by Eric Flint
"Anything to the report that they appeared to be coming this way?"
"Dashing down the Isar, he said. He last heard that they had passed Landshut. Unless, when they get to the Danube, they all climb into a boat and head for Passau, they have to be coming this way. And if they were heading for Passau, there wouldn't be any reason at all for them to go so roundabout. They're mounted."
Hand looked at Duke Ernst, considering for a moment. After all this time, nearly two years now, he still wasn't sure that he had the man's measure. "What are you thinking about doing?"
Duke Ernst smiled. The leprechaun smile. "I believe that they are headed for Bohemia. I'm going to let them through."
" What! "
"Unless you, as the king's, ah, emperor's cousin, veto me." He winked. "You have read the up-time fable also, I am sure. 'All animals are created equal, but some animals are created more equal than others.' Or something to that effect. The cousins of kings or emperors are always just a little more equal than ordinary dukes." He paused. "Not that it hasn't been a pleasure working with you, Colonel Hand."
Hand decided not to comment on this. "How do you plan to let them through?"
"Warn the boatmen and the Grenzjaeger that they are coming; have them watch the most likely crossing points, let them cross, make sure that they keep moving, and that they keep on a northeast course, which will land them in Bohemia rather than Austria. Herd them a little, if they seem to be veering to the south."
Duke Ernst reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. "I certainly don't want to end up with them here. Let Wallenstein deal with the political headaches. I have too much else to do."
Hand thought about it. "Not a bad solution."
He thought again. "What if Maximilian sends pursuers across after them?"
Duke Ernst smiled again. "Then we will see what our boatmen and Grenzjaeger have learned during all of their training."
****
It was well after dark, but the moon was approaching the full. Duke Albrecht was cursing. There were supposed to have been more boats; he had sent two of his guards ahead to Isarmuend, riding fast, to arrange for boats. But the rest of them had been slowed down; an officious bailiff at Dingelfing. God be thanked that Maximilian had not sent riders ahead of them. He had managed to pull rank, of the "I am the duke's brother and you are going to be sorry about this" type. But they had lost two hours; some of the boats had left the meeting point.
Which meant that they were not going to be able to take everything across. He had planned on putting the carriage, or cart, now, with its team, on the large raft that the guards had procured. They would have to leave that behind, in favor of taking more of the horses. Even then, they left some of the horses behind. And a half-dozen guards. Not enough to check pursuers, but enough to make a lot of noise and disturbance; maybe even slow them down a little.
Under the circumstances, the crossing went better than he had expected. On the north shore, he rearranged the riders; some of them would have to double up, others follow on foot and attempt to delay any pursuit. Fifty miles, more or less, to the Bohemian border.
Dona Mencia, knees and all, was going to have to get on a horse. Well, be put on a horse. Two of the guards lifted her on; then tied her there. They put a protesting Sigmund Albrecht up in front of her; his father had to swat him to get him to cooperate. Vervaux, the tutor, on another horse; Maximilian Heinrich in front of him. Duke Albrecht told Vervaux to keep hold of Dona Mencia's reins; Sigmund could hold on to the pommel. The rest of the women were told to take children in front of them, starting with the youngest. There were only a half dozen women in addition to Mechthilde and Dona Mencia; not a lot of children, but enough to slow them down. Better to risk them on the flight than to leave them behind, he had concluded.
Pursuit would come from behind; Duke Albrecht put only a couple of guards to the front; then the women and children. Moon or not, it was not safe to gallop. They started out cautiously.
On the south bank, there were shots. Maximilian's troops must have been gaining on them all day. He could count on their being across very soon. Somewhere, they would find boats.
They continued along the road. It was starting to get darker. The moon was still out, but now occasional clouds had started to scud across its face; then more and more, until it was cloudy more of the time than they had moonlight. The changes made it harder for their eyes to adjust.
The guard who was taking the lead pulled up his horse. Planted at a fork in the road, there was a board, whitewashed. Turned to face the moon. With large letters, and an arrow. "That way to Bohemia."
Duke Albrecht grunted. "It seems that we are expected. I hope that they are telling the truth."
The guard pulled up the signboard and turned it face down.
****
"They're across. Duke Maximilian's men." One of Duke Ernst's boatmen slid into a group of Grenzjaeger. "They had to go downstream about a mile, but they found where the boats that didn't wait for Duke Albrecht were tied up. Right outside Isarmuend would you believe, fastened to the piers just like it was a perfectly ordinary night with nothing going on. Rousted them out and came across. Now they're trying to figure out where Duke Albrecht landed, just by riding upstream toward Deggendorf."
"Too bad they didn't ride downstream towards Aich. Quirin, you, go down to Aich and bring back the men we left there. Wish we were allowed to cut them up a bit."
"Not here. Not unless or until they get too close to the first bunch. The fighting will be farther up. Some guys get all the fun."
"Want us to stove in their boats while they're gone?" the boatman asked hopefully.
"Hell, no. Duke Ernst doesn't want to keep them. He hopes they'll give up and go back where they came from."
