by Eric Flint
Dona Mencia watched to see how this would be received. Not with full acceptance.
"And why the secrecy?" Duchess Mechthilde raised her eyebrows.
Dona Mencia swallowed. In for a penny, in for a pound, she thought. Then-in a crisis, why does a person's mind always fill up with proverbs? Because the same idea has come to so many other people? Because proverbs embody useful, generally applicable, principles? Mental shorthand? "I have concerns for the safety of the archduchess herself."
That should be ambiguous enough. Let the other woman draw her own conclusions.
****
Mechthilde thought. From Albrecht, she knew what had been going on in the privy council. Duke Maximilian's dissatisfaction after the formal hearing… die Habsburgerin… That the archduchess might actually be considering fleeing from Munich and returning home to Vienna was almost beyond belief. But, if she was…
My sons, my sons. This was not something that she could tell Albrecht. Not now. Not ever. Albrecht was a very loyal brother.
"If… If you have reason to believe that these concerns are serious, Dona Mencia, I… By no means do I wish any harm to come to the archduchess. Perhaps you are being overly cautious. Nonetheless… Possibly, because of my greater familiarity with the situation here… If you believe that she is in need of assistance…" Mechthilde realized that she sounded half-incoherent; her mind was moving much faster than her mouth.
****
Dona Mencia nodded gravely. Swallowed, hook, line, and sinker. Now if she could only maintain Mechthilde's assumption that the archduchess would be returning to Vienna…
****
"No, I haven't seen either Frau Simpson or Frau Dreeson yet. But, certainly, they have not been removed from the English Ladies' house by daylight. I don't think that they have been taken out at night either. I'm not sure what is going on, Papa," Marc said. "There is much more activity than usual. But no special anxiety, if that is what one would want to call it. It is possible, of course, that the play may explain it. The girls from the school come to have their costumes fitted; the sisters go with them to the Schrannenplatz, but I have a funny feeling."
Leopold looked at his son. This was a fine thing. Funny feelings- informed funny feelings-were among the firm's most valuable assets.
"Is there any way that you can arrange to sleep inside the gates? Not just anywhere at random. Somewhere you will not be noticed, but from which you can observe the house on Paradise Street?"
"Well, I can't very well settle on the street itself and pretend to be a beggar. Too many people in the neighborhood have seen me for too many days." Marc thought a moment. "There is a lean-to against the back of the house across the alley. I don't know what use it is meant for, but I've never seen anyone go into it. It's locked, but the hinges are just leather." He grinned. "Which leads me to suspect that the contents are of little value to their owner. The day always comes when an old leather hinge finally splits and lets a gate or door sag."
He thought again. "It's not expensive for the owner to repair, either. Not as if I broke the lock."
****
"Even knowing that it will happen the day of the production of Belisarius is too much. I don't," Duchess Mechthilde said, "want to know any more about it. At all."
Dona Mencia felt that this was an admirable decision. She smiled.
"However," Mechthilde continued. "If someone should be intending to stay behind to give, for as long as possible, the impression that the archduchess is still in her apartments?"
Dona Mencia nodded.
"If the person chose to stay behind partly because of a sense of responsibility to her mistress, but also, partly, because her knees will not permit her to walk the roads of Bavaria with any briskness and she fears that her presence with them would endanger the others?"
Dona Mencia nodded again.
"It might be possible, when discovery is imminent, for that person to seek sanctuary in Duke Albrecht's household. Coming through the back way, through the servants' corridors. Until such time as we next go to one of the rural palaces for hunting, perhaps? There are always numerous attendants with us. From someplace like Schleissheim, it is far easier for people to come and go unobserved than from here at the Residenz."
"That is very generous of you, Your Grace."
Dona Mencia had become quite resigned to the likelihood that her loyalty to Maria Anna-her loyalty to her brother, Cardinal Bedmar, as well, of course-would cost her her head in the foreseeable future.
That she might keep it was… an interesting possibility.
Chapter 42
Effugium Admirabile
Munich, Bavaria
"Yes, I am."
"No, you are not."
"Am."
" Not! "
" Am! " Dona Mencia sighed. These morning walks through the Hofgarten severely stressed her knees, especially when the archduchess became agitated and started striding at full speed. "With all due apologies, Your Grace, you are being foolish. Someone must remain in your apartments to carry through with the cover story of your illness."
Maria Anna's expression could only be described as mulish. "I am not leaving you behind."
"You are. You will. Or you will greatly endanger not only yourself, but all of the other members of your household who have supported you and who are leaving to make their way back home." Dona Mencia made her voice as firm as she could while still keeping it soft enough that no one else could hear her.
****
Maria Anna looked at her. It is your clear duty. It is God's will. The voices that had surrounded her all her life were not gone. The only difference, it seemed, was that now they lived in Dona Mencia rather than in Papa, Mama, and Father Lamormaini, her tutors and her governesses.
"They will arrest you. And…"
"It is to be hoped," Dona Mencia said, "that they will not. And that is all you need to know, Your Grace. Just carry that hope in your heart."
