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  Grantville Gazette 36

  ( Grantville Gazette - 36 )

  Paula Goodlett

  Paula Goodlett

  Grantville Gazette 36

  What is this? About the Grantville Gazette

  Written by Grantville Gazette Staff

  The Grantville Gazette originated as a by-product of the ongoing and very active discussions which take place concerning the 1632 universe Eric Flint created in the novels 1632, 1633 and 1634: The Galileo Affair (the latter two books co-authored by David Weber and Andrew Dennis, respectively). More books have been written and co-written in this series, including 1634: The Baltic War, 1634: The Bavarian Crisis, 1635: The Cannon Law, and 1635: The Dreeson Incident. 1635: The Eastern Front is forthcoming, and the book Time Spike is also set in the Assiti Shards universe. This discussion is centered in three of the conferences in Baen's Bar, the discussion area of Baen Books' web site. The conferences are entitled "1632 Slush," "1632 Slush Comments" and "1632 Tech Manual." They have been in operation for almost seven years now, during which time nearly two hundred thousand posts have been made by hundreds of participants.

  Soon enough, the discussion began generating so-called "fanfic," stories written in the setting by fans of the series. A number of those were good enough to be published professionally. And, indeed, a number of them were-as part of the anthology Ring of Fire , which was published by Baen Books in January, 2004. ( Ring of Fire also includes stories written by established authors such as Eric Flint himself, as well as David Weber, Mercedes Lackey, Dave Freer, K.D. Wentworth and S.L. Viehl.)

  The decision to publish the Ring of Fire anthology triggered the writing of still more fanfic, even after submissions to the anthology were closed. Ring of Fire has been selling quite well since it came out, and a second anthology similar to it was published late in 2007. Another, Ring of Fire III, is forthcoming. It will also contain stories written by new writers, as well as professionals. But, in the meantime . . . the fanfic kept getting written, and people kept nudging Eric-well, pestering Eric-to give them feedback on their stories.

  Hence . . . the Grantville Gazette. Once he realized how many stories were being written-a number of them of publishable quality-he raised with Jim Baen the idea of producing an online magazine which would pay for fiction and nonfiction articles set in the 1632 universe and would be sold through Baen Books' Webscriptions service. Jim was willing to try it, to see what happened.

  As it turned out, the first issue of the electronic magazine sold well enough to make continuing the magazine a financially self-sustaining operation. Since then, even more volumes have been electronically published through the Baen Webscriptions site. As well, Grantville Gazette, Volume One was published in paperback in November of 2004. That has since been followed by hardcover editions of Grantville Gazette, Volumes Two, Three, Four and Five.

  Then, two big steps:

  First: The magazine had been paying semi-pro rates for the electronic edition, increasing to pro rates upon transition to paper, but one of Eric's goals had long been to increase payments to the authors. Grantville Gazette, Volume Eleven is the first volume to pay the authors professional rates.

  Second: There are several different versions of each issue of the Gazette. It is now available through Webscription, Amazon and B amp;N, plus other methods. The on-line version, depending on timing, might still be in ARC status. That's Advanced Reader Copy. Our publications dates are 1 Jan, 1 Mar, 1 May, 1 Jul, 1 Sep and 1 Nov. In between issues, here at www.grantvillegazette.com you'll often be reading the electronic version of an ARC, where you can read the issues as we assemble them. You'll see the art and the stories as they are prepared for publication.

  How will it work out? Will we be able to continue at this rate? Well, we don't know. That's up to the readers. But we'll be here, continuing the saga, the soap opera, the drama and the comedy just as long as people are willing to read them.

  – The Grantville Gazette Staff

  Modern Medicine

  Written by Kerryn Offord

  1632, near Puerto Real, Andalusia

  Juan Antonio de Aguilera was sitting trying to read while he waited to hear sounds from above. He glanced across the room at his father, who looked a lot more relaxed than he felt. He put down the book he wasn't managing to read and glanced up toward the bedroom above.

  "The baby will come in its own good time," Antonio Diego de Aguilera said.