One thing that the Grenzjaeger had not counted on was that a couple of Maximilian's men were from this part of the Upper Palatinate. Maximilian had combed through the soldiers he had in Munich, before he left, looking for such men. One of them knew a shortcut. Not an easy one, but the pursuers were not having to take women and children into account. They bypassed the road fork where the sign had been posted and those of Albrecht's men who were not on foot had been waiting to delay them. After two hours, the men realized that something was wrong; they started to follow Duke Albrecht again.
Chapter 48
Haeredes Bavariae
Duke Albrecht looked back. He thought he heard something.
The guard farthest to the rear was waving a white handkerchief, easy to see since the moon was out again, for a moment. Maximilian's troops had caught up with them. He turned back to position himself with the guards.
The pistols weren't doing much good. Not with the clouds coming and going. It was mainly swords. Quiet, for a fight. The road was dusty; there was grass growing on the edges. Old leaves. His guards were more than holding their own.
A horse peeled back from the front of the column. Oh, please God, not. Karl Johann Franz. Too old, too big, to be doubled up with another rider. On his own horse, with his sword out, plunging into the thick of the fight. Not quite sixteen, and nowhere nearly as skilled as he thought he was.
"Karl!" his father shouted. "Get back! Get out of there. Go back where I left you; back where you belong."
Too late. The boy was down, his mount running.
Duke Albrecht spurred his horse, trying to reach where his son had fallen.
Toward the front of the column, a shriek of fury. Mechthilde. She had turned; she had seen Karl fall. No, no, no. He watched helplessly.
Mechthilde, spurring her horse at the Bavarians, riding into the melee. Unarmed in any conventional sense, using her horse itself as a weapon. She had always been a fierce rider in the hunt. She rammed her mount into the side of the one ridden by the soldier who had unseated Karl; knocked them hard enough that the Bavarian's horse slipped on the dewy grass and fell. Rearing up, she brought her own horse's front hoofs down on the man.
Several of the Bavarians turned toward her. One of Alb
recht's men tried to grab the reins of her plunging horse. She pulled away. Albrecht desperately tried to reach her.
A moment of moonlight. The oncoming rider was clearly visible. The armor. Maximilian himself? Oh, surely not, but so recognizable, so very different from the standard issue of the regular troops. Mechthilde, screaming, screaming, driving her horse toward him.
Reflexively, Duke Maximilian brought up the lance mounted at the side of his horse. She impaled herself on it and fell.
****
Johannes Vervaux had passed this way before on one of his trips to the collegium in Amberg. He recognized it, even in the imperfect light. He could not predict the outcome of the fight; his responsibility was to his pupils and to the future for which they were destined. Gathering up the reins of the horses carrying himself and Dona Mencia, he turned off the path that the group had been following. Not northeast, but west. He pulled them away to safety as two of the guards anxiously hurried the other women and children along the determined path, as fast as they dared.
****
"What do you want to do about it?" one of the Grenzjaeger stationed along the side road that led toward Regen asked anxiously. "This wasn't covered in our orders."
"Stop them and take them back to the rest? Duke Ernst doesn't want to keep Duke Albrecht's party."
"Right into the middle of that cut, hack, and slash? A priest, an old lady, and two kids?"
"Priest?"
"He's got priest clothes on. I could tell that, even by just the moon."
"No point in sending lambs back to the slaughter. Let 'em go. What difference can it make?"
"Second thought."
"Yeah?"
"We're not doing anything else here. Let's make sure they get away."
"Hey, Franz."
"Yeah."
"It's starting to rain."
"I noticed."
****
After Mechthilde fell, the Bavarians pulled back, briefly. Maybe it was the sudden dark again; maybe the rain starting up. Albrecht decided to take advantage of it. "Turn and ride. Keep up a rear guard fight if we have to, but our main concern is getting across as fast as we can."
The guards followed him. They were almost a half mile behind the lead party, which eventually came to a white sign that read, "Turn here to follow the Kleine Regen." A guard pulled that and laid it face down as well. Yet another sign directed them to the pass. The signs were telling the truth. The next town they reach was Suzicz.
****
Duke Maximilian halted his horse and looked down at Mechthilde. She was dead. He had seen enough dead people to know.
"Your Grace." A very young rider.
"During the fight, Your Grace. A priest took the young dukes and an old lady away from the rest. Sir, when you sent us to the landgrave's estate the first time, you said that the young dukes were the most important. Sir."
The duke looked at him. "You are to be commended for good thinking." He gestured. "Lieutenant. Take five men and go after them. They can't have gotten far."
Maximilian looked down again. Two of the young dukes. Karl, like his mother, was dead.
"Wait here," he directed the rest of his men. "The most important thing is to ensure that I have control of Bavaria's heirs."
****
A half hour later, the lieutenant was back. With three men and two lamed horses.
"There are wires across the path in the dark, Your Grace. And traps on the road. I don't see any way that the priest could have set them. They were, ah, professional. If I do say so myself."
"Do you have an explanation of why the priest and the young dukes did not encounter these supposed wires and traps?"
