"Grantville Gazette.Volume XIX" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Eric)

Hallelujah, Part One
David Carrico

Magdeburg – July, 1634

"It's here! It's here!"

The three men looked around as Marla Linder burst through the door. Next moment, she laid an oblong package on the table in front of them.

"What is here?" Franz Sylwester asked his wife. The inevitable smile crossed his face as he looked at Marla.

It seemed a lifetime since he had sat, pfennig-less, in the Thuringen Gardens and listened to her sing for the very first time, yet it had only been two years ago. It still amazed him that she had agreed to marry him. As an up-timer, she had had so many options open to her, but she had "fallen in love", to use the up-time phrase, with him, a crippled vagabond who had once been a musician. And it was from her support that he had fought his way through therapy in Grantville to reclaim his musicianship, and more.

Others might find flaws in Marla; Franz knew that. Indeed, some of his friends would mutter about "Minerva in jeans" sometimes after an episode of Marla's strength of will being displayed. And objectively, he knew she wasn't perfect. But when he looked at her-lustrous black hair, unbound and flowing over her bosom; blue eyes, capable of a gamut from flaming passion to piercing iciness, now sparkling with excitement; red blush shining through her translucent skin-all he could see was beauty. God Above, how he was blessed, and not just because of her appearance. Marla's passion for music equaled his own, and that was no small thing.

Franz's attention was drawn back to the moment when Andrea Abati asked, "So what is it?"

Marla finished unwrapping the package, almost bouncing in her excitement. When she folded back the last of the paper, a large book was revealed. It looked to Franz to be about eleven inches by fourteen inches. The worn cloth binding was a dark blue, closer in hue to navy than royal. Printed in gold on the front cover was the following:

HANDEL MESSIAH FULL SCORE

"This," Marla declared, "is our Christmas concert for this year." She definitely bounced after she said that. "I knew that Marcus Wendell had this on his shelves, and asked him to lend it to me. He hemmed and hawed a bit, but finally agreed to let me borrow it."

Christmas already, Franz thought. They had just finished their huge concert not two days ago; Bitty Matowski's production of her new ballet A Falcon Falls was to begin that night; yet already Marla was thinking about Christmas. Once again he had the feeling that he was running as fast as he could just to keep up with her.

"So, again I ask, what is it?" Andrea was smiling. As usual, Franz noted, Marla's enthusiasm was infectious.

Franz reached out and opened the book, turning the pages carefully. The sight of printed music drew the attention of all three men. Heinrich Schutz drew the book in front of him. Andrea adjusted his chair to sit at the Kappellmeister's right hand to observe the turning pages.

"A full orchestra conductor's score." Franz's surprise was evident in his voice. "By what miracle do you present this?"

Marla bounced again. "I was looking at my vocal parts copy, wondering how long it would take Thomas to reconstruct the orchestra parts from one of the recordings in Grantville, when I remembered seeing this in Marcus' office a year or so before the Ring fell. I thought it was so cool then, especially when he told me that it was the work that his conducting teacher used to introduce him to instrumental conducting. It still has all of his notes and cues penciled in."

"Does it now?" Franz muttered, his interest definitely caught by that last statement.

"It is an oratorio, yes?" Heinrich asked in his careful English. "A good one?"

Marla looked to the man who was the preeminent composer in the German states in 1634. "Yes, Master Heinrich, it is an oratorio. It was written in 1741 in twenty-four days by a German named Georg Friedrich Handel." Heinrich looked intrigued. "And it is arguably the greatest oratorio ever written; certainly the most famous in the up-time. One of the choral pieces from it is one of the two or three most widely recognized musical works in the up-time culture."

Master Schutz looked back to the score with an avid expression and patted a page with satisfaction. "So… Handel… a German, one who has much to teach me. I can handle this." He smiled as the others burst into laughter.

After her laugh ceased its pealing, Marla said, "Oh, Master Heinrich, that joke was so old up-time it had whiskers."

"Ah, but you are not in the up-time now, are you?" Heinrich's smile grew even broader. "It is a new joke here, now."

"As you say, Master Heinrich," Franz chuckled. "As you say." The sight of the usually somber composer indulging in a bit of humor was enjoyable in itself. Franz had the impression that Master Heinrich had not laughed much since his wife Magdalena died several years earlier.

"So," Franz turned to Marla, "you already had a copy of the vocal parts, and now we have the full score. Knowing you, you have a printer in mind to make copies."

"Yep. Herr Zopff."

Marla's smile lit the room up again. This time, however, Franz's heart did not respond with its usual leap. Instead, it descended to the region behind his belt buckle.

"Tell me you jest."

"Nope."

"Marla, the man is utterly outrageous!"

"I know, but he does good work."

"He will not deal with you!"

"I know, but that's okay." Franz's dumbfounded state increased as Marla's smile grew even brighter, if that was possible. "I know someone who's even more outrageous that I can turn loose on him."

Franz watched as Marla turned her smile on Andrea Abati.

Franz trudged along beside Andrea Abati. The day was warm enough that he wished he had left his jacket behind. Dust hung in the air, stirred up by wagons that trundled by with some regularity. The most recent wagon had rolled through the dung deposited in the street by preceding teams of horses. Andrea, on the outside, had nimbly avoided the splash, but his muttered response was both expletive and description of the matter.

Franz grinned in sympathy. "You are getting quite proficient in vulgar German, you know."

"It is the low company I keep," Andrea responded with a dry smile. "On the other hand, as an Italian, I have a certain standard of decadence I must live up to." That quip evoked a laugh from Franz.

True to her word, Marla had left the dealing with the printer Zopff to Andrea, who had promptly drafted Franz to accompany him to beard the lion in his printer's den. Now Franz pointed ahead.

"There… there is Herr Zopff's place of business. See the sign says 'Zopff and Sons.'"

"At last," Andrea sighed dramatically. "Let us fulfill our charge, so that I can return to the warmth of my rooms."

"Warmth?" Franz said incredulously. "How can you be cold, man? The sun is high and warm, summer is in full bloom."

"Ah," Andrea gave a bit of a shiver, "but you are not from Roma. Trust me, this air would be considered chilly, there."

And with that, they arrived at the door to the shop. Franz held the door open out of respect, allowing Andrea to enter before him. He turned from closing the door, to see Master Agamemnon Zopff stepping forward to confront-that was the only word that came to Franz's mind-his companion.

Herr Zopff was-impressive, Franz decided. He had seen the man at a distance before, but never up close, and never in his working dress. With a coat on, Herr Zopff appeared to be stocky. Without a coat, with his sleeves rolled up and his printer's apron strapped on, the printer was revealed to be barrel-chested and heavily muscled. True, his belly did indicate a fondness for the fare of the taverns, but Franz would not have wanted to trade either blows or handshakes with the man.

His thought of a lion earlier was also somewhat on pitch, Franz decided. Herr Zopff's hair was thick, and flared out like a mane where it had pulled loose from being tied back. His steps, despite his size, were not ponderous. And there was a definite glint to his eyes, not unlike a carnivore sizing up his next prey.

"And what can Agamemnon Zopff do for you distinguished gentlemen?"

Zopff's voice completed the leonine resemblance as it rumbled out of his big chest. Despite being low, it was smooth, not gravelly or hoarse. Franz saw Andrea tilt his head a little to one side as he appreciated the timbre of the printer's voice.

Franz found Zopff's habit of referring to himself in the third person somewhat pretentious. That was, however, in keeping with the man's reputation, along with his scorn of all other printers in Magdeburg. He was, unfortunately, almost as good a printer as he thought he was, so Marla was right selecting him to print the music of the oratorio.

"I am Andrea Abati, and this is Franz Sylwester. We have a proposal for you to print-or I should say reprint-some music from Grantville," Andrea began.

Franz saw Zopff blink as Andrea's soprano voice registered with him. The printer's eyes widened and his lips parted as it dawned on him that he must be talking with the famous Italian castrato that had been the talk of Hoch-Adel society for several months now.

After a moment, the printer said, "Come, then, and let Zopff see it." He turned and beckoned to a younger man who was cleaning a press in the rear of the room. "Patroclus, come."

