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Rotkäppchen

Written by Kerryn Offord

Freyburg, August 1633

Julius Halberstadt plucked at the shriveled leaves on his vines. "I tell you, there is something wrong with the vines," he insisted.

"It's just a bad year, Julius," fellow vintager Friedrich Beyerweck disagreed.

Julius dragged Friedrich closer to the wilted vines. "Look at that! Does that look like a bad year? It's as if there was no water, but the rains were better than last year." He plucked a bunch of grapes and waved it in front of Freidrich's face. "Look at that. They aren't even worth harvesting."

Friedrich caught Julius' hand and pulled it away from his face. "What do you expect me to do about it?"

"Come with me to Grantville. Maybe they can help."

Grantville, a few days later

Susan Beattie entered the farmhouse and stumbled along to the nearest chair before slumping down.

"Bad day?" her mother asked from the kitchen.

Susan lounged back in the easy chair and called back. "Lousy day. Heck, make that a lousy week. None of the test plots look like the crop will mature enough to harvest."

Lisa Beattie walked up behind Susan and started to massage her shoulders. "Don't take it so personally. You knew growing sorghum this far north was likely to be difficult."

"But we're managing to do it on our land."

"South facing land, Susan. Sheltered south facing land at that. We've got our very own microclimate that lets us continue to grow sorghum even though we're now the equivalent of north of the Canadian border."

"And that's the kind of land I looked for to plant the test plots." Susan shook her head. "All that seed wasted." She started to stand. "I better let Celeste at the Grange know the bad news."

Lisa pushed Susan gently back into the chair. "There's no need to do it now. Tomorrow will be soon enough."

"I wasn't thinking of going into town to tell her. The phone still works, doesn't it?"

The Grange

Celeste O'Connor was drafting a soil map for Birdie Newhouse when there was a knock on the door. She looked up to see one of the grange's part-time staffers at the door.

"Are you busy, dear?" Rose Harris asked.

"Not really. How can I help you?"

Rose stepped into the room and held the door open. "I think you might be able to assist these two gentlemen."

Celeste studied the two men. With their weather-beaten faces they had the look of farmers, and, judging by their clothes, well-to-do farmers. Both, as best Celeste could guess, were about fifty.

Rose made the introductions. "Herr Julius Halberstadt and Herr Friedrich Beyerweck, this is Frau Celeste Frost. She hold's a degree in agriculture from an up-time university, and I'm sure she'll be able to help you."

"Please gentlemen, take a seat," Celeste said while trying to read the expression on Rose's face. She didn't have a university degree. Almost, just one semester short in fact, but why would Rose puff up her qualifications? Well, now wasn't the time to worry about Rose. She had two potential clients to deal with first. "What seems to be the problem?"

****

Julius exchanged glances with Friedrich. This young woman was supposed to help them? Well, if she was an up-time university qualified expert, maybe she actually knew something. He emptied the small bag of cuttings and bunches of grapes he'd brought all the way from Freyburg onto her desk. "There is something wrong with the vines in Freyburg."

He waited impatiently while she examined the cuttings and immature bunches of grapes.

"It looks like the vines have been starved of water," Celeste said after examining them for a few minutes.

"There has been plenty of rain this year in Freyburg," Julius informed her.

The woman met Julius' eyes for a few seconds before she looked back down at the cuttings on her desk. Then she did something that surprised him. She reached into a drawer and brought out a magnifying glass, and then she bent her head and studied her desk through it. Julius glanced across to Friedrich. He shrugged his confusion back. The woman wasn't even examining the cuttings.

"What are you looking at?" Julius asked.

The woman lowered the glass and looked straight at Julius. He didn't like the look in her eyes. It spelt trouble. She waved him closer and offered him the small glass. Then she pointed at a number of small black dots on her desk.

Even through the magnifying glass Julius had difficulty seeing the small animals moving about on the desk. "What are they?" he demanded.

"They're probably the cause of your problem," she answered.

"How do we know they weren't already on your desk?" Friedrich asked.

The woman glared at Friedrich, the look daring Julius to say anything. But Julius was a married man. As such he had well developed survival instincts. He just smiled pleasantly and waited to see what she would do.

She sniffed loudly, then pulled a sheet of white paper out of a drawer and placed it on her desk. Then she shook the cuttings over it before passing the paper and the magnifying glass over to Friedrich. It was all achieved in total silence. Even Friedrich had realized he might have overstepped the mark and silently accepted the paper and magnifying glass.

A loud ringing emanating from a contraption on the desk broke the silence.

"Excuse me, I'd better answer that." The woman picked up part of the contraption and held it to the side of her head.

