by Eric Flint
Mike grimaced with disgust. No matter how, well, unfeasible it was, he would rather see the old USA model exported to the entire continent of Europe, 'given his druthers,' as his grandma would have said. "Will he move the normal school to Magdeburg, then?"
Ed shook his head. "Not with the sweetheart deal it has in Amberg. It isn't an either-or situation. He'll see to it that there's funding for another one here. There's plenty of demand and teacher education isn't all that expensive. It's not all that glamorous, either, but it sure is cheap compared to engineering or medicine. And we all know that Gustav is going to spring for Imperial Colleges for those in Magdeburg."
"Duke Ernst can clone the normal school. Can he clone those two boys? It's pretty sure that either Maximilian's nephews stay in Amberg or Gustav decides to move them somewhere else. Somewhere farther from Bavaria and Bohemia." Nasi reached up and pushed his new reading glasses up his nose. Four years of serious, practically non-stop, reading of mostly handwritten reports and relations had taken their toll on his eyes.
"You need to get those frames fitted better the next time you get down to Grantville," Ed said absently. "Have your secretary make an appointment with McNally."
"About the young dukes of Bavaria," Nasi said. He was not about to be distracted.
"I think the USE should leave them where they are for the time being." Ed glared at Mike, even though it was Francisco who had spoken. "They've been through enough, losing their mother and their home. Being separated from their father. I wouldn't recommend taking them away from a tutor they like and from a school where they're just starting to settle in-not at all. They're not just pawns on someone's political chessboard, you know. They're two boys. Real, live, people. Young Maximilian will be thirteen in October. Sigmund just turned eleven. Kids, still."
"Sometimes, the fact that you've spent most of your life as a professional educator just shines through."
"Can't help it, Mike. I did. That's what I am. Time enough to move them if you see some kind of a real threat. Right now, I don't see that Duke Maximilian is in a position to do anything serious. Any major effort would take money and their father is living on Wallenstein's charity. Leave them alone."
"I'd be happier if they were someplace more central. Like Magdeburg."
"If Wettin's smart, and he is, he's having Ernst make friends with them-between now and when the new administration comes in. Figuring the election and the transfer-of-power protocol we've written into the new constitution, that's eight or nine months. Ernst can bring them, and Vervaux, to Magdeburg when he moves. Which makes me hope that by then Larry Mazzare has a Jesuit collegium here to receive them."
"Not a bad solution. Just as long as Duke Ernst can keep them safe between now and then."
"He can. As well as anyone can. I've watched him in action, probably more closely than you've had time to. And I've talked to Duke Johann Philipp about his future son-in-law. Don't underestimate him."
"So much for the Upper Palatinate, from personal soap opera to high policy, then." Mike dismissed one concern.
Turning to Nasi, he raised the next one. "What do you think Austria is going to be doing?"
"Thinking about what princesses they have available to marry to those two Bavarian boys in a decade or so."
"God, Francisco. They're just kids." Mike winced at his involuntary echo of Ed's argument.
"You know the proverb. 'Let others wage war; you, happy Austria, wage marriage.' I don't think that Ferdinand III will want to hold his other sister off the marriage market for several more years just to make a Bavarian marriage-especially since there's a lot less of Bavaria now than there was five years ago. The daughters of Claudia de' Medici, the archduchesses of Austria-Tyrol, are just about the right age and background to pair up with them. They aren't very closely related, either, the way the upper nobility sees these things. For that matter, the way my own people see these things."
Mike frowned.
"Not everyone is 'into' this maddening American preference for exogamy," Francisco said mildly.
"Do you really think that Gustav will let those boys go back and rule Bavaria?" Ed asked.
"The hereditary principle is still very strong. It's the best solution-once they've been given a reasonable education and character formation on the USE model."
"What about Wallenstein's girl?"
Don Francisco raised his eyebrows above the top rim of his glasses.
Ed looked at him. "Well, now that his wife is pregnant again-if the child is a boy and survives, his daughter becomes not the heiress of Bohemia but just an incredibly wealthy and influential bride-to-be. And Catholic. Why wouldn't she make a decent wife for one of the Bavarian boys?"
