."
"You can tell your . . ." Herr Newhouse visibly caught himself. "Never mind, boy, it's not your fault. The petition is just what it sounds like. The village wants to be part of the New U.S. We didn't ask your father about it because we know he's opposed to Badenburg joining the New U.S. Besides, he doesn't live here. We didn't ask Ferdy Hapsburg to sign either."
Ferdy Hapsburg? Ferdinand II, the Holy Roman Emperor? Sometimes uptimers made Eddie nervous. He changed the subject. "How are things here?"
"We're doing all right. Got most of the stone up from the slot and the mason is cutting and finishing it. Everything is a bit crowded this winter but we'll have plenty of stone for our needs come spring. I understand the kids at the high school have some sort of concrete project going so it looks like there will be mortar, too. Talked to Mrs. O'Keefe and she figures she can fit us in once the ground thaws. So we should be putting in a bunch of septic systems come spring."
They discussed the village for some time. Eddie then went home to report to his father and escaped back to Jena as soon as he could.
Spring planting was a little different. Birdie had never really gotten to know Tom Stone. He hadn't really wanted to get to know him. There was a very basic difference between them: Birdie was a solid upstanding hillbilly and Stoner was a hippie freak. Now, Birdie was consulting with Tom Stone on the planting of a new crop.
"This is not a crop I'd ever have dreamed I'd be planting," Birdie remarked. "Never in a million years."
Stoner grinned. "Don't feel lonesome, man. It's the last thing I'd have dreamed of, too. Ten full acres of prime Colombian, and it's planted right out in the open. Man, what a sight that's going to be."
Stoner, in his laid-back way, explained the details of planting to get the best, meaning the most powerful, product. His knowledge of agriculture in general and marijuana in particular was pretty impressive. Aside from breeding for the active ingredient, you also had to plant the marijuana farther apart to get a potent plant. So the number of plants per acre went down when you were planting for dope instead of hemp.
"We're going to need it," Stoner explained. "It's the best locally grown painkiller we have. I'd grow it all, myself, if I could. Just so I could donate it to the hospital."
"Man's gotta make a living, Stoner. I'm growing it for the lowest price I can manage," Birdie explained. "Best I can do."
After much argument, the Sundremda Gemeinde had decided that most of this year's crop would be beans and wheat. It would be down-time beans and wheat, at that. Birdie had wanted to plant sweet corn but there wasn't enough seed to go around.
The population of Grantville was getting up to around fifteen thousand and Badenburg had over seven thousand. The population was going up. Consequently Sundremda was switching from growing flax to producing food.
Neither Birdie nor the other farmers in Sundremda were sure that this was the best plan. As the population increased, the need for both food and flax was going up. Flax might have brought in more profit.
"Ernst, the real problem with growing flax is the spinning," Birdie argued. "We can send wheat to Grantville, get it milled real quick, and then the flour can be made into bread when it's needed. Flax will have to be spun into thread and no one has come up with a spinning machine yet. That's the bottleneck."
The down-timers had spinning wheels, but even with spinning wheels, turning flax into thread was a lot of work. Birdie wasn't sure how long reinventing a spinning machine was going to take, but from what the newspapers said, it wasn't going to happen this year.
"The price for flax in the field is going to go down, I think," Birdie continued. "It will have to be shipped to towns and villages all over the place, spun into thread, and then the thread will have to be shipped somewhere else to be woven into cloth."
Spinning was the seventeenth-century version of flipping burgers at McDonald's, except it didn't pay as well, was harder work, and had less opportunity for advancement.
Grantville was the land of opportunity. The spinners would be looking for better ways to make a living and a lot of them would find those better ways. The way Birdie figured it, the increase in demand for cloth was not going to be reflected in an increased price of flax until the spinning bottleneck was fixed.
"Someone will build a spinning machine," Ernst disagreed. "So many people who can build so many things, surely someone will figure out a way to get more flax spun."
"Yep, but it ain't gonna happen soon. And until it does, all it means is more spinners. Spinners who are going to demand, and get, better pay. That's going to mean less money per acre for the raw flax."
Ah, the simple farmer's life. Birdie thought Predicting market trends a year in advance, and then hoping like hell the weather doesn't screw you over.
