"Benny's a good man," Minnie said slowly. "His sister Betty's husband seems to be a good man, too, but he's been so sick ever since we came to Grantville that it's hard to tell what he'd be like if he wasn't coughing all the time. Betty likes him, though. Her son David's nice, and so is Louise's husband, but they're both about fifty, I guess. How do you tell if someone young is going to turn out to be a good man?"
"Wait until they're old," Missy suggested.
"Where's the fun in that?" Denise asked. "Just arrange things so you're in the driver's seat."
Pam looked at Minnie. "Reputation, I guess. Pay attention to what other girls say. Sometimes it does pay to listen to gossip."
"Hell," Denise said. "Listen to what the guys say. Oh, sure, men say they don't gossip. They do, though. They just call it 'shooting the breeze.' There were a bunch out in Daddy's welding shop the other day. Older guys, not our age, but it's all the same. One of them asked, 'Who did Bobby Fitz marry, anyway?' That's what they called Austin O'Meara's brother-it wasn't his name, but everyone called him that. I don't know why. None of you probably ever met him, since he moved away a dozen or so years before the Ring of Fire. But you remember Austin-the one who got killed in a fight here at the Gardens last year. Well, first one of them said it was Obie Conway's sister down in Kentucky and then they started talking about the job corps and when Bobby Fitz met her and how her folks interfered and she married someone from her dad's snake handler church instead, but after he died, Obie dropped a word to Bobby Fitz and he gave notice at his job that same afternoon and headed for Pikeville with everything he owned in his pickup."
Missy raised her eyebrows. "So?"
"There wasn't a one of them who doubted that when Bobby Fitz tore out of town, he had a respectable marriage on his mind, even if it did come with three half-grown stepsons attached. Or that he'd be good to Sandy Jo and her kids. There's a lot to be said for listening to guys who work with a man. They know how he acts if it's one of those days that started by dropping an anvil on his big toe and ended by having a big weld go wrong at the last minute."
"Yeah, maybe. But Buster's friends are old enough to tell the difference. I don't think guys our age really are." Missy looked at Minnie. "My advice is that you don't even try to tell the difference now. Just hold back for a while. I'm not planning to get serious for another ten years, at least. Not until I've finished all my education and worked for a while. Maybe not until I've traveled some, if things settle down."
Denise grinned. "No fun and games along the way."
Missy shook her head. "I don't need that kind of complication in my life right now." She looked at them solemnly. "Neither do the rest of you."
Minnie stood up. "Thecla and her flying squad of waitresses have cleared a path along the wall, on the other side of the room from where Pam's nasty man is sitting. Let's get out of here while we can."
Fulda
"A welcoming parade," Andrea Hill said. "We've got Wes and Clara back." She waved toward the head of the table. "Henry's coming. We ought to put on the biggest parade this town's ever seen. Kids from the schools. Captain Wiegand and his city militia. The whole Fulda Barracks Regiment."
Orville Beattie shook his head. "It won't fly, Andrea. We've got Wes and Clara back, but the Stift is missing its abbot and we don't even know where he is or if he's still alive. 'Hearts and minds' stuff. We've got to do something more subdued. We can't ignore the way the monks have got to be feeling."
Mark Early scratched his chin. "Maybe Henry could review the militia and the regiment out at Barracktown."
"Not a bad idea," Derek Utt said. "That way, we can pretty well secure the perimeter while Henry's up on the reviewing stand. Not that I'm expecting the farmers to try anything. The Ram Rebellion never really got violent over here, the way it did at Miltitz, and anyway, they're on our side. But we haven't caught the kidnappers and we don't know if the guys who hauled Schweinsberg away were the only ones that the archbishop of Cologne sent into our territory."
"Did he send them because he's archbishop of Cologne or did he send them because he's the brother of the duke of Bavaria?" Harlan Stull asked.
"I'm not even sure he could separate those two things in his own mind." Clara frowned. "If he wasn't Maximilian's brother, he wouldn't be an archbishop."
Wes took his glasses off and started to polish them with his handkerchief. "Is he in any position to do anything after the Essen War?"
"He's on the run," Derek conceded. "Or, at least, out of Bonn and lurking somewhere over on the other side of the Rhine. But if we've still got some of the guys he hired running around loose… And I don't know that we don't. It doesn't seem likely, but I can't be sure. A closed perimeter looks good to me."
"Make sure there's a chair for him on the reviewing stand. George Chehab says Henry's having problems with that hip again."
Derek nodded. "Sure. He can go through the new school building, too, while he's out at Barracktown. The roof is on, now, and there's glass in the windows. We can set up the lunch in the larger schoolroom. He can eat with the teachers. We've hired a second teacher for next year."
"That's that, then," Wes said, putting his glasses back on. "How are you planning to get Henry out to all the small towns and villages, Orville?"
Amsterdam
"What is it about men whose wives have just had babies that makes them look insufferably smug and oh-so-pleased with themselves?" mused Ed Piazza. "I mean, it's not as if the man did anything except get his rocks off months ago."
Mike Stearns' grin never wavered. "And you didn't?"
"Oh, sure," said Ed. "I'm just quoting my wife's none-too-admiring words addressed at me, back when."
Francisco Nasi, the only single man in the trio, shook his head. "I'm simply glad that Rebecca is well. And the girl also."
"What are you going to name her?" asked Ed.
"Kathleen," said Mike. "We decided that a long time ago. In fact, it was supposed to have been the name we gave Sephie, except we decided in the end that 'Sepharad' would be better for our first child."
The term Sepharad was the word used by Europe's Sephardic Jews to refer to the Iberian homeland from which they had been driven almost two centuries earlier. As always, Nasi was struck by the name, used as the name of a child-and, still more so, by the complexities of the gentile father who had chosen that name. Complexities which had, in the end, produced something as simple and clear-cut as Nasi's own firm allegiance to the man.
But it was a complex world, after all. And there was always this, too-working for Michael Stearns was invariably an interesting experience. Sometimes, even an exhilarating one.
"Kathleen," said Ed, rolling the name. "After a relative?"
Mike's grin got a bit crooked. "Uh, no. It was my ex-fiancee's name."
Ed looked a bit startled. Nasi, who knew the story, said: "The woman who died in the car crash. In California."
Ed was still looking startled. "And Becky didn't mind?"
"It was her suggestion, in fact," said Mike.
That led Francisco to reflect on the complexities of the woman Rebecca Abrabanel. With some regrets, even. Had she not married Mike Stearns, she might have wound up marrying Francisco himself.
Possibly. That had been his family's plan, at least. But what was done, was done, and Nasi was not a man given to fretting over the past.
Speaking of which-complexities, that is…
"Is it possible to speak to her?" he asked. "Or is she maintaining seclusion?"
Mike's grin got very crooked, now. "Yeah, sure. We'll have to manage something discreet, though. Becky maintains most of the rituals and customs, but not all of them, especially the ones she thinks are-her words, not mine-'stupid and pointless leftovers from tribal pastoralism.' But she tries not to rub anybody's nose in it."