"She could. She might. It would depend on how firmly Wallenstein keeps control. We should factor her in as a variable, though. Maybe one of the Bavarian boys with an Austrian wife; the other with a Bohemian. That would leave the Austrians with Claudia de' Medici's youngest girl still to put into play…"
"Will Tyrol fall in with Vienna's plans, or go its own way? Given the actions of Duchess Claudia in connection with Kronach-and now she's sent those three doctors of hers off to Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar."
Nasi steepled his fingers. "There just aren't that many different eligible Catholic possibilities." He thought a minute. "It's my guess that Ferdinand III will pull his brother out of the church and marry him off. I've heard rumors that the up-time history books have put an end to the proposed Polish match for Archduchess Cecelia Renata. They'll still want to maintain the dynastic ties with Poland, though, so it would be only logical to marry Leopold Wilhelm to Wladyslaw's half-sister."
"Konstanzia Vasa? I'm always a little disconcerted, still, when I have to think of Polish Catholic Vasas. I've gotten the notion of Swedish Lutheran Vasas so firmly in my head. Not to mention that I have to deal with the Swedish Lutheran ones on a daily basis." Mike grinned. "Even though the emperor's ambition is basically limitless, I have a problem with 'Gustavus Adolphus, King of Poland and Defender of the Catholic Faith.' It just doesn't ring right. Not that Gustav would draw the line at swallowing up the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, if he could manage it."
"If Wladyslaw manages to hang on, it's not likely to happen. Rest your mind," Nasi advised. "But I do think that Vienna is going to want a Polish marriage, and that's the only one on the drawing boards at the moment. Which leaves Anna de' Medici for Wladyslaw."
"And still leaves Ferdinand III with his second sister to dispose of-advantageously."
"Well, there is Don Carlos."
"Don Carlos is dead." Ed frowned. "I was in a play about it, once, in college. Schiller. In an English translation, of course. I played the evil Philip II. Our drama professor, who was directing it, said that the history in the play was really lousy. The real Don Carlos was a nut rather than a hero and the real Philip II did his country a favor by offing him before he could turn into a real-life mad king."
"Different Don Carlos," Nasi said. "This one is Philip IV's next younger brother, between him and Don Fernando-not his oldest uncle."
"Never heard of him."
"Philip III didn't put him into the church, the way he did Don Fernando. Kept him as the spare to the heir. He's the Grand Admiral of Spain. That's just a title, of course. I doubt that he's ever been to sea."
Piazza grinned. "Even if he is the 'ruler of the king's na-vee.'"
Nasi's eyebrows went up again.
"Gilbert and Sullivan. Next time you're in Grantville, I'll have Annabelle put some on the stereo. It's nineteenth century English, though, so you'll probably miss a lot of the patter that makes the lyrics funny. Even most twentieth-century Americans couldn't follow it. People who put the plays on had to put explanations in the programs. But, anyway. To repeat myself. Never heard of him."
"That's probably because he's eminently forgettable. Or he was, in your world, since he would have died a couple of years ago without having done anything much. He's in his mid-twenties, now. Said to be pleasant. Am
iable. Inoffensive. But there may be more to him than that, given how hostile Olivares is to his influence on his brother. Olivares keeps maneuvering to separate the two of them. Since he isn't dead, the king is bound to start maneuvering to marry him off."
Ed leaned back. "Why are you only suggesting Catholic marriages for the Austrians? And Wallenstein's girl?"
Nasi sputtered. "Well… um… because… champions of Catholicism and all that."
"The first time I met Cavriani, he told me that Lutherans are half-Catholic. So's the Church of England in a way, I suppose. They have bishops and all that, which is why the Puritans are so irritable most of the time. So-look at it this way. The grand dukes of Tuscany wouldn't have any interest in the Upper Palatinate, really. But given the geography, wouldn't Wallenstein be just as happy to see his little girl married to Karl Ludwig and safely installed next door in an Upper Palatinate that offers freedom of religion to Catholics? As happy as he would be to see her married to a second son in Bavaria, I mean. Maybe even happier to have her married to the heir rather than the spare, given how Mechthilde of Leuchtenberg ended up this summer. It might upset the Calvinists, but the Catholics there would be glad enough to see her coming, I should think."