"LaDonna, have you finished all those tax assessments?" Deborah Trout asked, as she breezed into the office. "We need to get the notices sent, even though I dread the reactions we're going to get from the public."
"It's not going to be pretty, that's for sure," LaDonna agreed. "Strange, isn't it? All those years back uptime, and everyone complained about their taxes. Wait until everyone sees the new valuations. We're going to be in hot water with everyone we know. They're going to completely flip out."
"We did tell everyone," Cary Marshall pointed out. "It's been on television, and there have been articles in the newspapers."
"True, absolutely true," Deborah agreed. "And you know as well as I do that the new rate is still going to come as a shock to half the town. People just don't really pay attention until they get the bill. Anyway, we've got about a week of peace and quiet before the frenzy starts, so let's get some work done while we can."
Deborah turned to head back to her own office, but stopped when Noelle Murphy cleared her throat. Noelle always made that sound when she had a question. It was usually a good question, but Deborah had begun to dread that sound. Noelle tended to complicate things unnecessarily, to Deborah's way of thinking.
"Umm, Deborah, I don't know where to send these notices," Noelle began. "There's no owner of record for these properties."
"What properties, Noelle?"
"It's that village, what's its name, Sundremda, I think. The people don't own the property, they just rent it. The guy who has the Lehen, well, near as I can tell, holding the Lehen isn't the same as owning the property. And, I don't really think that Ferdinand II is going to pay taxes on it, either, since we sort of took it away from him. So, who pays the property taxes on Sundremda?"
Deborah worked through Noelle's logic and sighed. "That's all we need, another complication. I guess Marion County owns Sundremda now that we've annexed it. And the county doesn't pay taxes to itself, does it? So, the county is responsible for yet another piece of property that doesn't bring in any revenue. Crap!"
"Claus, what has happened?" Clara asked. "What is it?"
Claus Junker sat in his home office, devastated. "Pomeroy is dead. The only one of these uptimers I could tolerate, and he is dead in an accident."
It looked to Clara like the news of Guffy Pomeroy's death had hit Claus hard. Claus didn't know that many uptimers, and mostly didn't like the ones he did know. Claus been opposed to joining the New U.S. and believed that his own was the single voice of sanity on the council. Now, the one uptimer that he had liked and trusted was dead.
"The microwave project, it is dead, also. The paper says that Pomeroy was a charlatan and there is no hope for a microwave projector, not for years!" Claus stormed. "And I used funds . . . funds from the town to finance this project, and it will not happen."
Clara felt her stomach clench with fear. "Town funds, Claus? How could you? You never should have trusted that man with so much. Can we pay it back? Before we are disgraced?"
Claus rose from his desk in a rage. He stomped around the room, shouting and swearing. "No, Clara, no, we can't pay it back! This Ring of Fire, it is the work of the devil! Act of God, people say, therefore the rents due me are void. Even the pastor, that Pastor Schultheiss, is preaching that this Ring of Fire was an act of God!" Claus shouted. "The only good thing that came out of the Ring of Fire was Pomeroy. And now, now, I am told that he was a thief, and he has ruined us! There is no hope, they claim, no possible way to create a microwave projector, not for years!"
Claus was becoming incoherent. He continued to rant and shout, at times towering over Clara, at other times stamping around the room. He shouted that all around him people were getting rich from the uptimer's knowledge, and getting above themselves. The riffraff were thrilled with the Ring of Fire, the uptimers, their inventions and their Committees of Correspondence. Even people that should know better were fawning on the uptimers.
Then the real reason for his rage began to come out. Clara knew as well as Claus that Endres Ritter was just waiting for an excuse to go over the books and accuse Claus of theft. Before the Ring of Fire, a member of the council would have been protected from such an accusation. It wasn't all that unusual, after all. Using city funds for personal advantage was standard practice. As long as the city got its money back it was no problem. Even when something went wrong, there was a slap on the wrist and a lot of looking the other way. Back then, the council wanted to avoid the scandal. But now there was the Ring of Fire and new rules.
The Ritter and Junker families had been feuding so long that most people didn't remember why. Ritter would raise the accusation no matter the scandal to the council. He would raise the uptime cry "freedom of information." Never mind the fact that the Ritter family had done the same thing a few years ago and made a small fortune at the city's expense. That was then; this was now.
