"But I could never walk around in a dress" I said.
She looked at me, and suddenly she started to chuckle
"On that point I disagree. You just put on a dress, and if you don't stand out in the crowd it's OK. After a few years you get used to it. It is the peoples reaction that decides. Few have the guts to be different, and stand out of the crowd"
"But the corset is constricting ... We come from a time when at least corsets were only worn by those with a fetish."
"Hmm", Anna said. "Corsets are constricting, but you are wrong about them only be worn by fetishists. Anyone who feels they need a thinner waist without resorting to surgery can try. Have you heard of hold-in underwear?"

***** Greta *****

Good for me that Mike was a nice guy - correction - nice girl. I noticed him as a very frail young boy, but there was something about the way he behaved . I convinced father to provide shelter for these fellow countrymen that were seeking new opportunities here, and father was not a stranger to the plight of people trying to get out of a difficult situation. Mike and Paul went on to seek fortune further on later was their own business, but we kept contact. Father even though I was infatuated in Mike.

I was good with needle and thread, so I fitted the clothes for Mike. He looked absolutely ridiculous in those large clothes gathered from bandits, Mike had the luck of being very tall for a girl, and an alto voice. I would never have managed to pass convincingly as a man, although he had this tale of have lost his manhood in an accident with his brother.
While I fitted him out with more adjusted clothes, we talked, and I got confirmation he and Paul was from my time.

I am convinced we were time-travelling, or alternatively in a parallel multiverse-universe seeded off by events past. Don't know - it was mind-boggling. Leave it to experts to discuss. I just would say that I remember having heard on the news about two students in North America being comatose while playing this computer game with the new brain-attached controls. I watched a documentary multicast on the case. Now they were here- while I had been 9 years around. In which case - causality is certainly violated. The equipment they used was withdrawn from the market. The company said the students had tampered with the circuit. Got nosey myself- I got hold of some the stuff that was being withdrawn, I tried it myself. The games were interesting, but nothing happened until I started to doodle with the circuits. I had read on a blog somewhere that if you changed the capacitor and ... .

I woke up in a little girls body, and that is quite be a bit awkward for an adult, but I was originally old, so it was pure joy to have a fully functional body without arthritis and all those issues one gets sooner or later. In my case it was a bit of Parkinson's compounded by Diabetes II.
Difficult to get Diabetes II here, with such a limited amount of sugar available. I think mother had a feeling I was mad when I asked if we could have some at least. The price of sugar was exorbitant. It wasn't until much later I became aware the the fantastic profits made were the reason from the infamous trade.
I was relatively content with this new body. I was once a very secret cross-dresser, scared of being discovered. Now I could run around with girly clothes, and I would soon discover that the little boys my age were also running around in a dress. They just grew out of the clothes and received an upgrade into trousers, while us girls had to live with those skirts that are not suited for climbing trees, but ideal when you want to pee somewhere, and doesn't want others to see your bum. So my little brother Johannes was also stumbling about, but mostly crawling in his dress. Just a shame I didn't have much clothes to change in. I would have loved to play dress-up. I had exactly one dress, two shifts and one linen cap. During the winter I wore clogs on my feet and a shawl around my shoulders. Those winters were bad. In summer I walked barefoot.
It was not difficult to accept to have parents. They were very gentle compared to other parents. Only the first days I had really a hard time to get used to have a mother again; I called her Mutti and she was nice with me, very patient, and didn't notice my odd behaviour. Actually she was extremely busy, as a housewife, and with a one year old son - my brother, while taking care of her ailing mother and she had so many things going on. So she was grateful for the help she could get.
My father was working a lot too. He was so strong. I compared him to my former self, and though he was shorter than I used to be in my former body - I think, it was difficult to be 100% exact- he was really strong. He carried me as if I were a feather, and in his line of work, heavy-lifting was a necessity. He was a brewer, producing beer from water barley and hops. He had a very good reputation also for producing Altbier.
A brewer has many things to take care of, but father was also making his own casks, thus he was infringing on the coopers trade. What is the issue you could say, but it was an offence, and it forced my father to lose his rights to be a master brewer in the town. Dad swears that he was framed as to the accusation of producing beer which were not according to the purity laws. Guilty or not, he was also sentenced to some hours at the pillory. Not very fun to be a daughter of someone who is ridiculed in public, and though he is a strong man he can not retaliate. But the stiffest sentence was the loss of his work, thus status as master brewer. Thus started terrible years as , we lost our home, we were forced out of town because he could not work there any more. The old story kept on popping up when we found a new town where to start anew. I was so hungry, and I can vouch for my parents as they tried to feed us kids first. Mutti had several miscarriages during this time, and my sister Traudel was born in a ditch, premature, and she died after two nights in the cold.

I assisted during that birth. My father had scrambled off to try to get a midwife, but he had no money to pay that midwife, nor any goods to pawn. Mutti praised me after that, but I did not save my sister. Even to be present is sometimes traumatic, some other times there is no option. I did my best to help, and I did try to save Traudel, as the little one was named, but she only survived the first hours. She was too small, and too weak.

It irked Mutti also that the body of the infant was refused a Christian burial. Not baptised - not a member of the church, and sentenced to eternal damnation according to those with a heart of stone. I was also sad because of this. In the village where the church was located, we stood and and a hole was in the ground, but outside the perimeter that was consecrated. Father had spent some hours to dig, as we could not afford to pay someone to do it.
"Why are they crying" a girl said.
"A young child has died without knowledge of our Lord, Jesus" and elderly man said.
They were very nicely clad; the girl looked like a princess, and I understood there was quite some levels of social status above us. That was the first time I became conscious of this as everyone I was with previously were proximately of the same social class. My "old self" kind of woke up on this because he knew of this, but came from a world where the differences were more blurred, and where even the poorest bum can get a hot shower in a shelter, and get some decent clothes from a charity. I lifted my tear strained eyes and saw also a young man, maybe not yet a teenager - who said:
"They have wrought their misery onto themselves."
He was probably repeating what he had heard others say, and it was common to assume that needy people were in difficulty because of their sins. I noticed his eyes that were cold, hers were warm, and compassionate, although both had blue eyes. The girl tugged at her fathers coat, and she whispered. The father gave her something, and then she went over to me, and gave me the coin - five coins of one schilling. They were made out of silver, and had a head of some guy on one side. The sides were chipped, and uneven. I was far too startled to say something nice beyond an automatic thank you.
"What a waste. Maria, you shouldn't be so soft-hearted" the boy said.
I decided to hide it and use it when it was necessary. I remember the name. It was the name of the Virgin. I dreamed often of that angel, or Disney princess afterwards. The coins helped remind me that I saw something real.

