by Eric Flint
Suddenly, he laughed. Twenty-five years ago, he would have relished this. What had Ed Piazza's wife said when she described them to him? He spoke English with Mrs. Piazza. "Middle-aged, middle-class, and middle-brow." She had laughed; she considered it a joke. He, once she had explained "middle-brow" to him, had found it very apt. Succinct and graphic, an excellent aphorism.
So here he stood, middle-class, middle-aged, and middle-brow himself, wondering if he should not have stayed home and sent out someone else. He laughed at himself.
Ah, no, Leopold my friend. You are not ready to stay home in Geneva. Not yet, not quite yet.
The inns here had not yet been stripped of their provender. People were walking up and down the street, chewing on sausages. He might as well get something to eat.
Pork Schnitzel, by a miracle. Nudeln to go with it. Fresh fruit. "No bread today," the innkeeper apologized. The last group of soldiers had taken it all. Bread kept. Of the things in his larder that spoiled easily, they had only eaten their fill and then moved on. They lieutenant had even given him a chit for the cost, not too bad an estimate, either. If the treasury honored it.
Leopold took his wooden plate out to the picnic tables at the side of the inn and sat down where he could watch the road.
* * * *
Mary Ward stood by the side of the road, frowning, as a cavalry company rode past them on its way north. Thus far, they had not been molested. Older women mainly, poor to judge by their clothing, several of them together, one thin, feeble old man. The passing troops had a goal, to get to Ingolstadt. None had paused to harass them. They had been moving much more slowly than she had thought they would, because they left the road so often to let faster groups go by, to get out of the way of teams pulling cargo wagons.
They also needed to let Mrs. Simpson nurse the blisters that were causing her to limp so badly, to appear so feeble. She did not complain, but the only shoes they had been able to find for her were very poorly fitted and her feet had no calluses at all. Mary Ward had never seen such delicate feet before. Even the archduchess—that is, even her "niece" Maria Anna—had harder feet than the up-time woman. They could not let Mrs. Simpson wear the shoes she had when she was brought to them. Those, they had to leave in Munich. Sturdy, well-made, but so different! They would have attracted surveillance like a lighthouse beacon.
Mary Simpson had not let them go to waste, though. She had given them, with many other things, to their cook who worked at the Paradise Street house, days before they left. The cook had agreed to hide it all.
The cavalrymen were still riding past, not even looking at them. When they got closer to Ingolstadt, though... Ingolstadt was another thirty miles. If, closer to the fortress, the army was already encamped, if the troops were out foraging in small groups? They might not be so indifferent, she thought. She kept worrying. She was far from sure that the plan with which she had left Munich was going to work. She was supposed to find the brother of the cook. He would agree to take them to the left bank of the Danube, the north side, under cover of the fleets of small boats that set out every night to resupply the fortress.
What was happening at Ingolstadt? Why were all the troops on the move? The siege had been going on for months, now, without reaching a crisis point. Why now?
The mounted company was past. They might as well go on into Hohenkammer. They would be safer in even a small town than out here, on an open road. They were not vagrants; they would be allowed to spend the night, at least.
Perhaps she could find bandages, salves.
* * * *
Maria Anna took the "old man's" arm. "Papa," she said. "Papa, we need to walk on."
Veronica pulled her lips back between her bare gums. She missed her teeth, but she couldn't wear them. No old woman in Bavaria had teeth as perfect as hers. If she wore them, they would attract attention.
"Papa." If a "Papa" the size of Mary Simpson had begotten Maria Anna, he would have had to marry a giantess. She started to make up a story to entertain herself, this one of a weakly grocer's apprentice who successfully courted the oversize daughter of a miller.
Perhaps, she thought a little grimly, once they managed to return to Grantville—if they did—she would write it down. Sell it to the despised printers of Harlequin Romances. Make some money and send Annalise to college. God knew, nothing else that she had done this summer had made the slightest progress toward that goal. All outgo, no profit. She was worse off than she had been to start with.
At least, the story kept her mind off where she was and what she was doing.
Another creek. They would have to wade. The ford was churned up, muddy from the horses that had recently crossed. She looked at Mary Simpson. Her feet inside the rough shoes, the open sores. What might be in that water? What "germs" that would lead to what "infection"? She had listened to Dr. Abrabanel just as carefully as anyone in Grantville. More carefully, since she was the mayor's wife and had to set a good example. It was still at least a mile until they could rest at Hohenkammer. The wet shoes, muddy water squelching inside them, would be rubbing against the open blisters.
She stopped on the bank and said: "No." Stubbornly refused to go on. Until Maria Anna broke the impasse by simply picking "Papa" up and carrying "him" across.
For the first time since the young woman had joined the group, Veronica said, "thank you." She did not want to. She had no charity for the nobility in general, and even less for the Habsburgs in particular. But, "pretty is as pretty does," so thanks were in order, however grudgingly given.
* * * *
Mary Ward sighed. The old Oberpfälzerin was a problem. One expected village women to be ignorant, superstitious, often poorly instructed in their faith. But this one! Catholic, she said. The wife of a prominent man in this Grantville, of the mayor. Far from ignorant, not at all superstitious. But never, ever, in a half century of life, had Mary Ward met a purportedly Catholic woman who was so poorly instructed in her faith. Or so stubborn in refusing instruction.