Clara Junker was terrified. She left the office as soon as she could get away. Claus had been ready to actually hit her. She was sure of it. Claus had never threatened her with violence before. He was gruff and often sarcastic but not violent, not to those of his own class.
Clara was less involved than she would have preferred in the financial decision-making for the Junker family. She knew that Claus had mostly done a good job. He'd been willing to listen if she was careful how she approached him, at least until the Ring of Fire.
After the Ring of Fire, things at home had gone downhill. Every change the uptimers proposed caused Claus to become more insistent on keeping things the way they were before. Claus became less inclined to listen to her and more insistent that she had no business interfering.
Clara knew that they weren't really worse off than before the Ring of Fire, depending on how much Claus had spent on that microwave business. Clara was beginning to suspect that he had spent much more than she had thought. Still, as everyone around them seemed to be getting richer, it felt like they were worse off. She wished her son Egidius would get home. She didn't want to have to turn to her brother, Franz.
Egidius came into Claus' office while he was going over the books looking desperately for any readily convertible assets.
"Father, what is this I hear?" he asked, insisting on becoming part of the disaster. "What has happened?"
Claus had always tried to keep his son away from the darker aspects of doing business. Yes, everyone did things like using town funds in backing private ventures, and his heir would eventually have to learn that, but not yet.
"It is only a temporary problem," Claus blustered. "I have only to raise some money and it will be overcome. We have assets, after all." The Junker family owned several townhouses in Badenburg, and owned the rents on the village of Sundremda, along with the rents on two other villages that were farther from the Ring of Fire. The family had interests in several trading ventures. Together these things brought in quite a bit of money annually. Unfortunately, most of them were tied up in ways that made it hard to get quick cash out of them.
Claus finally gave in to his son's persistent questions and dogged determination to get to the heart of the problem. When Claus disclosed the amount of money he had invested in the microwave project, Egidius was clearly appalled. That was the hardest thing to take, the disappointment in his son's eyes. Claus gave up and waved Egidius to the accounts and retreated. He felt driven to run from his office by the look in his son's eyes.
Eddie Junker was left alone in his father's office. Since the Ring of Fire there had been quite a bit of talk about the financial innovations the Americans were introducing. At Jena, in the college of law, there was a lot of talk about civil rights, and the concept of equality before the law, but a lot about the uptimer business law and practices. Many of the students would never actually practice law. Like Eddie, they were there to learn enough to be able to deal with the lawyers in their employ, or their family's employ. For them, especially, the focus was increasingly on business law and practices.
There were no colleges of business or economics at Jena, but there was talk of starting one. At least, a college for economics was being discussed. A college of business was considered, well, too plebian. Economics, though, that was a proper theoretical field of study. Determining the GNP might actually be as esoteric as determining the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin and be useful at the same time.
Eddie's favorite professors were those who were pushing hardest for a college of economics. One of the professors had even been heard to say that a college of business might not be all bad. The notion of treating those necessary matters of business as a science appealed to the professor.
The notion appealed to Eddie, too, especially now. Written there, neat and tidy, in his fathers' books was a tale of disaster waiting to happen. Every ready source of quick funds had already been tapped. The village rents would come due in the fall, too late to help. And even if hadn't been too late, the rents weren't enough.
The Junkers were going to have to sell something. But, selling things meant finding a buyer. There was enough talk in town about his father's failed investment that everyone knew they were in need of quick cash. That would force the prices down. The Junker family would be bargaining from a position of weakness.
"I've been over the books and father's notes," Eddie told his mother. "From what I can tell, this man Pomeroy actually did try to make a microwave. I wish he hadn't. It would have cost less. We do have assets to sell, but we won't be getting a good price for them. By now, everyone knows that father was invested in the microwave project. Everyone will know that we need the money.
"There is one bit of good news. Land prices in and round the Ring of Fire have been going up drastically. The rents are set and we cannot raise them. But, if we can broker a deal where the villagers of Sundremda get the Lehen and buy the land from Marion County at the same time, the price will be higher. Owning the land with clear title would make it worth more."
His mother frowned. "Frau Newhouse has told me several times how much she and her husband would like to have clear title to the farm. From what I understand, the government of Marion County doesn't really know what to do with the land. It seems that the county cannot collect taxes on the property, because the county owns the property. It cannot tax itself; there would be no point."
