Diplomacy, Dowry and Duty - part one
"Mawwige is whut bwings us togevveh today. Wike a dweam wifin a dweam. Wuv - too wuv - will fowwow you forwever so tweasure your wuv."
-The Impressive Clergyman in "The Princess Bride"
Martin was remembering the happy scene: overlooking the red stone gorge of Diosso, in Loango, Motke had just married Sara. He had attended weddings before, though only in Europe. Those had had man and wife and God and Christ and echoes of either the Pope or Martin Luther. And they had traditions to them that might have been Church traditions, or German traditions, or perhaps even Baltic traditions. Those were all inheritances. How things were done because they'd been done that way since as far back as anyone could remember.
Motke's wedding was different. There was man and wife and God. There were inherited traditions, too, but none that could be assumed. Motke's Judaism and Sara's drew from a common inheritance handed down somewhat differently over thousands of miles and two or more centuries of being separate. The wild ringlets of Sara's hair, and her dark skin - less dark than many in Loango, though none of the Courlanders would have ever realized that upon first sight - was inherited from Loango, or some coast North of it raided by the Portuguese too long ago. That her skin wasn't as dark as most of the Loango Jews, let alone the rest of Loango's people, was an inheritance from Portuguese lançados. So were her green eyes.
Motke brought childhood memories of Ruthenia, long overland travel across Lithuania and now Loango, sea travel and maritime tradition from Courland. Tolerance for diversity. A culture of hard work and ingenuity. Sara brought resilience, and the culture of a former refugee community surrounded by others, then intermixing with those others. A sense of the essential. A confidence in knowing who one's people are.
They married in a Jewish temple built beside a Christian church and Mbona's temple. They emerged happy, full of faith and hope and... futures. They might have beige-to-brown-skinned children with aimlessly curly brown hair. Who knew what those children might do. But Martin thought they might do it
anywhere, and with confidence both won and inherited.
He thought briefly of Crispina Peres and the women like her, enterprising black or mulatto women in partnership with their generally seaborne husbands. He thought of La Belinguère.
What would Martin's own children be? Calvinist nobility with proper Protestant educations, pale skin and perhaps chestnut hair, able to fit in and wield as much influence as their character permitted across anywhere in Northern Europe within two days' ride of the sea. His children would need olive oil for their skin in Fernau, as he did. Motke's children might not, in Fernau, Loango, or up the furthest reaches of the Zaire river... all those places their inherited intrepidness might reasonably take them.
- - -
Martin's dreams chased the source of the Zaire. He imagined finding Prester John's kingdom and writing to Portugal all about it. Maybe he should
pretend to write a letter of congratulations from Prester John for the marriage or birth or coronation of a Portuguese royal.
Instead, Martin walked along canals in Amsterdam, lost in thought. His mother accompanied him. She breathed in the familiar scent of the city's air, of a European port's air. Martin breathed it out. Father was in Fernau, or perhaps Tobago or Saint Helena, investing attention, wealth and manpower. Father was breathing rather better air, in Martin's view.
Martin and his mother were accompanied by a motley bunch. Louise Charlotte was wearing the finest brand-new dress in which she could walk comfortably. Martin's hair was freshly cut; he would not consent to wearing a wig after weeks at sea and months in the tropics had seen him advance toward adulthood in a world devoid of them. Saint Helena and the court of Loango were the only times he'd even laid eyes on someone wearing a wig in the last two years. If other nobles his age were beginning to wear wigs to signal their entry into adult society, Martin instead signalled it by bearing and perfectly tailored clothes. No wig could be a substitute for someone who looked to have such a concentration of life experience. His face might have been a handsome human mask concealing a hunting cat beneath, prowling lithely and alertly in search of decisions to be made and knowledge to help make them.
His apart-ness was amplified by his alternating between comfortable, attentive silence and conversation in a language no one born in Amsterdam understood, with four blacks dressed in ways varying from half- to fully- European, and varying from practical to conspicuous displays of affluence.
