Among those of the Empire, those of some learning and with interest in grander things knew of the Dutch’s advancements. Of course, few knew of them in such detail as she did.
It had become of her opinion that, ultimately, desperation had been what motivated the Dutch people. Rather than delegate stewardship to nobles, the King instead assigned an office which collected taxes and maintained the militias for the towns and cities there. In the past, that position had gone to the local bishop; ever since the Wars of Heresy, though, it had been a man of the King’s choosing.
Regardless of who exactly collected the taxes, it did not change that, in the grand scheme of things, no noble had a particular interest in protecting the land. On the other hand, with no personal incentive for those assigned to properly and thoroughly collect the taxes for the King, there arose commoners of significant wealth.
Which was the sort of thing to attract bandits and raids from French nobles—often one and the same.
It was a situation similar-and-different to the Swiss and, although the terrain vastly differed, the resulting friction with the French saw a similar result. Both settled on militias with ever-longer spears to hold back cavalry charges, accompanied by halberdiers who could pull riders off their horses and puncture the tough armour.
Meanwhile, on the sea, there had always been grander considerations at play for the Empire. Sweden had maintained an unspoken neutrality with the Empire in exchange for a relative monopoly on Baltic trade. To the west, a similar situation played out with Great Britain. The situation had recently changed on the Baltic, but it remained true on the North Sea. The Empire did not want to be seen building a fleet that could suggest any kind of ambition which might worry the British.
So the Dutch had to defend themselves at sea in their own way. While warships grew ever heavier with bigger cannons, the Dutch worked on lighter, cheaper ships which required smaller crews—and which could travel further up rivers to the more in-land towns and cities in the marshy Low Countries.
Innovation had been necessary for the Dutch to find prosperity.
Regardless of the why, it also followed that, as a place of peasants and burghers, it held little prestige in the eyes of the nobles, an opinion which trickled down to their subjects. A backwards place, it was called. A place of simple churches and little art and that sort of thing. Never mind what was said about the polders, some even suggesting it heretical to upset the earth as God made it.
Of course, the slander did not care for reality, that the burghers there were great patrons of the arts and had, as long ago as a century, constructed a grand cathedral—and then continued to expand it such that it had noticeably sunk into the soft ground at the one end.
No, she knew well how to see what was and what wasn’t. Even that they were so often called Dutch when the other brethren of the Empire were so rarely specified. The Czechs were the only others who also held such distinction, being the willing embers for the Wars of Heresy. Of course, that term only applied to the poor, those of status and privilege still thoroughly Bohemian.
“My Lady, Mr Haartsen would see his guest now.”
An older man, his accent thin, yet unmistakeably German, raised well, of a good height. She ignored him. Her gaze took in the rest of the room, rather small, laden with artwork, a hint of exotic fragrances. Only after a pointed moment passed did she give her knight a gesture.
“Countess Augstadt would see him now.”
She, of course, made no move to move. The older man stood there a few seconds before bowing his head. “Very well, I shall inform Mr Haartsen,” he said and then hurried off.
If it had been different circumstances, she very well may have chuckled at his professionalism. A butler worth his wage.
While it could not be said she was made to wait, it still took time to walk and so, a minute later, the door opened with a not-quite elegant swing. A young man around her age entered first, the older man a step behind.
At a glance, the young man looked no different to the others who wished to socialise with their betters, pulled tall by the basics of etiquette, dressed well, but the fit too tight rather than loose, and with an expression of hardened arrogance, tempered by the subtle rejection of those betters who had no need for another flatterer.
She did not need a second glance.
“Thank you, Bachmeier.”
The butler bowed and, without a sound, exited the room. How her host had addressed the older man amused her as it always did. Although it was expected for a butler to be addressed without a title as a kind of familiarity, to her, it had always sounded insincere, all the more so when she knew her own butler was still her father’s butler. To that end, she gave him the respect to be addressed as Mr Cromer.
While she had indulged in that thought, her host turned to her, then pointedly looked to the side. She let a moment pass, then loosely gestured to the side herself.
Her knight softly cleared his throat. “Ah, Mr Haartsen, this is Countess Augstadt.”
