by Eric Flint
He started digging around in his rucksack. Some of these things, he had brought along from Neuburg in case it rained. Marc's mother had always just hated for him to get his good clothes wet. Even now, supposedly all grown up, if he knew, or even suspected, that he was likely to get caught out in a downpour, he simply put on the oldest things he had-or, at least, the oldest things he had that still fit him. That could get tricky at times, remembering what was what. He was supposed to remember to give his clothes to the poor when they no longer fit; most of the time, however, he just stuffed them in the bottom of his chest. One old shirt (shapeless); one old pair of trews (droopy); one slouch hat. His razor. He rubbed his chin. No way was he going to try to shave without hot water. And a mirror. Papa took the mirror.
"Sit," he said. "Take your hair down." The resulting haircut was just as bad as that of almost every other apprentice in the world-a fully satisfactory result. He tossed the hair that he had cut off well up into the branches of a nearby tree, hoping that nesting birds would find it and be grateful for the treasure trove, while simultaneously removing one more clue by which they might be traced. "Take these and go change."
"What are we going to do with my clothes?" Susanna asked.
"Good question. If we leave them here, it will be like painting a sign saying which way we went. If we take them, though, and anyone finds them in our sacks, we'll have an accusation of theft against us at the very least. Plus, somebody might investigate and figure out that you're a girl."
"Double back into the city," she suggested. "A fair number of the people who came into the city for the wedding will still be there. They'll be busy all day taking down the sets and bleachers. With all the costumes, no one will be surprised to see people putting clothes into one of the prop bins."
"Done. Now get changed before somebody comes along."
They had no trouble getting into the city. None at all. The guards were fully occupied with examining the people who were leaving. Or trying to.
On the theory that one attracts the least attention by being quite obvious, Marc walked down the street with the set of women's clothing folded over his left arm. Within a quarter hour, they were close enough to the Schrannenplatz that they could see stagehands from the previous day's entertainment moving around, taking down the sets. Calmly leaving the clothing on a rack and dropping her dainty little shoes into a bin, he moved on, skirting the square, Susanna behind him.
Then he stopped. "This isn't going to work. Not for going out through the gate again."
"Why not?"
"Your feet are too small. It's all right for me to be walking barefoot. My feet look like a guy's feet. But yours don't and you don't walk right." He leaned back against the wall of a house, digging in his rucksack again. "These are my oldest shoes. You're going to have to stuff them and they won't be comfortable, but you've got to put them on. I've got some extra stockings, too."
"Yes. And I'll clump. The way boys clump." Susanna clumped down the Gasse right beside him.
Funny, Marc thought. I didn't really notice how gracefully she moves until she started clumping.
What he said was, "Let's stop and get something to eat before we go back out. It has to be close to lunch time."
The crowds were a lot thinner. The guards examined Marc's rucksack. There was nothing in it that was even vaguely interesting.
The apprentice just stood there like a dolt, drawing pictures on the ground with the toe of his shoe and gnawing the last little bit of pulp off the core of his apple.
****
"Where are we going?"
"Papa went after the English Ladies. The last time I saw them, they were on the Nurnberger Strasse, heading north. So I guess we go that way. No telling that they won't have turned off somewhere, though." Marc paused. "You were going in and out of their house. Do you have any idea where they were headed?"
"I heard one of them say, to Grantville. Well, over heard," Susanna admitted.
"Right general direction, at least. I guess the best plan is, we'll try to catch up with Papa. If we can't, I was supposed to meet him at his factor's office. If we can catch him in Pfaffenhofen, that's only about seventy miles. Even if he isn't there, his agent should be and we can get some more money and find out what's going on. If we miss him there and have to go on to Neuburg, about another fifty-five."
Susanna calculated. "That's not bad. When I came from Florence to Bolzano, Bozen in the Tyrol, that is, it was about two hundred fifty miles. Last fall, when I went from Bolzano to Vienna, it was about three hundred fifty. It shouldn't take us more than a week to get to Reichertshofen."
But the roads going north were clogged with soldiers, far more soldiers than there had been when Marc and his father came south toward Munich. The privy council was moving every man who could be spared toward Ingolstadt. They moved very cautiously, also trying to avoid the hungry dogs that were rapidly going feral.
****
Munich, Bavaria
The captain of the guards motioned for one of his men to hold the back door of Archduchess Maria Anna's apartments in the Residenz open for Dekan Golla and the Capuchin friar who accompanied him; he permitted them to precede him.
Dekan Golla looked up and down with some dissatisfaction. "While the duke's servants are certainly to be commended for their zeal for cleanliness, just in this instance it would have been nice to have some dust. Containing a few footprints, perhaps."
The floors, alas, were immaculate.
"Let the servants be questioned," the Capuchin said. "Not, at present, under torture. Just to determine whether any of them passed through this corridor at about the time the physician made his report. Only the footman was in the rooms during the day, according to what I have heard thus far. No one saw the archduchess' male servants walking through the main corridors toward these rooms, so they must have come in this way."