The point was to be seen, of course, and to stand out.
All while killing time between their arrival and eventually meeting Martin's fiancée.
- - -
So they went to visit an old friend. Sir Constantijn Huygens had had a lovely mansion built as an escape from city life, before he had ever come to Courland to lead Libau's academy.
Hofwijck was a marvellously peaceful estate on the Vliet canal, nearer The Hague than Leiden. Its name literally meant "escape from the court." It also meant "garden place," because Constantijn was a poet and sometime politician with a gift for double meanings.
"Louise Charlotte, my Duchess. Welcome to my home. And you, Martin. 'Count of Fernau' is it now?"
"Sir Constantijn" said mother and son in unison, with a curtsey and a bow. Martin deferred to his mother.
"This place suits you, Constantijn. Thank you for inviting us for a brief stay."
"A couple days here will let the rumour mills in Amsterdam and The Hague run wild on on your behalf. Even here, messengers find me to tell of the dashing and exotic young prince come to sweep a lucky Dutch princess off her feet. You've done well, my..." he bit off the word
boy before saying it "...count. Count... of Fernau. Clever to choose a title beyond Europe. It's beyond gainsaying to anyone here, so long as you look and act the part. As you so clearly have done."
"Thank you. I have had a most excellent education from most excellent teachers." He bowed not only to Constantijn, but also to two of his black companions. "Sir Constantijn Huygens, meet Udo of the Joliba River delta and Merima of Loango. Half of what I learned came from Sir Constantijn or teachers he selected. Half of the words I've learned in the last two years came from teachers like Merima and Udo. And this" - he indicated the best-dressed of them all, and spoke in a slower German - "this is Afo of Kaye. A nephew of the last Kaye king of Loango. His manservant is Fioti. I have written to you of Afo."
Constantijn replied in slow German as well. "This is a place of quiet and respite. Let us not speak of business until everyone is quite comfortable."
"Fitting," said Louise Charlotte. "We are in fact here to see to the comfort of others."
"Oh?"
Martin replied. "We could have disembarked in the Hague. Then we would have met Princess Marie and her mother sooner. But my mother suggested any young woman would appreciate time to have a new dress made for the occasion of meeting her fiancé."
"Ah. Diplomacy upon diplomacy."
In short order, but in no particular haste, everyone
was comfortable. Constantijn told of the letters of enquiry he had sent to Paris, Scotland, Germany, England, Prague, Krakow and even the one he'd hand-delivered to Leiden. Martin and Afo would be welcome at any university they'd asked about.
-
"If I may be so bold as to recommend, Martin? Enquiring with Krakow was politeness, and the Sorbonne politeness or politics. You will not desire a Catholic education." Louise Charlotte let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "That also rules out Scotland. Wittenberg would place you within the reach of allies of your enemies, even if that's your uncle." He turned to Louise Charlotte. "With apologies for the bluntness."
"None are necessary. The risk is fairly noted." The Duchess' sense of fairness did not reduce the tension she felt. Constantijn continued.
"To follow your father's education at Leipzig is as bad, to follow it to Rostock is impossible for worse reasons. The Charles Ferdinand University in Prague is fully restored to the quality it had prior to the Thirty Years War. Heidelberg is your finest option in Protestant Germany. Leiden has been most excellent for my son Christiaan since returning here - do visit him, by the way - but your engagement to a Princess of Orange is enough diplomacy for these provinces. You've assured our neutrality at worst. Until we have a Stadtholder willing to take your side against Sweden - in diplomacy at least - you have more incentive to be where you have more opportunity to swing the diplomatic tide against Sweden and Russia."
"The best place to work against Russia seems to be Sweden, though."
"True. So choose where you can most serve your cause against Sweden."
Afo was content to be pursuing a university education, period. He deferred to Martin as to which. Martin asked, in politeness, and in two languages to be sure. Enough time to decide.
"Sir Constantijn, what is there to commend Oxford over Cambridge, or Cambridge over Oxford?"
