by Eric Flint
On behalf of the prince-bishop, an administrator in Passau replied to the Bavarian inquiries that he had not seen such a party of women. This was quite literally true, which did not mean that he did not know who they were, one of them being both his own cousin and a former lady in waiting of Archduchess Maria Anna. It also did not mean that he had not issued orders to expedite their travel through Passau to their homes in Austria.
A low-level clerk in the Passau chancery sent duplicate copies of these orders to Munich, accompanied by an invoice for his services.
The Bavarian chancery clerk did not know whether or not to hope that this meant that the archduchess and the two witches were out of Bavaria and out of his hair. Pile two, though; definitely pile two.
He kept reading reports, of which those he had already extracted and summarized were only a small sample. The unsummarized pile, no matter how steadily he worked, grew inexorably. They kept coming in daily.
The bailiff in Schleissheim reported that one of his informants stated that a group of about a dozen women and one man, dressed in the ordinary clothing of rural workers, had come into Hohenkammer, where they had been met by a merchant, presumably their employer, who was waiting for them at an inn. The group had continued north, walking, in the company of the merchant, who was also walking. This was not a suspicious circumstance, since the man had eaten at the inn and complained to the host that a cavalry troop had confiscated his horse that very morning. The informant assumed that these were migrant laborers, hired for the harvest season. The Schleissheim bailiff concurred. Pile one.
The official sighed. He wished that he had received more reports from the region between Munich and Ingolstadt, but with the troop movements there, it was probably too much to hope for.
In any case, he had received a letter from his wife. His family was safe in Tyrol. He closed up his desk. Times were very uncertain in Bavaria. Someone else would have to deal with the rest of the reports. He was leaving for Tyrol.
* * * *
Salmading. So far, so good. Reichertshausen. The whole town was in chaos because of Bavarian foraging parties. Ilmmuenster. The flow of refugees heading south was becoming a stream. Pfaffenhofen. Only ten miles again today, but they would have to stop. There was no possibility that Mrs. Simpson could walk farther.
Refugees. Sources of information.
Banér's army was pouring across the Danube at Neuburg. Some had forded, but the great majority was crossing on the bridge. First, he had sent across scouts; then squads that secured the perimeter of the town on the west and south; then they had secured a route to the south of Ingolstadt.
From Neuburg to Ingolstadt, no one could reach the Danube without crossing a well-secured line of Swedish and USE regulars.
Refugees. Carrying with them as much of their worldly goods as they possibly could. Willing to sell some of them for hard cash. Not a lot, from any one group. Plus, the English Ladies still had some things in their satchels. Others, he had traded for them.
Miss Ward was a reasonable woman. When he explained what he had discovered, she agreed readily enough that crossing at Ingolstadt would be impossible. They would try for Neuburg. They could all stay with Veit Egli until the southward traffic on the bridge slacked off. Then they could cross and go on to Grantville.
Refugees. One sold him a sedan chair. Mary Simpson was no longer a crippled old man but rather an old woman, her short hair hidden by an old-fashioned, capacious, matron's cap, her shoeless feet swathed in bandages. Sores from gout, they could tell anyone who asked. Two day-laborers, happy enough to find paid work that would take them away from the presence of Bavarian troops, were carrying her.
Leopold felt considerably relieved. He considered himself an enlightened enough man, but the Bible itself forbade women to wear men's clothing. He understood that in Grantville, certain forms of trousers were defined as women's clothing; so be it. Undoubtedly, however, when the women found him in Hohenkammer, Mary Simpson had been wearing men's clothing. Down-time men's clothing. The kind of thing for which the Catholics of Bavaria would burn a woman, if they discovered it.
Be fair, Leopold. The kind of thing for which the Calvinists of Geneva would burn a woman, if they discovered it.
He looked at Mary Ward. Mrs. Simpson had been dressed in those male clothes with the consent of a Catholic. A nun, the superior of a Catholic religious order, no matter how troublesome a one. It was all very disturbing.
In any case, he was far happier now that Mrs. Simpson was dressed as a woman again.
* * * *
Pfaffenhofen. Several days in Pfaffenhofen. It was as secure as Neuburg and refugees were still coming south steadily. There was little point in trying to move farther north. Leopold had not spotted anyone observing them. He was rather surprised that the surveillance, thus far, appeared to have been so lax. Happily surprised, but surprised.
Pfaffenhofen and, at the end of the week, a Neuburg newspaper. Dramatic Flight of the Heir of Bavaria and His Family. How providential. That might account for some of the surprisingly thin surveillance. No clue, however, as to the goal of their flight. Or, for that matter, the reason for their flight.
Another day. Another newspaper, a week old, carried by a refugee, who sold it to the innkeeper. Who wouldn't let it out of his hands, although, for a fee, he would read it out loud to people in his dining room.
Duke Ernst and General Banér Mount Intense Attack on Ingolstadt.
"Gee, whiz. As if we hadn't guessed," Mary Simpson said later that evening. It was safe enough to speak English in their own rooms, Leopold thought.