I was about six at the time, as I remember the front teeth were falling out. Momentarily I was afraid it was due to malnutrition, scurvy, but not this time. Weird I knew about malnutrition, but I couldn't remember the name of the disease. I didn't get to use the coin when Johan died. It happened too fast. He got dysentery. I got it too. I felt as if I was dying, Johan did. Hunger and cold are seldom anybody's friends, and it had sapped his strength. As it was during the summer we were not hungry there and then, and I hid the coin in my clothes. I then gave two to my mother and two to my father, keeping the last one. I was so sorry I couldn't have spent them to save my little brother.

I know I proposed for father to emigrate. I tried to tell about a land far west with new opportunities. I was thinking about the Americas. They misunderstood. The land of opportunity for them was the Dutch low countries, and we ended up in Zwolle, near the sea of black brine water, and yet far enough away from the persecution that a bad reputation created.
Father was not very religious, but brought up in the tradition of John Calvin, so we were reasonably welcomed. The country was at war, so a lot of men were needed to fill vacancies. We had entered further south - to avoid the ongoing war between these people and the Bishop of Münster.

Nothing is easy. Father was too proud to be an apprentice or a journeyman to some other brewer, so he tried to set up his own business. That is quite a challenge. He had nothing, and had to get barrels and barley and hops ... Father didn't know about yeast. He had to try making the beer, and hope that the right kind of fungus arrived into his brew, and a few times it went very wrong before it got better. Meanwhile we had to live, so we worked in the peat -fields drying the peat, and digging and piling them in neat stack when rain threatened. The forest in this area was long gone. Peat was the replacement for firewood. So we toiled for hours, and the payment was in peat so we could have a fire going during the winter. Father worked on digging new canals, building dikes, carrying wooden planks to various sites. Mutti was working too, but it is obvious that father was the main bread-earner. Women were paid a third of what men earned. Even I had to work. I was employed at turning the drying bricks of peat before they were piled up in stacks. It was easy, but boring work, and the boys doing this quickly lost interest. I persevered, and was rewarded with praise, yet every girl got the same pay, and all the boys were paid a bit more.

I still had my coin hidden away for a rainy day. It wasn't that it didn't rain here. It rained almost all the time, so it would be kept for a very bad day. Bad days happen, and money will not prevent it. I had hidden it away. A silver coin will not buy you the world, and could only be used once.

We rented some land a mile or so from town where we had a small field of hops and then cabbage- loads of cabbage- , and I had insisted on potatoes, which we put in areas where the other crops would not thrive. With Mother sickly I had to take the lead and, I made preserves. A Korean would call it "kimchi". For my parents I called it “Sauerkraut”.
Mother was pregnant again, and due a month later, but insisted on washing the clothes, because I had other chores to do, and was dead tired. She bade me stir the pot of stew, that was simmering in the chimney.
I woke to cries of disaster. Mother had slipped, and the river shedding its water into the black water sea being larger than usual. Her woollen dress got completely soaked and wet, and no other women were nearby, so nobody could come to her rescue. Her bleak body was on a table and soon to find its place in the muddy ground. I was alone with my father.

Some time before peace was signed, those two young men came, just as we once had, and they spoke German so father helped them, and they needed lodging, and we needed some rent. I must have been about 10 or 12 years old then. They came in, and I almost laughed at the younger, who was wearing hand-me-downs. At least it was so ill-fitting that he looked funny. Mike was the name of the funny looking guy. Paul was already a dashing young man.
So I helped Mike getting something more to his size. He was reluctant to take off too much when I was there, but after I managed to get his outer coat down, by re-doing the stitches. I showed him that he could later undo them, as he grew. Not that he was small. He was at least 4 inches taller than me, but a narrow frame. I gave him some advice on how to look stronger, as he was obviously a bit shy of this. He had such slender hand. Not much work in the fields. Well - mercenaries don't do that. He might be a drummer-boy. .

I overheard then talking, and then I became aware it was not German, but English. Thoughts emerged that they might be English spies. So I listened with my ears to the wall, and that was the way I understood that Mike was a girl. He was actually Paul's sister, and the accent was more American, and ... American English did not yet exist !
I was about to spill the beans - quite literally, and hadn't my father been with them then for quite a while I would have burst in and told everything.
I then heard father say: "I think you better leave and find work somewhere else. Greta seems to be interested in you Mike, and I can not have young men living under my roof with such a situation. She is too young, and while you are fine men, but not yet settled..."

I couldn't help but laugh. Me - interested in Mike; a girl disguised as a boy! I just hoped we could meet again. I played with both girls and boys, but it was often the boys would not play with us, as we were just stupid girls, and we didn't have much time to play either. The games we had were sometimes limited to singing together at the washing place, or a few hours here and there with dolls that looked more like sticks with a ball of wood as head. I played with mine. My best friend was Lieke, daughter of the baker. She had several dolls. I used to dress mine up like this princess called Maria, who had given me a silver coin, or at least I dreamed about it.

One day I heard the terrible news of Englishmen pillaging and burning on West-Terschilling. In my previous life I was British citizen, with some ancestors from Belgium. I now discovered that I was clearly pro-Dutch. The war was so stupid as it was in reality a ploy by the king of England, and the people in power to steal the wealth of the first nation to embrace free-trade, which was good for the rich and reasonable for the less rich, while themselves operated with mercantilisme, which protected the very rich at the expense of the poor.

The event at least woke up memories from my past. I used to be an accountant. Boring person in a boring job. What life I had was partially on the internet, and then I met an old man that had a hobby of making radios, and tuning in on distant radio stations. DX it is called, but the internet made this kind of hobby a thing of the past. The short-wave band was less and less crowded. I thought it was nerdy-cool. My first choice then for education was technical. I did learn to solder some circuits, and some of the theory. Totally useless skill in a pre-industrial world. It was even useless skill in a post-industrial Europe. Work taken over by clever robots or poorly paid workforce in the third world. The old man that had shown me these wonders of the past died. He had at home parts of a telephone central from the XX century, and even gramophones. Despite my interest for electronics, I went to normal school and ended up working as an accountant. You don't have to be creative as an accountant.

