1635-The Tangled Web

by Virginia DeMarce

  Theobald shook his head. "I don't think that Montaigne thought it up all by himself. He probably swiped it from the Greeks or Romans."

  A revolutionary's lot in Mainz was not a happy one. Maybe he could trade the Horn of Plenty for an inn in Magdeburg.

  Bonn, Archdiocese of Cologne, March 1634

  "We simply can't do what you want us to," Walter Deveroux said. "You're out of your fucking mind."

  This wasn't the most prudent thing to say to the personal confessor of the archbishop-elector of Cologne, said archbishop-elector, Ferdinand of Bavaria, brother of Duke Maximilian, being at the moment the man who was paying them. Walter Butler sighed. It was true, though. The idea that they should take their dragoons on a razzia through Hesse, or if that route would not work, past Mainz and Frankfurt-am-Main, up the Kinzig valley to Fulda, was ridiculous. Absurd. A recipe for disaster.

  Now the Capuchin was suggesting that just the colonels go in. Some of the Buchenland imperial knights were far from being happy at being placed under the administration of the up-timers. Upstarts, it was more accurate to say. They could provide a couple hundred men. Ferdinand's confessor got up. "You're the professionals. The archbishop wants to damage the prestige of the USE administration in Fulda. Figure something out and let me know what you decide."

  "The Irish colonels, after consulting with Franz von Hatzfeldt, have accepted his suggestion in regard to kidnapping the abbot of Fulda," the Capuchin said. "It will be attention-getting, the sort of thing that will bring a lot of bad publicity down on the up-timers, but still not wasteful of manpower if Your Eminence should need for their regiments to take the field any time this coming summer. They believe they can coordinate it fairly easily with the imperial knights in Buchenland, and manage the matter with only local, on the ground, assistance. It should be a fast 'in and out.' They'll pick up as many of the up-time administrators as they can, take Felix Gruyard along to question them, but only bring the abbot out—maximum disruption for minimum cost."

  Ferdinand of Bavaria frowned. "What about Wamboldt von Umstadt? Fulda is really under the jurisdiction of the archbishop-elector of Mainz. He may have something to say about this plan."

  The Capuchin shook his head. "He is a refugee in Cologne. Under those circumstances, I feel sure that he will allow himself to be guided by your wisdom, Your Eminence."

  Johann Adolf von Hoheneck cleared his throat. "I am not so sure of that. Archbishop Anselm Casimir is close to the Jesuits. Closer than he is to you Capuchins. He's particularly close to Friedrich von Spee, who has been in Grantville. Even if he has taken refuge from the Swedes—even though he has been in Bonn since the winter of 1631—I'm afraid that his sympathies might not . . . Well. Additionally, as provost of St. Petersburg, on behalf of the Abbey of Fulda, I really must stipulate that whatever you do in the matter of the current abbot should not be construed as adversely affecting the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of the abbey itself."

  "Your concern for your fellow Benedictines is admirable, I am sure," the Capuchin said. "It would be more so if you did not have hopes of becoming Schweinsberg's successor as abbot."

  Ferdinand of Bavaria waved a hand. "Make it happen. But I want the questioning to be effective and efficient. It's all very well to say that since the Irish colonels speak English, they will be in a better position than any of my other subordinates to question the up-timers, but make sure that they take Felix Gruyard along."

  "Father Taaffe and Father Carew are setting up for mass." Dislav stuck his head into the room. "Dislav" was the nickname of Ladislas Dusek, a servant who had been with Walter Butler's wife since her father assigned him as the footman to serve her nursery on the day she was born.

  "Coming, coming." Butler stood up. "Thick-headed, impertinent Czech," he grumbled to Robert Geraldin. "I'd never let any other servant get away with being that rude. Once Dislav found out that I started as a common soldier, he got it in his head that I'm utterly unworthy of a noble Bohemian lady. He seems to think that I'm a wicked uncle and that he has to protect Anna Marie from me."

  "You do have a temper," Deveroux pointed out. "And you did start out as a grunt, even if the commander of the Irish Legion was vaguely your relative. Besides, he thinks that you shouldn't have brought her with you on this drag all the way across southern and western Germany. Either one of her married sisters would have been happy to have her stay with them."