She didn't even know the rosary.
She didn't even have a rosary. They had not noticed, in Munich. There had been plenty of rosaries available in the house on Paradise Street and the two interned women had not participated in the Ladies' liturgies.
No rosary. That could be repaired. Not elegantly, right now, but repaired. As they walked, Mary Ward plucked small twigs, sliced them up into bead-sized lengths with her dinner knife, and poked the soft pulp out of the center with one of the large needles from the sewing kit in her pocket. A length of thin grapevine was functioning as the string. One length of twig forced through another for the cross. Unblessed. Good enough, as a teaching tool. Until the instruction began to take hold, perhaps unblessed was preferable. It would avoid any possibility of blasphemy if the old woman treated the beads disrespectfully.
* * * *
Hohenkammer, finally. An inn ahead, with benches and tables. People were eating. A place to rest.
And the Oberpfälzerin was running.
Actually running to the inn. Mary Ward started after her, then stopped.
She was running up to a man who sat there, eating. Speaking to him. Not a high-born gentleman, by his dress, but certainly a prosperous merchant.
* * * *
Almost, Veronica started to greet him as an equal. Then remembered how she was dressed, where she was. That she had no teeth. Instead, she forced herself to curtsey humbly, as a servant to an employer, or to a friend of her employer. "Herr Cavriani. Ah, I am grateful to have found you at last."
* * * *
All that Leopold could think at first was, "How did they get behind me?"
Then, when he recognized the younger woman who was assisting the old man, he realized that he had been thinking of putting his adventuring days behind him much, much, too prematurely.
* * * *
One of the waiters at the inn saw the old woman run up to the merchant, noted the other women who were following her, and the old man. As requested by a "beggar" who
had, for the past several years, paid him a modest weekly sum for providing information on events in the Pfalz-Neuburg enclave to the duke of Bavaria's bailiff in Schleissheim, he duly noted their presence in Hohenkammer. Two days later, when the "beggar" made one of his regular stops at the inn to request a handout, the waiter sent his weekly report, which the bailiff received the next morning.
And put at the bottom of his inbox. He was very busy. Like every other local official north of Munich, his time was fully absorbed right now by the need to move troops to Ingolstadt—demands for forage, fodder, food, supplies, transport, cash; complaints from farmers, complaints from townspeople, edicts from Munich. Schleissheim, since one of Duke Maximilian's favorite rural hunting lodges was located there, was busier than most. Almost a week after it arrived, the bailiff extracted the report, combined it with other reports he had received concerning women moving through the area, and forwarded it to the chancery in Munich.
* * * *
Munich, Bavaria
In the Munich chancery, the report from Hohenkammer arrived on the desk of a minor official assigned to collate the various reports in regard to women traveling in Bavaria, where it joined many others. Many, many, others. In a jerky, disjointed, unsystematic manner, greatly complicated by the troop movements, surveillance went on.
The minor official who received the report felt overwhelmed already—partly by the reports and partly by his concern that, since he had previously worked under the unfortunate Dr. Donnersberger, neither his tenure in office nor his life would be particularly secure if he did anything to bring his existence to the duke's attention. It was very hard to be sufficiently inconspicuous when compiling reports for the duke's own eyes. And there were, certainly, a plenitude of reports. Surely not every woman in Bavaria could be traveling, the hapless bureaucrat thought wearily. Surely, it only seemed that way.
Of course, one could always count on pilgrims. There were so many shrines and pilgrimage sites. One old woman on a decrepit donkey, accompanied by her son and two nephews, on her way to Altötting to pray for relief from some unspecified physical ailment. Nothing suspicious there. Pile one.
All groups of two to four women. Possibly suspicious, especially if they appeared to be fairly prosperous. Pile two.
Groups of more than four women. Unless they contained the same number as the English ladies, pile one. It was, after all, coming on to harvest season. Farmers and estate managers all over Bavaria were hiring seasonal laborers right now; seasonal laborers were out looking for work.
Discerning just who a suspicious group might be was a different matter. Possibly members of the archduchess' household? Pile two-A. Possibly members of Duke Albrecht's household in Munich or possibly people from Duke Albrecht's rural estates? Pile two-B. Possibly former servants of the late Wilhelm Georg of Leuchtenberg? Pile two-C. Possibly members of the households of various Munich patrician families? Pile two-D.
Why could the duke not have addressed these problems one at a time? At the moment, there were far too many women whom one could presume to be sharing a single thought: let's get the hell out of Bavaria.
He was a cautious man. The times were uncertain. His wife and daughters were currently en route to Tyrol.
He did his best to make his summaries dull.
* * * *
On the twentieth of July, the district administrator in Vilsbiburg reported that a group of women representing themselves to be pilgrims returning from the shrine at Altötting had transversed his district. According to the innkeeper in Mühlburg, there were seven in the group; they were said to reside in Landshut and to have letters of approval from their own parish priest. There was no indication that this group of women were of interest to the inquisition. In any case, since both their purported place of origin and the destination of their pilgrimage were outside of his own jurisdiction, he did not consider it a judicious use of his budget to expend monies to observe them farther.