How proud they marched the local members of the Schuterij, and particularly the officers. Peace - was signed and it was celebrated as a victory. The signature of the Peace at Breda was hailed as a great victory - or at least thought to be. It coincided with my father being accepted as a master brewer too, and beer was necessary to celebrate, as it was also necessary for everyday life. Where I helped father was to clean the water by using sand-filter and getting the water from the well we dug in the house. We - that is actually I had found that the strain of yeast he had tried was actually two different ones, I managed to isolate the two, and the taste improved greatly. In summary we had enough to get a more normal life, and I was reasonably happy - until that woman saw the opportunity of this widower, without an heir, ( I don't count) and she moved in with her three children, and her mother.

Father would admit later it was the most stupid thing he did - to marry her, and I was unhappy. Oh- she was nice with me while I was necessary. I warned him though, because she sounded false, and she fitted my definition of a psychopath. Just after they married, my relationship with her deteriorated. Our neighbour Vrow Hagenbutten had helped me out when I took on to run the house after my mothers death. She was obviously no longer welcome, as my new mother even tried to prevent me from having any social contacts outside the house. When our social isolation was success, then I was a no good stepdaughter, a Cinderella without any hope of a prince charming to come to the rescue. The psychopathic behaviour was successful until Mike turned up again, with a business proposition to my father. I seized the opportunity to blackmail him a bit.

Mike was very reluctant first: to employ someone to be a servant in an all-male household. He also claimed I was too young.
"I am certain that I will not be the only woman in the household", I said and whispered something more to Mike while father, and that new woman of his, were out of earshot.

We went for a walk, and towards the "Maagjes bolwerk” ( a bastion north of town).
I used the opportunity to show what was new in town - at least that was the official excuse, and we talked. I explained I had noticed Mike was cross-dressing many years ago, but I didn’t mind, and I would not blow any whistle even if she did not accept me. I also let her understand that I understood they were from a different time and so was I, but I’d rather keep a low profile, and I would appreciate if she told no-one about this- same as I assume she would prefer I didn’t inform others about her and her origins to anyone else. This included Paul.
We happened to be standing near the northern edge of town, on Mike hugged me. and said I was the most wonderful person she had met until now, though she did not like to have secrets towards her brother. She asked me what I had been doing in previous life, and I explained what I remembered. Mike needed a secretary. That was obvious, and he needed an accountant. This would be difficult to explain to Father, so the excuse was to have an additional maid. Less explanation, and the result is the same.
Mike also explained that he was making this deal with my father: create a beer that would be particularly useful in the nautical trade: add ascorbic acid to the brew, as it works as an anti-oxidant and gives the sailors a healthy additive, with a longer preservation time. Father had shown willingness to think new before, and he was now quite positive too, particularly as Mike was paying for the development of the lager beer.
There was something familiar about Mike. I discovered that Mike remembered a lot more from the previous life than I did, while he/she had some problems to remember her host's childhood before taking possession of the body. In a way I had a similar experience, but I was so young when it happened, the miracle is maybe more that I remembered anything useful.

I revived a skill I had learned as an oddity when I was a teenager: shorthand. It seems that learnings skills that go into muscles like guitar playing, sewing, and so on stayed a lot better in the transfer. In my previous life, computers were ubiquitous, but I found out that I needed to take more thorough lecture notes. So I learned short-hand notation. It was a skill my grandma showed me the principles of, and I was amazed enough by her skill to want to learn it. Never became very good at it, but this way I could be really useful when dealing with Mike's correspondence, It is strange that I remember better that skill than a lot of stuff from school. Mike memory was seemingly unimpaired, and that was handy when you want to reconstruct modern technology within a pre-industrial society. I remember atomic theory, with electrons in orbit around a nucleus. But that was almost like the end of the story. Mike knew the whole periodic table, and so much more.

That an accountant was required is obvious. The silver coins, the daadler, which are the nominal ancestor of the US dollar, was worth 30 stuivers, but there was also florijn coins worth 28 stuivers and ducats worth worth 50 stuivers, and … it could drive anyone insane. With trade to other countries it was even more complex. Mike showed me how to use an abacus, but I was more than happy when he managed to make something more modern. No wonder he needed an accountant that could be trusted.

As the accountant of Mike's business, I had regular meeting with bankers and merchants. Many had an initial reaction of only wanting to talk to a man - someone who was empowered to make decisions. I was also very young, but so was Mike, and the Dutch didn't have too much prejudice against youth. Admiral Michiel de Ruyter was a musketeer at 15, and raadpensionaris de Witt was 27 when he took the office equivalent of a Prime-minister. So youth was not directly a problem, and no one asked me how old I was. Mike was good at pointing out I was his right hand. They soon learned that I was taking care of lesser issues, and particularly the financial records. Actually they were not misogynous either. The tills of most merchants were looked after by their wives. Even more so when the husband out on a trade mission. What was abnormal, was maybe the amount of money involved without the signature of M. van Zevenhuis, and that I was not even a close relative. But Mike's reputation as a genius, a wizard, and an astute businessman was admired. One guy told me he was most impressed with Mike's first brush with fortune, as he had bought loads of whale fat and oil from the village of West Skylge on Tershilling. A week later, the English burned it, and the price of whale oil had more than tripled, and he was rich!
“But I only bought it because it gave a good reading light” Mike modestly stated.

In my previous life I used to practice shooting. I used to have a high precision air-gun, produced by BSA. Telescopic sight, and all the nice things. I was quite skilled at it. It was confiscated by the police after the SMG guns appeared. There was kits to convert your BB gun into using the propellant, and politicians made it illegal to have BB guns or air-guns in Britain. I have to admit I then had two of them, so the police got the worse and I kept the best, and actually I remember I made my own SMG gun. It was a useless skill here when they have big issues creating straight barrels on a musket. Otherwise Hydrogenperoxide was limited in sales to low concentration, but some wizkid managed to find an easy way to refine it, take about 10 litres of 4.5% peroxide, and get a litre of 70% and the needle in the gun only punches a partial hole in the cartridge, liberating acetone into the peroxide, and with an explosion following. I mentioned it to Mike, and he thanked me for reminding him. He said something about knowing somebody who got nearly killed by that kind weapon.

Mike made a small SMG gun- almost the strength of a very big air-gun, but mainly a toy when the ammunition was small colour-pellets, or even steel darts, as the penetration of a light steel dart is not great. It still was kind of fun to be more accurate at 100 paces than most bloated egos using muskets at 50 paces. Over the next years I would work intensely to make optical sights so I could be accurate at very longer range.

