1636 The Kremlin Games (6 page)

Mikhail Romanov smiled kindly back at Bernie’s attempt to bow. “Welcome to Moscow.”

Bernie bowed again and Boris made a gesture, so Bernie presented his gifts. Czar Mikhail looked at the watch curiously.

“It is an up-time ‘watch.’” Boris spoke softly. “If you will press that button there, it will light up.”

The czar, clearly with some trepidation, pressed the button and managed to say “Very interesting.”

They finished the interview, so Bernie and company were ready to leave the next day.

Chapter 10

Bernie sat in the sleigh and moped. He should be interested and excited, but he couldn’t manage to feel even an echo of such an emotion. It had just hit him again: the Ring of Fire, the people he’d killed at the Battle of the Crapper and his mother’s death. He could quit and go home but it wasn’t home. Home didn’t exist anymore. Bernie wanted a drink. He knew he shouldn’t have one but he wanted one.

He had been drinking a lot less since they started for Russia. Getting out of Grantville had helped, but sometimes it all came back on him. For some unknown reason, today was one of those times. Midwinter this far north had short frigging days. Maybe that had something to do with it. He’d read something about that somewhere.

Natasha looked over at him and grinned. “We will reach the dacha soon, Bernie.”

Bernie grunted without much enthusiasm.
God, I wish I had my car. I wish I had some gas. I wish . . .

“What is wrong, Bernie?”

“Nothing you can help with, nothing anyone can help with really. I guess I’m just homesick.”

“You wish you could go back? But we have only begun to become acquainted.”

Bernie noted with some amusement that Natasha’s vamp routine needed a bit of work. Still it was nice that she was trying to cheer him up. “No, I don’t wish to go back. Not back to Germany anyway. I wish I could go home, back to the world I came from. This world isn’t home. Even Grantville isn’t home. I used to do all right, you know. I had enough money to do what I wanted, for the most part. I dated, I worked my hours. I had a life.”
I hadn’t killed anyone; I had a mother who was still alive.
“Now, though, well, it’s just not the same, not even in Grantville.”

Bernie looked at the girl. She seemed nice enough and she hadn’t gotten pissed at the Boris and Natasha bit. On the other hand, she was Vladimir’s sister and Bernie had finally figured out just how rich and powerful Vladimir was after he had gotten to Moscow. This girl was the daughter of a great house. She was pretty, dark-haired and slim. Slimmer than a lot of the Russian women, with black hair that hung down to her waist. She spoke some English. Funny-sounding English, but English. Mostly, though, she was someone to talk to and Bernie was sick of thinking about his troubles.

“So,” he said, “tell me about yourself.” Natasha looked taken aback by the question and the old lady, Vladimir’s Aunt Sofia, cackled a bit. Bernie didn’t have a clue why.

“Ah . . .” Natasha stopped. “What do you wish to know?”

“Oh . . .” Bernie hesitated a moment. “What do you figure on doing with your life? Do you have any plans to become a doctor or lawyer? What’s it like in the summer here? Is there summer here? Do you like parties?” He snorted. “What’s your sign? That’s probably too many questions, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps,” Natasha acknowledged. “In any case, I didn’t understand what all of them meant. I don’t know what my sign is. Unless you mean the family crest.”

“Never mind,” Bernie scratched his chin. “Why do all the men wear beards?”

“Men wear beards because the church says that it is a mortal sin to shave them. God did not create men beardless, only cats and dogs.”

“Not to mention rats and mice,” Bernie said. “Goats, though. Goats have beards.”

Aunt Sofia was suppressing laughter. Bernie grinned at the old lady. “Of course, goats don’t shave either.”

“Perhaps so.” Natasha sounded like she was trying not to laugh. “But I’m not sure the church would like hearing that . . .” She searched for the word. “Ah . . . compare?”

“Comparison,” Bernie said. “Yeah. I’ve never met a holy roller yet that liked that sort of comparison. I understand the churches down-time have a lot more power. So maybe I should be more careful about what I say.”

“What of your faith, Bernie?”