Andrea waved Franz forward to the desk that Zopff led them to. Franz opened his satchel and laid out both the full score and the vocal parts book that Marla had given him. Then he opened both of them, to display the music printed within. Both Zopff and his associate leaned over the pages, avidly drinking in the music printed within. The young man, who from his appearance must have been one of the advertised sons, wiped his hands on a cloth several times, then turned pages in both books by barely touching the edges. The two men examined the books carefully, spending almost as much time looking at the paper and the bindings as they did the printing. Zopff definitely sneered when he saw the paper binding on the vocal parts book. At length the two men straightened. Franz saw the younger give a slight nod in response to Zopff's querying look.

"So, what is it you want?" the printer's voice rumbled again.

"For immediate use," Andrea responded, "five copies of the large score and one hundred copies of the parts book."

"Bah! That is not enough to make it worth Zopff's effort!" The printer smacked his chest, evoking a sound not unlike an ax blade sinking into a tree trunk. "You insult Zopff! Zopff, who once printed for the Elector of Brandenburg himself!"

The young man laid his hand on the printer's arm. "Father, hear them out." Grumbles resulted, but Zopff calmed down.

"For immediate use," Andrea repeated, an edge to his tone. "But we anticipate that this will sell many, many copies. This is the first of the great Grantville works to be printed here and now, and musicians from Moscow to London, Stockholm to Madrid and Naples will want copies of this." He paused to let that sink in. Franz saw the eyes of both the printer and his son take on a far away look. "Thousands, no, tens of thousands of copies," Andrea resumed, "all of which can come from your presses." A smile began to grow on Zopff's face. "All under the auspices of the Royal Academy of Music."

The smile disappeared.

"Who is this Royal Academy of Music?" the printer thundered. "Zopff is the printer! Zopff is the publisher! Zopff, who once printed for the Elector of Brandenburg, determines what is good, and what is not!"

Franz almost smiled. Despite the noise, the printer at that moment bore a strong resemblance to a character from one of the Grantville cartoons who had stuck his finger in one of the electric sockets. His hair was bristling, his arms were wide-spread, and his eyes were almost alight.

Andrea was manifestly unimpressed with the claims of past glory. "That, as the Grantvillers would say, was then. This is now. Who have you printed for lately?" Zopff turned red and seemed to swell up. "Whoever we settle on will print for the Royal Academy of Music, founded by Gustavus Adolphus Vasa. There are other printers in Magdeburg; Septimius Schneegasse, for example." Zopff's complexion now verged on purple. Andrea waited a moment. "And the last we heard, the Swedish king has a score to settle with your precious elector."

Once again the son laid a hand on his father's shoulder. Zopff stood tense for a moment, then deflated. Patroclus turned to the others.

"You are saying that we would become the exclusive printers for this… Academy of Music?"

"Yes," Andrea nodded. "Provided the quality is high." Zopff started to turn red again, but the son squeezed his shoulder.

"And this is just the beginning?"

Franz laughed out loud. "Only the veriest beginning. There is 350 years worth of all kinds of music to be printed, much of which will be in immediate demand."

Patroclus looked at his father intently. Finally, Zopff gave a grudging nod. He faced back to Andrea.

"Printers, now, music is a… a sideline. We print books. Sometimes those books contain music, most times they do not. It takes special fonts to print music. It can be very costly." Andrea nodded. "And the fonts we use do not look like the fonts in these books."

"True," Andrea nodded again. Now that the initial breakthrough had occurred, his voice was much warmer. "But we will insist on new fonts that match those in these books. This will become the modern style, and you will be the… how do the Grantvillers say it… you will be the leading edge. You will have an advantage."

Both printers' eyes lit up at that. They understood the concept of competitive advantage very well.

"And," Andrea interrupted their reverie, "there will be books as well, books that need some music printed amidst text. There will be treatises about music to be printed that will be in demand in every court and church and collegium in Europe. But you will need the new fonts for that work as well."

Zopff rubbed his hands together, smiling an acquisitive smile. "Zopff will do this."

"We have yet to negotiate prices," Andrea warned.

"Bah! We will do this."

"And we will have very strict standards about accuracy."

"Bah!"

Franz was starting to chuckle, watching the bombastic printer wave away the remaining obstructions as if they were nothing but the paper he printed upon.

Patroclus closed the books and set the vocal part volume on top of the full score.

"Can you leave these with us? The full score is about a quarto size, and the parts book is about an octavo size, but we must count pages and plan how they would be printed to tell you how much they would cost to print."

Andrea looked to Franz.

"Take great care," Franz conceded. "The full score is irreplaceable."

"As if it is a royal treasure," Patroclus affirmed, "for that is what it is."

The four men shook hands.

"Come in, come in." Franz opened the door to admit Patroclus Zopff. "Come, meet the others." He led him to the table. "You have already been introduced to Master Abati. Now meet Master Giacomo Carissimi, master of the Royal and Imperial Academy of Music; Master Heinrich Schutz, Kappellmeister to the Vasa court in Magdeburg; and my wife, Marla Linder." Heads nodded around the table as names were called. Zopff had sufficient presence of mind to return the nods, but his eyes were a bit wide as Franz concluded with, "Everyone, this is Herr Patroclus Zopff from the printer's establishment that we approached." Franz gestured Patroclus to a seat, and took his own.

Marla giggled. Everyone looked at her. "I'm sorry, but… Patroclus?" She giggled again

Patroclus' face twisted into a wry expression. "Yes, well, you have to understand that my family is from Berlin." He sighed. "My grandfather, Conrad Zopff, was a leading printer in Berlin, often printing works by or for the Elector's family. The Hohenzollerns would often name their children with classical names, sometimes from Latin, but just as often from Greek. Grandfather, I suppose thinking to imitate or flatter those whose coat skirts he rode, named his children Agamemnon, Ajax and Penelope. And likewise, my father named me Patroclus, my brother Telemachus, and my sister Eurydice."

"Oh, the poor girl," Marla gasped, trying to suppress yet another giggle.

"Indeed." Patroclus smiled. " My son, however, is named Conrad." There was a general laugh at that statement.

After a moment, Franz said, "Well enough. What is your response to our proposal?"

Patroclus laid the original scores on the table, then consulted a small notebook he pulled from his pocket.

"The large book, the… full score, you called it: it has 421 pages of music, plus another six pages of associated introductory material, for 427 pages total. It is a quarto size, so that would require 54 sheets to print."

Marla looked confused. "Sheets?"

"Paper is made in a large sheet," Heinrich explained from his end of the table. "The size of a book is determined by how many pages are printed on the sheet and how many times the sheet is folded." He pantomimed in the air. "A quarto page is folded twice, so that the pages are one-fourth the size of the sheet… hence quarto."

Light dawned in Marla's eyes. "And an octavo…"

"Would be folded one more time." Heinrich smiled.

Patroclus held up the vocal parts book. "This is about the size of an octavo." He laid it sideways on top of the full score book. "And you can see that it is about half the size of the quarto."

"So a quarto sheet will have four pages on it," Marla concluded triumphantly.

"Um, no," Patroclus said. Marla looked confused again. "It will have eight pages printed."

Light dawned again. "Oh, front and back." Marla thought for a moment. "How do the pages line up next to each other, then? I mean, the folding…"

Patroclus laughed. "That is my job, to make sure the pages are arranged in such a way on the sheet that when they are folded and combined with other sheets they are in the right place." He looked back to his notebook. "So, as to the paper…" he pulled samples out of his pocket and passed them around, "the price varies with the quality, of course."

Marla looked at a brownish piece, and shook her head. "This almost reminds me of the old paper towels the school used to use, the kind that would take all the skin off your nose if you tried to blow into them."

Patroclus looked mystified at her comments. "Ah, that is the cheapest. It runs around 4 florins per bale."

"Bale?"

"That is our standard measurement of paper. I would expect your proposal to use at least this paper." He pointed to a cream colored sample in Heinrich Schutz's hand. "That one will run 5-1/4 florins per bale. And this grade," he pointed to the sample held by Giacomo Carissimi, "this is 6 florins per bale. This I would recommend for your presentation copies."