The city clerk of Landshut, upon inquiry by the chancery, sent confirmation that a group of local women had indeed left two weeks earlier to undertake a pilgrimage to Altötting. This group included the wives of the baker Adolf Blum and the sausage maker Veit Haller. All of the women regularly attended their local parish church and none of them were delinquent in their annual obligation to receive Easter communion. The city clerk did not understand why this pilgrimage is of interest to the Holy Office, particularly since the distance to Altötting from Landshut is less than forty miles.
The chancery sent a query to the city clerk in Landshut asking him to ascertain, when the women return home, whether they had at any time during their pilgrimage deviated from the route they had been expected to take, or whether, at the time they returned, there were more people in their party than when they had left.
The city clerk in Landshut reported that when the group returned home, there was one less person in their party than when they left on the pilgrimage. They asserted that this was because one of the women, an unmarried sister of the teamster Adalreich Pfister, remained behind temporarily to visit her grandmother in Dingolfing.
The mayor in Dingolfing reported that a woman who could be the missing individual from the Landshut pilgrimage to Altötting had been observed in Dingolfing, the prior Sunday. According to the nephew of the priest, she accompanied to mass a woman whom she asserted was her grandmother. Local informants confirmed the identity of the grandmother and stated that she did indeed have an unmarried granddaughter residing in Landshut. It was said that the visitor intends to return to Landshut within a fortnight.
The bureaucrat rubbed his aching temples. The district administrator in Vilshofen reported that four women were staying as guests in the household of Count von Ortenburg, which was not, of course, under his jurisdiction. Prior to arriving in Ortenburg on the previous Wednesday, these women had supposedly made a trip to Freising, in order to see the duke's wedding procession. They had a carriage and are accompanied by a driver and a footman. He had not been able to confirm that they had indeed visited Freising, nor where they intended to go upon leaving Ortenburg. In a tavern in Ortenburg, the driver indicated that they intended to take their leave on Tuesday next and proceed to Passau. Thus far, however, they had not left Ortenburg."
Pile two-A, with follow-up.
The chancery clerk anxiously requested further details on the four visitors to Ortenburg, particularly as to whether these might possibly be some of the English Ladies who had left Munich and who were of interest to the Inquisition.
The district administrator in Vilshofen replied that he did not believe that these were English ladies, since they had been overheard speaking German to one another.
The frustrated clerk replied that he was not asking about English ladies but rather about English Ladies, members of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a religious order that has been dissolved by papal decree and whose members were of interest to the Holy Office.
The district administrator from Vilshofen replied that he did not think so, because one of the ladies was advanced in pregnancy and was accompanied by a ladies' maid and a laundress. The fourth appeared from her clothing to be a gentlewoman of high standing.
The chancery clerk wrote, Why didn't you say that one of them was pregnant before?
The district administrator answered, Nobody asked me.
More summaries. Dull, think dull. Very, very, dull.
The district administrator in Vohburg reported that three women in religious habits had passed through his district two weeks before. They stated that they were beguines from a house in the city of Cologne, and they were traveling on passports issued by the archbishop-elector of Cologne. They presented papers indicating that they were traveling to Salzburg.
Pile one.
The district administrator in Vohburg added in passing that during the past week, two or three groups of women had been observed traveling toward Neuburg, and one to Reichartshofen.
Pile two.
The district administra
tor in Mühldorf reported that three women in religious habits had passed through his district a week before. They professed to be beguines from Cologne. He does not know where they went after they left Mühldorf, although they had stated that they were on their way to Salzburg.
The district administrator in Aichach reported the arrest of four vagrant prostitutes, one a young girl. One of the older women asserted that the girl was her daughter; two professed to have been born in Tyrol; the woman and her daughter in Augsburg. There was no indication that they were heretics, although all four were very poorly instructed in the tenets of the Catholic faith. They have been remanded to a Spinnhaus for repentant magdalens, from which the girl had already made an effort to flee.
The district administrator in Abbach reported that he was keeping close watch on all efforts made by groups of women to enter the portions of the Imperial City of Regensburg that are on the south side of the Danube.
The bailiff in Griesbach reported that his wife, while shopping in Vilshofen the previous week, saw three well-dressed women whom she did not know. Since his wife was personally acquainted with every woman in Vilshofen who could afford to dress well, he believed that he should report this, although nobody had asked him about it. The women were wearing dresses in the current style, one green, one blue, and one deep red. These dresses were trimmed with silk and made in the modern style with wide arms. Two of the women wore broad collars in the French style. All of the women wore caps, embroidered with silk, and hats. They claimed to be on their way to a spa, where they intended to take the curing waters. The Amtmann reported that he did not know of any popular spas in the general direction in which they were traveling until one reached Karlsbad in Bohemia.
Frantically, the chancery clerk requested follow-up to this sighting. Four days later, the bailiff reported that he had ascertained that this party of women, which was on horseback and accompanied by two grooms, had passed the border into the diocese of Passau.