"Celeste Frost . . . Susan, hi . . . Yes, that is bad news, but I can't talk now, I have a couple of clients."

The woman smiled apologetically at Julius. He just stared at the object she was using. Was this one of the fabled telefones?

"Just a minute. Before you go, could you check your references for grape pests? You can? Thanks."

The woman held a hand over part of the instrument. "Sorry about this, but it's probably quicker to get Susan to check her references than for me to hunt up something around the office." As soon as she finished speaking she concentrated on listening to the telefone. He didn't like the looks passing across her face. Eventually she put the hand-piece down.

"Well?" Julius asked.

"Susan thinks that your vines might have been infected with an insect called phylloxera. What I need to do is take these . . ." She gestured to the dots moving around on her desk. ". . . and examine them under a microscope and compare them with pictures of phylloxera."

"And then you'll be able to cure us of our problem?" Friedrich asked.

The woman shook her head. "Not really. If it is phylloxera, then back up-time, Susan says the only successful treatment was grafting the vines to resistant rootstock."

"Grafting an entire vineyard to new rootstock? Surely the problem isn't that bad?" Friedrich asked.

"Susan didn't have time to look too deeply, but an encyclopedia she checked said that phylloxera almost destroyed the wine industries in France, Italy, and Germany in the nineteenth century."

"It could take years to produce enough root stock to replace our existing vines, and we can't afford to wait that long. We need a remedy now," Julius said.

Celeste got to her feet and walked over to a map on the wall. "Where is Freyburg?"

"Go up the River Saale until you reach Naumburg. Freyburg is about three miles up the Unstrut River." Julius watched the woman trace the blue line of the River Saale until she found Freyburg.

She turned to the men. "That's a long way north to be growing grapes."

"We are the northern-most growers in Germany," Friedrich said proudly.

"How long is your growing year?"

"Nearly five months. Why do you ask?"

The woman smiled. "Because I might have an ideal alternative crop for you."

"We are vintagers. What we know is how to raise grapes." Julius said.

"It'll be worth your while, if Freyburg is suitable," Celeste said.

"Suitable for what?"

"Suitable for growing sweet sorghum," she announced.

Julius stared blankly at the woman. "What is sweet sorghum?"

"Another name is 'Chinese Sugar Cane.'"

"Sugar cane? In Thuringia? Impossible," Julius said. Everyone knew sugar cane was a tropical plant.

"It's not real sugar cane. It's a similar plant that will grow in temperate latitudes. Susan's family has been growing sweet sorghum for sugar with some success on their farm near Grantville since the Ring of Fire. They've been planting trial plots around the area without much success, but if you can grow grapes near Freyburg, maybe you have a suitable micro-climate."

"You're suggesting we grow sugar in Freyburg?" Friedrich asked.

"Maybe," she said.

The woman seems convinced that we can grow sugar in Freyburg, and given the price of sugar . . . "How much do you think we could produce per acre?" Julius asked.

"You can't be thinking of growing this crop, Julius?" Friedrich sounded outraged.

"My vines are failing. I need to grow something. I have a living to earn." Julius turned back to the woman. "Can you tell me more about this 'sweet sorghum'?"

"Susan and her family are probably the best people to talk to. They can show you their operation and walk you through the whole process. Why don't I give her a call and see when it's convenient to take you around?"

"Please do," Julius said.

That night

Julius stepped off the bus that had brought them back into town after the visit to the Beattie's farm and waited for Friedrich to join him. Then the two of them walked to their hotel.

"Phylloxera is very bad news," Friedrich announced.

"We already knew that," Julius said. "But the sweet sorghum, that sounds interesting."

"I preferred Lawrence's suggestion. Plant American grapes and raise rootstock to sell to all the other vintagers who will soon be infested with phylloxera."

Julius nodded. Susan Beattie's grandfather had made a number of interesting suggestions. "That is for the long term. For the short term, I like the sweet sorghum. It grows from seed, and is ready for harvest in a season. For a vintager, it is a nice and simple crop to grow until he can grow grapes again."

"But what about the processing plant Lawrence says we need?" Friedrich asked. "It's no use growing sorghum if we can't process it for the sugar."

"Celeste said she knew someone who could get it built," Julius said.

"Did she mention any names?" Friedrich asked.

"Helene Gundelfinger."

Friedrich's brows rose. "Detlev Timmreck's widow?"

Julius nodded.

Friedrich shook his head. "I'll believe that when I see it. How would a grange employee get to know Detlev Timmreck's widow?"

Freyburg, September 1633

The "farm survey" had been expensive, but seeing the aerial photographs, taken by a camera suspended from a kite, of the vineyards along the Unstrut River almost justified the expense ...