Her host’s gaze slid back to her, his mouth thin. “My pleasure to at last make My Lady’s acquaintance.”
She gave a slight bow of her head, no more than that. “That I could say the same.”
He hesitated over her answer, a wrinkle on his brow which lingered even after he began to speak. “I would not wish to impose on My Lady, but that which she wished to speak of, is this suitable company?”
“I hope sir is not suggesting that he wishes to keep company an unwed lady of good standing without a chaperone?” she asked, her lips curled in a smile and her tone light, yet the look in her eye anything but amused.
Still, he gave a polite chuckle. “No, of course not, just that I would not wish to spill My Lady’s secrets,” he said, keeping his own tone level.
“I hope sir is not suggesting that an unwed lady of good standing has taken him into her confidence,” she said, this time very much not a question.
His resolve faltered, thin mouth breaking into an awkward smile. “No, no, of course not, My Lady. Of course not.”
She held his gaze a moment longer, then gave another gesture. “Sir Ludwig has brought a local good.”
Before she had finished speaking, her knight had risen and taken the few steps over to where her host sat. The gift sat inside a small, plain box; after her host accepted it, he tentatively opened it and pulled out the braided bracelet inside. Although made of dyed strands, the colours were far from strong, and it had a cheap, rough feel to it.
While he hid his reaction well, the disdain still clearly showed to her who watched closely—just as she clearly saw how he held the bracelet in his right hand.
“My thanks… to My Lady,” he said with a smile.
“Sir should remember that this gift was brought by Sir Ludwig,” she said; her knight paused on his way back to spare the host a smile before then returning to his seat.
His smile thinned. “Of course, My Lady. My thanks to Sir Ludwig.”
Her smile thinned too. “Let me ask now, is sir the one I have corresponded with?” she asked.
Composed as he tried to be, his face hid little of his turmoil that soon settled into a stern expression. “Why I never—to be called a liar in my home, I have never been so insulted.”
Although her knight made to move, she settled him with a gesture, then once more turned her gaze upon her host. “Whether or not I would call sir a liar depends on his answer to the question. As for being insulted, sir should consider how insulting it is for someone of my status to visit only to be greeted by a butler, to be taken to a room without being greeted, to be summoned to another room as if a servant. If, on top of all of that, sir would lie to me, I would have no choice but to leave with prejudice.”
Her voice carried no heat nor chill, her face clear—until she said that last word. Both a threat and a promise and her gaze conveyed it all.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Silence followed for all of a second, his face frozen and voice lost, before the door creaked open. “That is enough, brother.”
“Eva—”
Through the door stepped a woman a few years older, not that she looked it, rather small for an adult and frail, supported by a maid. It took her some time to shuffle over to the chair beside her brother where the maid helped her down with care, going so far as to bring over another cushion to support her mistress.
“Lady Augstadt, I do apologise,” the sister said, bowing her head.
Julia softly smiled. “Oh, what reason has miss to apologise?”
“For listening to my brother when he insisted on being the one to host My Lady,” she answered and covered her mouth, a tinkling laugh following, so light it was almost ethereal.
While the brother had spoken with barely an accent, he also spoke rather stiffly, whereas this little exchange with the sister spoke to Julia of someone comfortable with German, albeit her Dutch accent pronounced. If Julia had any further doubts, they were silenced when the sister, upon seeing what the brother held in his hand, reached out and took the braid with her left hand, a smudge of ink on her pinky.
“Oh Evert, did I ever tell you? Long before papa made a good wage, he brought home a doll for me and I would braid her hair every day,” she said, her expression so very soft. “My Lady mentioned a young girl who sold braids and I felt a kinship, to think she took it seriously that I said I would buy one if I ever visited.”
Julia left a pause after that story before she then spoke. “Master Haartsen, a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
It was clear to all who to whom that was addressed and the woman in question lowered her head with an awkward smile. “Please, My Lady, I cannot be. It is an open secret back home that I have continued my father’s work, but even there it is my brother who is the master now.”