“Mom was a Methodist, a Protestant I guess you’d call it, and Dad a Catholic, though neither one of them were big church goers. Me, I guess I was an agnostic before the Ring of Fire.”

“Agnostic?”

“Someone who doesn’t know,” Bernie said. “Maybe there’s a God or maybe not. If there is a god maybe it cares about people and maybe not. After the Ring of Fire . . . well, something had to do that. Which still leaves me wondering about what it wants, whatever it is.”

That statement seemed to set both Natasha and Sofia back on their heels. Which wasn’t an unusual reaction. Bernie had had his face shoved in the fact that most people down-time were members of a church whether they wanted to be or not. There was no Madelyn Nutcase O’Hare down-time screaming about atheist rights. And considering what the holy rollers got up to without such people, maybe O’Hare wasn’t that much of a nut case after all. “Like I say, someone or something took a six-mile diameter chunk of rock, earth, water, and air, animals, people, machines and books and shifted all of us three hundred sixty-nine years into the past and halfway around the world in a flash of light. I know that there’s someone or something that can do that and if it ain’t a god, it’s close enough for me. On the other hand, whatever it is didn’t appear to have much concern for what it was doing to my mom by taking her into the past and leaving the medicines that were keeping her alive in the future. So, yes, I’m convinced there’s a god. That God is good and caring, not so much.” Bernie ran down and realized he had probably said way too much.
I’m not here to fix their culture or update their religion
, he reminded himself. It was time for a change of subject. “So what do you do?”

“Do?” Natasha asked. “Ah . . . I take care of the family properties while Vladimir is away. Someone must.”

As the sleigh carried Bernie, Natasha and Aunt Sofia to the dacha they talked about the roles of women in the future America where Bernie came from and the role of women in Russia. Natasha was clearly shocked at the options open to women in that future. Sofia was more curious and cautious.

*     *     *

Natasha found herself both shocked and intrigued by the up-timer’s lack of concern for her rank and station. It wasn’t so much that he ignored her rank. Instead, he treated it like some local fantasy that he paid polite lip-service to. In a very real sense, it seemed to Natasha that Bernie did not see himself as outranked by any man. Perhaps not even by God. And that was a truly frightening, and oddly exciting, thought.

Chapter 11

February 1632

Bernie moved in and settled. It took several days to get his stuff and the other gear that Vladimir had sent. They were also putting together a load of goods to go the other way. Boris wanted to make one more trip to Grantville to make sure the path he’d set up was in good working order both for mail and for goods. That had little to do with Bernie, which he was perfectly happy with. He’d already run into one mine field and didn’t want another. It turned out Natasha was very interested in women’s rights, a subject that Bernie had only a vague knowledge about. In order to hold off her questions a bit he had said, “Look, Natasha, I didn’t mean to have you burn your bra in Red Square. It’s just the way things were up-time.”

Natasha, being Natasha, had come right back with, “What is a bra and why would I want to burn it?”

While Bernie was more than willing to talk about bras and their disposal with servant girls, it wasn’t a place to go with the boss. Which, it had turned out, Natasha was, in fact if not in title. Especially when she had a whole retinue of men at arms who gave Bernie hard looks any time he got within twenty feet of her.

Talking to noble ladies about their undergarments was definitely chancy territory. Bernie got his revenge in a way by directing her to a barmaid who could answer her questions. Brandy Bates was a friend of his who worked at Club 250, where Bernie had drunk until the Gardens got its own building. Bernie talked her up a bit because it seemed like a good idea. Who knew? Maybe the barmaid had something to teach the princess.

Besides, the truth was that Bernie didn’t like the way the peasants were treated here and now. Bernie didn’t think it had been near this bad in Germany. He had to remind himself quite often that he wasn’t here to fix the soul of Russia, just the plumbing. He didn’t like it but he kept his mouth shut. So let the princess learn about bras from the barmaid. Maybe she’d learn something else as well.

*     *     *

Natasha was at her desk, at last. There were several letters to write. She, as was her nature, started with the hardest.