I loved the fabric and the cloth the factories produced. I vowed that as soon I could afford it I would get myself nicer clothes. Under my fathers roof I had little variety. Mother's death had forced me to wear black clothes as much as possible. The white wimple or head-cloth I wore was in the same style as most common women in the town. Vrow Hagenbutten had once helped me to conform, pointing out that “You are now a girl of this town, so you shouldn't stand out and remind people that you were born elsewhere,” she said, and participated in the peer-pressure all girls are subjected to. Altena was so new that it was even easier to be different, and I was an anomaly in a hamlet where girls my age were marriageable. They would have preferred that I was a widow. Widows were women who have done their duty by marrying, and then if it was their destiny, could achieve independence. I was lucky that my father allowed me the freedom to go with Mike. There was an ongoing court-case where a grown woman was denied the right to marry the guy she loved, because she was a minor when they married in secret.

So this was in some ways a very liberal society, and very conservative in some others. Which was why I had figured out it was best to conform, and I always had some kind of cap or kerchief on. Any girl without wasn't dressed.

The United Provinces of the Netherlands was permeated by the Calvinistic view that money was good because it showed that you were in God's Grace. But to use too much on personal luxury was considered bad taste. Still I couldn't resist some temptation. We had a test-batch of cobweb- thin thread that Mike said was really inspired by the chemicals the spider uses to make their spin. I could purchase good cloth, and have tailors and seamstresses make my clothes. I loved it. Leeuwarden may not be the centre of the world, but the alternative for me to get such fineries made was Amsterdam, so I became a regular customer of a tailor and dressmaker in Leeuwarden. It was the capital city as the liege lord of the land prins Hendrik Casimir of Orange, the second of the name. He was however only 10 years old, and his mammy, the countess, was ruler, and actually a very popular one, and even a heroin of the war against Münster.
I was getting a very decent pay by Mike, and I had few expenses, so it was easy to save the daalder. So I went out shopping. Nothing is ready-made, so it was a necessity to use tailors and seamstresses unless you do it yourself. I having a dress made by the same tailor as the Countess used, and by chance she displaced herself that day. There was a hush in the shop of master tailor Jean Perrin, as the door opened. Everyone were prostrating and bowing as she entered, which was a bit awkward for me as I was trying on the dress and it almost fell off.
"I seem to have come at the wrong time, miss", she said.
"It is probably the right time for you, just the wrong timing for me, your grace", I had the wit to answer.
"What a lovely dress-"
"Thank you, your Grace"
I was still awestruck as she was very beautiful,a bit more than 30 years old, a bit overweight, if one uses modern criteria. Perfect shape if one uses current norm, as few people could afford to get fat. As a widow she would have been expected to wear less flamboyant clothes, but she was the countess, and her skin was quite pale, giving here a pale and pink complexion closer to the ideals.
“What a diaphanous material – it looks like silk!” She said.
“Thank you for the praise, yet it is not silk, but produced here in Friesland.” I understood it was going to be necessary to produce a batch for her Grace as a gift.
She then started to inquire about the colours, and I explained by stating I was employed by van Zevenhuis. She was kind of curious
"Mijnheer van Zevenhuis I know about, he is in the steel business, isn't he, but he has obviously lot of money to spend on a pretty lady", she said with a Germanic accent.
I blushed, I was not a whore. Took a deep breath, and I explained calmly that I was taking care of his accounts. I was his secretary, and I was also doing my own business, and I had my father permission to do so.
I couldn't help sigh while saying:
"Why when a girl earns her keep, one assumes she does it without honest work. I keep his accounts and correspondence, an important position for a girl, and it is that trust that is rewarded. Mike is nothing like the bother Paul, who is known to disrespect the 7th commandment"
"I stand corrected", the countess said, to the great consternation of the ladies in waiting that were following her.

[ the order of the Ten Commandments vary. The reformed church has Thou shall not commit adultery as 7th, while many other churches like the catholic has it as the 6th. ]

I get out of the shop after her exit. Master Perrin had to tend to his most important customer, before he could do the corrections necessary on my outfit. Just a shame there were so few opportunities to display the gown, and a shame I didn't have the right shape yet to make it perfect. My bosom was not yet developed enough to give it its magnificence. The nice thing about wearing fantastic clothes is that I was identified as a member of the wealthy class, as long as I did not behave like a tart in which case I would be relegated to the bottom, independent of personal wealth. I had to go out a bit, and show it off. Not many people knew me here in Leeuwarden, and the others be damned. I regretted so much never go out in drag while I male. Now I was a woman, I'd better enjoy it, and live, and I wanted to see the colours in sunlight, and didn't listen to Master Perrin's protests about the dress not being finished.
Outside, I could still see the countess Albertine Agnes . Her grace was constantly greeted by her people, and the guards only tried half heartedly to keep them away. She had her kids there, except the count himself. What was their name again? Amalia and....
"Wilhelmina - what are you doing" It wasn't the countess shouting, but the nanny, a local woman with gigantic boobs. The countess had given birth to Wilhelmina after the death of her husband.
I saw the little girl standing next to a stall selling nuts. The little girls face was turning red, and soon would be turning blue, and I understood what was going on. The stall in the street had been selling roasted nuts. People were closing in so it was getting impossible to see.
"Let me through - I can help", I shouted and people gave me berth, and I shoved the guard off.
In hindsight this might be a lès majesty to come running though the Countess was not a queen, but as good as. Anyway the guard happened to do the right thing, and it could be that the silken dress made a difference. Only persons of importance wore silk. Traditional sumptuary laws prohibited this to commoners. I took the child, turned her upside down, and facing her mother, pressed the diaphragm violently with my fist. The nut was ejected, and the little girl could gasp some air again, I turned her back the right way, and, and then she vomited all over me! Actually it was only the silk petticoat of the dress, but still...
Yuck - I'll never want to have children. I handed the screaming brat back to the nanny, and tried to keep a stiff upper lip, and do a proper curtsy to my liege lady.
At least now I was the talk of the town. The girl with the vomit-stain on her silken petticoat. I walked back to the tailor, who would have to make a few adjustments.

I told Mike about the affair, omitting who the Lady actually was, and we had a good laugh. Mike allowed me to take a loan, and to take more of batch #1 of the cobweb thin fabric, so I could get a new dress, but pointed out "You should have talked to me - it was the wrong shade of blue." and helped pick a new 7 cubits long piece of fine silk. All the ribbons also had to be changed to match. I didn't tell whose child I had saved, and it turned out Mike is not the least interested in gossip. Mike may be female in his current body, but he was a nerd. But bless him; he had a keen eye to select the right hue of blue.

