by Eric Flint
Rastetter had gone through the papers from the house, sorting them into several piles. He found about what he expected, but nothing really exciting. At the moment, he was systematically investigating the contents of Veronica's tote bag. Most of it was damp. Not wet, because the canvas was sufficiently waterproof to have floated for some time, but damp. He spread the various papers out to dry; then turned to the more protected contents of the blue plastic envelope.
He wondered how she had gotten hold of Kilian Richter's private papers from years ago. Dealings with the lawyer Arndt. Not particularly flattering to Arndt's professional ethics, but now the man was dead.
* * * *
Two things happened the next morning. Beyond, of course, the fact that most of the residents of Grafenwöhr ate breakfast and started work. And talked to one another; the whole town was buzzing with excitement about Veronica again.
Böcler, on the assumption that Hand would soon be arriving with a company of troops and could take charge, left at dawn to follow the barge down the river. There were, after all, only so many places that a barge could go. It was unlikely to grow feet and walk. He had a letter from the regent authorizing him to investigate "whatever is going on," which would be of great use in getting information from possibly reluctant local authorities.
Being more or less local himself, even though most of the residents of the Upper Palatinate would certainly have defined Cornheim in Franconia as a strange town in a foreign country, he had the ability to both understand the people who were answering his questions and to move about comparatively inconspicuously. The last thing they wanted to do was start a panic. The mining and metallurgical communities of the Upper Palatinate were accustomed to having officious and comparatively youthful apprentice electoral bureaucrats with the seventeenth-century equivalent of clipboards wandering around the locks and tollbooths, poking their noses into everybody else's business and counting things. One more would not even rise to the level of, "what's he doing here?" One more customs official would just be a part of the scenery. Especially since they were all busy filling out Duke Ernst's Fragebogen.
Unlike any of the up-timers; unlike, even, Hand himself. Extremely tall Swedish colonels with obvious war injuries rarely manifested an interest in ore barges; nosy customs officials often did.
* * * *
Nicholas Moser and Dorothea Richter eloped. They had, after all, only promised to delay until after Veronica left town, and Moser, by virtue of his job, had gained a pretty clear awareness that she had now left town. After all, he has spent the night in the basement recording the protocol of the questioning under torture. Thea's aunt had not specified how she was to have left town when she instructed them not to elope until after that. Moser didn't want to stay for the next stage, when von Wenzin took the evidence he already had and set out to get a confession from Thea's father. That could get sort of grisly.
Moser shuddered. Von Wenzin was just so matter of fact about it. He looked at the executioner and asked, "Wilhelm, are the tongs ready?" in the same dry as dust tone of voice as he usually asked, "Nicolas, have you finished the record copy of that affidavit?"
* * * *
The elopement threw a red herring of major and distracting dimensions into the deliberations of everyone else, since none of them knew that it was one. Owing to his paranoia about Immuring in Convents, Moser had insisted that they not leave notes that might aid in a pursuit, so the Grafenwöhr officials wasted a great deal of time discussing the possible implications and potential ramifications of the disappearances of the town clerk and Richter's daughter. Rastetter finally made the connection, but it took a while. He was not inside the city government loop.
It slipped the lovers' minds, as they fled, that upon leaving Grafenwöhr, they were supposed to meet Dorothea's Tante Veronica in Amberg, where she would furnish them with a bank draft, because they didn't have enough money to get to Grantville. They forgot about it because they spent most of their time along the way discussing such things as Thea's noble effort to break their non-existent engagement because of her family's appalling disgrace compounded by Nicol's equally noble determination to permit no such action. So, they didn't realize that they were running out of money until they got to Nürnberg.
* * * *
Several things also happened that afternoon. Or didn't happen that afternoon, depending upon how one looked at it.
Leopold Cavriani, having left Amberg at first light, arrived. He didn't stay; just hired a couple of fresh horses, collected Marc, and started down-river, following the path that Böcler had taken.