"Presentation copies?" Once again Marla looked confused.

"The special copies a musician gives a patron, or a prospective patron," Heinrich responded.

"They are usually printed and bound to the highest degree of quality and presentation," Giacomo added.

Marla sat back and tapped her lips with her forefinger. Franz remembered seeing Mary Simpson doing the same thing. He smiled a little at the thought of Mary, wondering where she was and if she was safe. He prayed so, as she had meant so much to both himself and to Marla.

"We'll do presentation copies," Marla announced, then grinned. "But we'll do them with a twist. We'll do a superb one for the king and princess, then we'll do a few that are just a little less superb for the patrons. Then we'll tell them that the first ten or so who contribute so much to the support of this performance, including our printing costs, will receive one of these presentation copies, complete with autographs by the soloists and the conductor." She pointed to Franz. "That ought to interest them, bring out the excitement."

The discussion from there descended into the depths of printing operations and costs. Schutz proved to be very knowledgeable about the business of printing. But then, Franz reminded himself, the master had managed the printing of several of his own works and collections over the years. Printing costs per sheet or per bale; how many pages to the sheet; how many sheets to the signature; how many signatures to the book; the question of whether engraving should be done instead of typesetting; the costs of creating the special fonts for music and text for both books; all were discussed at length. Franz choked back more than one yawn before the final agreements were reached. Both Schutz and Carissimi were satisfied, so Franz was certainly not in a mind to object.

Hands were shaken all around. Patroclus leaned back in his chair, almost as if in relief. He looked around at the others. "Who will do your binding?"

Once again Marla looked surprised. Poor Marla, Franz thought to himself. She was certainly receiving an education in the down-time printer's world. Nothing was as simple as she thought it would be.

"Ah, I forgot to ask if you handled the binding as well." Schutz shook his head.

Patroclus sighed. "If you ask my father, he will say that we do. He looks to the past, still. When the family was in Berlin, we were indeed publishers. We would print and bind and sell, both our own work and that of others. But today, here, now, we are printers only, with but enough work to keep two of our three presses busy. The war, you know, has been very hard on printers." There were murmurs of agreement around the table. "So, no, we do not bind. I can recommend to you Friederich Mappe. His work is very good."

After another round of polite conversation, Franz escorted Patroclus to the door. When he returned to the table, they all looked at each other.

"So," Marla broke the silence, "we are on our way."

"Indeed." Schutz agreed. "But as I sat here this afternoon, it occurs to me that the dissemination of the uptime music, if you want it to be in your hands, you must take steps to acquire it."

The resulting discussion lasted until late in the evening, and Franz didn't yawn once.

Lady Beth Haygood looked up at the knock on the door.

"Oh, hey, Marla. Come on in." She reached over and moved a stack of papers off the nearest chair. "Have a sit."

"Thanks, Lady Beth." Marla took a seat. Lady Beth observed to herself that married life really seemed to agree with Marla. She looked more… settled, somehow, than she had since any time after the Ring fell. But she was still wearing her favorite jeans, so she hadn't changed all that much. "So," Marla asked, "what did you need to see me for?"

"You remember that conversation we had a few weeks ago?"

"The one about the girls' school?"

"Yeah. You remember you said if we needed a music teacher to call you?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, if you were meant that, the job's yours."

Marla's face lit up. "Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Cool! Wait until I tell Franz!" Marla stared off into space for a minute or so. Lady Beth waited until she came back into focus. "So, what will my responsibilities be?"

Lady Beth searched in front of her for a particular piece of paper. "Where is it… ah, here it is." She looked over the top of her glasses at Marla. "We don't know how many students we'll have this first year. There's been a lot of interest shown, and we have over thirty girls enrolled now. We think the enrollment will top out at around seventy, maybe a little more."

"Wow." Marla looked impressed. "That many, huh? Great. And how many of them will be involved in music?"

"All of them." Lady Beth smiled in response to Marla's surprise. "It's going to be a required part of the curriculum. In this day and time, music is looked on with almost the same favor as sports was in our time. Every parent who enrolled or is thinking about enrolling a student has asked questions about music, and about who would be teaching it. In fact, your name actually convinced some people to go ahead and enroll now, when I told them we were going to ask you to teach the music."

Marla now looked a bit taken aback. "Umm… seventy girls, huh? I know that people here and now take their music seriously, but I still wasn't expecting quite so many." She shook her head, then straightened up. "But that's great. Nice big choirs I'll have. Do you have an age breakdown yet?"

"We're going to run the equivalents of fifth through twelfth grades. Today, our guess is forty to fifty in fifth and sixth grades, with the rest spread across the higher grades. That balance will even out in a year or so, I expect."

"Okay, that's two, maybe three classes. I'll dig out some of my children's choir material from church."

Lady Beth chuckled. "Marla, dear, you're going to find that a lot of these girls are already pretty musically proficient. They all participate in their church liturgies in the congregations, so they all can sing-some of them rather well. And most of them, the older ones anyway, can play an instrument to one degree or another."

Marla shook her head. "There I go again, assuming that because I'm the up-timer I know everything and I'll have to start at square one."

"Well, you might have to in one respect," Lady Beth said. "I doubt that most of the girls, even the ones who play an instrument, are musically literate to any great extent. Most of them learn by rote, from what I can find out."

"So, I'll have to teach them at least some theory in the first few weeks," Marla concluded. She smiled in relief. "Good. I have some Kodaly materials I can use with the younger kids, and I'll just work the older kids through one of the basic theory sections of my theory book. By the time we get through those, I should know everyone and their abilities."

"Good." Lady Beth picked up another piece of paper. "I've been to the town house we're using until the school buildings are finished, and there's a harpsichord there. For other instruments, the girls will have to provide their own. So, what else do you need?"

"Blank staff paper, from one of the printers. Check with the Zopffs. Pencils… preferably some of those imitation #2 yellows that showed up in Magdeburg this year. Something to use for erasers. Books, when I can get them printed." Marla thought some more. "And a piano." Her gaze at Lady Beth was most direct. "It doesn't have to be a grand. In fact, it probably shouldn't be. But I need a piano."

Lady Beth smiled. "I already thought of that. Casey Stevenson is teaching here now. In fact, she and Staci Matowski are working with the girls we've already enrolled. Anyway, Casey's mom had a piano."

"Sure," Marla interjected. "A pretty good Baldwin console, if I remember right."

"Well, Casey said we could 'borrow' it, since there's nobody at home to play it anymore."

"Great." Marla smiled. "You and Casey send a wire to Ingram Bledsoe and tell him to get it shipped up here. Tell him it's for me, and he'll make sure you get it as soon as possible and in the best shape."

"I didn't think of Ingram." Lady Beth jotted a note.

"I was going to recommend that you wire him to buy one, but if you've got one for free, that's great."

Lady Beth finished her note, then looked up with a smile that could only be called sinister. "Another thing-how's your Latin?"

"Latin?" Marla looked perplexed. "You know me, Lady Beth. I took French in high school, and learned a bit of Italian and modern German from all the art songs I sang in my voice lessons. Since the Ring fell, I've spent most of my time trying to learn the various dialects of the nearby Germans. When have I had time to learn Latin?"

"Well, you'll have to learn it. Abbess Dorothea, who's the closest thing to a certifying agency here and now, says that all instructors must be fluent in German, Latin and at least one other language. French, now," Lady Beth dived for another paper, "yes, we're covered. Madame de Farge, one of the Huguenot French, has agreed to teach. So you're off the hook." Another evil smile at Marla.

"You're not serious… are you?"

"On the Latin, absolutely."

Marla heaved a sigh. "Well, I learned German in two years; I suppose I can learn Latin as well. Master Giacomo and Master Andrea can probably help me."

"I'm afraid not." Lady Beth turned serious.

" What? Why not?" Marla was starting to get peeved, Lady Beth realized, so she held up her hands.

"Calmly, calmly. It seems Latin comes in two flavors…"

"You mean Latin has dialects?" Marla demanded. "I have to learn how many versions of this stupid dead language?"