“Who spoke of miss’s father? Not I,” she said, her voice gentle. “I have only corresponded with miss and it is miss whom I would call a master. If not for a master, why would I travel here? She should know I am not flippant about my station. Miss is, to me, a master. If need be, I would grant her her own charter that all others must call her Master Haartsen too.”
Under the deluge of praise, the sister sank ever deeper, face ever brighter until it well-matched the hair loosely falling down like a veil from beneath her cloth cap. “My Lady… need not flatter me.”
“Indeed, I need not, just as I need not have travelled here. That I have speaks to the sincerity with which I request miss’s service. When I said I would grant her a charter, I did not speak in jest. While I am not in the habit of indulging the greedy, the simple truth is I would endeavour to meet any requirement miss has, that I view her talent as essential to the continued prosperity of my peoples.”
Although the sister did not sink any deeper, her embarrassment turned cold. Still, when she spoke, her voice carried a warmth. “My Lady, my brother insisted on being the one to host because he thought a person of good standing, whether man or woman, would bully me. Truthfully, I wondered what use a noblewoman could have for me too. My father’s reputation, as good as it is, is still… braided with our heritage. It is for dikes and polders”—her accent thickened for those words—“not beautiful houses.”
“Miss knows well that I do not seek to build beautiful houses with her talents.”
A smile touched the sister’s lips, her hand coming up to brush aside a little of the loose hair. “Kraus, the tablets, please.”
Her maid stood up and left the room, shortly thereafter returned with a stack of wax tablets. The sister gestured at the guest and so the maid delivered the tablets to the table there.
“When My Lady wrote of her almshouse, I found myself intoxicated with such imagination. Knowing how much I wished to draw, I couldn’t waste good pages, so I ended up using the wax tablets I use to try calculations. My father’s habit. He wasn’t clumsy, but he told me that if he caught a mistake just once, then it was worth it.”
Julia looked upon the first tablet with both a close eye and a sense of awe. She had taken lessons herself, honed her talents such that she could make suitable sketches of terrain and loosely map out smaller areas—as she had on her expedition to Italy.
However, this master had drawn with far greater skill. A touch awkward to view in the dimmer light of her position, easily fixed by picking the tablet up and tilting it towards the sunshine, which revealed delicate carvings as if made by a sculptor. It was not simply the lines of a building, but a texture, a depth, tempting her to reach out and touch the rough bricks that she knew would only feel like smooth wax.
“I wish I had written it all down for My Lady, but I am also glad to not waste her time with my rambling,” she said, covering her mouth as another light giggle fell from her lips. “It felt as if I had an entire city inside my head, many tens of thousands of people going about their lives, and I could have told you any of their names or their jobs or even their hopes and dreams….”
Pausing there, she held onto a smile for a moment, then quickly sobered and further bowed her head.
“My apologies for being too familiar,” she said.
Julia laughed, gentle, yet elegant. “I would not hate for miss to be more familiar.”
Those words brought out another giggle, the sister sitting up a little more as she again brushed aside some of her loose hair. “My… insights might be wrong,” she said, her voice a whisper that only made it across the room by virtue of how close her guest listened. “The most basic truth I came to is that, quite simply, such a city cannot exist. Even when My Lady speaks of the old Rome, I know in my heart that it is not right to call that a city.”
“Yet you imagined it.” Pointed words, not sharp, but precise. The knife which separated meat from bone.
Her hand clutched the cloth by her heart, only to loosen her grip and let it slide down back to her lap. “A city of that size is… too big, or it’s better to say… bigger than a city needs to be. A city is the centre of the wheel, the towns at the ends of the spokes, the spaces between and around the farmland. But those spokes can only be so long before they snap.”
“Of course, the length of the spoke is not in distance, but the time taken to travel.”
She softly smiled. “Yes, My Lady has done well to improve the roads.”
No reply came to that, that her smile faded, hands entwined.
“My Lady did not come to hear how clever she already knows she is. My imagination… it was that the city should be built along broad roads that followed the main directions of trade, to allow those carts to easily move through the city. Those are to be the spokes. In the gaps between them, we have more wheels, with certain services at the centre and smaller roads joining to the houses. These houses are also wheels, with certain services and workshops at their centre, rooms in the gaps.”