Hand, who was supposed to be two hours behind them, didn't arrive at all. He hadn't even tried to get a company of regulars for this purpose. Banér had almost all of them over around Ingolstadt and there was no way he was going to strip the rest out of Amberg, leaving the regent himself with no decent security. He was bringing a company of Grenzjaeger, boatmen, and other competent trackers. They came up the road just in time to run into a party of foreign soldiers near Freihung and, not surprisingly, became distracted from their original aim.
A lively time was had by all. Hand sent a messenger to Grafenwöhr to let Böcler know that he was turning back to Amberg because of an unexpected emergency.
* * * *
Kilian Richter's wife appeared at the city hall. She was feeling terribly hung over, but she was sober. Once the first clerk ascertained that she hadn't shown up to try to bail her husband out, she was shunted from room to room. She couldn't find anyone in authority to talk to. Finally, she stood in the corridor and shouted, "I want to tell someone what happened!"
Hieronymus Rastetter came out of the back room of the city clerk's office. He looked very official in his standard bureaucrat's robe and hat. He was followed by his clerk. She started to talk.
The clerk started to take notes.
* * * *
"Kilian was terribly angry when Anton decided that his family would convert to Catholicism. With Anton's sisters gone, only his nephew had been standing between Kilian and Johann Stephan's share of their father's property. He'd been biding his time, waiting for Anton to go into exile also. When he heard that Anton had conformed, he swore fiercely. Oh, how he cursed and blasphemed."
"What about Augustin Arndt?"
Kilian's wife frowned. "I known the name, but not much else. Except I know he hired most of the bullies for Kilian. But I don't think he was there himself when it happened."
"Was where? When what happened?"
"Why, at Anton's shop, that night. The night that Amberg was plundered, Kilian sent a party of men disguised as mercenaries to Anton's shop. They were going to kill him, and his whole family, and make it look like the soldiers did it. They would have killed all of Anton's family. Him and his wife; Veronica; the three children. Except that they were interrupted by a group of real mercenaries and had to run away. They took Anton's wife with them when they ran."
She paused for a moment. "I guess it was real mercenaries who took Veronica and the children."
The questioning continued, faithfully recorded by the clerk.
No, she didn't know who all was involved. That Johann Rothwild had been there, she did know; Kilian had promised him a share of the Johann Stephan's property, since he was Sara's son; later, Kilian somehow kept it all. She wasn't sure how that happened, but she thought that it had to do with the case that caused him to be permanently exiled from Grafenwöhr. They could look it up. Magdalena and Wilhelm Bastl should have gotten part of it, too, since Magdalena was a niece. But they didn't get any, either. Maybe they decided that they would rather be alive and didn't push it.
In any case, the men disguised as mercenaries had gone back to Arndt's office, where Kilian was waiting. It may not have been Johann Rothwild who had killed Anton Richter. But it was Johann who killed Anton's wife. She was sure of that. How come? Oh, because Kilian told her so. That was after the men had all come back to Grafenwöhr. Kilian told her that Anton's wife had been struggling and threatening
Johann while he dragged her through the streets. How did Kilian know that, if he had been waiting in Arndt's office? She wasn't sure; she had never thought about that. But after they got to Arndt's office, Johann did kill her, right there. Arndt hid the body for a couple of days. Then, when the worst was over, he just brought it out and added it to the others that the cart was taking to the mass grave.
She sat there long enough to initial the rough copy of the notes that Rastetter's clerk had taken. She initialed every page. Then she said, "I guess I feel better now." Then, after fidgeting a bit: "Are you really sure that they aren't going to let Kilian out?"
Rastetter looked down at her statement, smiling very thinly. "You may rest assured that Kilian Richter will not be 'let out.'"
"All right," she said. "I guess, then, that I will go home."
"I think," Rastetter said, "that you had better stay until I can find the bailiff."
Böcler had gone; Hand had not arrived. It was all back in the Grafenwöhr bailiff's lap. Business as usual. He strode out.