"The Countess of Nassau-Dietz requests the pleasure of receiving Mijnheer Michael van Zevenhuis and Mademoiselle Greta von Dreyer."
Hmm. My dear father was Hein Dreyer, not Hein von Dreyer, but close enough anyway. Exciting to be invited to the "almost royal palace". At least I had something to wear. Paul heard about it later, and was a bit snuffed at not being invited. He had just turned down an offer of civil service. Had he done the wrong political move?

The winter came early, and the canals froze early. Even the inner sea between the islands froze and prevented goods from reaching the cities. Paul had build a boat that broke the ice. How he did it was secret, but he employed 10 strong but blind men, and it kept a shipping lane open, and therefore attracted extra traffic to this otherwise hitherto unknown town. Merchantmen trapped in the ice had to pay to be free of the ice, but Paul would help fishermen pro-bono, which made him popular. The cold was bad, but it was it allowed some sporting activities. It was fun to let the coach take our stuff to Leeuwarden, and Mike and I took our skates, and we skated on the canals. Mike had made some real skates with good fixing to the boot. I cursed at wearing long skirts, that presented a significant resistance to air, almost like a sail, I even tried to use it a a sail as we got to a stretch where we had the wind from behind. All the Dutch that saw this were amazed at the quality of the skates. I only had the skates that were tied to my shoes, but they were made of steel, and we got to destination faster than the coach. Several people recognized me, and I was hailed, and congratulated as I arrived. I did a twirl on my skates, and go even more applause, and then I fell and everyone laughed. I laughed too. Mike still had no clue why they knew of me. I didn't tell.

Not everyone gets invited to celebrate Christmas with the dowager countess and her family, and it was a private thing, at least as private as rulers let it be, but the Countess wanted to thank me for saving her daughter. Yes - let's be honest – her daughter would have died if I didn't intervene. In private the countess asked me what favour she could grant me. I asked her to give me some time to think about it, and it could be I never would need to call the favour.

Meanwhile, Mike was showing some wonders to the children. He had brought phosphorus, Sodium, Potassium, and loads of other stuff. and he made the metal burn in water, and no wonder they called Mike 'the Magician'. Except Wilhelmina, who started to cry when big brother used a hammer to smash at small pellets which were the mixture of Sodium chlorate and sulphur. The same mixture were in the small pellets that were put in the fake pan of the toy-gun Henry Cazimir got as a present.

"He is great with the children," the countess said. "He could be a great father"
"Alas, Your Grace" I said "Mike will never be a father- Just see for yourself: there is no indication of a beard growing"
The countess didn't see the obvious thing, or maybe she did.

*_*_*_* Mike *_*_*_*
“Hey, that's raincoats”, the girl said. Not speaking Dutch, but I understood what she said.
I didn't hear what the bloke answered
I was stunned because she identified the new product immediately. I usually have employees to take care of retail. I am no good at that.
“Excuse me madam!”, I said. “Do you like them?”
“Sorry Sir! I speak not good?”
“Where are you from?”
“We are from Eigersund, We are looking for work”, she said – which I understood quite readily. I had heard those words several times. The United Provinces was the land of milk and honey for people that had the temerity to get out of their servitude. I had not heard of that place, but I understood from her pronunciation it was in Norway. Most people from there were extremely uneducated and provincial. I smiled when I hear the young man's name: Odd
“I might have work for you, if you are suited for the job”
I could see on their faces that they were not sure what I said. The “have work” kindle hope in their eyes. The rest of the sentence was obviously something that meant – not right now, and that was a killer. I could not leave the stall right now, how was I to handle that... I tried in German – that is high German, which not many spoke. That threw a blank. I didn't try low-German, because she would then have understood Dutch, but I tried English. Wow! She spoke English!
“I might have work for you, but it depends on if you are suited for the job”
One second later the thought struck me that they might be spies on behalf of England, but why send kids, and particularly someone who was not fluent in Dutch.
“Oh Please Sir! We desperately need work”, she said. The boy did not understand, so she translated... Obviously not English. Could still be a spy.
I am not a big supporter just giving alms to persons with a work capability. Still they were obviously hungry , so I said.
“Here is a coin. Go to that tavern, the Boar and the Ram, and get some food, and a beer. Don't drink the water. It is probably infected. Even if you have not eaten for a long time, just share a plate- one helping is for a working-man. It is never wise to over-eat, and particularly not after starvation. Come back here when you are done”

Selling is not my strong point. I hate public scrutiny that might expose my gender. In the fine weather it was difficult – even impossible to show off the brilliant idea that my product was. The young sales apprentice came back, so I left the stall, and caught them as they were finishing their food.
“So what's your name, girl?”
“Solveig, and his name is Odd”
“I noticed. Mike Zevenhuis is my name, welcome; and, how did you guys get here?” - I said thinking this town was not exactly the metropolis like Amsterdam.
“We rowed here”
“What? You mean sailed?”
“No – Mr Zevenhuis - rowed – we got a little help from tail-wind, but we rowed”
“From Egersund?”
“No from Stavanger”
“Wow! Listen - I would like to hear your story, and I offer a golden coin for it - that is worth twenty stuiver, or 320 penning. You seem to need the coin, and maybe I can offer you work!”

Their Story started off a bit boring about long winters, and a description of the farm where they grew up. Their father seriously injured, as he was complementing the meagre outcome from the farm with lumberjack for the mill that provided timber, and then Solveig saved him. That was when rumours of witchcraft started. Even worse when she helped people who got ill. Solveig then made the mistake of putting the blame of the foot and mouth epidemics on the tax-collector, who travelled from place to place.
“I only said he was the only-one who could spread it so quickly, and everywhere..”
Anyway – The father knew they would not stand a chance in court. The king may not be so scared of witchcraft as his father, but the judges and civil servants had been appointed by the long dead King Christian IV, so they continued the same policy, for fear the people may no longer fear God.
It seems Solveig's father knew what was her only hope. She was not heavily guarded. There was no escape for a female witch. A man can come alone in a strange place, and be accepted for what he was, but lone women will raise questions. It was therefore impossible to flee, and witches to be burned were shunned by most people. He managed to bribe the guard, Solveig had to put on men's trousers and that put the pursuers off the scent for a while, and got her in the small boat with Odd. A relative in Skudesnes provided food and most important water for the voyage. Four nights and three days he rowed almost relentless when he suddenly collapsed. Solveig said she recognized the symptoms of Angina Pectoris. , and they had to commend the body to the sea.

They didn't have to row the whole way, as they came across some Dutch fishermen about to finish off after some bumper catch of herring, and they were towed down here. It was good old Gysbert that had found them, and thus took them to Altena.

