Grantville Gazette, Volume 68

by Bjorn Hasseler

  Standing over the final pirate, gun firmly trained at the man’s forehead, Estuban made himself conform to the image of the stone-cold killer, all the while fighting the urge to vomit.

  With the Caves of Arta secure, Estuban Miro is compelled to journey overland to Palma to make contact with potential allies in the island’s xueta (converso) community. Waiting behind, Thomas North and Harry Lefferts keep the operations team in readiness, and, hopefully, hidden from shore-watching Spanish eyes. It is during this often tense interlude that North realizes that his young up-time comrade has grown immeasurably since their first ill-fated attempt to rescue Frank and Giovanna in Rome…

  Thomas North had to hand it to Harry Lefferts: the up-timer had grown up and become a real soldier. No, more than that: a real leader.

  The problems had started five days after Miro had gone on his utterly insane solo jaunt across Mallorca to Palma. And would probably fall into the hands of the Spanish and give them all up, if military fortune kept faith with its usual obedience to Murphy’s Laws.

  Although Miro had told everyone that he would be gone at least a week, possibly ten days, the crews had started getting antsy. And it was easy to understand why: the entire mission force was now necessarily split up, strewn halfway across the horizon.

  The problem stemmed from the location of the Caves of Arta, where they had happily discovered a sizable supply of the pirates’ perfectly serviceable food, dubious water, and wildly heterogeneous weapons. The Caves were entered by clambering up to a rocky shelf perched about sixty feet above the smooth blue surface of the Bahia de Canyamel. However, the primary problem was not the ascent, but possible observation by guards atop the eponymous Torre de Canyamel, a solid thirteenth-century tower that was a great deal more formidable than the rest of the diminutive watchtowers that ringed the island. Located just under two miles inland, it was over seventy-five feet tall and furnished with walls three-foot thick, at the base. It didn’t hold much of a garrison anymore, but, being a worthwhile military structure, it was still occupied by regular troops who maintained their coast watch according to military standards, rather than those of a local militia. Which, in the latter case, meant no standards whatsoever.

  However, with the Torre de Canyamel nearby, it meant that the operation’s small flotilla of boats could not remain close to the sizable shore party which was both bivouacking in, and guarding the concealed water sources of, the Caves of Arta. And if they loitered together, even well off-shore, fishermen would no doubt report this coherent group of new boats, several alarmingly large by local standards. And that report would surely prompt an immediate and disastrous investigation by the local authorities.

  So the mission force’s boats were necessarily scattered. The xebec was well out to sea, over seven miles, simultaneously dodging the watchful eyes atop the Torre de Canyamel as well as the pirate vessel they knew to be in the area, which was evidently waiting for a signal from own (now defunct) shore party. The barca-longa was escorting it. Meanwhile the scialuppa, having become a semi-familiar and non-threatening sight in the local waters, cycled back and forth between the Bahia de Canyamel and the waters on the opposite side of its southern headland: the rocky coastline of the Costa des Pins. The gajeta, although no larger than the scialuppa, was built along lines that were different enough from the local small boats to occasion notice, and so it tracked along the coast three miles out, legitimately fishing in order to supplement the group’s food stores.

  Having their forces so badly split up, too far to help each other in the event of an emergency, unnerved all but the most seasoned troops and sailors. The operation’s true veterans of war and wave were no more happy with the state of affairs; they simply knew from experience that it was unavoidable, and worrying about what you couldn’t change simply meant you were too tired to perform when and if an actual emergency presented itself. So they slept a lot.

  That was when the Piombinesi stationed with the security elements in the Caves of Arta started approaching Harry Lefferts—nervously, respectfully—asking if, perhaps, they shouldn’t all rejoin the ships and stay together for safety while they waited for Miro’s return.

