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O For a Muse of Fire

Written by Jay Robison

O for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!

—Shakespeare, Henry V

Andreas Gryphius, born Greif, waited outside the door to Amber Higham's office. He knew he hadn't done anything wrong, knew that that was not why the high school's drama teacher wanted to talk to him, but Andreas always felt a kind of nervousness when he had to deal with authority. He was also nervous because he was hoping for a teaching position at the high school, and was afraid that he was about to find out whether he'd gotten one.

The door opened and Markus Schneider strode out, nodding a greeting as he left. Behind Markus, and lingering ever so slightly when she saw Andreas, was Antje Becker. Markus was Andreas's age, eighteen, Antje a year younger, and they all knew each other through the high school's RTT—radio, television and theater—program. It didn't take long after the Ring of Fire for Janice Ambler and Amber Higham to realize how vital television and radio would be for information and entertainment. It wasn't enough to have performers and presenters. There would always be a surplus of people who wanted to perform. But any production, be it for radio, stage or television, would need camera operators, electricians, sound technicians, grips and more. Janice and Amber decided to start a joint radio-television-theater program that focused on giving interested students practical experience in the technical side of production. The result was a program for both the radio and television stations, Beyond Our Control, a sketch comedy series produced and performed almost entirely by students. Andreas had become the head writer, Markus the chief director of photography and Antje was in charge of sound.

Andreas was starting to branch out. Writing comedy sketches had become less satisfying over the last few months, especially after he'd written a radio play based on an up-time movie, My Man Godfrey, which cast a mix of local professionals and members of the high school drama club. Keeping the movie's basic romantic comedy and farce intact, Andreas came up with Unser Herr Gottfried, which he considered more suitable for a mass audience beyond the Ring of Fire. It proved quite popular, and Andreas hoped he could parlay his success into the teaching career he longed for, a secure position that would allow him to continue writing his plays and poems and hopefully attract a wealthy patron.

Amber stuck her head out into the hall. "Come on in."

Andreas made himself comfortable in the chair in front of the teacher's desk, but his nervousness must have shown. "Relax," Amber said. "I'm not sending you to detention."

"I had not thought so, Frau Higham. Do you have an answer for me?"

"I do. And I'm hoping you'll see the answer as a positive thing."

Andreas's heart dropped into his stomach. Amber confirmed his dread: He was not going to be hired to teach.

"Andreas, you're better off writing full-time. Teaching's wonderful, so's tutoring, but I know you. You won't be happy doing either of those things because they'll get in the way of your true passion. You'll resent the demands a teaching career will make on you, and you'll take that out on your students, your family and yourself. I've seen too many friends go down that road to want that for you."

"You teach, Frau Higham. And you seem quite happy."

"I do, and I am," Amber said. "But I acted for a long time first. I fed that passion, and over time it became a passion to teach others the craft. But you're not in that place, Andreas."

This was little comfort. "But there's my family's position to think of," Andreas said while trying to hold back tears of disappointment. "My stepfather has never objected to my writing, but he thinks I must find a respectable position to support myself and a future family if I wish to have one. He is not wrong in this."

Amber smiled, a little sadly. "I know we up-timers seem way too eager to flout tradition. But trust me on this one, Andreas. You will be nothing to no one if you go through life miserable and unfulfilled. I don't care what century you grew up in."

"Yes, Frau Higham. I will give thought to your words."

"I know it's scary, but it's time to spread your wings. And I promise I'll do anything I can to help you."

Andreas felt numb as he walked home. Orphaned by the war, he'd traveled west from his native Silesia, sent by his stepfather, Pastor Michael Eder. Andreas found himself in the mysterious new town of Grantville around the time of the Croat raid, traveling there with a group of young nobles and their tutor on a grand tour. The idea was not only for Andreas to get a life education, but also to learn from the tutor, one of the most respected in Danzig. At the tutor's suggestion and with his stepfather's blessing, Andreas stayed in Grantville to take advantage of the high school and its near-university level of education while his traveling companions moved on to Austria and Italy.

Except for one traveling companion. Andreas opened the door to his tiny efficiency apartment. He found his roommate, Paddy, tamping a fresh batch of marijuana into his long-stemmed clay pipe.