To the Up-timer Citizen of Grantville, United States of America, Miss Brandy Bates,

I make free to write to you at the suggestion of your fellow up-timer, Bernard Zeppi. I hope that this missive finds you in the best of good health.

Natasha hated this part. She was a regular correspondent with several women of Russia and even a few men. But writing to someone new was always a challenge, especially someone from a foreign country. Worse, in this case, because the up-timers probably thought of everyone from this century as barbarians. But she really did need an answer to this question.

Let me apologize if I have failed to include the titles appropriate to your station. It is not with the intent of insult but from simple ignorance. Goodman Zeppi informs me that you are a woman of great accomplishment and considerable status among the up-timers. Also that you are of good family and possessed of a G.E.D.

I gather that the G.E.D. is a title? But I confess my ignorance in how it is to be applied to a salutation. Mr. Zeppi professes ignorance of your other titles, not being a student of heraldry.

I fear this may be a delicate matter to broach on first acquaintance, but what is a bra and why should one burn it in the grand market square?

Natasha filled in the context of the discussion then added her signature.
Princess Natalia Petrovna Gorchakovna

Natasha knew she should be saying more, introducing herself more clearly, but she was uncertain of what degree of formality she should use in writing to an unknown up-timer. She set the letter aside and started working on the next. It would go to Vladimir, and would discuss the Grantville Section of the embassy bureau and the agreements reached between the family and the government.

Chapter 12

“We can’t do it,” Andrei Korisov said with disgust. “You don’t understand what we have to deal with. Less than half the service nobility can read, and just one person in three hundred is of the service nobility. Even with the occasional priest and overeducated
Streltzi
, less than one person in a hundred can read, even in the cities and large towns. In the countryside, probably less than one in a thousand.” He paused, allowing the translator to catch up, before adding: “This is not Germany. It’s not even Poland.”

Bernie listened with a certain amount of irritation. Not only because having a translator was a pain in the rear, but because Korisov was a generally irritating guy. He was very good at his job and more. The man was a master gunsmith who had taught himself to read and calculate ballistics. Through skill and hard work he had moved from the
Streltzi
to the service nobility. Not an easy thing to do in Russia, Bernie had already learned. Still, Korisov’s contempt for the average Russian was irritating to Bernie, and he wasn’t even Russian.

Meanwhile, Natasha spoke up. “Why isn’t it possible, Andrei Korisov?”

“Because they’re too complicated. No, it’s not simply that. It’s a combination of things. I could build a rifle like the American’s by hand. It would take me about a month and it wouldn’t be as good as his Remington model 7400, but it would work and it would fire a .30-06 round, if we had some to put in it. Then I could build another, and it would take me about a month again. And ten years from now, after Poland had invaded and taken Moscow, I would have made about one hundred and twenty rifles.”

Natasha just looked at him and Andrei blushed, then continued. “I’m sorry, Princess. But it’s hard to explain. To make rifles like Bernie’s, in any number, we need so many tools that we don’t have that I can’t even imagine them all. Most Russians are still spending all their time growing food.”

At this point, Bernie took up the argument. “It’s the ‘tools to build the tools’ problem, Natasha. We had the same problem in Germany, although apparently not as severely. Up-time we could do incredibly complex things, precisely the same way, time after time, very quickly by using a variety of machines, each of which did one simple thing. But to get there, you have to build a lot of machines. I think Russia can get there, and that’s what your brother hired me to do, help you get there. But it’s not going to be fast. And from what I’ve been hearing about the political situation, it’s not going to be in time to help you at all with Poland.”

“Well, can’t you build the machines you need to build the rifles quickly?” Natasha asked.

“We don’t even know what most of those machines are, much less how to build them,” Andrei Korisov said dejectedly.

Natasha nodded and switched to English. “Very well. Bernie, I want you to get together with Andrei, and try to figure out something that we
can
make. Something that will only take a few machines.” They had their marching orders, and if Bernie didn’t like them much, it was pretty clear that they didn’t thrill Andrei either.