The plan had been to contact their oldest sibling, that had moved to the Netherlands during the war. Sunniva had managed to send a message that she got a position as a servant with a brewer and his wife. It was that message that Solveig had managed to read without having gone to any school, and started the rumours about Solveig having made a pact with the devil, or as they said “Knowing more than the Lord's prayer”. Knowledge is dangerous.

Solveig ended her story, and I kept my promise:
“Here is the Goulden , as promised, for your story”, and then I asked her:
“Miss Solveig – at what University did you learn about Angina Pectoris”
She blushed, and was at a loss for words. I could see she was shaken, but then she was an observant person so she said:
“And at what University did you go mister Zevenhuis, or is it miss?”
It was my turn to blush.

Solveig and Odd were like us, but without any gender swap. Solveig said her name was Anna, and she was almost finished with her medicals studies, and she had played with her nephew Lukas who was 8, when it happened. Which was also why Lukas had adapted perfectly, while the aunt - now twin-sister had had some problems.
I recommended them to change name. Cut the past, and start afresh. There were enough economic refugees from Scandinavia to blend in, though most of them settled in Holland, a whole section of Amsterdam was populated with a mix of Danes, Norwegians, Estonian, Poles, and comparatively few in this remote province. There was just another thing they needed to cover their tracks, not that Dutch people would be too inquisitive, and that was to change their names. It could put possible witch hunters off, and it was actually very common. Odd decided to call himself Lucas Elkwijk. Solveig changed hers to Anna Elkwijk. Almost at once I could put her to work as physician. Her fame grew, but when she tried to formalize her knowledge by applying to the University of Leyden, her application was turned down because it was not written in Latin, and they also presumed about her shortcomings with regard to ancient Greek. On the other hand this did not stop her- as healing was not yet limited to the doctor. I knew that armies usually lost a third of its manpower due to illness, so nobody should say that Anna could not play her part. When trouble started.
"So - why are you dressed in drags? I could never pass as a man. I am a soprano, everyone hears that I am two octaves too high, and I will never be strong enough", Anna asked.
"I am a man in my head, and as a girl I would get nothing done!"
"Yeah, but isn't it a bit difficult to hide, you have quite a male mannerism, but your voice and details in your anatomy betrays you"
"My voice is that of an alto, and can be mistaken for a tenor. Finally I have this cover-story, that I was wounded in my groin. Paul and I agreed on a story where I got shot in the groin when I was younger"
"But isn't that a bit far -fetched. The simple truth lasts longer, as lies get complicated to maintain over time! Yes - you are tall, but not as much as if you were eunuch... "
"But I could never walk around in a dress" I said.
She looked at me, and suddenly she started to chuckle
"On that point I disagree. You just put on a dress, and if you don't stand out in the crowd it's OK. After a few years you get used to it. It is the peoples reaction that decides. Few have the guts to be different, and stand out of the crowd"
"But the corset is constricting ... We come from a time when at least corsets were only worn by those with a fetish."
"Hmm", Anna said. "Corsets are constricting, but you are wrong about them only be worn by fetishists. Anyone who feels they need a thinner waist without resorting to surgery can try. Have you heard of hold-in underwear?"

Later I asked her what part of the anatomy she had noticed, and she pointed out: A less developed 'Adam apple' and thin wrists. She was a doctor in Medicine after all.

Just as we got "home" I got some terrible news. Paul was wounded.
"What's happened?"
"His musket blew up in his face"
Quite literally. Anna began to clean the wounds; remove small pieces of steel from his muscles. I had to produce antiseptics to fight bacteria. His hand was maimed, and full of debris. The local barber-surgeon had said that only amputation could save him. Barber-surgeons were making house-calls to present their services. It reminded me of quacks offering their services to terminally ill cancer patients. Anna was godsend. However the pain that Paul went through was not what he had envisaged.
"I now think this immersion game is not going to be a success" he said after some weeks. "It is far too realistic"
"You remember about a year and a half a year ago, when you complained that this was so boring"
....
Anna was proving her use at once. She managed to pick the small steel-bit out of his hands, and face, and we got the burns disinfected. He was not going to win a beauty pageant after this. His hands were wrapped up. He could eat with the spoon or the fork, but we had to fit it there into the dressing that looked like a boxing glove. He could not even get his trousers down or up.
While I tended him, I discovered he had a chancre on his penis. He tried to hide it.
"What have you got there?"
"I can't show that to a girl"
"About this girl thing ... you know ..., and I am your nurse right now, and Anna is a doctor"
"OK... Do you know what it is?" he asked.
"I am pretty certain. Don't you have something to confess"
He turned purple, so I drove it in:
"You have VD. This is probably Syphilis, although it could be Gonorrhoea. The early symptoms are quite similar, and the way to acquire it is the same. So now tell me who gave it to you."
"It was just a fling"
"Don't procrastinate - tell who you have had sex with"
"She's the daughter of the baker down by the St Nicolaus church in Leeuwarden"
"Do you want to marry her?"
"I can't marry her. She's a slut. Everyone in the city-watch beds her!"
"Then you have to find a way out of this - I can let you meet people with secondary and tertiary level of the disease...."

It is amazing how many details you have to handle in order to create things. A major challenge was also to produce things with a very high degree of accuracy. Screws, bolts nuts, and rivets are all things taken for granted, but was non-existing in a pre-industrial society.

One of the Hugenots fleeing France happened to be a smith versed in the art of casting. His Master had been Jean-Jacques Keller, father of the French system of standardizing the production of cannons. I improved on his system by encasing the gun in a steel-drum - making it stronger. and lighter. Reducing the weight of the barrel was important, as I was about to teach all and everyone that it is not necessary to shoot lead and stone bullets, when it is more efficient to send steel and brass grenades with explosive core, development away from the spherical bullets to the aerodynamic grenades. A major contribution of the Keller system was to drill out of the centre, which makes the path very straight. Full steel guns was not yet possible because of casting technique. A windmill drove the bore At least the diamonds I bought were put to some good use. I did a test against boards of oak , and the new cannon-balls could penetrate 70 inches of oak, and that is without explosives inside. What was not yet clear to the scientific community that momentum and energy was two concepts. Cannonballs do not need to be heavier in order to create more havoc. Tests with non-round balls did fly as the projectiles started to spin and rotate, creating a substantial drag, so it was no success, but then we knew better- didn't we?.
That this Hugenot - du Pont chose to settle in Groningen was going to be the site of production, was fortunate . It was good to provide work for people. I also had to keep a sharp eye on the cost and the yield of all. It would not be good if I went bankrupt before the war broke out. The way I did this was to make a mutual deal with some: they could get a new product to produce, and they would either pay a "rent" or do some production for me. Running on a daily basis factories would steal too much of my precious time.

