Despite the presumed safety of the route, the driver had been slightly more alert the last few miles. Just south of the light forest that hemmed in this modest lane, the road from troubled Suhl wound its way north into Grantville. Indeed, according to the driver, even along this pike, recent reports of-
There were sudden, sharp noises in the brush. Cracking branches and the unmistakable rustling of rapid, even violent motion. Miro’s hand went to his dagger, a move which prompted the driver to scrabble for the rude ox prod cum cudgel that he kept at his side.
As Miro tracked the approaching noise, he noticed a small glade just beyond the treeline to the east. This was an excellent ambush point for bandits, particularly since the slight dogleg in this stretch of the road hid it from both its east and west continuations.
The low brush seemed to burst outward at them; Miro drew his dagger, went into a crouch-and froze. A small, wooly ram-a merino? — leaped out into the roadway. Right behind it-generating a much larger explosion of sundered underbrush-was an equally immature ram of much less prepossessing appearance. The horns of both animals were small and ineffectual, but evidently spring had awakened their nascent rutting aggression. Or at least it had so affected the pursuer, who made up for his lack of comeliness with an inversely proportionate allotment of spunk. Charging stoutly, he routed the other ruminant eastward. Then, with what seemed a singularly defiant-and self-satisfied-glance at the wagon and its occupants, the unbecoming ramlet trotted further westward along the road.
Another commotion in the underbrush augured further drama: a boy-perhaps nine years old-broke free of the clutching foliage in a thrashing tumble of leaves and limbs. He jumped up and swore vehemently: “ Heugabel! ” Ignoring the wagon and its occupants, his searching gaze found the young ram’s receding rump. The boy’s mouth opened wide; invective streamed out: “ Ess-oh-Essen, du verdammten scheisskopf! Komm’ doch hier! Schnell! ” And, the sound of his further exhortations dwindling along with his spare form, the boy-and his wooly charge-were lost to sight.
The wagoneer shook his head. “Here, around Grantville, ist all-vays trubble. Even der rams are rebellisch…‘rebelyus,’ I tink ist die Englisch wort.” He shook his head again. “All-vays trubble.”
Miro shrugged and carefully resheathed his dagger. Trouble, he supposed, was in the eye of the beholder. Miro had begun his journey to Grantville by debarking upon the shadiest wharves of Genoa, then heading north to begin his transalpine journey via Chiavenna. That newly open city had been tense: still patrolled by various Hapsburg detachments, this gateway to the Valtelline had lately become a hotbed of suspicion and intrigue.
Of course, Italy in general was tense. The anti-Spanish restiveness in Naples was increasing steadily. Rome had been simmering higher as Philip of Spain became increasingly impatient with Urban VIII’s “irresolute stance” toward heretical faiths. And with Galileo’s much-anticipated trial approaching…Estuban Miro had simply been glad to leave Italy when he did. As a marrano — a “hidden Jew” of Iberian origin-any region in which both Spanish truculence and religious intolerance were on the rise was a region he preferred avoiding.
His transalpine journey had been slow (as he had been warned), but not particularly arduous: the light, intermittent snows of spring had been far less trouble than the run-off from the post-winter melt. The passes weren’t the only messy parts of Switzerland, though: tariffs, tolls, and other administrative pilferings mired every border between the cantonments. Once beyond the alps in Konstanz, his travel choices had been either an armed caravan through still-embattled and bandit-ridden Swabia, or a barge up the Rhine and over on the Main to Frankfurt. And thence by wagon, and occasional cart, to-well, to this very spot on the road.
The trees diminished on either side of the lane as it neared a more substantial east-west road. The driver pointed to the northeast, where the land seemed to jump up with an eerie suddenness: the famed rampart that was an artifact of the Ring of Fire. “Grantville,” he announced. And with a shake of his head, he predictably amended, “Trubble.”
Miro smiled. For the driver, the growing cluster of strange buildings and strange customs would certainly define “trouble.” But for Estuban Miro, it simply meant “new and different.”
And that, in turn, meant “opportunity.”
July 1634
Don Francisco Nasi rose and proferred his right hand as Miro entered. The reputed spymaster’s shake was not perfunctory, but it was brief.
Sitting in unison with his host, Estuban noted that this office, like every other he had seen in Grantville, was spartan by Mediterranean standards. Indeed, it was austere by any standards of the world outside the borders of this strange town, even considering that this small room was merely Nasi’s occasional “satellite office”: his duties were now in Magdeburg.
Don Francisco evidently eschewed small talk: “I’m sorry we could not meet earlier. My work for the Congress of Copenhagen was quite time consuming. Tell me, how are you enjoying Grantville, so far?”
“It is full of wonders, mysteries, and puzzlements. I had heard the tales, of course, even seen some of the books. But it does not prepare one for…all of this.”
Nasi almost smiled. “Yes, it can be a bit overwhelming. Perhaps that is why you have not yet called upon my brothers or cousins? After all, it is not every day that a relative from the Mediterranean arrives in Grantville.”
Miro managed not to smile: Nasi was tactful, but wasted little time. “It would not have been appropriate, Don Francisco. It was best that I made my presence generally known in town so that you might-assess me-first.”
“ ‘Assess you’?” Don Francisco repeated mildly.
“Of course: to determine if I am whom I claim to be.”
Nasi spread his hands in dismay. “But you could no doubt furnish us with letters of introduction from your many commercial contacts. Or from your own father, my father’s nephew-” and he stopped when he saw Miro’s widening smile.
Miro shifted into Hebrew as he asked: “My father is your father’s nephew? Hmm: shall I trace the entwined branches of our family trees, Reb Francisco? My father is your father’s first cousin once removed, not his nephew. Joaquin Nasi is your grandfather through his son-your father-Mendo. Joaquin is my great-grandfather through his daughter Ana, my grandmother. But this proves little: any clever impostor would think to memorize our family tree.”
Don Francisco smiled, responded in the same language. “Perhaps-but not many could recite it so concisely and certainly as that, cousin. And I doubt any impostors would be able to mimic that Mallorquin accent so well, as well as the small linguistic quirks of Palma’s xuetas.”
Miro answered Nasi’s smile with one of his own. “You have a keen ear, Don Francisco.” Even other marranos usually failed to discern his origins as a son of Mallorca’s Jewish-or xueta — community. Even when Estuban allowed his home dialect to emerge.
Nasi leaned forward, all business again-but now, with a decidedly sympathetic undercurrent. “So tell me: why do you have no letters of recommendation? As I hear it, you have contacts in Venice-”
Miro waved a negating hand. “Impossible. Seeking their attestations would have compromised my family in Palma.”
One of Nasi’s eyebrows elevated. “How so?”
Miro shifted to Spanish, and adopted the bearing and diction of a true hidalgo. “Don Francisco, I was not just any marrano. No one outside of the xueta community in Palma knew I was a Jew. No one. The marrano s I dealt with in Portugal thought me a Spaniard. And I never undertook any action, or entered into any relationship, that connected me with other marranos — including my own family. That is why I have not been back to the Balearics in eight years.”