  "But it shouldn't take this long, surely?"

  His father shrugged. "Maria is the most experienced midwife in Puerto Real. With her in charge, what can go wrong?"

  The words had barely left his mouth when they heard a baby's cry from above. Antonio smiled smugly. "What did I tell you?"

  Juan rose to his feet and started for the stairs. He fully expected the midwife to call him in shortly. What he wasn't expecting was his mother swinging open the door and shouting, "Call for the doctor." Then she looked at Juan, and his stomach fell. Something was wrong, badly wrong.

  Juan pushed his way into the bedroom, then stopped. The midwife was massaging Magdalida's nether region and there was blood everywhere.

  Juan must have uttered something because the midwife turned to face him. "I can't stop the bleeding," she explained softly. "Nothing I have done has worked."

  Juan pushed past her and reached for Magdalida. He ran gentle hands over her face.

  She reached out for the hand and guided it to the baby feeding hungrily at her breast. "We have a son," she said.

  Juan had to strain to hear. He ran the back of his forefinger gently across his son's face, while trying to ignore the sharp winces that flashed across Magdalida's face. He held her close.

  "I want to call him Eduardo, after my papa," she whispered.

  Juan looked into her dulling eyes. "Eduardo it will be."

  February 1635, Cadiz

  Juana de Silva wouldn't normally willingly cross the threshold of Luisa de la Vega's home, let alone drag her granddaughter along with her. However, her good friend, Anna Maria, wanted Juana to meet her goddaughter, Catalina de Mendoza. It was just unfortunate that the most timely opportunity to inspect the possible candidate for Juan's hand-one of the regular social gatherings arranged to introduce young girls to polite society-should be meeting at Luisa's home.

  Juana smiled at the sight of her granddaughter playing with some of the other girls under Catalina's supervision. "She is a most delightful girl," she told Anna Maria.

  "And well connected, even if she is only a minor twig on the Mendoza family tree."

  "She has a good dowry?" Juana asked, concentrating on important matters.

  "Well, I can't really say it is a good dowry, as Mendoza dowries go, but two villages aren't to be sneezed at."

  "And she does seem to be getting on well with Isabel."

  Anna Maria smiled. "Then it is agreed? We arrange for Catalina to meet Juan."

  "Yes." Juan was still resisting the idea of providing his children with a new mother, but at least he might make the effort to look at the girl.

  "I must show you what my husband sent back from Venice."

  The strident tones emitted by Luisa caught Juana's attention. "I wonder what the old witch's husband has paid too much for this time?" she asked her friend.

  Beside her, Anna Maria giggled. "Something extremely rare and expensive, no doubt. I must go to Catalina. You'll write when you've made arrangements?"

  Juana nodded, and together they gathered their respective charges and dutifully trailed behind Luisa de la Vega.

  Luisa led everyone to an elaborate display cabinet. "This is my most prized possession. My husband was most fortunate in being able to purchase it at considerable expense on his recent tr
ip to Venice." She stepped away to let everyone see.

  Juana's granddaughter jumped up, waving a doll. "You've got a Barbie just like mine!"

  Juana knew she should reprimand Isabel for speaking without being spoken to, but the horror and embarrassment visible on the faces of Luisa and her cohorts kept her smugly silent while Isabel showed off her doll, which was exactly the same as Luisa's-although considerably more bedraggled.

  "Where did you get that?" an outraged Luisa demanded, reaching for the doll in Isabel's hands.

  Frightened by Luisa, Isabel rushed to her grandmother. Juana wrapped her arms around the trembling child and faced Luisa. "It's one my youngest son, Alfredo, gave to her."

  Luisa pointed an accusing finger at Juana. "You let a child play with a priceless up-time artifact?"

  Juana gently stroked Isabel's hair and smiled serenely at Luisa. "Only the ones that had already been well played with."

  Isabel turned and, from the safety of her grandmamma's arms, carefully counted off on her fingers the various Barbies and Barbie accessories she had. Juana was impressed at how well her seven-year-old granddaughter remembered what she had been given. She didn't miss one.