  Harry had been patient, pointing out that, in the first place, the pirates were eventually going to send a contingent to check on what had become of their shore party. When they did, they might squat in the cave again, thereby depriving the whole flotilla of its access to a coastal and well-hidden source of fresh water Consequently, there had to be someone in the caves to greet those unwelcome guests—and greet them warmly.

  The Piombinesi all liked, and smiled, at that. But they still pressed him to consider relocation.

  Harry pressed right back, reminding them that Estuban Miro had no way to signal to them out at sea when he returned, so some of them had to remain here. Besides, until the whole mission force was ready to leave, it could not move the pirates stores’ down the treacherous slopes leading from the cave mouth to the water: someone in the cottages of the small alqueries clustered along the southwest banks of Cala Canyamel would be sure to see and sound an alarum. And loading at night was simply too dangerous to risk, given how close the boat would have to stay to the treacherous and rock-fanged flanks of Cap Vermell.

  But still the Piombinesi had persisted, countering sound logistics and common sense with the same kind of cyclical argumentation that North had observed in some of the spoiled children of Grantville—and in every group of impressed civilians that he had ever accompanied on a military mission. Unaccustomed to the constant tension and uncertainty, their anxiety ultimately ate through what thin veneer of courage civilians had and revealed the face of true terror that lay beneath.

  Which, North had to admit, Harry had handled like a real pro. Firstly, he had realized that shouting never does any good; it was just as inefficacious as threatening a child in the throes of a true tantrum with a good switching. In short, the Piombinesi’s fear was already so intense that reprimands were only going to make matters worse. Even more impressive was Harry’s full embrace of the opposite, but essential, instinct: he did not try to soothe them. Attempts to do so brought little, if any, calm to troubled units: grown men discerned pretty quickly if reassurances were genuine—and if they weren’t, you had now primed them for a mutiny by making false promises.

  Instead, Harry calmly reviewed all the reasons that made it incumbent upon them all to stay put, and finished by saying. “So you see, by staying here, you’re not only doing your job and helping everyone else, but you’re saving your own lives, too.”

  That stopped them. One of them asked, “It saves us? How?”

  “Well,” commented Harry with a shrug, “reason it out. The only way we could all evacuate is by boat. But that will signal our presence to the soldiers in the Torre de Canyamel, so once we take that step, our next move has to be to run like hell before they can positively identity, let alone intercept, us. So that will mean abandoning Don Estuban, without whom there is no mission—and no pay.”

  Another Piombese had murmured. “We could wait for him—further offshore.”

  “Let’s hope the local fishermen don’t see and report us. But more to the point: what sign would Don Estuban be sending us that won’t get him snatched up by the tower’s garrison before we can extract him? And loitering off shore also means we might encounter the corsair we haven’t seen yet—and although our captive tells us its just an outsized llaut, we won’t know if he’s telling the truth until we see it. Or we might run into a Spanish counter-piracy sloop that’s already out hunting them. So it seems to me that the smart plan is for us to move only once and to leave this coast behind as quickly as possible when we do.”

  He looked around the group; few met his eyes. But most started nodding, muttering and breaking into smaller clumps of disgruntled men who were not happy, but resigned to their current conditions.

  Yes, thought North, looking over at Harry, where he sat in the stern, rolling loosely with the scialuppa, the up-timer had become a
passable enough officer.. He’d even learned how to wait like a professional, God love him.

  And finally, as Estuban Miro is about to lead the team’s small flotilla toward Palma in the final do-or-die rescue mission, he confronts the one captive pirate who survived the team’s assault of the Caves at Arta:

  As he walked toward the shore, Miro came upon a single, disheveled man standing between two of the more combat-experienced sailors from the Guerra Cagna.

  The ragged man—the pirate they had taken captive at the Caves of Arta—looked from one face to another, suddenly alarmed. “What?” he asked. “You are leaving?”

  Miro nodded. “We are.”

  The pirate swallowed. “Don’t kill me. I did everything you asked.”

  “So you did.”