Paddy was an orphan too, though unlike Andreas, Paddy had never known his parents. Before Paddy came to Grantville, he didn't even have so much as a last name—he adopted "Antrim" (after the Irish county of his birth) when he arrived—but he did have a quick wit and a likable nature. He also had a beautiful voice, which he could use to imitate nearly anyone after hearing them speak for just a few moments, and when telling his stories, he created different voices for each character. And though he couldn't read ("Never got the knack," he was fond of saying), Paddy could memorize entire stretches of text if someone read passages to him just once or twice. Andreas was often quite surprised to hear his friend spout back scenes he himself had muttered half-aloud while writing.

As Paddy liked to say, all of those gifts were God's attempt to make up for the fact that he'd been born a dwarf and spectacularly ugly. He'd spent his early years in an Irish orphanage. When he was little more than a boy, Paddy was sold to a petty French nobleman who'd wanted a court dwarf. Paddy fully expected to remain in France the rest of his life, but he found himself being traded from court to court, finally landing in Danzig. One of the young noblemen in Andreas's party had brought Paddy along to provide amusement.

The dwarf decided he was staying in Grantville with Andreas and was pleasantly surprised when the local authorities agreed he had a right to do so. Pastor Eder sent his stepson enough for a small room, and Andreas had insisted Paddy move in with him. As Andreas pointed out, it wasn't as if Paddy took up a great deal of space. The money Paddy brought in as a storyteller at the Thuringen Gardens and other places around Grantville helped with the rent and food. Telling stories to the children at St. Veronica's paid for the marijuana that treated Paddy's chronic pain.

The dwarf looked up when Andreas closed the door. "Laddie, you look like someone spit in your porridge."

Andreas watched his friend light his pipe and inhale deeply. "Is the pain bad today, Paddy?"

"Not for much longer. I got to the Medical Exchange early enough to get some Stone Free. 'The stickiest of the icky.'" Paddy said the last phrase in a dead-on impersonation of Tom Stone. Others had started growing the "wonder weed" to keep up with demand for a reliable painkiller that was cheaper than Dr. Phil's Little Blue Pills, but everyone acknowledged that the best stuff came from Tom Stone's greenhouses at Lothlorien Farbenwerke, for which the dyer would take no money.

Paddy exhaled and gave Andreas a stern look. "I'm touched by your concern, lad, but you're changing the subject."

"I'm not going to be teaching this fall. Frau Higham told me I need to keep writing. She said I wouldn't be happy otherwise."

"Frau Higham is a wise woman. You should listen to her."

"But how can I write without a patron? And how can I get a patron without a reputation? If I'd been accepted to teach writing or drama I could have built that, but now . . ."

"Lad." Paddy said the word this time as a command. "You have a reputation. Your work has already reached more people than most established playwrights. What about your work with the school's television company? Or your radio play?" Paddy slid off his chair and drew himself up to his full height—all four feet of it. "I'll not abide you giving in to pity. The opportunities are there if you'll see them."

****

Joost van den Vondel sat in the Inn of the Maddened Queen, lost in thought. Anyone looking at the chessboard would see at once that those thoughts had absolutely nothing to do with the game Joost was supposed to be playing. He moved his bishop. His opponent, a thin woman his own age, shook her head before he could take his hand off the piece.

Reconsidering, Joost moved his rook instead. Another head shake. When moving his king brought no head shake, he settled on that move. One of the advantages of playing his wife in chess was that she was a pretty lenient opponent, at least with him.

Mayken De Wolff, Frau van den Vondel, studied her next move. She'd never played maddened queen chess before coming to Grantville not quite a year ago, but she was a natural. Joost, on the other hand, was an atrocious player, no matter what rules he was playing under. He only played because he enjoyed spending time with his wife.

Mayken would never be the picture of health, Joost knew. She was a thin young woman when they met, and giving birth to four children had not been the best thing for her. When they fled Amsterdam just ahead of the Spanish siege, he was sure he was going to lose her. He'd hated being apart from her, spending most of his time in Krefeld with their two surviving children, minding the business, while Mayken lived in Grantville and took advantage of the miraculous medical cures the up-timers had brought with them. Mayken's skill at chess was proof of her ability to look ahead and consider the consequences of many different actions. Joost had missed that, but having her with him wasn't worth her life.

In the end, Mayken's generosity bought Joost three more moves. When she called "checkmate," one of the spectators called out a number. He'd taken bets on how many moves Frau van den Vondel would need to checkmate Herr van den Vondel. Vince Masaniello shouted in triumph.

"You see?" he said to a young German named Felix who was getting chess tutoring. "That's how not to play. If Frau van den Vondel would permit me, I'd like to give her a real challenge."