I have to admit I found time to write a pamphlet criticizing the prime-minister de Witt for living in the past where the United Provinces could trust France. He represented a group of people still believing that France was not going to punish the Netherlands for not supporting him, and for believing that the English and the Swedes were true to the pledge in the Tripple Alliance. A quote from the text later re-used was: “A person can have friends, but countries have only relationships based on mutual interest. Countries don't have friends. There may be friendly relationship between countries for a while, but ever-lasting friendships, never!” Criticism also aimed at the of a one-sided emphasis on naval power - like Perikles of Athens believed in the Navy of Themistocles, while getting in trouble with the Spartans, undoubtedly the best military of its time. I voiced a point of view not a very welcome by the people in power, and it branded me for a while as Orangist. The Union was paying most of the navy's cost, while the army was each province's problem, and the richest provinces on the coast were shielded landwards by the poorer, who could ill afford to build a more professional army. It was maybe this meddling with politics that closed the doors on me when I could help the country the most.
One more frivolous "investment" was when I got acquainted with a German gentleman, or was he Czech? - His name was Carl von Rabenhaupt, and a warrior falling on hard times as 'peace' does not need his kind. I understood he wanted money, and you don't give menial tasks, like a factory job to someone like him. I offered him a few hundred guilders as an advanced payment for his memoirs, and to train the factory-workers - two hours every Saturday at military manoeuvres and shooting with muskets. His eyesight was not good enough to appreciate the range of the rifled guns. He almost refused to train two dozen young women, but he swallowed his pride. These small hand-guns were mere toys, and it was just a hobby, and beggars can't be choosers. He also understood the potential need that women knew how to reload a musket while her husband was busy aiming the muskets. He didn't quite believe me when I pointed out that the Snaphance mechanism took more time to load than with the design I got my weapon-smiths to make.

Speaking about the weapon-smiths - they were also a conservative bunch. They did not want to make much improvements. So Paul and I had to train some guys on our own. One such recruit was a teenager that had run away from his apprenticeship. He turned out all-right, and was willing to produce series of weapons rather than work on a single one for ages.

Anna also took over the responsibility for watching production of the necessary chemicals, so I could concentrate on weapon development. Some of the chemicals were so very relevant for here apothecary. We even had plans for food storage. From what I remembered in history books, over 70% of the Netherlands were going to be under foreign occupation.

"Beware it may not be a game and it is probably about to change. War is likely to start any time soon", I answered, "and I can not fight with a sword or a musket I barely can lift off the ground"
"Yeah that sucks for you", Paul never let go of his street slang.
"Besides I am still not convinced it is a game. There are far too many details"
"I could out you as a cross-dresser if you do that - you would be arrested and pilloried", Lucas said. I pointed first out that pillory was not much used here in the Netherlands.
"The is at least one woman who regularly wears pants, and she is even on good terms with the pope"
I had told him about Christina of Sweden, and how she had to abdicate many years ago, and how she was famous for walking around in pants or short skirt. She did not have to abdicate because she liked to dress up as a man. It was her conversion to catholic faith that forced her to resign.
"It is not forbidden for women to wear trousers - it is just not done. In England you can get pilloried for it, but it is such an intolerant country filled with bigoted people. It gives us just better reasons to fight them if they attack. Let me find you something really useful to do, Lucas"
I found enough money to buy an old schooner. Lucas was not knowledgeable enough about the ship to be a captain, but as a first mate he would do, and I had trained him into stargazing. Meanwhile we had a After his first voyage I would retrofit the Het Sterrenwacht with a carbonfiber mast that was 250 feet tall. which was going to make the Het Sterrenwacht the talk of the town, not only here. Everyone asked me where I had found trees that tall. But she had some secrets below the waterline too - like a keel that could be lowered deep, and allowed her to go more up against the wind, while ballast-tanks of water could move the centre of gravity from one side to the other.
Equipped with a shortwave-radio he would also be able to compute the longitude. For captain I hired a guy that had survived a shipwreck, saved his whole crew, but lost his cargo of rice and spices off the Brittany coast, tricked by some wreckers there. The shipowner was furious for having lost the whole cargo. The captain should have gone down with the ship. Instead he had save the crew. He was destined to be a pauper, with his wife and brood of children. I gave him a second chance.
For some reason I didn't bother to inform Paul that I had build a radio. We quarrelled at the time about the size of his annuity, and he had started to behave in strange ways.
One problem about the Het Sterrenwacht, was that it was getting too heavy with 10 guns. So I provided it with 4 breech-loader. All of them with the same gauge, and with real grenades. Not many- I was a bit strained as to the production of these. normal shot, shrapnel, blanks, and some filled with napalm like product. Always in short supply, but would probably be effective.
I also provided Lucas with a automatic pistol the first made on the SMG design with propellant of Acetone and Hydrogen Peroxide , and off he went, sailing from Rotterdam. First trip to Danzig to fill up with grain, the next would be a a longer expedition.

The tall mast of Het Sterrenwacht got me an appointment with the Navy. But there was a budget crunch, and I was told my masts were far too expensive. There was also an infinite bureaucracy. That I was living most of the time in Friesland did not workin my favour. “Sell your stuff to the Frisian Navy in Harlingen”, was the advice I got. They had just moved, and there was little money for improvements.
About the new naval gun designs, I had to see another office, and the office of naval gun purchase were stuck with their supplier. At least that was the official story.

It was on one of the trips to Leyden and Amsterdam that I met Johannes Hudde for the first time. He was a relatively rich middle aged man with a solid investment in the VOC - the Dutch East-India Company. He was actually willing to invest in one of my gun foundries. He also put me in contact with his professor Thomas van Schooten, who welcomed me as a long lost son. I had just published a small book on the geometry on the sphere. Its origin was the notes I made to teach Paul and Lucas to calculate their position. Relatively simple stuff, and still complicated for those not knowing calculus, so I had some training material in the book. and tables of logarithms, and sinus, and so on. The copyright notice at the bottom contained the following warning: "This work belongs to M.Zevenhuis . It contains some hidden errors. Should you copy it and claim it is yours without finding and correction those mistakes, you are exposed as a fraud." It must be said that there was no mistakes in them. My computer - actually a caculator- had calculated the numbers, and Els had transferred the result to the copperplates that were used by the printers. This book alone made me a fortune, because it was worth its weight in gold for the navigators, and therefore extremely valuable. In the book I had also written.
"The Earth is assumed in this book a perfect sphere, but I have some measurements that indicate some small deviation from that assumption. For the less experienced naturalists I here give a warning. These observations are not disproving that our world is a sphere, close to the shape of the orange . I just point out that the details are a bit more complicated. For those who try a theological argument that God would have created the World a perfect place and therefore a perfect sphere, I would like to point out that he created man with a propensity to sin, and not perfect. A similar situation we have in the celestial realm. The Earth is not the centre of the universe, it has an orbit around the sun which is not quite a circle, it is better described as an ellipse, yet that is probably also just an approximation".