"You only need to learn one. But it can't be the one that the men from Italy know. The pope's Latin, it's sometimes called."

"Aha. Political correctness rears its ugly head." Marla settled back.

"Yep. And the pope's Latin has been very influenced by Italian speech patterns. No, you'll need to learn from one of the northern Germans. Their version is called 'humanist' Latin. It has the advantage that it sounds more or less the way it looks on the written page. You can't say that about the pope's Latin."

"Great. So all I need to do is find my choir materials, find a Latin teacher-for me-and figure out how I'm going to teach seventy kids who may or may not be able to play and sing, but probably don't read much music."

"I'd say you've got it." Lady Beth nodded in affirmation. "Although you can talk to Casey and Staci about the Latin, find out who's been helping them. For that matter, they can probably get you started. You've got a bit of an ear for languages from all your training, you know, and knowing French and a little Italian should help."

Marla stared off into space again for a moment, obviously thinking. Lady Beth clasped her hands and waited for the train of thought to arrive at the station. After a moment, Marla's gaze focused back on her immediate surroundings.

"Do you have class size limits?"

"Well, we're going to try and hold the line at twenty pupils per teacher in the regular classes."

"Will that apply to me?"

"Does it need to?"

"Um, for choir, no." Marla was tapping her lips with her forefinger. "But for the theory classes, yes. I can't have fifty kids in a class. That's at least three, maybe four classes. At an hour a class, that's the max I can take in one day. In fact, that may be more than I can handle. You may need to think about having Casey available to at least help with the younger grades, maybe even teach them."

Lady Beth focused a very direct gaze on Marla.

"Why?"

"Because," Marla sighed. "Lady Beth, I'm a professional musician. I have a reputation. You said yourself that the mention of my name had convinced people to sign up for the school. But being that professional musician places major demands on my time. Just practicing on piano, voice and flute takes at least six hours out of my day."

"Good Lord, woman," Lady Beth exclaimed. "How much sleep do you get?"

"Enough. Fortunately, I've never needed as much as some people. But the thing is, that's my priority. I have a lot of repertoire to learn." Marla looked down for a moment, then directed her gaze to Lady Beth, locking eyes with her. "I almost went crazy when the Ring fell and I lost the chance to do this in our time. God's given me another chance, and I'm grabbing it with both hands. Right now I'm one of the elite in Magdeburg. I may not be in Andrea Abati's league-yet-but I will be. I'm riding the crest, and I need to stay there as long as possible. I want to shape the future for other women in music, which means I've got to be prominent for a long time."

"So what does that mean for the school?" Lady Beth asked. "I can't afford to pay you just for your name."

"I know that. I will give you as much time as I can, but I can't be a full time teacher. There's not enough hours in the day. I've got to have at least one assistant now for the younger kids. And if the enrollment's going to build like you think it will, then there may have to be more than one."

"Maybe, just maybe, I can squeeze a few hours of time a week from Casey's schedule," Lady Beth muttered, looking at the teachers' schedule she had pulled out of a drawer. "Staci's is out of the question." She looked up. "But where am I supposed to find more than that?"

Since it had been something of a rhetorical question, Lady Beth was a bit surprised when Marla responded.

"I really want to use the Kodaly methods here. Send wires to the choir directors of the Grantville churches. Find out who's been leading and helping with the children's choirs in the churches, and what methods they use. That's where I got my training and a lot of my material, when I was doing that in high school. Maybe one of the helpers can be lured to coming to Magdeburg for a job in a prestigious girl's academy."

"Hmm." Lady Beth made another note. "That's actually not a bad idea. Marcus Wendell may know of someone, too."

"If no one is available, then look around locally and find someone who teaches children to sing in churches or schools and hire them away. I can teach the Kodaly methods to other teachers if I have to."

Lady Beth jotted that recommendation down as well.

"You can say that the music program is directed by Marla Linder," Marla offered. "That would be true. If you want my name, reputation and cachet associated with the academy, that's the best I can offer."

Lady Beth set her pencil down again.

"I think we can work with that. So when could you start?"

Marla thought for a moment. "I have to find my Kodaly material and begin refreshing myself on it. Say, next Monday?"

"Could we meet on Friday to talk about scheduling?"

"Sure."

"Deal. I'll see you then."

Marla rose to go, and turned toward the door. Lady Beth dropped the little nugget she had saved for last. "One last thing." Marla looked over her shoulder. "You'll have to wear a dress in the classrooms."

A wry expression crossed Marla's face. "Yeah, I figured that would be the case. I guess I'd better look up that seamstress that Mary hired to make my recital gowns." Her hand ran up and down the seam of her jeans. "I probably wouldn't get much respect as a teacher in these." She gave a lopsided smile to Lady Beth. "But that doesn't mean I'll like it."

Lady Beth started laughing as the door closed.

Marla looked up from the letter when Franz walked in the front door and walked over to where she sat to place a kiss on her forehead. She raised her face for a proper kiss.

Some time later, Franz pointed to the letter. "What is that?"

Marla finished settling her hair and picked it up. "A letter."

"I can see that much." Franz's grin took the sting out of his sarcastic tone. "Who is it from?"

"Marcus Wendell."

Franz grew serious. "What does he say?"

"It's a copy of a letter he sent to Masters Carissimi and Schutz, where he talks about the stuff we discussed a few weeks ago.

"The matter of publishing the up-time music?"

"Yep."

Franz moved Marla's feet over on the footstool, and perched on the edge. "What does he say?"

"The gist of it appears to be that they are going to found something called the Grantville Music Trust." Marla flipped through the pages of the letter, looking for a particular section. "The lawyers are still looking into what the best legal form will be, probably some kind of corporation. Everyone who contributes music will be given shares in the trust, but they're still trying to figure out the formulas on how those shares will be calculated. You and I and Masters Carissimi, Schutz and Abati will all have an initial share, plus anything else we can develop. The trust will try to gather as much up-time music as possible, both printed and recorded, in order to publish it on a regular basis."

She looked up from the letter to see a smile growing on Franz's face. "This is good." He took her hand in his. "This is very good. It means that we do not have to feel like it is our responsibility alone to see this work done."

Marla smiled back as she squeezed his fingers. "You're right. And I do feel as if a burden has been lifted."

"Come in, friend Patroclus, come in." Franz opened the door wide for the encumbered printer to step through.

"Thank you, Franz. I am here with the first set of the…" Patroclus was obviously searching his memory. After a moment, his face brightened. "Ah, yes… the 'proof' pages as Frau Marla called them."

"Then you had best come this way, for she is waiting your arrival with great anticipation." Franz led the way to the table where Marla sat. She smiled as the men stepped through the door. Patroclus almost tripped, Franz noted, when she turned her gaze fully on him. It was good to know, he thought to himself with a small smile, that he was not the only man she affected so.

"Ah, Patroclus, you brought the proofs. Gimme, gimme." She held her hands out like a small child begging for a treat.

The printer set the wrapped books carefully on the table, then opened his very large leather folio to take out several pages. They were of the cheapest grade paper, what Marla had called "paper towel brown."

"The music fonts have all been identified and designed." Patroclus had a faint air of pride. "You will receive a bill for the jeweler who did the work. We have cast and finished enough to do three pages of the full score, which I have with me."

"What of the text?" Marla's forehead creased.

"There we were most fortunate, as the font used in your books is very like the fonts my grandfather used to print Latin works when we were in Berlin. My father is unable to dispose of anything from what he thinks of as our family's days of glory, and so I found the type stored in a shed behind our shop."

"Good." The creases smoothed out as Patroclus spread out the proof pages.

"We know that this idea of printing proof sheets for us to review before you do the actual printing is a new thing to you." Franz made sure his voice was warm. "But after hearing the stories from Master Schutz and Master Carissimi about how many times they and others had to manually correct printed books because of serious printing errors, this has to be done. The presentation of these works to, not just the Hoch-Adel, but the entire world, is too important for any preventable errors to be allowed."

"I understand," Patroclus sighed. "And in truth, their criticisms were fair. But you must understand that for most printers, music is a very minor part of our business. We do not have literacy in music, like we do words. We must just try to place symbols on the page, and sometimes it is not so easy."