Richter's wife was still sitting on the bench, her hands in her lap, rotating her thumbs around each other, when they came back with von Wenzin.
* * * *
Amberg, the Upper Palatinate
By the time Hand wiped up the mess resulting from the skirmish by Freihung, he determined that these were a detachment of Holk's men, who claimed to be making a diversionary move through the Upper Palatinate on their way to cause some trouble in Leuchtenberg.
It only made sense for him to take his captives back to Amberg; it would have made no sense at all to take them to Grafenwöhr. He turned back, sending a messenger to tell Böcler that he would be delayed. In the ensuing discussions over the next couple of days, he and Duke Ernst reached the not particularly surprising conclusion that the second set of villains in the kidnapping, the ones who disposed of Kilian Richter's thugs, were probably employed by Holk in the service of John George of Saxony. It would only make sense, after all, that John George might be looking for hostages to hold against the USE.
The captured soldiers denied entirely any connection with ore barges or kidnapped women, but that was only to be expected. So Hand and the regent devoted extensive analysis to a mistaken premise and sent quite a number of their Grenzjaeger and other scouts to the north and east rather than to the south.
The whole episode left Duke Ernst, after he had interviewed a couple of the captured officers, feeling decidedly miffed with John George of Saxony. Which, in fact, John George deserved, even though he didn't have anything at all to do with the kidnapping.
* * * *
On the Naab River, Upper Palatinate
Böcler thought that he had a good identification of the barge. He would have loved to have it stopped, but, unfortunately, it was well ahead of him and nobody else could catch up to it any faster than he could. He was gaining a little, but not much, and was beginning to wonder if the damned barge was ever going to stop. It passed through every lock it came to. Where could it possibly be going?
* * * *
On the barge in question, Forst and Becker were feeling increasingly out of their depth. They didn't want the old ladies to die. They took the lids off the barrels every now and then, so they could get air. Once the women recovered consciousness, they dropped water into their mouths with a spoon. But when they came to locks and populated areas, they had to stuff up their mouths and put the lids back on or they'd scream. They'd tried that, several times.
The Naab was coming to an end. They were going to have to make up their minds pretty soon. They hadn't done anything, but nobody would believe that. The ladies had been out cold; they weren't going to testify that the men on the barge had valiantly rescued them from an attack by bandits, even if it happened to be true. One thing was sure, though. They did know that Arndt had been collecting information about the one lady for their lord, Landgrave Wilhelm George of Leuchtenberg. If they didn't want their heads cut off, they only had one choice. They would take the ladies to the landgrave, let him worry about it, and hope that he would provide them with Schutz und Schirm in return for their loyal service. Protection and defense; that was what a good lord owed his subjects.
They passed through another lock. And another.
* * * *
The Cavrianis caught up with Böcler fairly quickly, since they hadn't had to stop and ask questions of tollkeepers or gate attendants. The three of them continued south as fast as the condition of the Naab's banks allowed them to. They couldn't go any faster on the river. If they were on a barge themselves, they would have to wait for the locks to open and close. Past Pfreimd. Why in hell, if the men were Leuchtenberger, hadn't they stopped in Pfreimd?
Past Schwandorf.
Past Burglengenfeld.
All the way to the mouth of the Naab, where it ran into the Danube. Where they found out that two idiotic bargemen, just a few hours before, had, without stopping at customs, shot their barge out of the river and crossed the Danube, presumably beaching themselves on the right bank above Regensburg. The barge had not appeared in Regensburg's waters.
All three of the pursuers, being stronger on brain cells than on biceps, sensibly refrained from doing anything really stupid, like trying to swim the Danube after it.
* * * *
Böcler entirely agreed that his first duty was to Duke Ernst. He would take the information back to Amberg.
When he arrived, his news caused great frustration among those intelligence analysts who had been assuming that John George of Saxony was the villain in the piece.