"Ah, Your Grace, I suppose that they must have been put up after they passed by."
Maximilian glanced up. It was still raining, but the clouds were patchy. The moon was coming out, a cloud sliding away from it. In the sudden light, there was a flight of arrows out of the trees on either side of the road. Aimed at the horses. Several neighed and reared; none down, but some would be lame.
Then, from behind them, a volley of shots, also aimed at the horses. These brought some of them down.
The moon disappeared again; the rain gathered force.
"Those of you with horses, head back to the boats in good order. Those without, follow us as best you can."
He turned his own horse; his two regular bodyguards appeared at his side.
Duke Albrecht's guards who had been coming up the path on foot evaporated into the woods; the Grenzjaeger let them. Once the Bavarians were out of hearing, the guards returned to the path and started to follow Duke Albrecht. The Grenzjaeger permitted that, as well. Duke Ernst did not want to keep Duke Albrecht's party. The lieutenant of the Grenzjaeger was very pleased that the guards had not seen any of his own men.
****
Half of the boats were gone. Not as bad as it could have been, since nearly half of the horses were gone, as well. Maximilian's men loaded them and pushed out into the river.
Duke Ernst's boatmen looked after them wistfully. Maybe it had been against orders. They had been told not to destroy the duke's boats, but nobody said, well, not directly, that they shouldn't just hide them.
"Wish the main fight up there had lasted a little longer. We could have disappeared them all and had some fun here while they milled around."
The scout from the Grenzjaeger slid in among them again.
"Don't go into mourning too soon, Matzi. There's a batch more coming on foot."
The boatmen settled down to wait. To finish the business. Leaving half of Matzi's men behind to clean up, the scout led the rest northeast to find the others.
****
At dawn, the Grenzjaeger came out of the woods, onto the scene of the skirmish. You couldn't call it more than that.
"What do we do?"
"With the soldiers? Just collect their weapons and armor, clothes, shoes, knives, anything useful. Then start digging. A couple of you see if any of the horses are worth saving. If not, put them down. I'll send Heinz the knacker and his boys to collect them. I hope he appreciates the bonus."
"Good. I don't want to think about digging graves that size."
"What about them?" The first man gestured toward the woman and young boy.
"Hell, I don't know."
"Sarge?"
"Yes, Matzi."
"I've seen her before. She wasn't so old, then. But it's the landgravine. From Leuchtenberg, up by Pfreimd. I'm sure of it."
"What in hell was she doing with a bunch of Bavarians?"
"Married one of them. You know, how they marry off princesses. The family picks somebody important and she doesn't have a bit of say about it."
"Damn. Wish it was that simple with my daughter Anna. Mule-headed, determined that she's going to have Endres the fisherman or nobody."
"Nothing really wrong with Endres. Better let her have her way, or she'll make your life miserable. So what do we do with them?"
"If they really do belong up at Pfreimd, we'll send them there. Fancy family, they'll have a tomb or a crypt or something to put them in. Go to that town up to the west and call a teamster to bring a couple of coffins out."
"Tell him to bill it to Duke Ernst."
****
Vervaux had been moving slowly, saying a rosary of thanks that, apparently, no one had seen them leave the fight. Now it was getting light. There was a town ahead. Dona Mencia and the boys were too exhausted, from the flight and the fight, to ride through to Amberg. They needed to eat, to stop and rest. He had enough money for an inn, though innkeepers were more used to having people show up at dusk rather than dawn.
They lost their way. Always a good, reliable, excuse. How to travel? The boys weren't wearing anything fancy, just hunting clothes, thank goodness, but still they were obviously from a very wealthy family. The old ploy of a man traveling with his elderly mother and two young sons clearly would not do, if only because he himself didn't have any secular clothing.
&
nbsp; Simple, Johannes, simple. Two young men on their way to the collegium in Amberg, accompanied by their grandmother and their tutor.
****
Which was, in fact, where they went.
Jakob Balde notified Duke Ernst of their arrival. And of their identity.
Ernst Haakansson Hand howled with laughter. "Remember what you said. 'I certainly don't want to end up with them here. Let Wallenstein deal with the political headaches. I have too much else to do.' So much for plans that are all too clever."
"How did they get here?" Bocler asked. He scribbled a note to himself: interview all involved. His Historia Ernesti Ducis, he thought, was coming along very well. If only people kept on doing such interesting things for a while longer, eternal fame would be within his grasp. Plus, since Duke Ernst was only thirty years old, there should be a second volume. At least.
"A little self-help and initiative. On the part of Vervaux," Hand answered. "And a certain tendency to interpret their orders freely by some of our Grenzjaeger, I'm afraid. Who didn't have the slightest idea who they were, of course, so I decided not to discipline them too hard."
"Have you heard anything about Duke Albrecht?" Duke Ernst asked mournfully.
"Yes, he did make it into Bohemia with the rest of his party. But he didn't realize that his sons were missing until dawn, and he still doesn't know where they are."
"So all we have to worry about are the boys."