"Musical literacy, huh?" Marla remarked. "Well, I hope you have your best people working this project, because by the time they're done, they will be very musically literate. If you think it would help, however, I can give quick lessons to your typesetters so that they will know enough about the music they're looking at to understand what they are doing." She grinned at Franz. "After all, if I'm going to be teaching basics at the school, I can do it for them as well."

"School?" Patroclus looked interested.

"I'm the new music director at the… let me make sure I get this right…" Marla took a deep breath. "The Duchess Elisabeth Sofie Secondary School for Girls." The school name all came out in a rush.

"Ah," Patroclus responded. "I have heard of this school. There is much discussion in the city about it. There are those who see women such as yourself," he gave a nod of the head that was almost a short bow to Marla, "and think that perhaps they will avail themselves of this for their daughters. You will be a part of it? You think it will be that good?"

Marla snorted. "It will be that good whether I'm a part of it or not. I know the people who are setting it up and getting it rolling. They're good people. The school will be great."

"Ah." Patroclus absorbed all of that. "My sister, Eurydice, reads and writes well-a printer's child, you see-and she can do some arithmetic, but there is more she should know. She is fourteen, so it is not too late. I will talk to Papa."

"Do that. It will be good for her," Marla said.

They all focused on the pages Patroclus had laid out. "You do understand that when these music books are set in type, you can't take them apart to reuse the type," Franz cautioned. "We expect these to be in demand for years."

"Generations, even," Marla offered.

"That was mentioned in our discussions some time ago." Patroclus was not smiling. "You are paying for the fonts, so that is not an issue. It is the storage that is a problem-that, and the frames. It would take over 200 frames to set and hold all the type for the pages of both the full score and the vocal parts book. We do not have that many. There may not be that many in all of Magdeburg."

"Can you build more frames?" Marla asked.

"Given time and money, of course we can. But even if we had the frames, we have no place to store that many." Franz opened his mouth, only to be overridden by Patroclus. "And you are not paying us enough to move."

"What do you suggest?" Franz got his question in.

"There are two things you need to consider. First, you-we-will not have exclusive editions of whatever works you publish forever."

"What do you mean?" The creases were back in Marla's forehead.

"Once they see the demand for them, other printers will copy your works and produce their own editions. I agree that the music font will be a problem for them, but they will do it. They will not be as good as ours, naturally." Patroclus smiled. "But they will find buyers."

"And this is legal?" The creases were now valleys.

"Yes. Oh, it is not considered ethical by many, but it does happen. Once the war is over and some measure of prosperity returns for both book readers and printers, it will happen more frequently."

"Copyright laws," Marla muttered. "Gotta get ahold of Mike Stearns or Ed Piazza and talk about copyright laws."

"You mentioned two things?" Franz asked

"Yes. The second is to determine now how many copies you wish to print. Printed signatures can be stored easily, particularly if they have not been bound yet. And the more we print, the less expensive the per copy cost becomes as the setup costs are spread across the total number of copies."

Franz looked at Marla. She looked at him. They raised their eyebrows at each other. "We will talk to the others about this," he said after a moment. "Meanwhile, we should finish the proofs, so that you may return to your shop." They all looked to the table again.

"This is the title page, about which I have two questions." The printer looked at them, and Franz motioned him to continue.

"First, who is this Carl Fischer, Inc. who is mentioned at the bottom of the page?"

"Actually, that was the up-time publisher who produced the full score," Marla replied. "And it wasn't a person, it was a company."

"Ah. So the G. Schirmer, Inc. on the vocal parts book is also a publisher?"

"Correct."

Patroclus pulled a pencil out of his pocket, and made a note on the sheet. "So, we can replace their names with ours."

"And the Royal Music Academy, and the Grantville Music Trust." Marla made sure those weren't left out.

"As you say." Patroclus made more notes, then looked up. "There were two publishers for the same work?"

Marla laughed. "Oh, yes. Remember, in the up-time, this was over two hundred and fifty years old. Handel and his family were no longer around to care. There were probably more publishers than that who printed this work. These were just the publishers of the copies in Grantville."

The printer thought about that, then shrugged. "As you say. My other question is, exactly what was the name of the composer? The full score and the cover and title page of the vocal parts book say Handel, but the introduction to the vocal parts book says Handel. Those are two very different words in German." Patroclus jotted them on a blank space on the sheet, but Franz had definitely heard the difference.

"Umm." Marla put her finger to her lips for a long moment. "I read something about that. Oh, yeah… if I remember correctly, Handel is the correct name, but he changed it to Handel after he settled in England. Seems like the English kept forgetting to include the umlaut when they printed his name, and outside of the royal family most of the English didn't know how to pronounce it. I guess he gave up fighting it. Made a virtue out of necessity, maybe."

"So, how should we do it now?"

"He was German, right? We're in Germany, right?" Both men nodded. "Then it's Handel." Patroclus penciled more notes on the title page. "Something small we can do right the second time around."

And with that, they began reviewing the music pages.

Lady Beth looked down at the class schedule she and Marla had just finished creating. "Okay, so you're going to teach one class of choir for now, one class of senior theory and one class of junior theory, all scheduled before noon. Casey will take the other two classes of junior theory. Hopefully by the time the enrollment grows enough to stretch those classes past the limits, we'll have some answers back from Grantville about someone taking us up on our job offers. I got some names from Wendell and sent some telegrams off right away."

Marla started gathering her notes. Lady Beth took advantage of the break in the conversation to change the subject. "Have you started your Latin yet?"

" Amo, amas, amat. " When their laughter was done, Marla looked to Lady Beth. "One last thing… I've already been approached by families wanting private music lessons for their daughters. What's the school's policy going to be on that?"

Lady Beth leaned back in her chair, ran her hands through her hair-catching the pencil as she dislodged it from behind her ear-and sighed. "The school doesn't have a policy, because I haven't given it much thought. What do you suggest?"

"You can either count it as an elective within the curriculum, charge the fees and pay me, or you can let me arrange things directly with the families and they can pay me."

"Hmm… I think for now let's have them connect directly with you. As time goes by, we can incorporate that into the formal curriculum if we want or need to."

"Fair enough," Marla replied. She started to stand, only to settle again when Lady Beth raised a hand to stop her.

"Are you planning to give the lessons at the school?"

"Yes."

"Hmm…" Lady Beth hummed a lot when she was thinking. "That means you'll be using school facilities, maybe school supplies, school piano. I think the school needs some slight compensation."

Marla looked a bit wary. "I might agree to that. How much are you thinking of?"

"Twenty-five percent."

Wariness gave way to another frown. "Nope. Too much. I might go five."

"Twenty."

"Seven."

"Fifteen."

"Nine."

"Twelve."

"Ten, and no more, or I'll teach them out of my house." Marla's tone was rock solid.

Lady Beth smiled. "You always were the most stubborn girl I knew. All right, agreed on ten percent, based on your receiving the payments from the families. How many of the girls will you take?"

"I can give an hour a day per week. Figuring a half hour lesson, which is all that most of these girls would have the stamina for, that's ten girls. However, if you want to let our agreement stand as a model, Master Andrea could take quite a few more, maybe up to twenty a week."

Lady Beth whistled. "You don't plan by halves, do you, my dear?"

"I told you my goal-I want women in music, and I want it in this generation. This is where I'm going to start."

"Agreed. And if we're going to allow adjunct private music lessons, we really ought to offer more than voice. What do you recommend?"

"There's no reason why the same model wouldn't work for all the music tutors. I could take a mix of voice and piano, maybe modern flute as well. Hermann Katzberg could teach piano, harpsichord, and possibly the lap harp. I'm sure that Franz could provide a list of men from the orchestra who would teach the various strings." She quirked her mouth sadly. "I wish we had someone to teach guitar."

Lady Beth let the silence grow for a moment. It was obvious that Marla still missed her brother Paul. "If you'd ask Franz, I'd appreciate it," she said at length.

Marla took a deep breath and nodded. Once again she gathered her things and this time she stood. Lady Beth stood as well, holding out her hand.

