1635: The Eastern Front (assiti shards)

by Eric Flint

  Had already set underway, rather. The sounds of gunfire were continuing. Those were all rifles, too. Hunters' weapons.

  There was nothing Bravnicar could do about it. All that was left now was to get his Slovenes out of the disaster, if possible.

  He had no great hopes.

  As soon as Georg Kresse saw the cavalry officer trotting out of the gorge, he stood up and cupped his hands around his mouth.

  "Hey there!" he shouted. First in German, then in Slovene. His knowledge of that language was limited, but Kresse knew some words in several of the Balkan tongues. Then, for good measure, he shouted the words again in Czech. He was almost as fluent in that language as he was in his native German.

  The Slovene officer had stopped his horse and was staring up at Georg. He'd drawn a wheel-lock pistol from a saddle holster and had it at the ready, but he wasn't pointing it up the slope. At this range, he didn't have much chance of hitting Kresse anyway and they both knew it.

  "Parlay!" shouted Georg, in German and Czech. He didn't know the word in Slovene, so he used the term for talk instead. Probably not in a grammatically correct manner-he could be saying "talking!" or "to talk!" instead of "let's talk!"-but he figured the enemy officer would get the point.

  After a moment, the officer nodded. He put the pistol back in its holster and then shouted something to the cavalrymen under his command. They were now positioned some fifty yards down the trail and had dismounted and taken up defensive positions. They'd done that fairly well, for cavalrymen.

  Not that it would do them much good if fighting resumed. Georg had no doubt at all that he'd win any battle here. But these Slovenes were tough enough and good enough that he'd lose at least half a dozen men and have twice as many wounded. Some of those would die later.

  He saw no point to it. The Slovene officer's behavior made it obvious that he'd found the elector-his body, rather-and had no further duties here. With John George dead, Kresse wanted to intervene as soon as possible and as effectively as he could in the political situation that would already be unfolding in Dresden. By now, the CoC contingent should have arrived in the city and become active. They'd grow very quickly, too. The Saxon capital already had a large number of people who considered themselves members or sympathizers of the CoCs. They hadn't had much organizational experience, but the newly arrived cadre from Magdeburg would take care of that soon enough.

  Kresse considered the CoC people to be allies. But allies did not necessarily see everything the same way. After the years he and his people had spent fighting the elector in the mountains of the Vogtland, Georg was determined to have a say in what came next.

  To do that, however, he had to get to Dresden, with as many of his people as possible. It would be foolish to delay or suffer casualties in a fracas with Slovene mercenaries with whom he had no real grievance.

  He didn't hold their profession against them. These were hard times for any man. Several of his own relatives-an uncle and three cousins-had gone off to fight in the wars. Only one of them had ever come back, a cousin who was now missing his left arm below the elbow.

  Once the Slovene officer was satisfied that his men understood the situation and wouldn't unsettle anything, he dismounted from his horse and took several steps away from it. Then, spread his hands a bit to show that he held no weapons. All he was now carrying was the saber belted to his waist.

  "Come with me," Georg said to Wilhelm, as he started down the slope. Kuefer followed, just two steps behind.

  Once they were on the trail and close enough to see the officer's features, Kuefer leaned over and murmured: "That's Bravnicar, sure enough."

  Kresse had never seen the man before, but he took Wilhelm's word for it. As he came up, he extended his hand and said in Slovene: "You are Captain Lovrenc Bravnicar, I believe."

  This had to be Kresse himself. Lovrenc had gotten descriptions of the man from several people who'd known him.

  His Slovene was heavily accented and he didn't know the tongue as well as he thought he did. What he'd actually said was: "You have been Captain Lovrenc Bravnicar, I have faith."

  Fortunately, Lovrenc was fluent in German as well as Czech. He'd been born and raised in exile, mostly in Bohemia. Being honest, he was more comfortable in either of those tongues than he was in his native one.

  "Yes, I am he," he replied in German. "And I am guessing that you are Georg Kresse."

  Kresse nodded.