The professor was interested in these observations, and we discussed the accuracy of the methodology. I also explained I was planning to construct a transit instrument. I also had a pamphlet ready to be published on number systems based on any radix, but ending on a recommendation to strengthen the decimal principle, and dividing the main coin of the realm on tens and hundredth of that unit, mainly for accounting purposes. The paper was dedicated to the mightiest person in the republic, the equivalent of prime-minister, raadpensionaris J de Witt, in honour of his intelligence. Professor van Schooten gave me loads of contacts, and I started a correspondence with learned men like Christiaan Huygens and I got an article accepted in Journal des Sçavans, on the trajectory of bullets, and one article in the philosophical transaction of the Royal Society, on the nature of light, and indicating it could be assumed to be of a wave-like nature, which of course Huygens appreciated, as he had already published his work on the subject.
It was with the help of corresponding with Christian Huygens that I got the whereabouts of Baruch Spinoza, as I needed some good lenses for the telescope Lucas was about to get as a gift on his trip, and I also got some good lenses for a microscope, although they were a disappointment in practice. I had to retrofit them to use with my micrometers. Spinoza was the only one who immediately saw through my disguise.
As I paid him a deposit to have the lenses made, he picked up my hand and said.
"Your hands betray your gender. Rest assured that your secret is safe I know myself how difficult it can be to be different, and have to conform. I have read your work on how to calculate positions, and I liked your comment about the perfect yet imperfect shape of the earth". After that I tried as much as possible to wear gloves to hide my dainty hands, as both Anna, and now Mr Spinoza had identified me as such.

The stupidity of the navy not to try my naval guns was the item that made me write a pamphlet about corruption, and the problems it created - be it in the state institutions or any institution. I took the Dutch East-India Company (VOC) as an example, and showed that corruption there was rampant, and would risk the whole business model of that company. I was also writing about the corruption in the Navy, but that was on the verso of the leaflet, and it was not until some time later that I discovered that the printer had only printed the recto, and distributed it.

At least I was at home. I had worked days on the production of new aerodynamic bullets, and lately I had worked at night on a thesis. There was a fire at the Hydrogen Peroxide plant. I was busy etching the copperplates that contained the formulas. Actually I was very much afraid that someone would steal my work (although I pilfering work done 350 years before I was actually born myself) - Everyone was treating me like a child, like a girl. I am not a girl. I had just received a letter from Professor Barrow and his assistant Newton that they did not like my comments on the shape of the earth, and as to my support for the wave-like nature of light it was ridiculous, and most of the work shown in my work was already proven in Lectiones Opticae et Geometricae. The citizens of Leeuwarden were scared of my factories blowing up, just like what happened in Delft in 1654. The dyers in Amsterdam were not happy with a batch of dye. They implied I was malversating them, and I have sharp pains in tummy, probably cancer, and the University of Leyden did not want to accept me giving a doctoral thesis unless I studied in such places, and .

Anna took charge - with Paul's help, I was sedated with Laudanum.

"Mike - You have to face it you are in the body of a girl, that should be more feminine. You can not starve it to death. How old is your body 16 or 17? You must not punish this body for the inevitable development of the body. That is normal in this ages and times - You have got to rest - then I will prescribe a program of regular exercise - and for three months you will not be allowed to work. That's non-negotiable" Anna and Paul talked to me slowly in the haze of sedation. But I was so irritated I had never bothered to read the chapters on how to produce hormone blockers, and how to produce artificial testosterone. It hadn't been necessary then.

Anna was working as a doctor, licensed or not. She was planning on building a hospital, a kind of Sanatorium using the water from the nearby sea. Normally it would be mostly patients with TB or Syphilis or ...
Suddenly I understood that Paul was actually more than patient number one. He and Anna were swimming around naked in the North Sea, enjoying themselves....
At least Paul had the decency to propose. The ugly rumours about her being alone in a house with many men, evaporated. It still felt weird and old-fashioned to marry. Paul asked me to be his "best-man"- probably as an initiative of reconciliation. But I preferred not to sign any legal documents in that respect. I was progressively more worried about being outed, as I knew my fortune was not a perfect protection against misogynistic laws. While not as bad here as in England or France, there was an ongoing legal battle where a woman had married without her family's consent, and her marriage was annulled because she was under-age. I made several provisions to avoid losing control if someone should discover my great deception. I didn't want my 'false' signature- as it would be considered so, if someone signed as a witness, in a place where only men could do so.

Anna looked wonderful in a dress that did cost a fortune. I know, I paid for it. Paul had this nasty habit of spending what he earned.

I also convinced Paul to allow her full professional freedom and to do so , act as a front for her medical activities. He sat now in the newly re-organized University-council, to be there often enough, making it acceptable to have his wife there. .
Got myself a horse, a palfrey, as I had some need for activity. Actually it was a gift from Anna. I also did run twice around my fields on that island every morning to keep fit. I was very aware that my boobs were growing, and I had to keep lean in order to continue being accepted. I was not really accepted in the Schutterij. I didn't insist. I rather trained my own employees. I taught the girls in the the various plants to use the rifle had designed. Actually we started off with airguns. They really laughed at me when I said they would learn to shoot French Catholics
"French soldiers - all the way up here in Friesland - you must be joking"
"If not French, then German Catholics- all ready to rape you", I said wanting to be realistic in the mentality required. Not that long time ago the Prince-Bishop's troop were attacking, so that the troops of Bomben Berendt was attacking, was a realistic scenario.

Anna and Greta were supportive, so they took it seriously, and we managed get a few hundred of them trained on sharpshooting, and then twenty on the field-guns, although all received some experience. It was actually a pre-requisite now for employment in the mills- Some of the younger-ones also learned to ride, and we had some great days camping in the dunes. I showed them the advantage of using sand and sandbags as a protection against bullets.

Whatever … there was something I had to do in Paris. I received a year ago an invitation by Huygens, to submit a doctoral thesis, and would fit nicely in to create a smoke-screen for other activities.