"I'll see you Monday morning, and we'll get you started." Marla shook hands with her, and started for the door. "And Marla…" The younger woman looked back over her shoulder. "I'm really glad you're going to be working with us."

An expression of pleasure crossed Marla's face.

"Thanks, Lady Beth. I'm really glad to be here."

October, 1634

"Marla!"

On her way out of the Duchess Elisabeth Sofie Secondary School for Girls, focused on her afternoon schedule, Marla Linder at first didn't react when she heard her name called. When it did register, she turned and waited for the woman who was approaching her.

"Hi, Amber. What are you doing here?"

Amber Higham stopped beside Marla and looked up at her. "I had several items of business in Magdeburg, so I got a substitute teacher for my classes and made the trip."

"So what have you accomplished so far?

"I took a look at the plans for the new opera house to see if I could see any problems from a performing point of view."

Marla grinned. "Yeah, that's exciting. I can't wait for that to be done. They promised some time next year." She laughed for a moment. "Notice me not holding my breath, though. I remember when the builders ran so long with the addition to the high school my freshman year. So, what else?"

"I just sat in on a discussion between Abbess Dorothea and Lady Beth. The Abbess let it be known she is pleased with the progress the school is making."

"That should make Lady Beth feel good. How long are you going to be in town?"

"I leave tomorrow-I have to be back for homecoming and stuff."

"Ah, yes. Can't miss that."

Amber cocked her head. "So, how are you doing? I hear you're pretty busy these days."

The two women turned and started toward the door.

"Busy… that's too mild a word, I think." Marla snorted. "I thought I had a pretty good idea of what this school stuff would be like, what kind of demands it would make. I mean, I had assisted with children's choir at church, even taught it some. I had worked with Mr. Wendell as a student conductor, so I thought I had some idea of how to prepare for that. I had the training to be a teacher after the Ring fell. And I walked that bunch of hard-headed Germans through the history of up-time music last year." The two women shared a smile at that, since the "hard-headed Germans" were Marla's husband Franz and several of their best friends. "But having three sets of preparation to do, plus teach the lessons, plus work on my own repertoire, has turned out to require more time than I thought it would. I've got to spend more time on the Reinecke piece, or I'll never be ready to play it next year."

"Is that the Sonata "Undine" that Heinrich mentioned?"

"Aha! The truth comes out. You came to see Master Schutz." Marla smirked at Amber, who wrinkled her nose back at the younger woman. "Yeah, that's the one." Marla opened the door, and they stepped out into the brisk autumn air. "I only have the music to it because my flute teacher had lent me his copy just before the Ring fell. I heard him play it once, and just absolutely fell in love with it. But it is so hard. I've been practicing for months, and still haven't got the first movement right."

Amber shivered, wrapping her coat around herself. "I think I've heard it done. As I recall, it sounded like a bear. Can you learn it in time?"

"I will do my dead-level best. If I can't play it, it won't be because of lack of trying." Marla tried to calm her doubts with outspoken assurance.

"Then you will succeed." Amber's matter-of-fact acceptance gave Marla a lift. "So, how do you like teaching?"

Marla smiled in a grand way as the two women started down the steps. "Oh, I love it, even with the demands on my time. I've got over fifty girls in the choir now, and it's so much fun. They're still learning to read music and to follow my lead as a conductor, but they're making real progress. We're working on music for a Christmas concert."

"That's good," Amber responded. "How are you voicing them?"

"Soprano and alto, for now. After the first of the year, I'll go to soprano I and II and alto. And my poor alsos, as well."

"Alsos?"

Marla could hear Amber's eyebrows lifting, even though she wasn't looking at her as they walked along. "Yes, the girls who can't sing soprano or alto. They just sing also. I have one girl that seems to be a hopeless monotone, and two, no, three who haven't learned how to sing what they hear." She shuddered. "It's actually worse when they're almost on pitch than when they're not. At least when they're wandering they might accidentally stumble on a harmony."

Amber reached over and patted her on the arm.

"I'm sure you'll do fine, my dear."

"I'll have them for several more years, so maybe I'll get through to them before they leave."

They stopped at the door to Amber's carriage.

"Can I give you a ride anywhere?"

Marla pushed her sleeve up to look at the man's wristwatch strapped to her arm. "Well, actually, I'm running a bit late. If you could drop me by the Academy's building, I'd appreciate it. I really don't want to hear Master Andrea being sarcastic about my being late-again."

"Heavens, we wouldn't want that." The two women shared a smile. "Let's go, then."

It only took a moment to settle in their seats and start the carriage rolling. Marla was enjoying being out of the wind when Amber said, "I meant to tell you, I really enjoyed the performance of Master Giacomo's Lament for a Fallen Eagle the other night. I think his new arrangement of it is even more powerful than the original that you did last year."

"Mmm." Marla closed her eyes and smiled dreamily. "Oh, yes." She opened her eyes again and looked at Amber. "Mind you, I'll always have a fondness for the original solo version, since that was basically written for me. However, having the full orchestra accompaniment and getting to sing with Andrea… that was as close to heaven as I've been since the day I got married."

"I suspect Master Giacomo was pleased as well."

Marla laughed. "He was like a kid taken to an ice cream shop and told he could have whatever he wanted. I've never seen a grown man almost giddy, before." She laughed again. "It was really funny during rehearsals. He kept trying to be serious, but then the smiles and chortles would leak out."

The carriage ran over a particularly large bump, which stopped the conversation for a moment.

"So," Amber started again, "I hear you're working on Messiah. What's your progress?"

"Good. Our printers, the Zopffs, have finished printing the vocal parts books that we require. They've passed them to Mappe the binder, who's finished binding Franz's copy of the score and should finish binding the choir copies next week. Then he'll start binding the presentation copies of the score and part book."

"That's very good. Maybe Mary's music account will stop hemorrhaging silver after that." Amber smiled at Marla's stricken expression, reaching across to pat her arm again. "That's one of the things that Lady Beth and I needed to talk about. It's not that bad, dear. And your idea of having the nobility bid on the autographed copies of the first edition has fed a lot of silver back to us."

The carriage pulled to a stop. Marla exited, then leaned back through the door. "Forgot to tell you. Andrea's pretty much done with the vocal auditions. We start rehearsing as soon as the vocal parts books are ready."

"Now there's cause for a hallelujah."

Marla opened the door of the house that was the temporary quarters of the Royal Academy of Music, Franz standing behind her. This admitted Friederich Mappe and his journeyman, followed by Patroclus Zopff, all of whose arms were filled with bundles of books.

"We have arrived, Frau Marla," announced the binder, "with the last of the parts books."

"Great! Bring them over here, please." She supervised the placing of the bundles on a side table, then picked one of the books up to examine it. Pages were flipped through, printing was examined randomly, paper binding was tested. The book passed muster with flying colors, and she placed it back in the bundle.

"Good job, both of you. Thank you for a job well done." They shared a moment or two of additional conversation, then the binders excused themselves, leaving Patroclus behind.

"Herr Franz, Frau Marla," Patroclus began, "we have not been so busy working on your order that we have not heard rumors of new printing machines." He raised an eyebrow.

"So have I," Marla replied. "But those rumors are all I know. I suggest you drop in at the Freedom Arches." Patroclus looked surprised. "Hey, those folks will know everything there is to know about what's happening in and coming out of Grantville. If they don't have one to show you, they'll be able to tell you who to contact."

"Hmmph." Patroclus did not look particularly pleased with that recommendation.

"Is there a problem with that?"

"My younger brother, Telemachus, spends every free moment at the Arches, to the neglect of his work."

"Telemachus," Franz mused. "He is the tall youth who was working the press the last time I was in your shop?"

"The same. And when he does come in from his visits, after turning an unhearing ear to our father's remonstrations he will yammer on about what great work the CoC is doing and how important the new printing devices are, all the while making the most elementary mistakes in setting type. I was almost forced to bar him from working on your commissions altogether." The printer shook his head. "He is my father's despair and our family's burden."

"I would say pray for patience," Marla said, "but scripture says that patience comes from trials. I won't wish that on you."

"Thank you. My poor father reads the wisdom of Solomon daily, but finds little that encourages him."