They realized now that it must have been Duke Maximilian. They start to develop new scenarios. Scenarios that involved Ingolstadt. Did Maximilian actually think that holding Veronica Dreeson and Mary Simpson hostage would get Banér to call off the siege? If not that, then what?
Hand called back the scouts he had sent to the north and east. Not that they hadn't gathered quite a bit of useful information while they were out. Taking a calculated risk, he practically stripped the border facing Bohemia of Grenzjaeger, sending them north to face against Saxony. He wished that he had more soldiers. If the king sent a regular regiment, though, Banér would appropriate it. In General Banér's world, internal security ran a very distant second to active campaigning.
"So where did the Cavrianis go?" the Swedish colonel asked Böcler.
* * * *
Böcler's mouth fell open. Somehow, Cavriani had kept him so busy discussing all the things that he needed to bring to the regent's attention that he had forgotten to ask what the two of them planned to do next. He made a note to himself to be more thorough, next time.
* * * *
Duke Ernst shrugged. The Cavrianis were not his problem: not his officials, not his subjects, not, really, even official members of the Grantville trade delegation. They were representing whom? Oh yes, Count August von Sommersburg. He could not be held responsible for every foreign merchant who passed through the Upper Palatinate.
* * * *
Leopold and Marc followed the Danube upstream for some distance. Crossing right away, so close to Regensburg, Leopold explained, would most certainly have brought them to the attention of the Bavarian authorities, which would not have been a good idea at all. As it was, they would simply cross openly into the Pfalz-Neuburg enclave rather than into Bavaria proper, in their own names and as exactly what they were: merchants from Geneva, bringing their horses, and an appropriate amount of baggage.
Cavriani Frères had a factor stationed in Neuburg, another in Pfaffenhofen. Veit Egli was originally from Constance and was a Catholic. Considering the location of this branch, it was far easier for a Swiss Catholic to go back and forth into Bavaria more or less freely than it would have been for a either a Genevan Calvinist or a local resident. Not that local residents did not make useful employees, Leopold pointed out. The factor in Paffenhofen, a man named Brunner, had relatives in Hohenwart and Reichertshofen; the cousin in Hohenwart had a brother-in-law in Schrobenhausen.
/> In any case, since they got to Neuburg first, Egli got the job of notifying a livery stable owner in Grafenwöhr that he had just de facto sold two of his horses (fair payment enclosed, see independent appraisal obtained by my employer; please send receipt). Marc had time to write to Frau Durre in Nürnberg and ask her to send him the clothes he had left in his room there, because they were taking a different route home. He included an entertaining, if rather sharply edited, version of their stay in Amberg with the request.
Using the firm's various resources, Leopold set his mind to two immediate projects. First, locating Mary and Veronica; second, getting them out of Bavaria. Those seemed rather obvious to him. For the time being, somebody else could worry about why they were there at all. Leopold Cavriani was a practical man.
Chapter 29
Tribulationes
Prüfening, Bavaria
When Forst and Becker contacted Landgrave Wilhelm Georg of Leuchtenberg's steward, Petrus Sartorius, in Prüfening, which was directly across from the mouth of the Naab as one could get and still avoid Swedish-occupied Regensburg. When they asked him for instructions, he told them that their lord was lying on his deathbed at the estate of Freiherr von Hörwarth at Planegg outside Munich and both his sons were both still away serving in the army.
"I know nothing at all about the landgrave's having taken any interest in anyone named Veronica Dreeson," Sartorius insisted.
Not that he would, of course, he thought to himself; he had never been involved in any way with the landgrave's collection of intelligence data or foreign activities, not even when the landgrave did such things. He no longer did such things. The landgrave's health had been shaky for the past several years; extremely bad for the past year; serious for the past six months. Sartorius' presence in Prüfening was for the purpose of looking out for the landgrave's surviving economic interests in his Swedish-occupied lands. Also, of course, to transmit money and occasional messages back and forth. And to keep an eye on Regensburg. Almost everyone in Prüfening was keeping an eye on Regensburg these days.