****
Three servants admitted to having passed through the corridor shortly before the alarm was roused. All three denied having seen any men. They maintained these denials even under strict questioning, which was very disappointing.
One stated that she had seen two women, but had not particularly noticed them. In any case, they had not been near the door to the archduchess' apartment, but had been walking, quite slowly, close to the far end. She had only seen them from the rear.
"Two women?" one of the guards asked. "If they came from here, which two?"
"No way to tell." His companion shook his head. "Only a few people came into the archduchess' apartments during the day. Dona Mencia de Mendoza was certainly present, but we know that she escaped with the three men. All we can say, really, is that they may have been two of the archduchess' female attendants who are not still here. If, of course, they were not just two tired servants, walking slowly at the end of the day."
It was scarcely feasible to question every servant in the Residenz about every corridor. It was a large building; with the wedding preparations, there had been a great deal of coming and going that did not follow the ordinary daily routines.
****
It was early in the morning, even for a meeting of the Bavarian privy council. "Is this really all that they have been able to find out?" Duke Maximilian was clearly displeased.
Duke Albrecht, who had been recalled to the privy council meetings more or less on sufferance, looked very uncomfortable. "Yes."
"We are not pleased."
They were interrupted by a soft knock at the door. The duke's secretary motioned for a servant to open it. The court physician stood there, holding his hat. Impatiently, Maximilian beckoned him in.
"Your Grace. I would not be here if it were not important. I am very sorry to inform Your Grace that Father Contzen did not survive the night. If Your Grace could direct the Hofmeister to coordinate with the Jesuits in regard to the requiem mass and whether there shall be a procession?" His voice trailed off.
The duke looked at his secretary. "Let it be done." The secretary left immediately
. Maximilian stood up.
"This meeting is adjourned. I am retiring to my oratory and do not wish to be interrupted. By anybody, for any reason. Father Forer, I will have you called when I need you. The rest of you may leave."
****
The funeral was elaborate. Duke Maximilian ordered that all of the food prepared in expectation of the wedding be presented to the poor in Father Contzen's honor. That the clothing prepared in expectation of the wedding festivities be sold, and the proceeds given to the poor in memory of Father Contzen.
He attended the obsequies in the role of chief mourner. The next day, he directed that the apartments that were being prepared in the Residenz for a new duchess and her household were to be permanently walled off from the remainder of the building. They were to be occupied by an order of fully cloistered contemplative nuns, whose time was to be devoted solely to prayer for the repose of the soul of the late Duchess Elisabeth Renata.
The news from Ingolstadt was not good. Colonel Farensbach had been detected in communication with the enemy, with an intention to betray the fortress to General Baner. Since he had been the duke's personal choice as the new overseer of the garrison and the town's security, this was, to say the least, embarrassing. It certainly had not improved Maximilian's overall mood.
Chapter 45
Momentum, Utilitatum, Pretiumque Communicationis
Baner's Camp, outside Ingolstadt
"He rode up to a sentry, holding his hands out," Mark Ellis said. "All weapons sheathed. Said that he had important messages to send to the USE and needed permission to use General Baner's radio."
"And you are telling me," Dane Kitt asked, "that he's just been sitting in your tent ever since?"
"Well, I tried to get him in to see Baner's adjutant, but I haven't had any luck. I thought that maybe you would do better. And he doesn't speak English." Mark Ellis shrugged.
"I'll see what I can do." The two of them paced across the camp toward the adjutant's shelter.
Dane had managed to talk their way into the adjutant's tent. Not without promising, on his parents' behalf, a few things about weapons that he was not by any means sure that they could come up with on the proposed time schedule.
"Look," Mark was saying with frustration. "He's not going to sabotage the radio. We can make sure of that. He's not even going to lay hands on the thing. He's going to be saying the message out loud. The operator-our operator-is going to be sending it to some other USE government operator. Someone at that end will be deciding whether or not the information is good. What's the damned hang-up?"
Finally, the adjutant agreed to see the man.
"Look on the bright side," Dane said. "At least, he came into the camp at noon. This is as fast as the operator would have had a window to transmit, even if he'd been welcomed right away. Good thing that it didn't drag out any longer, though; we'd have had to wait until tomorrow morning."
Once in the presence of the person who could authorize use of the famous radio, the messenger started to talk.
He had been sent by Herr Veit Egli, who was a merchant's factor in Neuburg. He was authorized to say that.
The merchant for whom Herr Egli was a factor was Herr Leopold Cavriani. He was authorized to say that.
"Hey, wait a minute," Dane said.
Mark nodded. "Cavriani. That's the guy who was in Amberg this spring with Keith Pilcher and them, negotiating about iron. He really is as thick as thieves with a lot of the people up in Grantville, and that includes Ed Piazza. This could be for real. Let's just hope that our dear old principal is awake and around."
The adjutant nodded to the radio operator, who started transmitting.
The messenger wished to make it known that he was merely delivering this information and did not take any personal responsibility for its content.
****
Grantville, State of Thuringia-Franconia
Ed Piazza intervened personally in the transmission. "Kitt, Ellis, are you there?"
"Yup, both of us."
