Featured Article » Continuing Serials

Hallelujah, Part One

Written by 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 Schütz 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 Schütz 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 Schütz, 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 Schütz's hand. "That one will run 5 ¼ 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. Schütz 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 Schütz 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." Schütz 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 Friedrich 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." Schütz 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 Schütz, 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, Schütz 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 Schütz 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 ...