The “wheel” on the tablet looked rather square, two storeys of building surrounding an inner courtyard, with the main access through a broad gate that a normal cart could enter, a smaller side-door for people to enter. Although not clearly marked, by counting windows, it looked like as many as twenty rooms occupied one edge, doubled when including the second storey.
Moving onto the other tablets, it became clear that some rooms weren’t so narrow. They included kitchens and laundry rooms and rooms for bathing, along with a room for textile work and another for brewing. The outside windows were small, the windows facing into the courtyard large with wooden shutters and, around the edge of the courtyard, a cover stretched out from the buildings to shelter a brick path.
“While these would… not keep the heat in as well as My Lady’s almshouse, the courtyard should keep harsh winds from blowing in. In truth, I saw this design three-storeys tall with more workplaces. The shape is very sturdy and I believe would be perfectly safe. However, My Lady is thinking of the needy with young children and babes, so I thought it better to not have them climb so much.”
“It is certainly a most curious design.”
The ambiguous words did not conceal her praise, bringing back the host’s smile. “My Lady is too kind.”
“Now which of us is flattering, that I should be kind for speaking the truth,” she said, her hand rolling over.
For a moment longer, the sister held her smile. Only for a moment. “If possible, these straight roads and square houses would make it trivial to dig out grachten, which could provide water and serve watermills.”
“Canals, yes,” Julia whispered, her finger following the building’s straight edge, careful not to actually touch the wax.
Silence began to settle and the sister lowered her head, loose hair falling down once more. “My Lady wants my expertise to build canals, not houses. Please forgive me for speaking of silly things.”
Her guest did not respond immediately, neither with words nor any other reaction, simply continuing to gaze at the tablets with an expression empty of everything but a polite smile.
“What colour is this building?”
The question, softly asked, took the host by surprise, becoming still as her thoughts came together.
Her guest did not wait. “Truly, it is a shame. Centuries ago, everyone wished to be bright and vibrant, then the Wars of Heresy came upon us. It did one of my status little good to have a coach which stood out and many sieges ravaged cities over and over that there was not the time to let paints dry. Not to mention, with few families spared from constant mourning, even whitewash seemed inappropriate. By the time peace settled, it is as if we forgot there existed such things as colours.”
The sister listened, enraptured, her guest’s delivery drawing her in. “Really?”
“Really,” Julia replied, a smile on her lips.
Silence did not have time to settle before a whisper of, “Blue,” broke it, then followed by a louder, “like the sky.” She raised her head as she spoke, kept raising it until her gaze settled on the ceiling. “Opposite it, an orange, warm, but not bright, like dawn. Then there’s….”
Her voice trailed off as clarity returned to her eyes, seemingly heavy with how her gaze once more lowered, lips pulled into an apologetic smile.
“If only that I had all the money in the world, I would love to see your imagination brought to life,” her guest said, spoken so very wistfully, almost fragile.
Before the sister could even think of how to reply, her brother broke in. “My Lady earlier said she would give my sister anything, now money is an obstacle?” he asked, his tone sharp and gaze sharper.
Again, before the sister could even open her mouth to tell him off, the guest answered him. “Pray tell, what can you give her?”
It was as if Julia knew where to press and brought a rapier to do so, her words sinking in deep, bringing all his heat to his face. This time, though, the sister managed to cut him off in time with a sharply said, “Brother!”
“Well, I should say it is not a question entirely without merit. My words are ambiguous. Indeed, I did not come here expecting miss to have drawn up such beautiful plans. However, now that I have seen them, I do wish for miss to have the opportunity to see them come to life. These things are not simple, though. I have already planned much on how to fund canal works for industry and put plans in place for their construction.
“For this, I require time to arrange funding and to find suitable locations and to consult the mayor and several others of relevance. With all that said, I believe, at the least, I shall be able to see one built for the Church in good time. After that, if all goes well, funds would be available to build more.”
Her hand rose to her chin as she spoke, gaze to the side. Once finished, though, her gaze slid over that little bit to once more look the sister in the eye, at which point her smile quirked into something warmer.
“How is it? Have I tempted Master Haartsen?” she asked, a whisper, her head tilting to the side.