  This was off to a good start, Lovrenc thought. Well…?a start, anyway. But given that he'd thought he and his men were as good as dead ten minutes earlier, any start was good.

  It didn't take them more than five minutes to reach an agreement. The only sticking point-not much of one-had been Bravnicar's vague sense that perhaps he had some sort of lingering responsibility for the infantrymen being hunted down.

  But he didn't put up a real fight over the issue. Balkan noble honor or not, Bravnicar had seen enough of war to have a very wide practical streak as well. To begin with, those hadn't actually been "his" men. They'd never been on his company's payroll. Most of them had been employed by Colonel Kazimir Zajic, a Bohemian mercenary whom Lovrenc had never met and who was not even here.

  Secondly, he had no use for them anyway. They were wretched soldiers and even more wretched human beings. The sort of men who straggled at the best of times and deserted immediately when times got bad. And, invariably, stole and murdered and raped as naturally as a vulture eats carrion.

  To the devil with them. "Agreed," he said, and they shook hands on it.

  That still left some practical problems. Food and drink, first and foremost. Most of their supplies had been in the wagons, and the wagons had been with the infantry. By now, Kresse's men would have captured all of them.

  Lovrenc would have to beg, as much as he disliked the idea. They simply couldn't start foraging, not in these mountains and with Kresse's men all over. In the real world, the antiseptic term "foraging" meant "stealing from the local farmers and villages." The minute they started, they'd be in a battle-and one they were sure to lose.

  His thoughts must have shown on his face. Kresse smiled and said: "I'll let you have enough provender to get out of the Vogtland."

  Stiffly, Lovrenc nodded. "Thank you."

  Kresse shrugged. "Saves me grief, too." He cocked his head a little, a curious expression coming to his face.

  "Where will you go now?"

  Bravnicar took off his helmet and ran his fingers through his thick hair. Even on a September day that wasn't particularly hot, a man's head started to swelter inside a helmet. There was a little breeze, too, which felt very good.

  "I don't know," he said, seeing no purpose to lying. "Even if we'd reached Bavaria, I wasn't planning to stay there. Being a Protestant officer in Duke Maximilian's employ could get risky."

  Kresse grunted. "And now they say he's gone mad."

  Lovrenc had his doubts about that. From everything he'd heard, Bavaria's ruler had always been a little mad.

  "You could always go to Bohemia," Kresse said. "I'm sure Wallenstein will be hiring, as tense as things are with the Austrians."

  Lovrenc might have flushed a little. "That would be…?ah, problematic. At the beginning of my career, I was with General Piccolomini."

  "So?"

  "So if Wallenstein has read any of the up-time accounts of his life-which you can be sure and certain he has-he'll know that in the universe the Americans came from Piccolomini was one of the central plotters who had him assassinated."

  "Ah." Kresse shook his head. "Still, you were not directly involved. Perhaps Wallenstein is not holding a grudge against you."

  "Quite possibly not. But would you gamble on it?"

  Kresse laughed. "I see your point. Austria, then."

  This time, Lovrenc was sure he was flushing. "Well…?there might be other difficulties in Vienna. A youthful indiscretion…"

  That sounded silly even to him, coming as it did from a cavalry captain who was all of twenty-six yea
rs old.

  Kresse laughed again. Then, said nothing for a few seconds. He had an odd look on his face.

  "How much do you need?" he asked abruptly.

  "Excuse me?"

  "In the way of pay. For you and your company."

  Bravnicar frowned. "It's complicated. Depends on which realm-"

  Kresse waved his hand impatiently. "Never mind. We have little in the way of coin anyway. Will you work for room and board? For…?let's say three months. No, best make it four. Until the end of the year. By then, I may be able to come up with some money to continue your employment. Hard to say. But at least it'd give you a port in the storm for a few months. And I think I could use a good cavalry unit."

  Bravnicar was too dumbfounded to reply. He'd never heard of rebels-farmers, at that-trying to hire professional soldiers.

  Kresse's companion grinned. "It's just like in the movie."

