1632: Essen Steel by Eric Flint Read Free Book Online

negotiations were going on, Colette felt it would be unfair to sleep with him since it might affect his judgment.
    Wonderful, he grumbled to himself. I rediscover how great sex can be with a woman I'm in love with, and she cuts me off.
    Fortunately, the negotiations only took five days. Father Mazzare, rather ruefully adapting to the times in which Grantville found itself now, abbreviated the six months of premarital counseling that had become standard up-time to what he could fit into calling the banns on three successive Sundays. On September 10, 1631, they were the first persons to be married in St. Mary's church since it was renamed.
    * * *
    "No, no!" shouted Henri. "Thrust, not slice! And watch your balance! You look like a headless duck flapping its wings!"
    Colette smiled. A brief scuffle with ruffians in Erfurt on their honeymoon had prompted Josh to seek Henri's assistance in learning the proper modes of seventeenth- century combat. Henri had arrived back in Grantville in early September. He had also brought the first disbursement of Simon Dubois' estate, some two thousand guilders.
    Colette turned back to her conversation with Amy. "So you don't like this Walter Miller?"
    In July Greg Ferrara had convinced Amy to become an apprentice chemistry teacher at Grantville High School. What he had not told her, however, was who the teacher she was apprenticing with would be.
    Amy rolled her eyes. "God, the man belongs in a geriatric ward! He actually fell asleep in sixth period yesterday!"
    "What about Alexandra?" Colette smiled. Alexandra Selluci was the other new chemistry teacher at the high school.
    "She's not too bad," Amy said. "I think I could actually learn something from her. I told Tonya today that we have got to switch at the end of the quarter. No way I'm putting up with Miller for an entire semester."
    Colette looked over at the stove. "So how does the chicken look? I'm getting hungry." Colette had never learned to cook. Even when her mother had been alive Simon Dubois had hired servants to do both the cleaning and cooking.
    Amy opened the oven door for a quick peek and then closed it. "Looking good. I just wish we had more spices."
    Most of the spices available in Grantville when the Ring of Fire struck had been either used up or were being hoarded by cooks unwilling to part with them. This was particularly true given the fact that many spices taken for granted in the twentieth century were very expensive.
    Colette moved to set the kitchen table and glanced back at Amy. "Where's Bart? Still working at the foundry?"
    Amy nodded. "Yup, since he helped Josh get the two beehive ovens and the shell of the crucible steel building up, he's spent all of his time on getting the cupola furnace and the foundry started. He's got some partners for that, but they don't know much about casting. The smelting season is about to start and he wants to be ready in case they can get some cast iron from the local blast furnaces."
    At that moment they heard Bart's voice in the living room. "Hello, anyone here?"
    "Back in the kitchen, Dad. Is Mom coming?"
    Bart walked into the kitchen and shook his head. "Nope. Colette Mora got sick at the café and Sebastian begged her to come in and help. Business is picking up for them."
    Amy opened the oven door again and smiled at what she saw. "Chicken is ready. Better call the boys, Colette."
    * * *
    After dinner, conversation turned to the major topics of the month … Breitenfeld and business.
    "I really don't see how our arrival could have changed the outcome at Breitenfeld," Josh pointed out. "Gustavus Adolphus will win and Tilly will be driven from the field. But the farther away in time we move from the Ring of Fire the more likely things will change, especially as we begin interacting with people outside Thuringia."
    Colette nodded thoughtfully. "So my letters to Annette, my uncle, and Marie de Gournay will change history?"
    "How could they not?" Amy asked. "In our history you were