  "How the hell am I supposed to get her pregnant if I'm in Bonn and she's in Vienna?"

  "Touchy this morning, are we?"

  "It's not that the news has been good all spring. God, but I loathe Swedes."

  "Still feeling the pain after that little matter of Frankfurt-am-Oder? Lord, Butler, it's been three years."

  "It was . . ."

  "Yes, a trifle embarrassing to be taken prisoner. Look, it happens to all of us, just about, one time or another. In any case, we're all in this together, now. Since Wallenstein found out that all of us were involved in the plot to assassinate him—well, not just a plot, since we actually succeeded—in that other world, you have to admit that our career choices are limited. We're lucky to have been hired by the archbishop of Cologne." Deveroux stood up. "We're due at mass. MacDonald?"

  "Leave him there," Geraldin said. "He's already drunk. Or still drunk. He was carousing with Borcke and Browne until all hours of the night. He's getting to be less than useless."

  * * *

  "When I married you two years ago," Anna Marie von Dohna said, "I did not bargain for becoming a camp follower. How does Father Taaffe describe this place? 'Several wagons and a large number of dragoons.' This tent is not exactly a well-designed country house. I have precisely two servants and am paying them from what little gold I managed to bring with me. I did not bargain for this. When I agreed to marry you, you had every prospect of promotion and estates from Ferdinand II, two excellent ones, Hirschberg and Neuperstein."

  "They were also in Bohemia," Walter Butler said sourly. "We ran into a little problem the year after that. Remember Wallenstein? Remember that he found out that I was a rather prominent participant in his assassination-that-did-not-happen-in-this-new-universe?"

  "I was better off as Bartolomeus's widow than I am with you. I would at least still be at home."

  "You didn't think so at the time. You were greedy; you made your bed; now lie in it."

  If Butler could have slammed the door, he would have. Unfortunately, the tent did not provide a door he could slam.

  The morning and the evening of the second day

  Mainz, March 1634

  "So that's the status of the Mainz Committee of Correspondence headquartered at the Horn of Plenty tavern. Chaplain Pistor is not happy with the way Captain Duke Eberhard handled his complaint about Simrock."

  "What would he have preferred?"

  "A hanging for treason would have suited his mood nicely. Moving along to the next agenda item, we have yet another complaint from Georg Wulf von Wildenstein about the Americans—Thuringians—whatever one wants to call them—and their policies in Fulda." Johan Botvidsson shuffled the papers in front of him.

  "The complaint concerns?" Nils Brahe asked. Gustavus Adolphus's chief administrator in Mainz was more than a little irritable.

  "I believe the best description might be 'Catholic coddling,' " Botvidsson replied calmly.

  "That's something von Wildenstein sees everywhere," Brahe retorted. "Everyone knows the man. When the king appointed him as chief administrator in Bamberg after Horn took the city in February 1632—that was months before he turned Franconia over to the Americans—almost the first thing that the man did was order the holding of Calvinist worship services in the Jesuit church. It was so egregious an offense against any kind of reasonable policy that even the Lutheran chaplains filed a formal protest. Why me, O Lord, why me?"

  "Johan had me read the letter too," Mans Ulfsparre commented. "At the moment, he seems particularly outraged because the Franconians, Fulda included, have voted to become an
integral part of the NUS complex, which will now be calling itself the 'State of Thuringia-Franconia.' That makes it now the largest province in the USE, in addition to having provided Stearns as prime minister—not only the largest province, but one with a significantly large Catholic population, whereas the king came into this war as the champion of Protestantism."

  "He should be happy to have Stearns as prime minister. The man is, officially at least, a Presbyterian. A Calvinist." Erik Stenbock, the other junior member of the inner circle, like Ulfsparre all of age twenty-two, grinned. "The highest-ranking Calvinist in the new imperial administration. Even higher than the landgraves of Hesse, Wilhelm and Hermann."

  "Ordinary common sense has very little to do with the way that von Wildenstein reacts to things." Brahe's mood remained sour.

  "Why?" Ulfsparre asked.

  "I'm not sure," Botvidsson admitted. One of the causes of his outstanding success as a quartermaster-cum-aide-de-camp was his willingness to admit what he did not know. "More and more, I'm coming to think . . ." He paused and looked at Brahe. "We have too many Swedes on this inner council and not enough Germans. Swedes are fine for setting and carrying out military policy, but when it comes to understanding why these people do some of the things they do—and how—we need more information. Or, at least—" He paused and looked at the stacks of paper on the table. "Different information."