  The last term was incomprehensible. It didn't even sound like a German word.

  "Like in the…?what?"

  "Movie. Motion picture. It's a device the Americans have to turn lots and lots of images into the illusion of an ongoing story. One of the CoCers we met in Magdeburg explained it to me. I got curious so Anna and I went to one of the theaters they've set up just to watch the things. Some up-timer and his German partners figured out a way to- Well. Never mind. I don't really understand it myself. Anyway, we watched a movie the up-timers had made. Not the Americans, but the Japanese. They called it The Seven Samurai. It was about this peasant village in the Japanese islands who hired mercenaries to protect them from bandits."

  Bravnicar was now completely confused. "You've got Japanese cavalry too? How did they get here?"

  Chapter 25

  Vaxholm Island, in the Stockholm Archipelago

  Charles Mademann had a disgusted look on his face when he came into the tavern. "Well, that's it," he announced. "The word is that Princess Kristina and Prince Ulrik will be returning to Denmark ten days from now."

  Guillaume Locquifier, seated at the head of the large table in the center of the tavern's main room, glanced warningly at the door leading to the kitchens. Geerd Bleecker's voice could be heard talking to his wife, although the words couldn't be made out. The two of them were the only ones living here, except for customers-and the only customers at the moment were the Huguenots sitting at the table.

  Mathurin Brillard looked up from the book he was reading, a French translation of Melanchthon's Augsburg Confession. Despite the rigor and ferocity of their political views and tactics, the group of Huguenots organized around Antoine Delerue and Michel Ducos were rather relaxed about their religious beliefs. They considered themselves members of the Reformed tradition but lacked the sectarian fervor of many Calvinist groups. Their principal concern was with the political situation in France, not theological doctrine. If one of their members found it interesting to study the views of Lutherans-Brillard even read Catholic and Jewish thinkers on occasion-no one would say anything, not even Ducos. Not when Mathurin was their foremost marksman and had demonstrated for years his loyalty and reliability in the struggle against Cardinal Richelieu and the oppression of France's Protestants.

  "This information is solid?" he asked.

  Mademann shrugged. "As solid as any such information can be. There's no doubt that the royal party is planning to leave at that time. I was told this by servants, porters and stevedores alike, and they all agreed on the date of departure. But who's to say a princess won't change her mind at the last minute?"

  "Not likely," grunted Robert Ouvrard. After the many weeks they'd spent watching Princess Kristina, they knew full well how much the heir to the throne disliked being near her mother. If there was any surprise, it was that she had stayed in Stockholm for this long. That was probably the result of strict orders from her father.

  Brillard set down his book. "No, it's not likely. Which means we have not much more than a week to get everything in order and hope we get an opportunity to strike."

  Mademann pulled out a chair and sat down at the table next to Guillaume. As he did so, he nodded toward the kitchen.

  "It's getting more difficult," he said softly. The full party of Huguenots had been living at the tavern for almost two months. As the time had passed, the tavern-keeper and his wife had begun to wonder what they were really about. Twice, most of them had had to leave for a week or so on a purported business trip just to allay his suspicions-and on one of those occasions, they'd missed the best chance they'd had to complete their mission.

  Brillard glanced at Ancelin. The former tailor gave a little nod.

  "When the time comes," said Brillard, "Gui and I will take care of the problem."

  Mademann didn't doubt they would. There was very little Gui couldn't do quietly with a blade, especially with Mathurin to help him.

  He turned to Locquifier. "The forgeries are ready, yes?"

  He got an irritated look in response. "Yes, of course they are. I've had them ready since we got here."

  Mademann started to press the matter but desisted. Guillaume would just get belligerent. He'd just have to hope the forgeries were up to date.