Mike shook his head. "Rebecca doesn't foresee any developments along those lines, any more than Francisco does. Maybe Wallenstein might consider it-he was born a Protestant, of course. But not the Austrians."
"The Winter King had thirteen children. Ten of them are still alive. Throw them into the equation and everything changes." Ed smiled. "Give copies of a children's biography of Rupert of the Rhine to some little princesses and watch them start to sigh. They're about the right ages to marry Claudia de' Medici's children, too, without stretching it to the ridiculous age differences that some royal matches have had."
"What about Duchess Claudia herself? And her sister?" Mike asked.
"The sister's dead, according to the latest despatches from Tuscany. Which everyone more or less expected-she's been an invalid for years. Everybody expected her to croak when she got sick last December." Nasi was clearly proud of his mastery of that idiom. "Claudia, though…" He paused.
"Thirty years old. Redhead. Good looking. Six children from two marriages, and five of them alive and healthy. That's pretty much what you could call a proven track record in this day and age. Odd that Don Fernando didn't snap her up when he had a chance." Mike looked thoughtful.
"Someone will. You can bank on that."
"If she were willing to marry a Protestant… What would be her bottom line?" Ed asked.
"Duchess Claudia's bottom line is the bottom line in Bozen's account books. She's a descendant of the grand dukes of Tuscany, but never forget that the Medici were bankers long before they were princes."
"Who's available? Fredrik of Denmark, but he's definitely second-string now that Ulrik is betrothed to Princess Kristina. Charles I in England, since Henrietta Maria's death. Umm… Wladyslaw, if he doesn't go for her niece Anna?"
"Duke Bernhard."
All three of them laughed.
"At least we don't have to worry about Lorraine," Mike inserted. "What a bunch of flakes. Chaos-creators. What's it called? Forces for entropy? But unless someone's spouse dies, they're like the French. Out of the running until they produce a new generation."
"And in this world, Monsieur Gaston hasn't waited for permission from his big brother and Richelieu to start sleeping with his Lorrainer wife. The newspapers say that she's pregnant. Ye gods, it's a damned epidemic." Ed looked at Mike. "How's Becky feeling, by the way?"
****
Madrid
"King in the Low Countries," Philip IV of Spain said, his voice tight with anger. "Just what does he mean by "king in the Low Countries."
"I believe, Your Majesty," Count Duke Olivares said, "if I read the communication from Cardinal Bedmar correctly, that by being king 'in' the Netherlands, he claims that precedence only when he is within his own territories, and when foreign monarchs call upon him there. If, however, it should chance that he had some reason to make a state visit to Spain, he would come as an Infante of Spain and Your Majesty's younger brother. It is a fine distinction, perhaps."
"Fine or not, it is a declaration of independence."
" De facto, yes. But not quite de jure. Considering that, officially, the Spanish Netherlands are still governed by your aunt. The situation may well change upon the death of Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia."
"Why," Philip IV demanded, "did Urban VIII grant the dispensations?"
"Because our envoys were not able to prevent it," Olivares said frankly. "Nor did we have military forces close enough to Rome to send them there promptly enough to persuade the pope that his decision was not at all wise."
"We will remember his action."
"Yes, Your Majesty. That is a given."
"Ecclesiastically, you say, the dispensations are impeccable?"
"I am quite persuaded that Urban set the very best of his canon lawyers to studying the matter," Olivares answered.
"Fernando's children then, by Maria Anna, will be impeccably legitimate, from a dynastic point of view?"
"It would be almost impossible to get any other interpretation of the situation accepted. Barring, of course, denying the legitimacy of Urban VIII's election as pope." Olivares paused. "Nor am I sure that, in the long run, it would be to the interest of the House of Habsburg to make the attempt."