"That makes sense," Eddie said. "They do things one way and we do them another. Trying to make the two ways fit together can't be an easy task."
"You go to Grantville and find out what Marion County would want for their title to the land. I will go see Frau Newhouse and see what the villagers would be willing to pay for clear title."
"Excuse me? You could perhaps direct me?" Deborah looked up to see an attractive young German man standing at her office door. Poor guy, he looked like he was completely lost.
"I'll be happy to, Herr . . . ?"
"Junker, but call me Eddie, please. Could you perhaps tell me who I would see about property? I have some questions, but so far, three people have sent me to four different places. I have been unable to get an answer."
"Well, ah, Eddie, I guess you've found the right person, at last. At least, I hope I'll be able to answer your question," Deborah answered. "I'm afraid that government agencies, even our government agencies, tend to make finding an answer harder than it has to be, unfortunately. What is your question?"
"Mein, ah, my father owns the Lehen, the rents for the village of Sundremda. It is possible that he may wish to sell this. But, with all the new laws, the new government, we are not sure how to go about this, anymore," Eddie answered. "Do you know anything about this?"
Deborah remembered the name Junker. This must be the son of the man who had funded Guffy Pomeroy. No wonder he wanted to sell something, from what she had heard Pomeroy had taken him to the cleaners. Poor man.
"You've definitely come to the right place, sir. Please sit down, and we'll discuss what to do. I can even tell you why there was so much confusion."
As Eddie Junker took a seat in front of the desk, Deborah began speaking, "You see, before the Ring of Fire there was Grantville. Grantville was a town inside Marion County. Marion County was inside the state of West Virginia and the state of West Virginia was inside the United States of America."
"Back uptime, we had a lot of governments, I'm afraid. We had the town government, the county government, the state government and then the United States government. When the Ring of Fire happened, the only government that came back was that of Grantville, the town."
"When we started rebuilding government functions, we started with the New United States. At the very beginning, the New United States and what was left of West Virginia and Marion County were all the same size. Now, though, the New U.S. has more states but West Virginia and Marion County are still the same territory. West Virginia and Marion County still exist legally but don't exactly have their own governments."
"So, for all practical purposes the state that includes the Ring of Fire area and now includes Sundremda and some other villages is the same territory as Marion County. That makes Marion County the owner of the property, because the folks in Sundremda asked to be annexed by Marion County."
The young man was clearly baffled by the explanation but trying gamely to follow along.
"Never mind, you've found the right office."
The knock on the front door made Mary Lee want to scream. For the first time in three weeks, she actually had her own house to herself. The quiet and privacy were so welcome that she very nearly didn't answer the door. When the knock came again, though, she got worried that there might be an emergency of some sort. It seemed that emergencies happened every time she had ten minutes of quiet.
Mary Lee pulled the door open with a certain amount of force, prepared to glare at the person who was invading her limited privacy. Her visitor's identity caused her to start in surprise.
"Frau Junker, oh . . . I'm afraid I wasn't expecting you."
Clara smiled politely, "I regret that I did not inform you, so that you might prepare, Frau Newhouse. Do you think that you and I might talk?"
Caught at a disadvantage, flustered and out of sorts in general, Mary Lee sighed internally as she wondered what this visit could be about. "Please, come in. Would you care for a cold drink? I have some tea, chamomile, in the fridge."
"A cold drink, Frau Newhouse? How unusual. Yes, I should like very much to have a cold drink. It is perhaps an imposition, and I regret if it is, but may I see this `fridge,' did you call it? I have not yet had the opportunity to view the inside of an uptime house."
"Certainly, Frau Junker. I would be pleased to show you around, if you like. Please excuse the disorder. I'm afraid that my grandchildren tend to destroy the place if you don't watch them every second of every minute of every day. The fridge is in the kitchen. This way, please."
As they entered the spacious kitchen, a room that Mary Lee had spent a lot of time and effort making just right, Mary Lee watched her unexpected guest's face. Mary Lee was proud of this kitchen. It was her favorite room, one she was very pleased with. She hoped that Frau Junker wouldn't turn her nose up at her efforts.