****
It was so close to the time to leave, Maria Anna thought, that she could risk offending Frau Stecher. More than, for some reason, her very existence appeared to offend Frau Stecher.
As the dressmaker adjusted the high, stiff, lace-edged collar for the dress she would wear to attend the play, Maria Anna suddenly threw her head back.
"Ouch! Frau Stecher, that was not called for."
"What was not called for, Your Grace?"
"You poked me. And hard."
Frau Stecher began to protest that she had done no such thing.
"Leave the room. At once!" snapped the archduchess. "Let Susanna Allegretti remain behind to complete the fitting. Her hands are more delicate."
Maria Anna had never before had the joy of giving in to an unreasonable temper tantrum, but she thought that she was doing it rather well. Especially since, if she didn't manage to do it perfectly, everyone else would just put it down to pre-wedding nerves. Three more days to the wedding.
"Everyone else, too. Out!"
Dona Mencia remained behind.
"That means you, too! And close the door behind you."
Dona Mencia left.
****
Such a responsibility! From the archduchess herself!
Susanna's hands shook as she inserted the pins at the base of the collar. They had to be just right if the stitching was to cause it to stand at the correct angle, framing the archduchess' face.
"You do understand?"
"Yes, Your Grace. I understand. When I join the others in the group of which I am a member, I am to tell them that we do not leave Munich right away. We are to wait, somewhere that we ourselves decide. We are to wait until Dona Mencia cannot keep up the deception any longer. Then we are to make sure that she gets away safely. Upon our most sacred honor."
"That," Maria Anna said, "is definitely the general idea. If you have trouble persuading the other members of your group, show them this." She grinned down at the tiny girl; then handed her a note.
"Susanna, have you ever read
any of the books from Grantville?"
"Ah, no, Your Grace."
Maria Anna's grin grew more reckless. "I have. The few that have been brought to me, that I have been able to obtain, in spite of how carefully I am watched. One was a fascinating book. I left it behind in Vienna, with the cloth merchant who helped with the masque costumes. Just as well, since you found that man in my oratory here, leafing through my prayer book."
She threw her head back. "The author was named Benjamin Franklin. Dona Mencia says that she has hope. But, perhaps, hope can be given a stronger foundation. God helps those who help themselves."
****
Maria Anna decided. To this girl, she would say what no one else but Dona Mencia knew. All the others believed that she was returning home. She leaned down, whispering. "Save Dona Mencia, for me, Susanna. And do not go to Vienna, then. Come to Brussels. Come to me in Brussels and join my household there."
****
This was the day. Mary Ward looked at them. "We are going now and taking the risk that we may be captured. I will not hide that possibility from you. We could have delayed here as long as possible, until the day when we were arrested. Those were our choices, given what Bavaria is becoming this summer. And we are obeying the will of the pope, to whom, I hope, we may shortly be permitted to make a vow of special obedience."
She had not kept the summer's news away from the other sisters. All of them nodded.
Or from Mary and Veronica. Mary Simpson, thinking of the pope's change of policy toward the United States of Europe, also nodded. She was mildly nervous. She tried to hide it by remarking on the similarity of their plight to the circumstances under which Martin Luther's future wife had gotten out of her convent. Hidden in a grocery wagon, accompanied by her aunt and fellow-nuns.
Winifred Wigmore looked at her disapprovingly.
Veronica pulled the pouch out from under the front of her dress and further disguised herself by taking out her teeth again.
Someone giggled, a little shrilly. Everyone in the house on Paradise Street was feeling rather high strung this morning.
Mary Ward opened the front door. It was not yet quite dawn; they would be at the gate shortly after it opened. The gates were opening early today, because of the play.
****
Marc heard noise.
Unexpected noise. At this hour of the day, the English Ladies should be chanting one of the liturgical offices. He admitted to himself that he didn't have the slightest idea which one. He was, after all, a Calvinist. Maybe he should learn; he might need to know some day.
He sat up. He couldn't stand in the lean-to; the roof was too low. It hadn't been a bad night, though; his only companions had been some old lumber, a small pile of bricks that matched the ones that paved the courtyard, and a few bugs.
Cautiously, he forced his way through the uncomfortably small gap that breaking the upper hinge on the door had left; then he set it back in place, with only a small sag to show that the hinge had broken and that the door's weight had stretched the lower one.
The English Ladies were leaving their house.
All eight of them. No, ten of them. No, nine and a man. No. Eight English Ladies. They never wore nun-habits, but they were not wearing their ordinary ladyish clothes. They were all dressed like ordinary Munich women. Each carrying a worn satchel. A ninth English Lady. No, Veronica Dreeson, also with a satchel. A serving man. No. Mary Simpson, wearing a shirt and slops. Her hair was still short, though he supposed that she had last had it cut before the left Grantville in the spring, far too short for her to present herself as a down-time woman. Or, at least, as anything but a down-time prostitute who had recently had her head shaved.
Involuntarily, he smiled at the incongruous image of the precise and gracious Frau Simpson as a lady of easy virtue. Frau Simpson was pushing a wheelbarrow.