Mayken was willing. One of the inn's servants brought Joost a coffee and a radio. He and Mayken met regularly for a chess game and conversation when he was in Grantville on business. It was a way for them to connect on days when Joost was busy. When Mayken accepted a challenge from one of the other patrons, Joost ordered a coffee and a radio (the up-timers referred to it as a "walkman"). The Inn of the Maddened Queen kept several of these wonderful personal radios to rent so that if nonplaying guests wanted to listen to music or the Voice of America they could do so without disturbing anyone else. It gave Joost a chance to get lost in thought and get in touch with his muse.

Joost van den Vondel was in the silk business. He was also a dramatist and poet, a very good one. And he was fascinated with the mass communications the up-timers had brought with them. Their "television station," WVOA, reached an audience in the thousands, larger than the audience the largest theater could hold. The Voice of America radio station, which had the disadvantage, in Joost's mind, of not being accompanied by pictures, reached many times more people than the television station did. Joost had resolved to investigate these strange inventions more fully on his current trip.

He slipped the headphones over his ears, expecting to hear music. That's what VOA usually played this time of day. Instead Joost heard: "By popular demand, Voice of America is proud to present Unser Herr Gottfried, starring Helmut Schickele, Maria Bauerin, Patrick Antrim and the Not Ready for Prime Time Players. This program has been prerecorded."

What followed was a pleasant and cleverly written farce. It wasn't terribly original, but the writer knew what he was doing and had potential. Someone worth knowing, and if Joost was correct about the writer's age, worth mentoring. The credits after the production mentioned the writer as Andreas Gryphius. Joost decided he should meet him as soon as his schedule allowed.

****

The Sternbock Coffee House was the preferred gathering place for Grantville's art community, such as it was. Most aspiring writers, painters and performers were moving to Magdeburg to seek their fortunes. Even so, Theophilus Mendes wasn't lacking for customers, who came to drink powerful and robust Greek coffee, eat Helena Mendes' delicious baklava and talk music and literature. Regulars also came to listen to poetry readings or musical performances and to doodle on the coffee house walls. Theophilus had heard of an eatery in the up-time city of Chicago that allowed people to write and draw on the walls, and he thought it was a wonderful idea. Theo's sons Arcadios and Constantinos, who got stuck with white-washing the coffee house walls every few months, were rather less enthusiastic.

Andreas and Markus sat looking glum. Antje sat looking exasperated with both of them. Wall doodling was the farthest thing from their minds. Paddy and his friend Martha sat sipping coffee and nibbling on pastry.

"You both knew you couldn't keep working with the RTT program forever. You graduate, you move on. That's the rule," Antje said.

"That's easy for you to say, Antje," Markus groused. "You didn't get 'the talk.'" Turning to Andreas, Markus asked, "Did she tell you to spread your wings?"

Andreas nodded. "It's not so much having to move on," he said. "It's having to explain to my stepfather that being a dramatist for radio or television is a respectable career for the son of an archdeacon and the stepson of a pastor."

"You worry a bit too much about respectability, lad." Paddy flexed the grasper he carried with him at all times for emphasis. One of the apprentices at Kudzu Werke had made it as experiment in mechanics and given it to Paddy when it proved useful in helping the dwarf grab things he couldn't reach on his own.

The plain-looking young woman sitting next to Paddy nodded her agreement. "Andreas, you did such a good job writing Unser Herr Gottfried. All my friends love it. You should write another story like that one." Martha Schacht was a friend of Paddy's. She worked as an aide at St. Veronica's School where Paddy sometimes went to tell stories to the children.

Andreas shrugged. "Thanks, Martha. I could write another play, but where will I find a patron?"

"Maybe we need to attract a patron," said Antje. "Produce something on our own and play it in front of potential sponsors. Like the Grantville Ballet did with 'Bad Bad Brillo.'"

Andreas immediately saw that this was a good idea. It wasn't as if it would cost him much in time to write a one-act play that could then be easily recorded. The problem, as he saw it, was that with a few exceptions, the nobility—at least the ones with all the money—stuck fiercely to their traditions. They might well prefer to patronize a traditional stage company. He mentioned this.

Markus smiled a bit smugly. "You're stuck in the past, Andy my friend. The plays and programs that run on VOA or the TV station all have business patrons. Advertising, the up-timers call it. I've read all about it in books that Frau Ambler loaned me. Many of the up-timers' greatest writers launched their careers this way, on shows with business patrons. Writers like Serling and Chayefsky."