Marla was about to continue her sympathy when a thought struck her. "Patroclus… about the new printing devices…" He looked to her with interest. "Your brother is not wrong about those. You might talk to Lady Beth Haygood at the school. She said something about purchasing a mimeograph machine for the school. If that's true, she can tell you who to talk to."

"True." Patroclus nodded with a faraway look in his eye. After a moment, his gaze focused on Marla again. "My father and I, we have decided to print another one thousand full scores and five thousand part books."

"Wow." Marla was impressed. "So you're going to go for it, huh?"

"To quote Caesar, 'The die is cast.' Or it will be as soon as we start printing."

"So, what made you decide to commit to this?" Franz asked.

"The timing." Patroclus pulled at his beard with ink-stained fingers. "The next Leipzig book fair will be Easter of next year. By then, the account of your performance will have swept Europe. I will go. Mappe will bind some copies for us, and we will sell either bound copies or unbound signatures." He grinned suddenly, rubbing his hands together. "We will sell many copies, and many printers will want to become our friends." They returned his smile.

Marla expression changed as a thought crossed her mind. "A moment, please, Patroclus." She turned, dug a book out of her portfolio and thrust it in his hands. "This is the next thing the Grantville Music Trust wants you to publish."

Patroclus stared at a garish lavender binding with an unusual font splayed across the front cover. Marla watched as he deciphered the text and sounded out the words.

" Elementary Harmony. Second edition. Robert W. Ottman." He opened the cover and flipped through the pages. "A treatise of some sort, I take it?"

"Exactly," Marla responded. "This is the distillation of musical art from the up-times. I-we-expect this book to be even more influential than Messiah. You want to set this up and start printing lots of copies. Take it to your Leipzig fair. You'll sell a lot of copies of this one."

"One wonders," the printer closed the book, "since this volume is entitled Elementary Harmony, if there is a companion volume devoted to, shall we say, advanced topics?" He looked sidelong at Marla.

"Of course there is," she laughed. "And next year we'll ask you to print it. But we want this one to set the stage and tempt people to buy it. It will make an even bigger splash."

"Indeed." Marla didn't miss the glitter in Patroclus' eye. "We shall endeavor to, ah, splash with fervor." They shared a moment of laughter.

Patroclus stopped smiling. "Umm." He was obviously hesitant about whatever it was he wanted to say, but worked himself up to speaking. "About Eurydice…"

"Your sister," Marla prompted.

"Yes." The printer started to pull at his beard again. "Is she.. . you have selected her… my father…"

Marla started to smile again. "Your father is concerned about the propriety of your sister singing in the community choir for Messiah."

"Yes." Patroclus sagged in obvious relief that he hadn't offended one of their best recent customers.

"You tell your father that Gerde Drechsler is also singing in the choir."

The printer's eyes widened. "The daughter of the goldsmith?" A very well-to-do and influential man in Magdeburg, Herr Drechsler was.

"Yep. You think that will make your father a little more accepting?"

"I believe so."

"Of course, I can talk to him, if you think it would help."

"Oh, no, Frau Marla, that will not be necessary," Patroclus hurried to say.

Marla bit back a grin.

The fuse was lit the next evening.

Franz followed Marla and Master Andrea into the room where the choir would rehearse, his precious new copy of the full score of Handel's master work under his arm. He took a seat to one side as Andrea called everyone to order.

"Attention, everyone!" Andrea's voice cut through the clamor rather well, Franz noted, without becoming shrill. "Please sort yourselves out… sopranos to my left, then altos, tenors and basses."

There was the sound of shuffling feet as places were adjusted. The noise level dropped to whispers after everyone found their group.

"Welcome. As you know, I am Andrea Abati, one of the two vocal leaders for this work. And this, as most of you know, is Frau Marla Linder, the other vocal leader."

Franz watched as Marla stepped forward.

"Right. Call me Marla. We're all here to do the first performance of a masterwork of a great up-time composer. You have been chosen as the best singers available at this time and place. You will work very very hard. All of us will. You will learn notes, you will learn to pronounce English clearly, you will sing and rehearse until you are ready to drop from exhaustion. We all will. But make no mistake about it-we will do our very best." The expressions on some of the faces that Franz could see were mixed. Some were smiling in anticipation. Some were confused. A few were frowning. "And when we are done, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have participated in something truly historic. In years to come, you will be able to brag to your children and grandchildren that you sang in the first performance of Messiah. "

A hand went up in the midst of the group of tenors.

"Frau Marla?"

"Yes?"

"When will we perform this?"

"The week after Christmas."

"Then why are we starting so early? I mean, it is a long work, but even something like this would only get maybe three weeks rehearsal time in the Elector's court."

Franz saw Marla start to respond, but she stopped when Master Andrea looked at her and raised his eyebrows. She nodded, and the Italian master faced the questioner. "And what type of performance was produced from that rehearsal?" His cool soprano voice was straight toned; no sarcasm was to be found, which surprised Franz somewhat. Andrea possessed a tongue that could be razor sharp at times. "Was it perfect? Was it powerful? Or was it only acceptable?"

There was a moment of silence, before the other man was heard to say, "Acceptable."

"This I have observed from watching Herr Sylwester work with the orchestra." Andrea bowed slightly in Franz's direction. "Every performance benefits from as much rehearsal as possible. Our goal is not to make acceptable music. Our goal is to make great music. To make great music requires great commitment. We call you to that now."

"What he said," Marla added when Andrea turned to her. "Now, we are going to hand out the part books. You will be responsible for their care and protection, and for having them here at rehearsals." She looked at them from under lowered eyebrows. "And heaven help you if you lose or mangle your copy. As much as these cost, I will not be happy." Although Marla bared her teeth in what appeared to be a grin, Franz didn't see anyone smiling back at her. It appeared the singers had assessed her attitude and were taking her seriously. That was a good thing in this venue… conducive to continued good health and longevity of life.

The next few minutes were occupied by numbering books and assigning them to singers. At length Marla placed the assignment sheet in her portfolio, then turned to where the singers were assembled. Franz watched as she scanned them.

The forty-eight singers were arranged in their sections as Master Andrea had directed them initially. Franz smiled a little-the mixture of boys and women in the sopranos and altos would probably generate some little comment. He remembered Andrea saying that he would accept a pig for the chorus if it could sing to his satisfaction. Well, apparently a pig had not tried out, but there were three boys in the upper parts, as well as a woman standing with the tenors, trying to ignore the sidelong glances she was getting from the men.

"Master Abati tells me that you all can read music to some degree. I know that the style of the notes will be somewhat strange to you, but I promise it will not take long for you to get comfortable with them.

"I will be directing the choir rehearsals, and Master Abati will be working with the soloists. Those of you who are interested in singing solos should speak to him after tonight's rehearsal."

Marla looked around again. "Right. Let's get to it, then. Open your books to page 16. We will begin with the chorus 'And the Glory of the Lord.'"

Franz already had his full score open to that selection-page 19, in his book-and had his pencil and paper ready to take notes. He had already faithfully copied the penciled notes from Marcus' original score to his; all the little instructions about who to cue for an entrance and when, comments about tempo and dynamics, even the circles around some of the printed musical directions. Having done that, he was now ready to begin developing his own additions to those notes from watching Marla work with the choir. Once the singers began working with the orchestra, they would be following him, not her, so they needed to see the same approach.

True to her word, Marla worked them hard, first taking each vocal section through their notes several times with Hermann Katzberg playing their parts on the harpsichord. Toward the end of the evening, she finally had them try it all together at a tempo rather slower than the Allegro called for in the music. Even so, Franz could see widened eyes among some of the singers as they began to feel how this chorus should sound with the contrapuntal entries passing back and forth, leading up to moments of true chorale structure, then returning to the counterpoint. The grand forte choral entrance of "And the glory, the glory of the Lord" in the middle of the piece was so together, so strong, that the hairs on the back of Franz's neck stirred. And no sooner had those hairs settled down than they started standing again as the lower voices thundered "For the mouth of the Lord, the mouth of the Lord…" and were joined by the higher voices in the fortissimo "Hath spoken it."