"Is there somebody standing over this man with a sword and a threatening expression, looking like he might carve his guts out any minute?"
"Two of them, actually. But one has a pistol."
"Well, tell them to back off and let the man talk. I have a feeling that he's afraid that they're inclined to kill the messenger. Which makes me hope that the news isn't bad."
****
Ed got home, took his shoes off, grabbed a sandwich, and went upstairs to sit on the bed with his feet up, so he could undertake his analysis of the transmission at leisure. First, four quick phone calls, to two sets of parents, a wife, and a fiancee, with assurances that Dane and Mark had been on the radio from Ingolstadt two hours ago and they were both just fine as of that date. Then, try to make sense of the message from Ingolstadt in a little more comfort than his office provided.
(1) In Munich, the English ladies had left their house. Nobody knew why, or whether they were elsewhere in the city or had left it. This was generally known and would probably appear in the newspapers and diplomatic despatches within one or two more days.
Ed mentally corrected "ladies" to "Ladies." They weren't directly relevant to Grantville, so why had Cavriani's factor listed them first? Mary and Veronica had been interned in their house in Munich, but… Wait a minute. Back when he took that adult class in church history, when he first took over the CCD classes at St. Mary's, St. Vincent de Paul as it had been then, he'd heard something about English Ladies.
"Annabelle," he called.
His wife trotted up the stairs from the kitchen where, finally, at nine o'clock at night, she had started to wash the dishes.
"Do you remember anything about English Ladies from that 'how to run a CCD program' class that we took?"
"Just that they were mentioned. Why?"
"Not sure. But I think that this could be important. Could you try to find out something about them for me?"
"I could call Elaine Bolender and see if she could meet me at the State Library."
"They exist in the here and now. You might try the rectory, too."
"I'll do what I can." Annabelle abandoned the dishes. They could wait. They had already waited for two days. Not that there were many. She had been so busy that they were living on sandwiches and fruit or take-out from Cora's. She had been sturdily resisting the idea of getting a maid, but one of these days, she was going to have to give in. There were just too many other things to do for her to keep this house in shape.
Upstairs, Ed moved on to the next point.
(2) The two Grantville women who had been interned with the English Ladies were also gone. It was not known whether they had left with the Ladies or separately; it was not known whether they had left the city or remained inside it. There was no indication that they were in the hands of either the duke or the inquisition.
Ed looked at that. He was really glad that Stearns had this. And Nasi, which amounted to the same thing. He had it sent on as soon as it came in. Stearns could tell Simpson. Simpson hadn't been taking all of this very well. In his world, men were supposed to go out and fight wars, leaving their wives safe and secure at home. Mary had been turning his whole world topsy-turvy this summer. Ed couldn't really blame Simpson. He knew how he would feel if Annabelle were out there, somewhere, in trouble, and he couldn't do a thing about it.
So what was he supposed to tell Henry and Annalise? In a way, it had been more comforting to have Mary and Ronnie locked up with the English Ladies guarding them. Even if it was a polite form of being in prison, at least people here had known where they were. Now they were back to not knowing.
(3) Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria, who had come to Munich to marry Duke Maximilian, had disappeared from her quarters in the Residenz, along with about half of her household.
Ed's mind filed that away as potentially important political information, but not directly relevant to the matter at hand.
(4) Most of this would be publicly known within a matter of two or
at most three days. This part of the message read: I was instructed by Cavriani to make every effort to inform you that you might have the most timely notice possible. I am doing this upon my own authority, since I do not currently know where Herr Cavriani is, other than probably in Bavaria. Sincerely yours, etc. Egli.
Ed picked up the phone, about to dial Henry Dreeson. He heard the front door open.
"Ed, Honey, can you come down?" That was Annabelle.
He pattered down the stairs in his foam-lined, utterly decrepit, brown corduroy house slippers. Annabelle was at the door with Father Kircher and-yes, the Englishman. Smithson.
"Father Kircher met Elaine and me at the library. I've got quite a bit of stuff about the English Ladies. They were the ones that wanted to be Jesuitesses. I remembered once he mentioned it. They were suppressed in our world, well, here, too. The ones who wanted to run schools for girls. But that's not what is so exciting."
Ed smiled. Annabelle was bubbling. He loved it when Annabelle bubbled.
"Father Smithson actually knows Mary Ward. Their superior. And they are coming here. To Grantville."
Father Kircher was smiling, too. Annabelle did that to people.
Ed raised his eyebrows.
Kircher explained. "In this world, the pope has seen fit to revoke the suppression of the English Ladies' order. He has directed them to come to the USE and operate under the protection of Cardinal-Protector Mazzare. We have been instructed by Father General Vitelleschi to make them welcome. According to the latest information that we have, they should be somewhere between Munich and the Danube."
Ed's ears pricked up. "Between?"
Father Smithson nodded. "Yes. We received a letter from Father Rader in Munich in this afternoon's mail bag. The Ladies left Munich early in the morning the day that the play was performed; they should be well on their way by now. And, I suppose it would interest you to know, Mistress Dreeson and Mistress Simpson left Munich with them."