Andreas was familiar with Rod Serling and Paddy Chayefsky, even if their work wasn't entirely to his taste. Watching Janice Ambler's precious recorded episodes of Playhouse 90 and The U.S. Steel Hour had been part of his education as a writer once he enrolled in the RTT program. He began to see where Markus was heading and was intrigued enough to ignore Markus's use of his hated nickname "Andy."

"What you're saying," Andreas said slowly, "is that we should film our own television play as a proposal for something like Playhouse 90. An anthology program, I believe it would be called."

"Exactly so."

"But . . . don't look at me that way, Markus Schneider!" Antje had rounded on the aspiring director, who was giving her a very dirty look. He didn't like being contradicted.

Undeterred, Antje continued: "We should consider doing a radio program instead. It would be much less expensive."

"Nonsense," Markus said. "Television is the way of the future. It's here to stay, and it won't be any problem to film a program right here in Grantville. Everything that we need is here."

"But how will you edit it?"

"Jabe McDougal hasn't had any problem editing his videos for the TV. station. I can buy his equipment or rent it."

Markus ignored Antje as she enumerated the numerous flaws in his argument, beginning with the fact that it was highly unlikely that Jabe McDougal would entrust his precious camera and computer to anyone not intimately familiar with its use. Markus was basically a good person, but Andreas knew that his classmate, son of a newly rich local merchant, sometimes thought he could leap any hurdle by paying the right person enough money. Most of the time he was right. However, Andreas doubted money would impress someone dating the daughter of a painter to two reigning kings.

Even as Andreas listened to Antje's counter-arguments for radio over television, he couldn't help but be seduced by Markus's vision. He'd wanted to write for theater ever since he could remember, after reading the great tragedies of Euripides and Aeschylus, the comedies of Aristophanes and Terence and the poetry of Seneca. And wasn't theater a visual art? The VOA reached many people, it was true, thanks to the reach of the strange lightnings that carried it and the fact that the "crystal radio sets" needed to turn the lightnings back into sound were affordable to all but the most desperately poor people. But you couldn't see the radio. Andreas loved the television and loved that it could transport him to different times and places—as any good playwright in any time could do, given the right stage.

"I'll do it, Markus. I'll write something for you to film."

****

Joost wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin and heaved a contented sigh. The Willard Hotel was a pricy place for a business lunch—even by Grantville standards—but it was quieter than the Thuringen Gardens and it was easier to reserve a private dining room at the Willard. One only had to make a reservation weeks in advance, rather than months.

As one server cleared away plates and another poured small glasses of dessert wine, Adolf Aaler—Dolf—sat his up-time briefcase on the table and opened it, handing copies of reports to Joost and Mayken. Dolf was a young man, in his early twenties, the middle son of Joost's business partner Adalbert Aaler in the Rheinlander Silk and Fine Linen Company. Normally, Dolf's older brother Dieter would be expected to inherit the business from Adalbert, but everyone acknowledged Dolf's uncommon talent and foresight. Shy Dieter was far happier with his nose buried in a ledger than meeting with customers.

Joost could hardly believe that it had been just over a year since he and Mayken had fled Amsterdam. He remembered all too well when Rebecca Stearns and her small diplomatic party had arrived from France full of dire warnings of the impending betrayal of the Dutch Republic at the hands of Cardinal Richlieu. Unfortunately, Rebecca had only her instincts, which were not enough to convince the Dutch ruling elite of approaching disaster.

Joost had been among the very few who had taken Mrs. Stearns' warning seriously. He hadn't known Balthazar Abrabanel personally, but it was impossible to be a person of any standing Amsterdam and not know the Jewish doctor's reputation. And Joost also knew Balthazar's daughter had inherited her father's intellectual gifts in full measure. If she warned of French betrayal, it wasn't merely to advance her country's anti-French agenda, and Joost would not wait for a signed declaration of war from Richlieu before believing her. Overriding Mayken's objections, he packed up what he could of his family's silk business, liquidated the rest for whatever he could get and left Amsterdam at the first opportunity.

Krefeld, in County Moers, was the logical refuge for them. The van den Vondels were Mennonites, and several Mennonite families had already found refuge there. A hasty letter sent ahead of them paved the way for a partnership with Adalbert Aaler. Adalbert had been just another linen weaver when a small group of fellow Mennonites came to him seeking refuge. They were experienced weavers of silk and velvet, and Adalbert saw the chance to not only do a good deed, but also to be ...