It was a great relief when Clara smiled as she gazed around the room. Mary Lee began to relax a bit, and lose some of her irritation.
"It is very lovely, Frau Newhouse. I would never have considered this possible. So bright and colorful. Such light. It does not look like any kitchen I have ever seen."
"I'm pleased you like it, Frau Junker. It's my favorite room. We spend most of our time here, Birdie and I, when we have the opportunity. I've always felt that the kitchen was the heart of the home, and I tried to make this one reflect that feeling. Please, have a seat, here at the table."
As Clara sat down, Mary Lee retrieved her best glassware from the cupboard, filled the glasses with ice and poured the pale yellow tea into the glasses. Returning to the table, she set a glass down in front of Clara and took a seat across the table. Clara's face didn't reveal much, but Mary Lee felt that the woman was worried about something.
When Clara still remained quiet after a few sips of tea, Mary Lee decided she might as well just jump in. "You had something you wanted to speak to me about?"
"Yes, well . . . yes," Clara hesitated. "Last year, your husband offered to purchase the Lehen for the farm in Sundremda. I wondered if perhaps he would still wish to do so."
Mary Lee knew about Guffy Pomeroy and his swindle. She had even heard that Claus Junker had been involved in some way. As she looked closer at Clara she realized that Clara was a very worried woman. Damn it, she thought, there's a lot of trouble brewing for her, I can tell. And I like her. I liked her from the first.
"What Birdie wants, Frau Junker, is clear title to his own land. He wants to be able to farm, without interference, without being checked up on, and to be free to do his best at it. Yes, I'm sure he would want to buy the Lehen. I imagine that most of the villagers want the same thing."
"Each to buy their own land, each to be free, Frau Newhouse?" Clara asked.
"You might as well call me Mary Lee. We're not a very formal people, as you may have noticed. Yes, that's exactly what they want. Is your husband willing to sell it all?"
"I am Clara, then, Marilee, und yes, he is willing."
Mary Lee noticed that Clara's carefully pronounced English, apparently something she had learned in the last year, was beginning to slip. She suddenly realized the truth.
"He doesn't know about this visit does he, Clara?"
Clara started at the directness of the question. It was clearly unexpected. She flushed a bit, and looked away from Mary Lee for a few moments. Finally, composure regained, she looked directly into Mary Lee's eyes.
"No. No, he does not. I prefer that he never learns of it."
Mary Lee understood completely. She hadn't had to deal with this kind of attitude herself, Birdie being the type of man he was, but she had watched many wives deal with it. Slip in the back way, offer hesitant suggestions, and never show your own good sense.
"He won't hear it from me, Clara, or anyone else I know. In fact, Birdie is playing cards this evening and won't be home for several hours. The girls and the grandkids shouldn't be back for a good while, either. So," she said, as she rose and went to a cupboard, "You and I are going to have a nice long talk and work this out."
Mary Lee moved to the freezer and pulled out her very last can of frozen limeade, "First, though, I think we could use something a little more relaxing than this tea. I don't suppose you've ever heard of a frozen margarita, have you?"
"Horace, we sort of have a problem," Deborah Trout said, as she entered the room for the meeting that was due to start in a few minutes. "We're basically the county seat now, aren't we?"
"Well, I suppose so," Horace Bolender answered. "Considering the number of problems that keep landing on my desk, I suppose we must be. What is it this time, running out of paper?"
"Don't I just wish? Maybe if we ran out, I wouldn't have so much of it to shuffle around. The problem is a little more serious than that, though. You know I never meant to become the tax assessor, right? And, I never really wanted much to do with organizing the finances for anything as big as Grantville is becoming, either. But, since I'm stuck with it, I want to do it right."
"Completely understandable, Deborah. So what is the problem, exactly?"
"Money. When isn't the problem money? Do you realize that Grantville now owns Sundremda? It was crown land. Now that we're the government, it's county land. We need money to run things, but we can't exactly tax ourselves, now can we? I can assess all the taxes I want, but a property that has no owner isn't going to pay anything into the coffers, is it? We can't sell it either. Well, we could, but, who to? It's surrounded by a bunch of contractual obligations that seriously limit what the owner can do with it. About the only people who would have any interest would be the tenants or the Lehen holder. Sundremda isn't the only place like that, either. Half a dozen other villages have petitioned to become a part of Marion County.