That was the noise he had heard.
Thanking God profoundly that he was barefoot, he followed them.
****
They were almost to the Schwabinger gate now; Mary Ward had decided that if they were going north, as a group, they could not afford the delay of going out one of the other gates and around the walls. First, the inner gate. Then, the space between the two sets of walls. Then, the outer gate. Then crossing the narrow bridge over the moat. A long time, to be watched by guards.
Through the inner gate. There was a constant stream of people coming in. Those going out had to move to the right. Coming down from the direction of the Hofgarten, a tall, brunette, young woman, her hair tied back with a kerchief. Also dressed in a Munich woman's working clothes; a white blouse; a brown skirt with a wide waistband; rough shoes. Pushing a gardener's wheelbarrow.
"Wait for me, Tante Maria. Mama says that I am to go with you." The German was as coarse as that of any market woman.
Mary Simpson gasped.
"Now." The guard pointed his lance at them. "Move along through the outer gate while there's this break in the crowd. Don't dilly-dally."
The younger woman broke into an energetic run, catching up with the rest of them without much trouble.
The guard was watching her bosom jiggle. It was a very impressive bosom.
He didn't pay any attention to her face.
****
Marc had no idea who the younger woman was. As soon as he got through the gates-he had to wait longer because an entire circus appeared to be coming in-he dashed for the baggage wagons to tell his father that Frau Simpson and Frau Dreeson were outside the gates.
Without either of the Cavrianis having done a thing about it, which he found rather disheartening.
Leopold, more practically, asked where they were going.
"North on the Nurnberger Strasse, the last time I saw them." Quickly, Marc described how they were dressed. Then he paused. "But they were all carrying satchels."
"By now, you are implying, they could be dressed quite differently?"
"Well, not by now, I think. The road is too busy. But probably they don't intend to look like Munchnerinnen tomorrow."
"That makes sense." Leopold stood up. "I'll take my things and follow them. Here's a purse. I'll leave the camp here, with your things. You go back in. Keep working on the house next door to the one on Paradise street. See if anyone comes to it; tries to go in, tries to go out. If nothing happens today, stay tomorrow. Sleep here, as usual. If nothing has happened in three days, come on north. Don't try to catch me; there's no way I can predict which way the English Ladies are going and if I leave directions for you, Duke Maximilian's men might find them. Just head for Pfaffenhofen; if I'm not there, for Neuburg. I'll find you there."
By the time he had finished talking, Leopold was packed and ready to go.
"Papa," Marc called after him as he rode away. "There was a younger woman who came later. She went with them, too." He wasn't sure whether or not his father had heard him.
Marc looked at the camp. Papa had said to sleep here tonight. But, just in case something happened, he had better pick up. He rolled up his pallet and packed his things into his rucksack; then, wrapped them all in the oiled canvas that they had in case of rain.
The young ironsmith arrived at work a little late. No one noticed. But if anyone had observed, he would not have been particularly surprised. The traffic was terrible this morning.
****
A half mile outside the walls of Munich, something occurred to Mary Ward. Two empty wheelbarrows would attract attention to their group. They would just have to lose some time. At her direction they turned back, skirting the city walls until they came to the baggage wagon park. They lined up the wheelbarrows neatly, next to a couple of dozen other wheelbarrows.
By the time they got back on the Nurnberger Strasse, they were behind Leopold Cavriani.
****
Maria Anna could scarcely believe how lightweight and comfortable these clothes were. Somewhat coarse and scratchy against the skin, but still very comfortable. That was good. Under the skirt, on the left side, between her
petticoats, she was carrying a rather heavy purse. It didn't have much money in it; she didn't have much money. It did have her prayer book and rosary. On the right side-thank goodness that Dona Mencia had wrapped it in flannel; even through the bundle and two petticoats, its leaves poked her-was the golden rose.
At the last minute, she just couldn't bear to leave it behind.
****
The archduchess had attended six o'clock mass, as usual. She had gone for her walk in the Hofgarten. Nobody actually saw her return, but Dona Mencia and the other two ladies-in-waiting who had accompanied her requested a light breakfast, as usual. For themselves only. Dona Mencia remarked that the archduchess was not feeling well and had decided to rest until time to dress for the mid-day meal and the play.
An hour later, Dona Mencia requested one of the servants to bring two hot bricks, wrapped in towels.
An hour after that, Dona Mencia announced that the archduchess was suffering from a severe case of the cramps and would be forced to miss the play.
The privy council met. This was a bad omen. With the wedding in two more days, this distressing timing, however natural the phenomenon, would complicate the issue of consummation of the marriage. Consummation was necessary for a canonically valid marriage. The discussion became physiologically detailed. Duke Maximilian excused himself from the remainder of the meeting.
Dona Mencia called for more hot bricks.
There was great public disappointment that the archduchess was too ill to attend the presentation of Belisarius, particularly since Duke Maximilian had taken the excuse of her illness not to attend either, but was staying in his office to catch up on paperwork.