  “I’ve never even killed anyone. On my father’s scrotum, I never—”

  “Do not lie, and do not insult your father’s genitalia by smearing them with that lie. You do not deserve to live, perhaps, but that is not my decision to make.”

  The man’s face relaxed into a smile. “Thank you, Lord, thank you. I will remain your servant, if I might, to help you in these treacherous waters where pirates abound—”

  Miro shook off his reaching hand. “I am no lord, and I would not have you for a servant, no matter how great my need. Nor are you coming with us.”

  The man’s face became horrified once again. “You are—are leaving me? Here? On this god-forsaken rock?”

  “Yes.” Miro began walking down to his boat, the two sailors peeling away from the pirate and following him.

  “But Lordship, I might be found by Algerines!”

  Miro turned. “Indeed you might. And perhaps your prior job experience will be of interest to them. Who knows? They might even make you a full-fledged member of their crew—after you’ve been a slave at their oars for a few years.”

  ****

  Hungary and Transylvania, Part 2: The Lay of the Land: The Neighbors and the Inhabitants by Gábor Szántai

  When talking about Hungary and Transylvania, basically and historically we mean one country that used to fill the Carpathian Basin with a corridor to the Adriatic Sea through Croatia. The valleys of the Danube and the Tisza Rivers provided very rich fields and pastures while the huge Carpathian Mountains protected the land on three sides between 895 and 1541 AD.

  The total area of the Hungarian Kingdom used to be 325,400 square kilometers. Now, in the twenty-first century it is 93,000 square kilometers while present day Transylvania now is 105,000 square kilometers. Transylvania was bigger in the seventeenth century than now because the lands east of the Tisza and huge parts of the Hungarian Highlands in the north belonged at various times to the Principality of Transylvania, ruled under the likes of Prince Bocskai (1605-6), Prince Bethlen (1613-29), and Prince George Rakoczi I (1630-48).

  At the time of the Ring of Fire, Royal Hungary was under the rule of the Habsburgs who considered it as their very valuable but dangerous larder.

  The Turkish-occupied lands covered more than the size of modern-day Hungary.

  ****

  Royal Hungary

  The Kingdom of Hungary was divided into six administrative parts: the Croatian Captaincy, the Slavonian Captaincy, the Captaincy Between the Lake Balaton and the River Drava, the Captaincy Between the Danube and Lake Balaton and on the Highland the Captaincy of Mining Towns and the Captaincy of Upper Hungary. On the right side of the Occupied Lands, between it and Transylvania lay a land by the River Tisza called Partium. This rich agricultural area usually belonged to Transylvania but it was the subject of constant dispute between the prince and the reigning sultan.

  Let's begin the description of the 1630s situation with the south-western and western part of the country, going from the Croatian Captaincy through the Trans-Danubian Captaincies up to Pozsony (Pressburg, Bratislava), towards Vienna.

  ****

  The Croatian Captaincy and the Slavonian Captaincy

  Croatia and Slavonia became part of Hungary in the eleventh century. Beginning with King Saint Laszlo I, the Hungarian kings wore the title of "King of Croatia and Slavonia." The king nominated two leaders called "Bán" who governed from its capitals, Zagrab and Varasd, on his behalf. Being an integral part of Hungary, Croatians and Slavonians remained mostly Catholics and bravely fought alongside the Hungarians against Venice and later against the Ottomans. This deep friendship did not include their southern Serbian neighbors. Enmity between Croats and Serbs also dates back to this time. As a minor buffer state, Orthodox Serbia tried to maintain a balance between Hungary and the Ottomans. However, by the time of the Triumph of Nándorfehérvár (now Belgrade) in 1456, Serbia had been consumed by the Turks. The Turks managed and governed Serbia as they did with the Balkans and tried to integrate these territories into their empire the best they could. Parts of Hungary and Croatia have had one hundred fifty to two hundred years of Turkish rule but the Balkan states suffered it for between four hundred to five hundred years. The resulting differences between their social and economic development are clearly visible. Partly because of their Catholic faith and partly because of common enemies, Croats are friendlier to Hungarians than to Serbians up to this very day.

