“Oh, leise,” he said over his shoulder. “Nur ein, ja? Just a little pleasure?”
Hannelore rolled her eyes to heaven. “Did I think he would listen, when he said he would marry me? Did I? Mary Ellen, tell me it is easier if you are a minister yourself, please? Might I become a nun and make this fool see sense?”
“Hanni,” said Mary Ellen, “if there’s any of them that aren’t so dumb they wouldn’t listen to Almighty God Herself, I haven’t met him yet.”
“Gus, you see what you’ve provoked?” said the other Reverend Jones. “And I’d give up now, frankly.”
Heinzerling looked sharply at Mazzare, who was keeping his face straight. He harumphed. “As I was saying. The father-general writes to me, saying that this report is to be made. And that the order will come from Cardinal Barberini. Of course, it must. How can the father-general of the Society order a lay father like Herr Mazzare? So he asks a cardinal and a prince of the Church, and the pope’s nephew, to send the order.”
Mazzare nodded. “And so here it is,” he said. “Three hundred years. Three hundred years of every book we have left in town, everything the schoolteachers could supply from the French and Spanish history they had at home and, God help us, some stuff we cribbed from historical romances.”
“Yup. Just got to get it typed and sent off.” The Reverend Jones looked at the pile of notes, and at the beer stein in his hand. “Hmm,” he said, “Gus, how are those boys of yours coming along with the fire? I feel a primal urge to burn food coming on.”
“I should never have let him read that stuff about pre-Christian religion,” said Mary Ellen. “He took to burnt offerings a mite too well.”
Chapter 6
The barbecue had done its work and they were munching on ribs and chicken to Mary Ellen Jones’ recipe. The boys were sticky all over with barbecue sauce. The adults were being as careful as they could with napkins—which, as always with barbecue, meant just about as sticky. Father Mazzare reflected that on afternoons like this, with a good bellyful of barbecue and a stein of good beer, it was possible to be very content with life.
“Hello the house!” came a call. Mazzare thought he recognized the voice of Mike Stearns, and he got up to greet him.
“Hello yourself!” he called back, heading toward the path around the side of the rectory. “We’re in back; come on round.”
It was indeed Mike Stearns, and he had brought Francisco Nasi with him. “Resting from your homework, Father?”
“Just about done, as it happens. Have a seat, Mike, Francisco. A few bits left to add, one more read-through and then we can type it up.”
“Good, good,” Mike said. Mazzare sensed he had something on his mind, and decided to let him come to the point however he saw fit. Nasi was his usual serene self, nodding as greetings went around and deferring to Mike in the making of small talk. The weather continued fair, the Heinzerling boys were looking well, and small wonder, the cooking smelled like it had been good, everyone was well, the pressures of the Mike’s job were bearable for the moment but, of course, everyone was worried about Rebecca in Amsterdam and the people in the Tower of London.
“In fact,” said Mike, after that last topic had been appropriately commiserated on, “that was what I came to talk to you about.”
“The situation in England?” Mazzare frowned. He didn’t know much more about that than he could have gotten from any newspaper. And if it was a theological problem, it wasn’t his field at all. In fact, the nearest thing Grantville had to the Anglican Communion was the Reverends Jones and their congregation, and the history of Methodism didn’t start for another century, and that with their divergence from the Church of England. Mazzare idly wondered what Wesley would do when he showed up.
Except he wouldn’t, Mazzare knew. There would be no John Wesley in this universe. Wesley hadn’t been born until early in the eighteenth century, and Tom Stone had once explained to Mazzare that the so-called butterfly effect would have started scrambling the gene pool in Europe immediately after the Ring of Fire. Within days, apparently, spreading out from Thuringia with incredible speed. By now, Tom had said firmly, it would have swept the entire globe.