Their eyes were glued to Marla, who held them there with her hands for a long moment. Finally she dropped her hands, to the sound of sighs and breath whooshing out of lungs as the singers released their tension. Franz relaxed along with them

"Good job, folks. That's a good start. We've got a fair amount of work to do on it before it will be ready, but that's not bad at all for one night's rehearsal. We will see you in two night's time." The others began stirring around, only to stand still as Marla spoke one more time. "And remember, you don't own those books. You really don't want to know how upset I can get if you lose one."

Franz watched Marla wave at Patroclus, come to walk his sister home, then turned away as the singers picked up coats and headed for the exit. The four of them-Marla, Franz, Andrea and Hermann-walked around, blowing out lamps and snuffing candles. Franz could see that evening rehearsals could get a bit expensive. When he voiced that thought, Andrea replied with, "Three of our singers are students in Marla's academy."

"Not mine," she interjected. "That's Lady Beth's school."

"Very well, the redoubtable Frau Lady Beth Haygood's academy, then. And several of the men work during the day. Dietrich, for example, works as a weaver. So we must accommodate them."

"Dietrich?" Franz asked, intrigued by the tone of Andrea's voice.

"Dietrich Fischer… the man in whom I may have discovered the voice that can do Iago."

Franz and Marla rolled their eyes at each other. Once the ground had been broken several weeks ago for the Royal and Imperial Opera House-more familiarly known as "Mary's Opera House", because Mary Simpson had done the initial planning and raised the commitments for the funding-Andrea's obsession for a staging of Verdi's Otello had become, well, obsessive. He had managed to convince those who had a say in the matter that it would be the premiere work for the hall. Now he was searching for voices, and in the process was at times driving his friends to the brink of uncontrollable urges to commit mayhem.

"Dietrich Fischer-the big hulking guy on the right?"

"The very one."

"He is that good?" Hermann asked.

Andrea shook his head. "No. He is at the moment very little more than raw talent that has learned to make a note or two. But he could become that good." He gave a slow smile. "And I will see to it that he does so."

Franz looked to Marla and Hermann. They all shrugged in a unanimous show of commiseration for the soon-to-be-harried Dietrich.

Franz looked up from his conversation with Matthaus Amsel as Isaac Fremdling entered the orchestra rehearsal room. Seeing Isaac brought a smile to Franz's face. Isaac was second only to Matthaus as a violinist, which meant that Franz had included him as part of the orchestra draft for Messiah. He opened his mouth to greet his friend, but closed it as Isaac's expression and lack of instrument registered.

"Where is your violin?" Matthaus asked the question that was foremost in Franz's mind.

"At home," Isaac answered. "Franz, I will not be able to play for you in this work."

Matthaus started to expostulate, but ceased when Franz held up his hand. "Why not?" was his simple response.

"Franz, who am I?"

"Isaac, one of my very best friends." Franz wondered where this was going.

"And?" Isaac was looking at Franz with expectation.

"One of the finest musicians that it has been my very great pleasure to know, hear and play with."

"And?"

The light finally dawned in Franz's mind.

"You are your father's son."

"A Jew, not to put too fine a point on it."

Franz nodded slowly.

"I cannot play or sing in this work. I am sorry." And from the expression on his face, Isaac was indeed regretful. He looked to say something else, but shrugged instead and looked to Franz with a bit of nervousness in his expression.

Franz stood for a moment, then held out his hand for Isaac to grasp. "As you will, my friend. There will be other music to play. Until then."

Isaac wrung Franz's hand strongly, opened his mouth as if to speak, then shrugged again. He touched a hand to his forehead, then turned and left.

Franz and Matthaus stared after him. After a moment, Matthaus stirred.

"Will you let him return later?"

"Of course." Franz stared at his other friend.

"Many of the other musicians will mutter and criticize him and you."

"They have not the right." Matthaus started to object, but Franz held his hand up again. "You know his story. I know you do, for I told it to you." Matthaus nodded, remembering the story of a son declared dead. Remembered, too, how he had shivered when he heard it. "Until the others have paid the kind of price Isaac paid for his music, they have not the right to complain or criticize." Franz quirked his mouth. "And besides, religious toleration is the rule now, remember. Isaac has the courage to stand by his convictions. We should have the courage to respect that."

Marla looked out at her girls. "Right. Now that you can read music reasonably well, the Duchess Elisabeth Sofie Secondary School for Girls choir is going to have a Christmas concert." That started a buzz in the ranks. "You're going to learn a lot of new songs, and you'll like most of them." She pulled a sheaf of paper out of her portfolio. Here's the first one."

The next few moments were taken up by the whisper and crinkle of paper being passed. Here and there a giggle punctuated the process.

"Take good care of those pages." Marla hid a grin as she noticed the girls rubbing at the ink on the paper and sniffing it. She'd always hated mimeographed stuff when she was in school, but now that she was on the other side of the teacher's desk she was ever so thankful that Lady Beth had managed to score one of the precious new machines. It had arrived just in time to speed up the music preparation for the choir process quite a bit, and right now she needed every edge she could get. Her already maxed-out schedule was now officially over the line into insanity, what with conducting the Messiah choir rehearsals four nights a week.

One of the girls held up a hand.

"Yes, Albreda?"

"This song is in Latin, Frau Linder."

"Yes, it is. And it won't be the last song you see in Latin, either. For that matter, we'll learn songs in French and Spanish for this concert, as well."

"But I'm not very good at Latin, and I don't know French or Spanish at all!" Albreda was looking a little panicked. Marla remembered that she was one of the scholarship girls. Her father was a mere accounting clerk for one of the master weavers, and she probably hadn't been exposed to other languages much.

"Ah, but you are taking Latin," Marla responded. "So that will help. And for those of you taking French or Spanish, singing songs in those languages will help you learn them. It won't be hard. Promise."

Albreda settled down somewhat, although her eyes were still a bit wide.

"Okay, everyone sing the melody this time through." Marla played an introduction on the piano, nodding where she wanted them to begin. The voices were unsure at first, but after a couple of beats they all came in.

" Adeste fideles

Laeti triumphantes

Venite, venite in Bethlehem…"

Franz looked to Ralf and Emil. "You are the lead trumpeters. Do you want to play this with the new instruments or the old? I care not, so long as you can play it in the right key."

The two men looked to each other for a long moment. Ralf, the older of the two, finally shrugged. "Let us try it with the new. If need be we can revert to the old valve-less horns, but I would rather have the valves and tuning slides."

"Then get ready, if you will."

The two musicians walked back to their seats. The rest of the orchestra ceased their conversations almost immediately, waiting expectantly. Franz waited until Ralf and Emil were seated and had their instruments in their laps before he stepped onto the podium.

"Section 12, if you please." He waited for pages to finish turning, until he could see everyone's eyes. Once he had their attention, he raised his hands. Instruments were raised to the ready at that signal. The tip of his baton gave very small movements as he counted, "Two, three, four…"

The broad downbeat of the Andante con moto beginning of "For Unto Us a Child is Born" sounded, and Franz led them onward.

"No, no, no!" Marla stopped the chorus with a jerk. For a moment, she looked around for something to throw, but by the time she found a pencil her self-control had reasserted itself. "That's not right. It's got to be lighter than that." She searched for an example until a mental light came on.

"How many of you folks saw A Falcon Falls when the ballet company staged that three months ago?"

Most of the almost fifty Messiah chorus members raised their hands.

"Good. You know what you sound like?" Heads shook across the front of the choir. "You sound like those clog dancing soldiers, all heavy feet and no bounce." That got a bit of a laugh.

"You remember how the ballet dancers danced, how they seemed to just barely touch the floor. That's how you must sing right here. You must dance this line, dance it lightly. There will be a time later to be strong, but right here… dance it with your voice." Faces showed comprehension, which encouraged Marla. She raised her hands. "From the beginning."

She gave the downbeat for Hermann on the piano, and on the second off-beat the sopranos entered, as lightly as ever she could have wished.

"And He shall purify,

And He shall purify…"

"Yes!" She surrendered herself to the flow of the piece.