Well, it was a Nürnberg newspaper. But it scarcely came as new information to people who were sitting here in Pfaffenhofen in the middle of a region that was not just ankle deep in military types but, by now, practically neck deep.
Two more days. A special edition of the Augsburg newspaper, brought in by a runner who was risking his neck to make a lot of money. Between the arrival of the last newspaper and this one, Duke Maximilian had issued a proclamation forbidding the importation of all foreign printed matter. Duchess Mechthilde and Duke Karl Killed During Escape from Bavaria. Mysterious Disappearance of the Younger Bavarian Dukes. The innkeeper wasn't reading the papers out loud any more, but he had bought a half dozen and resold them surreptitiously and for a highly inflated price.
The reporter whose despatch had reached Augsburg had apparently based his lead story on talking to the man who provided the wagon and coffins to transport their bodies to Leuchtenberg. The story only went that far. There was no information as to whether Duke Albrecht had reached Bohemia.
* * * *
Maria Anna read though the meager information in the Augsburg paper over and over, as if she could force the printed columns to provide her with more information than they contained.
The only consolation she had found was what was not there. No headlines saying that Doña Mencia had been captured. No headlines saying that Father Vervaux was dead. Not even the most minute notice at the bottom of the sixth column on the fourth page.
No news from Austria. Why was there no news from Austria? Never had she been in more need of the School of Patience.
Chapter 52
Excursio Culpae
Bavaria, south of Ingolstadt
The stream of refugees was slacking off. Those who were still passing through Pfaffenhofen were mainly, they said, going to stay with relatives. The body of the Swedish army was on the south bank of the Danube now. They had invested Ingolstadt itself from the south and constructed a body of counter-fortifications to keep the Bavarians at a distance. There had been two sizable battles, both to the east of Ingolstadt, when the Bavarians had tried to force their way through. The attacks had been repulsed.
The Bavarians took the two day-laborers whom Leopold had hired to work on fortifications, so he re-sold the sedan chair to a family going south with a sick woman.
He asked what was happening farther to the west, toward Neuburg. The answer was that the Sw
edes had built fortifications all along, the whole dozen miles from Neuburg to Ingolstadt. A "secured supply line," they called it.
To the east, the Bavarians were massing at Manching and Ernsgaden. Nobody knew for sure, but it was generally assumed that since they could not break through at Ingolstadt itself, they would drive west, south of the "secured supply line," and try to break through at Neuburg. Nobody—well, no ordinary person—knew precisely when they planned to move, but it had to be soon. There was hardly anyone still in the expected path. The reason that the stream of refugees was slowing down was that Weichering was empty. So were Zell, Obermaxfeld, the villages and hamlets around them. Schrobenhausen had taken in so many refugees that there was, literally, room for no more. Even the villages further to the south had driven away any livestock that the foraging parties had left them and the people were prepared to run if the armies swung a few more miles to the south than people expected.
At Neuburg itself, though, the Swedes were permitting traffic to pass in and out of the city.
* * * *
Leopold was inclined to stay in Pfaffenhofen, he said. To wait and see.
Privately, he was beginning to worry. Marc had not caught up with them, even with the pause, and there was no indication that he was ahead of them.
Mary Ward was not inclined to wait and see. He learned something about determination. Although he did not learn that she had addressed the College of Cardinals in Latin in defense of her order and her orthodoxy, he learned something about the personality that had permitted her to do that without flinching. Learned that she had, in her pocket, a letter from the pope that ordered her to Grantville.
He could stay, or he could come, she said, but the Ladies were making a run for Neuburg and the bridge before an army marched between them and it. Twenty-five miles. Mrs. Simpson's feet were largely healed. They would make a run for it. With him or without him.
He came.
* * * *
Cavriani wanted to go through Reichertshofen. He was quite insistent on it.
No way was Mary Ward going to take the time to go to Reichertshofen. Not even if the detour would be only five miles. Through Pörnbach to Pobenhausen, to Weichering, to Zell, to Neuburg. Straight through.
Mary Simpson's feet were not as well-healed as Mary Ward had hoped. At Pörnbach, scarcely six miles out of Pfaffenhofen, they started to slow down. Leopold said that he would detour to Reichertshofen, talk to his agent there, and catch up with them at Pobenhausen. By then, certainly, Mrs. Simpson would have to rest.
Mary Ward did not like it, but neither did she have any authority over the man. "If you do not catch up with us by tomorrow morning," she said firmly, "we will go on without you."
"I wish," Veronica said, looking at Mary Simpson rather anxiously, "that we had kept the sedan chair. Four women could have carried you, easily enough."
She was on her knees, unwrapping the bandages.
"Look here, Miss Ward. None of the new skin has broken yet. But it will, if she walks any farther, for all of your bandages and salves. And for all of your rosaries. Damned Bavarians. Take your Ladies and go on. I'll stay here with her. When Herr Cavriani meets you at Pobenhausen, tell him where we are. The whole village is empty. We can find a barn or a shed, somewhere to stay."