  "But none of the ones Isabel plays with are in anything like that good condition," Juana said. "No, the 'mint in box' ones like that are kept locked in a cabinet."

  "I'm not allowed to play with them." Isabel pouted.

  Juana sighed in silent relief when Isabel stopped talking. It wouldn't have done for her to tell everyone that the cabinet in question was in one of the attics. She glanced over at Anna Maria. Now might be a good time to take their leave. She jerked her head suggestively toward the door and Anna Maria nodded.

  A month later

  The planned meeting at San Sebastian's had not been the success Juana had hoped for. Catalina had indicated interest in Juan, but the ungrateful idiot hadn't reciprocated. Instead, he had pushed his way through the crowds in the Street of the Arch after services in his rush to get back to his wretched flying machine, leaving his poor mother to make excuses for his inexcusable behavior.

  "It's not right," Juana de Silva protested to her husband later that evening. "Isabel and Eduardo need a mother, and Juan refuses to even consider remarrying."

  "My love-Magdalida died in his arms," her less-than-sympathetic husband said.

  "It is nothing but foolishness. God needed Magdalida more than Juan and the children did."

  Antonio Diego de Aguilera shook his head. "You'll never convince Juan of that. He maintains that he will never expose another woman to that risk again."

  Juana snorted. He might be her most favored son, but Juan was still only a man. She couldn't see him keeping that promise forever. However, it was an obstacle . . . just when she'd found an ideal candidate. Catalina de Mendoza was a modest girl of good family and fortune. "Isabel and Eduardo lost both parents when Magdalida died. Juan has buried himself in his flying machines instead of caring about them. Something must be done to convince him to provide them with a loving mother."

  "What do you suggest? Father Gonzalez has already spoken to him, with no effect."

  "Priests! What good is a priest? No, what is needed is someone who can convince Juan that what happened to Magdalida is unlikely to happen again."

  "One of the up-timers?" Antonio suggested.

  "Dr. Nichols would be ideal. Even Juan must have heard of the famous Moor."

  "I fear Dr. Nichols is unlikely to be interested in coming to Andalusia," Antonio said. "I'm sure he is much too busy practicing his profession in Grantville."

  "What about one of the other doctors?"

  Antonio shook his head. "I don't think we could interest an up-time trained doctor to come to Puerto Real. However, Fredo has spoken of the new doctors being trained in Grantville and at Jena. I could write to him and ask him to find someone suitable."

  Juana sighed. "Ask him to find an up-timer who has trained as a doctor if he possibly can."

  "Of course," Antonio said as he wrote a short note to himself. "Anyway, where is Juan?"

  "Where do you think? Chancing his life playing with that devil-spawned machine." Juana shook her head in disgust at the risks Juan was taking. "If God had meant man to fly he would have given him wings."

  Meanwhile . . .

  "Hold her steady," Juan told the student piloting the airship.

  He glanced forward, toward the landing field, where dozens of men were waiting on the ground to grab the handling ropes that dangled from the Pepino. "When you cross the fence, reduce power," he instructed the student.

  Fernando Lopez de Perez nodded to indicate he'd heard the instructions and aimed for the men assembling on the landing field.

  They were coming in nicely when Juan felt the first telltale signs of a cross-wind hitting the Pepino. "Apply power," he screamed.

  Juan willed Fernando to react, to apply power so that the Pepino would gain lift from its forward momentum, and achieve the safety of altitude. Instead, Fernando cut the throttle back, causing the Pepino to sink closer to the ground.

  To Juan's horror, men on the ground grabbed at the handling ropes. He knew there was no way so few men could stop the wind carrying the Pepino away, and leaned over the edge of the gondola to shout at them to let go. Then the full force of the cross-wind hit the Pepino, and sent it sideways. Juan was almost tipped from the gondola as the gas-bag tried to fold under the force of the wind. The airship was blown, careering out of control, toward the trees at the edge of the cleared landing field.