Horace thought for a few moments, and then looked at Deborah with a grin. "You wouldn't have come here complaining if you didn't have a solution worked out. What do you think we should do?"
"Well, somehow or other, we need to sell off some of this stuff. To do that, we need clear title or at least clearer title. We need to either buy the Lehen or sell the land to the Lehen holder or the renters. We won't get full price, but we'd at least get something, and taxes, eventually."
"I'm pretty sure that Birdie Newhouse wants to own the land outright. He's been complaining to Willie Ray about the restrictions on usage," Horace remarked. "Tell you what; you come up with what you want to do. Write out proposals for it and I'll see what Mayor Dreeson and Senator Abrabanel have to say. Congress has decided that they can act for Marion County in this sort of situation."
Deborah looked at Horace with a bit of fire in her eyes. Damn it, life had gotten so complicated lately, ever since they had a real government with a constitution, instead of the emergency committee.
"Father, you must be realistic. It is the only way," Egidius insisted. "There is nothing else we can sell that will bring in the amount of money that the Lehen will bring in. Not without taking a much greater loss."
Claus stared at his son in disbelief. "You wish me to sell your heritage? What comes to you from William the Silent and the counts of Gleichen? Why should I agree to this, this travesty?" Claus knew the reason, but the knowledge was burning a hole in his guts. He didn't want this. He had been doing everything he could to avoid it for months, long before Pomeroy had died.
Egidius was looking at him with concern. "Perhaps, Father, you do not fully understand what has happened here. I know what you did was customary. It was done the way things had always been done. But it was against the law even before the Ring of Fire. Now, with the Committees of Correspondence and Herr Ritter's connections to them, there will be no looking the other way. You have diverted public funds to private use. It is a crime with criminal penalties. If we do not replace the money, and do it very soon, you could be sent to prison. Do you think I would see you in prison for the rents on a village? Not only the disgrace, not only the lessening of our family's position, is at stake here. You can be criminally charged and go to prison. Do you wish that to happen?"
Claus felt as though he had been slapped in the face. What he had done had been done by others for centuries. Now, he, a man of wealth and position, had no more protections. From the time the Ring of Fire had happened the world had been changing faster and faster. He had tried, with every means he could find, to prevent the life he knew from being swept away. He had failed, although he hadn't realized how badly until just now. His son, the child for whom he had lived, worked and dreamed, had adjusted to the changes, but he had not. He still did not want this new world. He hated it, wanted it to go away.
Yet, here was this young man. Where had he come from, this tall and strong man of business? It was just a week ago that he had been laughing as he sat his first pony.
"Very well, my son, if we must, then we must. I will sell the Lehen of Sundremda, and I will sell it to that Newhouse person and the villagers," he answered. "But the price! I know the market. It is worth twice that."
"Yes, Papa, I know. But not to us, not for years. The rents are set. We could not change anything without buying the renters out, then buying the property from Marion County."
Mary Lee had talked to Birdie and Ernst Bachmeier after Clara's visit. While Birdie had been in no mood to do any favors for Claus Junker, Ernst was thrilled at the prospect. The lines of status were much more severe in the seventeenth century. Owning property, actually owning it, meant you were a person of considerable status. Not a peasant, not someone's tenant, your own man. Nor did Ernst bear Claus Junker any ill will. He had always been a fair and decent Lehen holder, understanding if the crops had been bad. Yes, Herr Junker had been harder to deal with since Birdie had leased his farm, but Ernst felt that the difficulties were partly Birdie's fault.
There had been phone calls from the Newhouse residence to the government to try to figure out who had the authority to sell the property. Now that there was a government other than the emergency committee, Deborah Trout was apparently the person to see. Deborah had already been approached by Eddie Junker. There then followed quite a bit of back and forth, working out the various ends of the deal. The Junkers needed cash up front, Marion County wanted some of the land both for public right of way and some to sell. The village would lose almost a thousand acres. Birdie would have to give up some of his land as a right of way, which would put a public road right across his original property.
