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Chapter 11


The next morning before half past seven, Wilhelm was waiting outside Washington’s Crossing for Margaret and Hettie. He helped them into the carriage and loaded up their baggage. Showing their tickets to one of the uniformed porters, they were allowed through the sturdy metal gate to walk out onto the dock beside the hissing ship alongside other travelers.

A gentleman in dark blue uniform with more decorations on his sleeves, shoulders, and cap greeted them and the other travelers at the gangplank.

“Welcome aboard, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, in English and German. “I am Herr Captain Schroeder. We are very pleased to have you as guests on our voyage to Magdeburg.”

Margaret, Hettie, and the couple of women curtseyed to the captain. The men, four dignified-looking gentlemen in the fashionable Hamburg style and half a dozen in various military uniforms offered their own courtesies. The captain gestured to his sailors to assist them in boarding.

All of their baggage but a basket of travel provisions Hettie insisted upon bringing was taken in charge by a pair of the uniformed sailors. A third man helped them up the narrow ladder and showed them to their cabin.

Behind a handsomely carved door of varnished wood, their small private chamber had a tabletop that pulled down from a bracket on the wall, a padded leather chair, and a single bed that was wide enough for both of them, woven wool curtains over a single glass window, lights that glowed like the flashlight in her pocket, and a hatch concealing a wash basin with a capped pitcher. The attendant, who spoke excellent though accented English, advised them to keep the window closed when the ship was moving to avoid having the smoke come inside. The two women set about exploring their new quarters with all the curiosity of a pair of kittens, until they were alerted by a discreet cough.

“Ahem!” The sailor stood by the door, his open palm turned upward beside his hip. He carefully did not look down toward it. Trying not to laugh, Margaret placed a small silver coin on his palm. James had advised her on the size of tips to offer that were neither too large nor too stingy. The man must have been able to identify coins by feel or weight, for he gave a satisfied nod. He left them alone and slid the door closed.

The room was surprisingly warm in the cool spring weather. Margaret undid her cloak and Hettie bustled to hang it up on the metal peg beside the door.

“Everything is so…so clean, mistress!” the servant girl declared, looking about. “No carriage that we have ever ridden has been so clear of dust or dirt. And Hamburg seemed so tidy as well.”

“James was right about the many wonders,” Margaret said. “England feels so far behind in standards compared with what we have seen here on the continent. We must save up all our impressions to take home. Not that we can make changes all of a sudden, as we have had no Ring of Fire to cause them.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open, my lady,” Hettie promised.

“Bless my soul,” Margaret said, settling on the leather seat with an unladylike thump. It was very comfortable, like her father’s favorite armchair. “My letter home to Mother today will be interesting, at least!”

* * *

A sharp whistle and a shout from a deep male voice heralded the departure of the ship. Margaret and Hettie went to the window to watch. They felt a strong thrumming underneath their feet as the steam began to drive the stern wheel. Within minutes, the landscape started to whisk by outside the window. Margaret quickly understood why the sailor had advised them against opening the glass, as wisps of sooty smoke from the engine curled around the craft.

Outside, fields of crops, the bright green of spring, interspersed with herds of cattle and sheep, whisked by. It became a game as Margaret tried to identify the breeds of sheep before they dropped out of sight. Travel by steam tug was faster than she had ever dreamed, much faster than a cargo ship, or even on horseback! The rumble coming from beneath the floor was both alarming and soothing at the same time.

“I wonder how quickly we are traveling,” Margaret whispered.

“As fast as birds fly,” Hettie said, looking out astonished.

Once the women had their footing, they left their compartment and explored the rest of the ship. The men rose and smiled at Margaret as she came out on deck. One of them rushed to hold the portal open for her. She almost retreated back to their compartment, but Hettie poked her in the ribs from behind, urging her forward. Margaret straightened her spine and nodded politely to them.

Though there was a good-sized crew, the ship didn’t feel crowded. The other two women occupied the cabin behind theirs, closer to the steam engine. The two cabins on the other side of the long, narrow senior officers’ cabin had been assigned to the somberly-dressed gentlemen, but the soldiers had been sent belowdecks to stay among the crew. A peek below showed how cramped they would be for their journey, but it was only for two nights. James had warned her that the craft had a very shallow draft, making it possible to traverse the river at speed.