The king looked at him.
"I have provided you with the information, Your Majesty. In that other world, the queen died ten years from now. Your subsequent children by her, born in those ten years, were girls-although that is not to say that this will be the same in our new future. Still, we cannot rely fully on the hope of additional sons. Don Balthasar Carlos died, two years after her death. You remarried. The son born to your second marriage was incompetent to rule, incapable of begetting children. And Spain fell to the Bourbons."
"France." Philip IV looked at his chief minister. "Anything but France, Gaspar. Anything but France. And Balthasar Carlos, according to the information you have brought me, died of smallpox. Introduce these up-time measures against smallpox into Spain. Now. We have a dozen years to ensure that, by the mercy of the holy mother, her son, and all of the saints, Balthasar Carlos does not die."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"And there is still my brother Carlos. The Grand Admiral still stands as a buffer between Fernando's offspring and Spain. We should be grateful for the arrival of Grantville, I suppose, since the political complications prevented our planned trip to Barcelona. It was in Catalonia that he contracted typhus, even though he died after our return to Madrid. Damned Catalans. Too many forget Carlos."
Olivares tightened his lips. He and the king's next younger brother, second in line for the throne after the little prince Balthasar Carlos, were political opponents. He needed to say something neutral. Inoffensive. Philip IV had grown up with his younger brothers as his primary companions. They had studied together. Hunted together. There was a-camaraderie-there, with both of them, that he found difficult to overcome. "In that other world, Your Majesty, Don Carlos died young. Two years ago, of typhus. Not quite twenty-five years old. The authors of the encyclopedias in Grantville appear, almost, to have forgotten him."
"This world, perhaps, will remember him better." The king of Spain rose from his chair, smiling thinly. "In any case, Gaspar, whatever your personal opinions, we must thank God that he is still alive and begin serious negotiations for his marriage. Under the circumstances, our cousin Cecelia Renata would be the best choice. However, there are others. Wladyslaw's half-sister in Poland. Anna de' Medici. Let one of the court painters begin the process of obtaining portraits."
Olivares nodded. "Velasquez would be the best choice. Since we have learned that Rubens undertook this office for the 'king in the Netherlands,' it would be disadvantageous to Spain's royal prestige not to utilize a Spanish artist with equivalent prestige to undertake the preliminary contacts.
Not that we can disguise the purpose of his efforts for long, in any case."
"Let it be Velasquez, then. In the interval, in regard to my youngest brother, it is clearly too late for us to enforce my father's will. If Fernando will not become a priest to say masses for the soul of Philip III, then at least let him breed Spain heirs that are Habsburg rather than French. But we will deal with Urban VIII, who permitted this while he had broken off diplomatic relations with us, supposedly over the problems in Naples. Had intentionally broken them off, I am sure, to enable him to permit this. If, in fact, he did not instigate it."
****
Rome
"I am not sure," Urban VIII said, "that I care for radio as a means of communication. Every morning, every evening. These messages are like having a drummer constantly beating a rhythm in one's bedchamber. The worst is that the operators acknowledge to one another that they have received the messages as well as sent them. Which means, of course, that one cannot pretend, when convenient, that a letter must have been delayed in the mail."
"What is the decision of the canon lawyers?" Cardinal Francesco Barberini asked. "Are these messages valid dispensations, or must Don Fernando and Archduchess Maria Anna wait for paper copies?"
"I sign the dispensations," the pope answered wryly, " before the radio operators send their versions bounding and bouncing through the air. The question, therefore, does not come up. Naturally, we will forward the signed paper copies, but the signature becomes valid when I place it on the document-not when the document arrives at its destination."
"Naturally," Cardinal Francesco admitted.
Father General Vitelleschi said. "Cardinal Mazzare tells me that up-time it was literally possible to have this radio beating a rhythm all the time. Father Kircher has confirmed this. A town did not just have one receiver, as the up-timers do here. Every carriage, every home, had these receivers. The broadcasters, if they had nothing significant to say, played music. Bad music often, and very loudly."
