Ed grinned. “Of course, all of those things mean that as a general rule they spend a lot more time reading and arguing about fine theological points than back in the days when quite a few rural priests could barely stumble their way through the liturgy. Not to mention that the fashion for long sermons means that the parishioners hear a lot more about points of theological controversy, too. A fair number of homilies seem to encapsulate the major points that the local pastor intends to make in his next letter to a neighboring minister with whom he disagrees about the nature of the Real Presence or the significance of Christ’s Descent into Hell.”
Mike’s eyebrows were still raised—high.
Ed persisted. “Shall I go over it again? We can’t just do things according to our own priorities. We have to factor in the priorities of our allies. Mike, we’re living on their street. They’re our neighbors. They care about this. They really, really, do. Therefore, we care about this. Whether you want us to or not. And we will send a delegate of equal status to the chancellors of all those allied territories. That’s me.”
“So everything else gets dropped for a month?”
“No. I’ll just make Arnold Bellamy ‘acting.’ He’s perfectly capable of keeping everything else on track. If I die of the plague or get thrown off a damned horse and break my neck, he will be doing the job. That’s why there’s a Deputy Secretary of State.”
* * *
Mike frowned a little, thinking that almost a year ago, when Grantville’s delegates first met with Gustavus Adolphus, Ed hadn’t been anything like this assertive. He had stood there looking very behind-the-scenes, very advice-but-not-policy, very subordinate-in-a-clear-hierarchy-of-authority. He’d had a lot of on-the-job experience as Secretary of State since then, of course, but still, how had he changed so much?
Then Mike reconsidered, and decided that it was last April that was the aberration. Ed’s whole career track had been aimed at being a principal: not a vice-principal or a deputy principal. He’d run the high school with a fair amount of input—there was a faculty senate and a student council. He’d run it with good cheer, common sense, and an even temperament. But somehow no one, neither teachers nor kids nor even the county superintendent of schools, had doubted that the hand that directed Grantville High School belonged to Ed Piazza. Before the RoF, after the mine had closed, Ed had managed the single largest enterprise in Grantville, from the standpoint of budget and personnel, and he’d never been afraid to make a decision once he had the data on which to base it.
“What if I directly order you not to go?” he asked.
“If you directly order me not to go, I will stay here. But I will continue to think that you are wrong.” Ed leaned forward in his chair. “Don’t just take it from me. Ask the rest of the cabinet, if you want to. Bring it up for debate. But I should go. From beginning to end. That’s where I stand.”
* * *
They also serve who only sit and sit.
Ed had only brought the essentials for this stay in Jena. In his view, the essentials included an old aluminum Drip-o-lator and a thermos bottle with the kind of top that nested six different sizes of plastic cup. He could remind himself a thousand times that this was not a quaint Renaissance Faire staffed by costumed reenactors but rather the modern world—insofar as there was a modern world. Nonetheless, the thought of beer for breakfast turned his stomach. His wife Annabelle had concocted some reusable filters out of an ancient roll of gauze she had turned up somewhere. Turkish coffee arrived in beans rather than pre-ground, but he’d managed to modify a peppermill to deal with that problem. He stood in the public room of the Black Bear Inn the next morning, brewing coffee with a dramatic flourish for the benefit of his entourage.
Since the secretary of state’s support staff in Jena consisted entirely of kids who had gone to high school since he joined the staff, they expected the flourish—even early in the morning. They would have been disappointed not to have it. Before he became principal, Mr. P.’s “extracurricular” had been directing all the school plays—usually teaching by doing. Ed could drop into any role. His students never quite understood how, when a demonstration was called for, a burly man of about five and a half feet, wearing a yellow polo shirt, could turn into an imaginary six-foot-tall rabbit (Harvey), a psychopathic killer (Night Must Fall), a Russian empress (Anastasia), or a ditzy spinster (Arsenic and Old Lace)—without even putting on a costume. When he became principal, his first addition to the staff had been Amber Higham as a full-time drama teacher, but he had still dropped in on the rehearsals whenever he could find a minute.