The other two women sat on stools on deck, handiwork in their laps. They had brought half a dozen children with them, who hurtled around the deck like a roomful of excited cats, all but bounding off the walls.

Behind the ship was tethered an unmanned barge. It carried the passengers’ baggage as well as crates, boxes, and bags of cargo labeled with mysterious codes in colored paint. That made sense to Margaret, not to waste the opportunity to bring goods and mail up and back between the cities. And at such impressive speed! Less than two days to traverse the distance, but as smoothly as gliding in a punt. This would be a lovely experience to write in a letter to her mother. Lovely, that was, except for the coal smoke. She coughed as a stray breeze pushed a cloud of it down from the smokestack past their faces.

Children on the riverbank, seeing the Metahelios approaching, jumped up and down, waving. Margaret smiled and waved back to them until they disappeared behind trees around a bend.

An officer with a small quantity of gold braid on his shoulders came up to them.

“Ladies, the captain’s compliments, and would you be pleased to join him for luncheon?” He spoke English, but with an American accent.

“Yes, thank you very much,” Margaret replied. He took her arm with a smile. Margaret was struck again by the perfectly straight, white teeth he had. Self-consciously, she closed her lips to return the smile. Her own teeth were yellow by comparison, and one of the first molars on the right bottom was missing due to a childhood misadventure. If she could ask Rita without embarrassment, she would find out how to bring home that matter of dental hygiene to England. The list of what she wanted to know grew line upon line with every passing hour.

“Thank you, good sir,” she said, hoping she had not been staring. “Come, Hettie.”

“Yes, mistress,” Hettie said.

* * *

Though the trip was to last until well after sunset the next day, Margaret felt no weariness in staring out the window at the passing landscape until the light disappeared. The ship docked now and again to take on coal and water for the boiler. She and Hettie watched as men in all-in-one garments brushed ash out into a metal cart and trundled load after load of black lumps on board to pile into the bin beside the firebox. The clatter of tumbling coal was deafening. It was one of the few detriments to travel by steam tug.

The food was of surprisingly high quality despite having come from a small mess kitchen. Captain Schroeder offered polite small talk, and encouraged his guests to talk with one another. All of them praised Margaret in her efforts to speak German. She learned a number of useful phrases at every meal. She spent many pleasant hours on deck in front of the cabins chatting with the gentlemen, who were traveling to Magdeburg on business, and with the women, who were a pair of sisters who had taken their children to visit their parents north of Hamburg.

The captain kept them all apprised on where they were. Late on the second afternoon, he came to the group with the ship’s chart in his hands.

“We have entered USE territory,” he said. “We will reach Magdeburg within two hours.”

Margaret kept her eyes open, looking for any obvious signs of changes in the landscape. She had seen drawings of the sharp contrast in the land where the Ring of Fire had occurred, and longed to go and see it for herself. The town of Grantville, cupped in the palm of mountains, had appeared in the midst of the Germanies like a handful of sunshine, bringing both blessings and changes.

“Will we see Grantville?” Hettie asked, as if reading her mind.

“I’ve no notion,” Margaret said. “I’ll be grateful just to see Mistress Rita again.”

The sun began to disappear behind them.

* * *

Tapping on the door woke Margaret from a light doze on the bunk in her cabin.

“Magdeburg!” a sailor called through the portal. “We will be docking in moments.”

Margaret sat bolt upright and blinked at the lights coming through the cabin window. Hettie was already on her feet, holding her coat out for her.

Outside, she saw men in the coverall suits toss looped ropes to similarly dressed men on the bank. With a few sharp jerks, the ship came to rest against the dock. The unearthly scream of the steam whistle pierced straight through the walls of the cabin. Margaret made a face.

“I won’t miss that,” she said.

“Neither will I, mistress,” Hettie said.

She followed the other passengers to the gangplank. A junior officer assisted her down. The dock was bright with light from gas lights so excellent they did not even flicker.

“Margaret!”

She looked up at the call, and smiled. There was Rita, waving from the other side of a metal fence. She waved back with excitement and relief.

“Well, thank Heaven for all its blessings,” Hettie said, climbing down after her.

A porter met her with her cases on a two-wheeled cart and followed her out beyond the barrier. Rita met her at the gate and gave her a bone-crushing hug.