  Time passed slowly for Juan as the trees grew closer. From the moment the Pepino hit them, time moved too quickly. He was thrown from the gondola and fell through the branches to the ground. On the ground, staring up at the Pepino entangled in the tree above, his final thought before he blacked out was "Don't let it burn."

  Early April, 1635, Grantville, USE

  John "Sully" Sullivan guided his mother to the dining room table where his wife and three children were already seated.

  After settling her, he took his seat and surveyed his sons and daughter across the empty expanse of the table. John Junior, Jack as he preferred to be called, was as usual, all attentive; Linda was busy tending to her nails; and the youngest, Jacob, was, as he always seemed to be doing these days, feeding his face. "Your mother and I have some good news, and some bad news. Which do you want to hear first?"

  "The good news," Jack said.

  John glanced over at his wife, but Annamarie shook her head indicating that he had the floor. "Your mother and I have accepted an offer of employment that will allow us to put Jack and Linda through med school, and send Jacob to the university of his choice."

  Jacob, always the first to pick-up on points one would prefer were missed, piped up. "Where are these jobs?"

  "We will be working for Alfredo de Aguilera's family," Annamarie said.

  "But he comes from Spain, and the Spanish are our enemies," Linda protested.

  "We're actually at peace," Jack corrected.

  John dived in before the kids started squabbling . . . again. "That's enough, you two. Yes, we're currently at peace with Spain, and the contract your mother and I have accepted was too good to turn down. Besides, it'll be easy for us, since your mom insisted that we all keep up our Spanish even if we can no longer visit her family."

  "But I'm supposed to be entering the medical program next year," Linda protested.

  "I'll be renting my place and moving in here to look after you, Linda. It'll be just us two girls together," Dorothy Sullivan said.

  John knew his daughter well enough to read the horror she was busy concealing. "Or, of course, you could come to Spain with us."

  Linda visibly shuddered at that suggestion. "No. Staying with Grandma will be okay."

  "Which just leaves Jacob, who will be going to Spain with your mother and me."

  "Leave Grantville?" Jacob asked. "But I don't want to. Why can't I stay here with Grandma too, Dad?"

  "Because I said so," John sai
d. "Besides, you never know. You might enjoy it."

  "But all my friends are in Grantville," Jacob protested.

  "You never had trouble making friends when we visited your mom's family in Puerto Rico, so you shouldn't have any trouble making new friends in Spain," John told him. He and Annamarie had already decided that Jacob was coming with them, come hell or high water. There was no way they were leaving him behind, given the group of undesirables he'd been mixing with lately.

  May, near Puerto Real, Andalusia

  "The bones look to have set properly," Sebastian Ferrer said as he gently ran his hands over Juan's leg.

  Juan glared at the man in the brown habit and white belt of a Franciscan lay brother. "And what would you do if they weren't properly set? Break them and try again?" Juan thought he was being sarcastic, but the gentle nod from the heavyset man was anything but reassuring.

  "You don't really expect me to believe you'd break my bones if they weren't healing properly?" he demanded.

  "I wouldn't enjoy doing it," Sebastian said.

  Juan raised his brows. The mauling he'd suffered at the bonesetter's hands when his leg was set gave the lie to that. He was positive the man had smiled all through the procedure.

  "The alternative would be that you are left crippled for life because the bones don't heal properly."

  Juan looked at his left leg, finally free of its splints. He reached down to scratch the itch that had suddenly started. He had to concede that point. Nobody wanted to be crippled for life. However, it was purely academic, as the man seemed happy with his handiwork. "How long before I can walk again?"

  "You could get up right now, with a little help." Sebastian lifted Juan's legs off the bed and carefully set his feet on the floor. "Give me your arms."

  Juan reached out, and suddenly he was pulled to his feet.

  "We'll just walk to the door and back this time. If someone will take your other side?"

  With a servant standing to his left and the bonesetter to his right, Juan slowly shuffled to the door and back. He fell onto his bed and lay down, exhausted after walking a massive twenty feet. "How long before I'm fit?"