  "The same's true for the people in Fulda," Ulfsparre said. "One of Wildenstein's points really is valid. What do we really know about how they plan to handle the Ram Rebellion? Almost nothing. Their president in Grantville is in regular contact with Magdeburg, sure. But what about here? Should we be setting up a closer liaison with them? So far, we've almost ignored them."

  Stenbock grinned again. "Why not solve two problems at once? Send the three young, most unfortunately radicalized, Württemberg dukes up to Fulda to spend some time under the supervision of their military administrator. That will get them out of your hair for a couple of months, at least. Letting them cool their heels for a while after this last confrontation can't hurt. Perhaps you could send Pistor—the chaplain, not the student—with them, as a response to Wildenstein. Not that it will help, given that he's a rabid Counter-Remonstrant and was right in the middle of things in 1619 when the Dutch exiled the Arminians, but it will get him out of your hair for a couple of months, too, with luck. Assure Wildenstein that he'll be monitoring the situation very closely. We don't have to tell him that right now, the main situation that Pistor is interested in keeping an eye on is the one developing between his daughter and young Lieutenant Duke Friedrich. Do we?"

  Brahe actually smiled. "Use the radio. Ask for an immediate response."

  "What did this man Jenkins in Fulda say?" Brahe asked several meetings later.

  Botvidsson picked up a sheet of paper. "It is possible that you are not the only administrator who has young men who are difficult to control on his staff."

  "Yes?"

  "Jenkins's military administrator, a man named Derek Utt, writes that he will be happy to send a couple of his people down to Mainz to, and I quote, 'meet-and-greet your youthful delinquents and judge as to whether Fulda is prepared to host them or not.' "

  The morning and the evening of the third day

  Their drummer rattled his sticks in a "make way, make way" rhythm.

  "That's one more thing," Lieutenant Duke Friedrich said. "Why do soldiers take drummers when they're just out on ordinary errands? I can see why they use the drums when a whole unit is marching through a town, to warn carters to move their teams and wagons, and vendors to pull their carts to the side. Otherwise, there wouldn't be room on the streets for six men abreast, row after row. But we're just walking. Why should the people of Mainz have to move apart for us on this particular morning?"

  "If you're asking why we do it," Corporal Hertling said, "it's because all the other units do it. Do you really want to trip over—"

  The rest of his answer came in the form of the body of a sturdy, middle-aged woman hurtling through the door of a shop, followed by a male voice screaming, "impudent bitch!"

  ". . . bodies," Hertling finished. He had intended "dogs and small children," but this seemed to preempt the rest of what he had planned to say.

  "That one's not going to be moving out of our way any time soon," Friedrich said, "drum or no drum."

  Ensign Duke Ulrich ran ahead of the others. "It's Sybilla," he said, leaning down. "One of the old ladies who come to the CoC meetings."

  "Why?" Corporal Hertling started to ask.

  He was interrupted by scowling man who followed the body through the door. "Talk to me like that, will you? We're legally quartered in this district. We're legally quartered in this house. What matter is it to you that we've taken the good bedroom and the good bed? Aren't we in the service of His Majesty of Sweden? Aren't we protecting you Germans from the Catholics? Ah, forgot, didn't I. You are Catholic, off to a papist mass every Sunday. Why should I care if sleeping in an unheated attic is making your father's lungs worse? Why?"

  "I know you," Hertling said. "Sybilla's complained about you before. You're Rohrbach."

  Captain Duke Eberhard made a gesture that everyone present understood. Bauer, Kolb, Merckel, and Heisel moved.

  "We'll need a surgeon," Ulrich said. "She's broken something."

  "Her neck, it looks like," Merckel had seen worse, but this was bad enough. "Not much point in paying a surgeon for that."

  "Arrest him," Eberhard said to Hertling.

  "Arrest me!" Rohrbach made a quarter-turn and boxed Kolb's ears. "Why arrest me? She's the one who was talking rebellion. She's the one who was saying that she shouldn't have to put up with having soldiers in her house. She's the one who was talking about Boston and the constitution of the United States of America, and that in a just world, soldiers would not be quartered on the civilian population, eating their food and dirtying their sheets, making work. She's the one—"

  "Arrest him," Eberhard said again. Kolb, still shaking his head, pinned Rohrbach's arms behind him.