“Oh, it’s great to see you!” she said. “You look wonderful. Did you have a good trip?”

“We had a lovely journey,” Margaret assured her, squeezing her back. “We enjoyed it so much, except perhaps the pirates. I am so looking forward to telling everyone at home all about it. Thank you for obtaining the tickets for us. Pray allow me to reimburse you for the cost.”

“Not a chance,” Rita said, laughing. “It’s the least I can do.” She stopped before saying more, glancing at the crowd around them. “Not one thin dime. It’s my treat.”

“I was happy to be of service,” Margaret said. “I hope…the gentlemen and the lady remain well?”

That evoked another laugh out of Rita. “Harry Lefferts falls on his feet more often than a cat. But, yes, the others are fine. Come on! We can talk more when we get you checked in.”

She beckoned to the porter to follow her. The man wheeled the heavy cart toward an elegant landau and loaded the trunks onto the rear below the driver’s stand. The carriage curtseyed under their weight, and the horses danced. Margaret felt her cheeks burn. She knew she had packed too much, but she had gifts for her friends as well as her goods and Hettie’s.

“I wish I still had enough gas for my pickup truck,” Rita said. “I’m just not a priority, to be honest. The horse carts are nice, but they are slow, and I worry about the horses getting overworked. Maybe once we get the refineries really up and running, we’ll be able to expand motor vehicles for everyone.”

As if to underscore her statement, a small, boxy vehicle, roofless and painted in green enamel, no horses attached to it either front or back, passed them with a roar and turned a corner ahead of them. Margaret stared. Four people sat in two benches, one in front of the other. The man in the front left clutched a round wheel like a ship’s tiller.

“Oh, mistress,” Hettie said. “Look at that! Wouldn’t you want to ride in that?”

“I would,” Margaret said, filled with delight.

Rita laughed. “I’ll ask someone to take you for a spin,” she said.

Even in the darkness broken only by moonlight, Margaret almost broke her neck turning from side to side to look at everything as they rolled through Magdeburg. Like Hamburg, the town was surprisingly clean, and workers using more traditional lanterns, largely men, but with some women among them, seemed to take pride in moving muck off the streets almost as quickly as it fell. Small gardens divided the street from walkways adjacent to the buildings so she was aware of the scent of flowers rather than refuse and filth.

“Hygiene is an ongoing problem,” Rita replied to Margaret’s question, as they traveled through the handsome streets. “Most down-timers were never taught the basics. Now that we’ve got regulations and laws in place about sewage and trash pickup, and pushing education everywhere we can, it’s helped a lot to combat illness and infection. We still don’t have enough vaccines to inoculate everyone, but we’re working on it. One thing we have got enough of at last is soap, which helps. I keep telling my brother that he can construct all the machines and buildings he wants, but he’s going to end up with no one in them if he doesn’t think of health care.” She chuckled and let out a sigh. “He has too many things to think about, but he’s a good organizer. I’d say he was great, but he is my brother.”

Margaret laughed. “I might say the same for my own brothers and sisters,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t want them to think too highly of their own skills, lest they stumble on their own feet while reaching for a star.”

“I’d forgotten you were our little Shakespeare,” Rita said, leaning over to hug her again. “I’ve missed you!” She glanced up at the building they were approaching. “Look, we’re here.”

Margaret stared at the massive granite edifice ahead of them. It stretched long gray arms out both ways along most of the street, and hulked at least four floors in height. Small ornamental gardens were laid out before it, where statues, too new to have acquired a coating of verdigris, stood. It looked larger than the Palace of Whitehall, and had the same imposing air of majesty and command.

“You…you live here?”

“Oh, no!” Rita laughed. “We’re just visiting. This is the Presidential Palace. Mike lives here, for now.” She wrinkled her nose. “He’s been trying hard to shed the title, but no one will let him go yet. It’s the center of government for the USE. Most of it is offices, but there are rooms on the upper floors for residences. Tom and I stay here when we’re in town, which hasn’t been that often in the last year. When you wrote, I was happy to find an excuse to come home and visit. When I’m in Ingolstadt, I’m always on duty.”

Reassured by their driver that her bags would find their way to her quarters, Margaret and Hettie followed their hostess into the grand entrance. The soaring hallway echoed with their footsteps. Only a few others were present, moving to and fro by lamplight.