  The problem with Locquifier was that his adulation of Ducos and Delerue was coupled to a tendency to underestimate their opponents. So, having put together and brought to Sweden the needed forgeries, he would ignore or take too lightly the need to make sure the documents reflected the most recent events. Charles had seen the forgeries. At least one of those documents contained a reference to the state of mobilization of the USE's army-while still in their camp near Magdeburg. Weeks had passed since then, weeks during which that army had defeated the forces of John George and occupied Saxony. Would it be logical to have no references to those events in documents that purported to be regular instructions from one of Cardinal Richelieu's top assistants?

  Possibly-if none of the documents contained any such references. Perhaps Etienne Servien was a strict taskmaster who saw no need to provide information to his agents. But in that case, why were so many of those forgeries full to the brim of long-winded analyses of contemporary political events-and not just in France but in much of the rest of Europe?

  That would have been Antoine Delerue's doing. The man was a brilliant analyst, no doubt about it. But he had little experience with field work and something of a tendency to show off his talents. Charles was sure he hadn't been able to resist filling the forgeries with his version of what he thought the cardinal's minions would think.

  It was very frustrating, sometimes. The up-timers had a motto that Mademann wished his own people would maintain: Keep it simple, stupid. Instead, the forgeries were complex and intricate, which was all well and good if their internal logic was maintained. But doing so would require creating new forgeries-here in a backwater tavern on a Swedish island, with few of the resources they'd had in their possession in Edinburgh.

  Charles was pretty sure Locquifier had simply never bothered to up-date the forgeries. He probably figured the risk of botching the work was worse than the risk of having their inconsistencies spotted after the fact.

  And…?he might well be right. The quality of the local constabulary no doubt left much to be desired, these days. Gustav Adolf's overweening continental ambitions had stripped Sweden-not a populous nation to begin with-of a tremendous number of its more capable people. In all likelihood, the forgeries would be examined by men who would understand far too little of the political and military subtleties involved to see that the forgeries were inconsistent.

  That assumed that they succeeded in their task at all, of course. After weeks of being stymied, Mademann was no longer confident of that. Eleven days from now, they might be on their way back to the continent with the forgeries in their luggage, having accomplished nothing. All they'd leave behind for the constabulary to investigate would be a double homicide with no apparent motive.

  Robbery perhaps. Mademann considered that, for a moment. If they also plundered the tavern, suspicion might fall on t
he local fishermen.

  But… No. Keep it simple, stupid. They themselves would inevitably be the principal suspects, since they'd stayed here long enough that many people had seen them. In the unlikely event their escape vessel was intercepted, it would be best if there were no evidence on board.

  Which, now that he thought about it, meant that they'd have to jettison all the forgeries too, in a weighted sack of some kind.

  He'd have to see to that himself. If he raised it with Locquifier, the man would have a fit. We cannot fail Michel and Antoine!

  Guillaume could be tiresome.

  Stockholm

  "I'm exhausted," said Baldur Norddahl, as soon as he sat down at the table. "How soon are we leaving? Ten days? I may not last."

  Caroline Platzer spooned some pork dumplings into a bowl and handed it to him.

  "Dumplings for breakfast?" he complained. "Again? It's no wonder I'm exhausted."

  Caroline thought that was amusing, coming from a man who thought a proper breakfast centered around salted fish. She herself had found it hard to adjust to almost all aspects of Scandinavian cuisine, with the exception of pancakes covered in lingonberries. Those were delicious. The best that could be said of the rest of it was that mashed carrots were innocuous enough and meatballs were sometimes decent-if the spices were kept under control, which Swedes seemed to find it difficult to manage.

  It was no wonder they'd gone a-viking back in the Dark Ages. Driven by indigestion, drawn by the promise of good English food.

  Thankfully, it was almost over. Just another week and a half, and they'd be rid of the Mad Queen and her court full of dwarves.

  Kristina looked up from her own bowl of dumplings. "Stop complaining! You think you're exhausted? You get to hide most of the time. Try being me."

  The Swedish princess was in a cheerful mood, as she always was in the morning. Within two weeks of their arrival in Stockholm, they'd begun the practice of sharing breakfast in one of the smaller kitchens in the palace that Ulrik and Baldur had appropriated on the grounds that they needed their own Danish cuisine.