  ****

  The Captaincy Between the Lake Balaton and the River Drava and

  The Captaincy Between the River Danube and the Lake Balaton

  Looking from the west, the Croatian-Slavonian and the Trans-Danubian Captaincies directly separated the Austrian territories from the Turks. On the other side of the captaincies was the eastern frontier, and it went along the shores of the long Lake Balaton. It is called the Trans-Danubian region and was known as Pannonia in Roman days. The major castles and forts which guarded this side of the Turkish Frontier were manned mostly by Hungarians and by some Croats. Along the whole length of the frontier there were generally between 19,000 and 23,000 warriors on the Habsburg payroll. Their pay was three to four times lower than the western mercenaries', and it arrived late or never. Some of these soldiers died of starvation. Since these captaincies are the nearest to Austria, we can examine their finances.

  According to the records of the Viennese court of 1578, in a time of peace they could spare 1,400,000-1,600,000 Rhine thalers/florins to maintain the frontier castles. This amount partly consisted of the tax called "Türkenhilfe" that came from the Austrian and Czech regions. The court thought that only thirty to forty percent of the total expenses could be collected from Royal Hungary. Expenses always tended to be higher than income. While the pay of 16,724 frontier-warriors for one month was 83,700 florins in 1578, they also spent 1,000,871 florins for the upkeep of the castles annually. In the first part of the seventeenth century this amount decreased because they paid only 12,548 soldiers and that cost 53,477 florins per month. The money for maintaining the castles was reduced to 641,624 florins per year, and it did no good to the defense.

  The market price for mercenaries in the 1600s when hiring 6,000 cavalry and 3,000 infantry was 480,000 florins a year in Hungary. In contrast, the Transylvanian Prince Gábor Bethlen paid 75,000 florins to his 20,000 strong army per month or 450,000 florins for half a year. Bethlen's bodyguard consisted of 500 warriors, and he gave them 3,326 florins a month—39,912 florins a year.

  At the time of the Ring of Fire, the income budget of Royal Hungary was about 200,000 florins, and 160,000 of it was spent on administrative expenses. Only 40,000 florins could be spared for military purposes. The cities of Royal Hungary contributed to this amount with 77,219 florins in 1626. Of course, it is questionable how much of the money finally reached its destination. Only the half or one-third of the frontier-warriors could be paid from Royal Hungary's income. On top of that, the Habsburgs' debts were over ten million florins in November, 1578, and that wasn't reduced by the 1630s. In the 1603s the price of keeping a 30,000-strong army in western Europe was two million florins. An equal number of Hungarian soldiers would have cost just 1.3 million florins (or thalers) at that time.

  Duri
ng the 1630s, the Habsburgs were supposed to pay from their annual budget one or one and a half million florins for keeping up the frontier. This amount included only the pay of the soldiers; the supplying and maintenance of the castles would have been another one million florins. The poor, neglected condition of the castles and the unpaid soldiers' misery became the usual state of affairs. Without the utter extortion of the Hungarian peasants, and the nobility's desperate help to collect the expenses, the Turks could have walked right into the middle of Vienna. It is no surprise that the warriors of the castles cultivated their own fields when they were not fighting the Muslims. Many times, the warriors collected their food from the Turkish territories or from the local villages, causing further misery. The peasants and the common folks were burdened with manual labor to build or maintain the forts. The Diet of 1554 declared that each peasant had to work six days a year at the nearest castle without getting paid. The nobility was also taxed with similar obligations; for example, they needed to provide four wagons for three days a year, one wagon per each one hundred of their peasants.

  It was this time period which gave birth to the Hungarian proverb: "There is neither money nor broadcloth." Soldiers used to receive their payment partly in money and partly in a low-quality broadcloth, the so-called dreadnought.