“Business hours are over for the day,” Rita explained. “They told me are a couple of receptions are going on tonight. People will be there bending Mike’s ear. If you can manage it after that long train ride, I’ll be happy to bring you to meet him. If not, I’ll arrange for some food, and you can take it easy tonight. I have so much to show you!”

Margaret stopped in dismay.

“None of my clothes are suitable for formal receptions,” she said.

Rita waved a hand. “Mike doesn’t stand on ceremony. You can come in whatever you’ve got. He is dying to meet you. Okay, this is yours.” She swung wide the black-enameled door on the left side of the corridor, and urged Margaret to enter.

When she thought back to the cramped cabin that she had occupied on board the Meadowlark, she could hardly believe the enormous accommodations to which Rita had shown them.

Rita had pretty much pushed her in the doorway, and lit a lamp by the door. The broad window shed what meager twilight was left upon a handsome sitting room with carved wooden furniture upholstered in a handsome shade of russet brown. Doors were open to reveal two shadowed bed chambers and a dressing room.

“This is yours. Two bedrooms, one for each of you. You have your own bathroom, too. The plumbing’s not bad, even if it’s a little noisy.”

Margaret couldn’t help but gawk like a common urchin. Hettie was speechless to have a bedroom of her own.

“Surely this is for visiting nobles,” Margaret protested, all but tiptoeing into the sitting room as though she didn’t want to leave footprints on the beautiful Turkish carpet.

“No, but we consider you a visitor of importance,” Rita said, with a warm smile. “You’re kind of an underground hero in these parts, and we still feel we owe you.”

Margaret didn’t say anything. She felt almost as though she was going to commit betrayal by requesting another favor from her friend sometime in the next several days, but surely Rita had more than an inkling of her main purpose for making the long journey.

“And look!” her friend continued, drawing her to a table by the window and kindling a lamp standing upon it. “Melissa Mailey wanted me to make her apologies. She’s off rabble-rousing, so she won’t see you this trip, but she went through the Grantville Library, the high school, and the college library to find everything we’ve got on weaving and spinning. There was way more than I thought there could be.”

Margaret hadn’t registered what the rectangular mass on the table could be until it was pointed out to her. Then, she couldn’t keep her eyes off the stacks and stacks and stacks of bound books. She had scarcely ever seen so many in one place, and all on one subject? The visitors from the future were unbelievably fortunate to have the knowledge of ages. She held her breath as she reached out to touch the top book on the nearest pile.

Tomes from the future were so strange in comparison with the leatherbound volumes in her father’s library and in Lady Pierce’s sitting room. The first book was called The History of Handweaving. It had a smooth paper cover that was folded around the book itself, and had a picture painted on it—not painted, precisely—of a woman with her back turned to Margaret sitting at a standing loom. The image was so realistic that she could barely touch it for fear of alarming the woman. She looked a question at Rita.

“It’s a photograph,” Rita said. “I had this explained to me by the high school science teacher, because I knew you would ask, and you’re not the first down-timer to wonder what these are. You take a piece of paper that is coated with chemicals so it’s sensitive to light, then expose it very briefly to an image, like this woman. You take the piece of paper and use more chemicals on it to develop it, and you get something like this. I had a friend in nursing school whose brother was a hobby photographer. He had a darkroom in their basement.”

“It’s amazing.”

Rita waved it away. “It’s technology that we are already reintroducing. It’s too useful not to have, and all you need are a lightproof box with a clean lens, paper, and a bunch of chemicals that we can synthesize in no time. I’ll show you a camera later.”

“I…I’d be honored!”

“But that’s just the cover of the first book,” Rita said. “Wait until you actually read them. I started one of them last week. I’m not even that interested in weaving, but I couldn’t put it down. I think it was that one.” She pointed to a huge book like a church missal that had a very colorful photographic cover. “I wish I could let you take them all home. I can’t, but you’re welcome to spend all the time you want reading them here.”

“I understand,” Margaret said. “Too many questions would be aroused by the presence of books from the future in such a humble place as my home.”

“I doubt it’s humble, from what you told me,” Rita said, dryly. “Someday, I hope to get a chance to visit you and meet your family. They sound pretty interesting.”