  "What unit does he belong to?"

  "Von Glasenapp's, I think."

  "Hell." Ulrich stood up. "Another of the Pomeranians, as if our own darling Colonel von Zitzewitz and von Manteufel weren't bad enough."

  "He's a Mecklenburger," Friedrich said. "Rohrbach, that is."

  "Pomeranian, Mecklenburger, what's the difference?"

  "We'll take it up with Brahe's headquarters," Eberhard said. "The Swedes are responsible for the behavior of regiments stationed in the city, even if the commanding officers are mostly German."

  "Should I stay here," Ulrich asked. "Should I call Herr Donner? Should I, umm . . ." He waved at Sybilla's body. "Do something? Call the watch? We can't just leave her here in the street."

  "The whole thing was disgusting. It was like von Glasenapp didn't even think that Sybilla was . . . well, like he didn't think that her death was worthy of any respect." Lieutenant Duke Friedrich was not happy. "He's not even going to have Rohrbach flogged."

  "That's probably because he didn't think that her death was worthy of respect," Ulrich said. "He wouldn't even agree that his regiment should contribute toward her funeral expenses. He'd have been more upset if he'd had to put down a good horse."

  "Who is going to pay for her funeral? Old Binder sure can't. He's more than half dead himself, the way he coughs and rasps and rattles."

  "Simrock's going to take up a collection."

  Ulrich spat on the floor. "Glasenapp. Von Glasenapp. What right does that stupid Pomeranian have to call himself a noble? He's just a provincial easterner. His ancestors were probably Slavs. He doesn't act nobly. When Montaigne is writing about the quality of mercy, he suggests that to avoid civil conflict, the nobility must become like the peasantry and submit to a higher authority. He said that roturier soldiers, from the middle classes, were often braver and more honorable than those from the nobility."

  "Montaigne wasn't a real noble, either," Eberhard po
inted out. "Not even by French standards, much less German ones. Not noblesse d'épée. He was a country gentleman, well-mannered and well-educated, certainly, but his great-grandfather made a fortune in commerce and bought the estate and the title. His mother's family were still in trade. And the quartering system isn't all bad. If we hadn't been quartered at the Horn of Plenty when we first arrived in Mainz, I'd probably never have met Tata."

  "I'm not so sure that's a good idea." Ensign Duke Ulrich eyed his beer.

  "Why shouldn't I renounce my title?" Lieutenant Duke Friedrich slapped his little brother's arm. "Look at me, not at that stein. It's not as if anyone pays attention to it any more. Brahe certainly doesn't. Between Horn and Bernhard, not to mention the emperor's dispositions in regard to our supposed welfare, we can't even stick our noses into our supposed duchy. Also, for heaven's sake, I've joined the CoC. I'm a flaming young radical, right in there with Spartacus. I'm not supposed to be a duke any more. And I certainly don't want people to think that I sympathize with people like von Glasenapp."

  "Among other things," Captain Duke Eberhard pointed out, "under our house laws, you're not of age yet, so you can't. Not legally."

  "There must be somewhere that I can. Remember the newspaper articles about that reception in Magdeburg last fall, when Gustavus appointed Stearns as prime minister? All those young aristocrats came up to him and said they were renouncing their titles."

  "It was in November. There was a whole list of them in the paper. I only noticed one single duke among them. Below that, not even a Freiherr. A couple of fifth or sixth sons of imperial knights was about as high as it went. Practically all of them were untitled, mediatized, rural von This or von That, just like your much-admired Spartacus. He's the third son of some untitled Saxon Niederadel. What did younger sons of the lower nobility have to lose? Effectively, nothing. What did they have to gain? They got to speak with the new prime minister, which was possibly worth something. Maybe they can carve a career in the new government's bureaucracy somewhere, or get a chance to run for the new House of Commons and represent the interests of their fathers and older brothers there. They probably figured that the now-Wilhelm-Wettin knew something they didn't, but I haven't seen many Hochadel following his example. They're waiting to see if the 'prime minister comes from the House of Commons only' idea lasts."