Ernst and Birdie called a meeting of the village to talk about the proposal. They discussed the pros and cons. The pros were that agreeing to the proposal would give the villagers more control over how the village was run and greater status in the eyes of most down-timers. The cons, well, there was only one con, a big one. If the village agreed to the proposal it would probably cost them more money. Their mortgage payments would run about fifteen percent over their rents. Also, part of the village property, much of the forest and some of the pasture would no longer be part of their village.
People were concerned, and rightly so, about the consequences to the village and the Gemeinde. If Birdie owned his own land why should he use his tractor to help with the plowing of the rest? What about the people in the village who didn't own farms, the people who had been helping the farmers as part of their rent? Who would be responsible for what part of the obligations set out in their rental agreement?
There would need to be some sort of an agreement, or rather, several agreements. One agreement must be made for all of the villagers, and another agreement must be made for the farmers of the Gemeinde. It was a very long meeting, and quite loud.
Eventually, most of the villagers agreed that the prospect of actually owning their own land, even if they had to pay the bank, was just too attractive to let pass. Only two families refused.
The mason refused because he wasn't sure how long he would be living in Sundremda. He hoped that he could continue to work in Sundremda and sell his stone work using transportation provided by Grantville. But he couldn't be sure and was unwilling to take on such a debt.
Surprisingly, there was one farming family that disapproved of the whole business. Friedrich Schultz stood up and began speaking, after everyone else had reached agreement.
"I will not be a party to this, I will not. How do we know that this bank will be as reasonable as Herr Junker if the crops fail? How do we know that this man will truly use the tractor for the good of the village, no matter what he promises?"
Birdie stood up to answer, offended that someone would question his integrity. "My word is my bond. I always keep my promises because it is the only honorable way to be. I will sign another agreement if necessary, if it will make you happy."
"This entire plan, it is unnatural. We are not meant to be gentry. We are farmers, good honest farmers. Why should we do this? We have always been tenants to Herr Junker and his family. He has held the Lehen for many years and has been good to us. I cannot believe that he would agree to this."
At this point, Eddie Junker, who attended the meeting in lieu of his father, stood to answer Friedrich. "My father feels that this is a good plan. You will be free of obligations to him, free to farm as you wish. It is a good plan that benefits us all."
Friedrich shook his head. "I am disappointed in Herr Junker. My contract is for ninety-nine years and I am the second generation. I have my contract and I will work my farm according to the terms of that contract. I cannot be removed from my farm as long as I pay my rent. I will pay the rent, but I will not, absolutely not be a party to this insanity."
Birdie sat through that little speech dumbfounded. Birdie had always figured that Friedrich was just a suck up. Thought he was too afraid of Junker to answer back. Birdie was amazed to realize that the guy actually believed that his proper place was as someone else's tenant. Birdie couldn't understand how anyone could actually feel that way.
Friedrich was trying to queer the whole deal for everyone because he was terrified of owning his own property. He almost managed it, too. Before the deal could go through an agreement must be reached. Agreement took a couple of extra days of negotiations and no one was especially happy with the result.
Friedrich was unhappy because he didn't want the mayor of the village as his landlord. And Birdie was unhappy because he was afraid he was going to be stuck as mayor and have to deal with the duckfucker on a regular basis.
Twenty-four loan applications, twenty-two of them using the land they wanted to buy as the collateral for the loan. All of them were from down-timers with no, or very little, credit history. Larkin Newhouse's application, the twenty-third, used the land in Sundremda plus his equity in the farm inside the Ring of Fire as collateral. The villagers of Sundremda wanted to buy their village and wanted the bank to loan them the money to do it. It was not unexpected. The twenty-fourth application was from the township of Sundremda, requesting funds to buy two public buildings and one farm.
Ernst Bachmeier leaned against the fence post and mused. The fall of 1632 had given him no answers as to whether wheat or flax was the better cash crop. He suspected that if they'd planted dandelions then dandelions would have sold amazingly well. The lousy weather had almost been compensated for by the addition of lime to the soil. The crops were good, very good, even though Birdie claimed they were only passable by uptime standards. There was something called an "industrial revolution" getting started in and around the Ring of Fire and labor was increasingly hard to come by. But, the goods! Oh, the goods that came out of Grantville. A bed with springs in it!
Ernst once again found himself looking over the land. The land that would be his someday, his alone. The land that he would pass down to his children, someday, hopefully in the far future. Ah, such a future.