“They…each have their own stories,” Margaret offered, drawing heavily on tact. She knew from their year-long correspondence that Rita would surely understand. “We would be delighted to welcome you, when that becomes possible.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

Margaret kept running her fingers again and again over The History of Handweaving. So many people had said the Americans were otherworldly. Having met them, she had dismissed the notion, understanding them to be ordinary people, but this square of paper under her very fingers was enough to fling her back among the whispering masses.

“This rivals the works of the greatest artists,” she said. “She looks as though she could turn around and speak to me.”

“Well, it’s not art,” Rita said, with a dismissive twitch of her lips. “I mean, you can take photographs that rival art, but just pictures—” She stopped and shook her head. “We take everything we had for granted, and we shouldn’t. Not any longer. We’re starting all over again, everyone from Grantville. What we had is gone, left behind in the twentieth century. But we have the knowledge, and we’re here to share it. That’s what matters now. Open the book. Go on.”

Margaret obeyed. The stiff cover underneath the photograph seemed to be made of pasteboard, but with a waxlike surface. Within, the creamy white pages had been trimmed perfectly smooth and square at the edges, like a Culpeper’s Herbal such as Doctor Trumbull possessed. They felt cool and crisp, like the skin of an apple. She picked up another book, smaller and slimmer than the first. Rigid Heddle Weaving was the title. At least that term was familiar. But on the verso side of the title page, it had a nest of small print, with the term © 1987. Three hundred and fifty years from then! She let her hands drop. She should not be delving into such secrets! At any moment, lightning would strike her, or the ground would split and swallow her down to the flaming depths.

“Don’t worry,” Rita said, with a little laugh. She pushed the book close, and flipped the pages until she came to a cluster of shinier pages that had more photographs on them. “You’ll have to look at these to see if much has changed from your time to mine. Maybe basic weaving hasn’t become that much different.”

In truth, to see from the photographs, the machines were familiar enough. According to the captions (another word from Rita that Margaret committed to memory), they had the same names, though many more of the looms were made of metal than the weavers in her father’s sheds and in the halls of the guild masters, and looked all alike. She kept flipping through the shiny pages, feeling as though she was looking through a window into Fairyland.

“Hey, I think this one will be helpful to you.” Rita pulled another book from the stack and opened it to the title page: The World History of Spinning and Weaving. “I remember learning about the Industrial Revolution in school. It wasn’t such good news for small businesses like your dad’s. But why should your business stay small?”

“But how can it grow, when we have the same number of people?” Margaret asked.

“New machines. Well, new to you. Old to us. Take a look.”

Margaret began to read. She thought that weaving in England had begun at the time of her ancestor, Sir Wemys de Beauchamp, whose father had obtained the grant of land from the king he served. But according to the crystal-clear print in the section marked “Prologue,” the skill dated back before the time of Our Lord. She kept coming back to a phrase again and again, “two thousand years of fiber history.” Two thousand years!

Her eye swept down the text line by line. Industrial Revolution was repeated again and again. A revolution sounded so dangerous, but Rita clearly believed it to be a good thing.

Though her brain spun at the torrent of information she was trying to cram into it, Margaret couldn’t stop. She sat down on a chair and devoured page after page. There were places and names, and tiny numbers above those that referred to what Rita called “footnotes,” more doors that opened to information that would be priceless to her father and the Barlaston weavers. She tried to cajole all the facts into staying in her mind, the names of men and machines and what they meant to the trade, but errant details kept retreating from her grasp, necessitating rereading pages she had already reviewed.

“So, what do you think? Would you like to come to tonight’s reception?” Rita asked.

Her voice snapped Margaret out of her trance. Her arms had curled possessively around the book, and her forefinger was already under the top corner of the page to flip to the next. She didn’t want to let go of it. She looked up at Rita.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

Her friend laughed. “Never mind. You stay here tonight. You’ll want to rest up from your trip anyhow. I’ll send someone with food later on. You can meet Mike tomorrow. He’ll be in his office in the morning. I’ll get someone to bring you down to him.” Rita squeezed her shoulder and smiled at Hettie. “Make sure she gets some sleep.”

“I’ll try, my lady,” Hettie said, with all the indulgence of a mother hen. “But you’ve given her a book to read, and taking those away has never been easy.”

With another chuckle, Rita retreated, leaving Margaret alone with a library of wonders and her thirst for facts and details.



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