"Impossible," was Mary Ward's response.
"Believe me," Veronica answered, "it will be better accommodations than an ore barrel. Just come and look at her feet and then try to tell me 'impossible' again."
"I cannot permit..."
"You cannot permit?" Veronica stood up, swelling to her full, if not very impressive, height. "You cannot permit. Who are you to tell me what I may and may not do, Madam Lady, so Superior?
Startled, Mary Ward backed up a couple of steps.
Mary Simpson looked up at the two of them, then around. Someone was missing.
"Maria Anna," she called. "Maria Anna, where are you?"
Everyone had been paying attention to the argument.
"Maria Anna!" Veronica's voice, schooled by the handling of Gretchen's collection of orphans, managed double the volume of Mary's.
"Just calm down." The answer came from behind a cattle stall.
Oh, well, then. Not an emergency. Just, presumably, a call of nature.
The archduchess reappeared around a corner, trundling an empty wheelbarrow in front of her.
"I thought of it when you said 'sedan chair,'" she explained. "That there might be one in the stall."
"Since when," Veronica asked, "do high-born gracious ladies have occasion to think that there might be wheelbarrows in cow byres?"
Maria Anna looked at her mildly. "Since they, or at least this one, last accompanied her Mama when they inspected the dairy barns back home in Graz. Which was only, though it seems much longer, last summer. I didn't spend all my growing-up time in Vienna, you know. Now, if you're done with those bandages?"
Mary in the wheelbarrow, Maria Anna pushing it, they proceeded on their way.
* * * *
After two miles, Maria Anna began to wish that someone else would offer to take a turn. The wooden handles were rubbing her hands raw; she had no gloves. Soon her palms would be as badly blistered as Mrs. Simpson's feet. The right handle kept causing the golden rose underneath her skirt to bang against her thigh. Impatiently, she twitched the drawstring from which it was suspended a little to the side.
It would help if she could wrap her hands in some of Miss Ward's bandages.
Miss Ward did not offer. She was profoundly offended.
Nobody else offered to push, either. Except, for short stints, Veronica, who was determined, but not strong enough to manage the heavy, awkwardly balanced barrow for very long.
* * * *
The English Ladies were, after all, Englishwomen of good family. Gentlewomen by birth. Far more conscious of what they owed to their status in society than people who weren't, well, English. Miss Ward had heard that the wife of Duke Hermann of Hesse-Rothenfels, now the USE Secretary of State, made cheese in the barns at their country residence, right along with her milkmaids, and claimed to be proud of it.
Germans! Disorderly, the lot of them, and Austrians were worse.
Austrians being farther from England, that was only natural, of course. That was probably why Ferdinand II had welcomed the school they established in Vienna so heartily. He realized, presumably, that his nation needed English schoolteachers if it was ever to become properly organized.
* * * *
"You are sure?" Leopold Cavriani said anxiously to Egli's agent in Reichertshofen.
"Yes, Herr Cavriani," Lothar Mengersdorf said. "I have remained here because I was expecting you. And him. He certainly has not come. And, I do not mind saying, I am very anxious to leave. I sent my family into Neuburg two days ago, already. This is not a good place to be. There is no one here at all except me and the runner I retained.
Leopold looked at him. "You have a runner? Here?"
"Yes," Mengersdorf said. "He is very good, accustomed to taking messages à diligence, whether by foot or by horse."
"I need to use him," Cavriani said abruptly.
"Of course. Naturally he is at your disposal. You pay him, or Egli does so on your behalf. He is the man who takes your messages across to General Banér's radio."
Cavriani was not aware of any specific messages that he had sent to General Banér's radio, but he did not question divine providence. The runner was shortly on his way. Two messages. No, three. One to Egli, asking him to arrange safe-conducts across the Neuburg bridge for the English Ladies. An additional, very private, message, to be taken to Banér's radio, for Ed Piazza, to be forwarded to Prime Minister Stearns. One for the man to leave in some obvious spot asking the English Ladies to wait for him.
Mengersdorf looked anxious. "Herr Cavriani, I really do believe that we, too, should leave now. There is nothing to be gained by staying. Nothing at all."
"A couple more hours cannot hurt," Cavriani answered. "Just in case
Marc comes."
They were interrupted by a "Halloo!" from outside. Mengersdorf ran to the door. A young man stood there.
"Zobel!" he exclaimed. "What?"
"The Bavarians will march from Manching before dawn, to invest Neuburg from the south and west. From Ernsgaden, they will try to force through the 'secured supply line,' breaking it. They have a company of engineers with them there, sappers. And this run has earned me what you promised to pay me for warning you."
"If you keep running," Cavriani said, "to warn Neuburg and the Swedes, you will earn far more. Whatever General Banér gives you, I will double. And if Banér should give you nothing, I promise you triple what Mengersdorf paid you for the run from Manching to here."
He reached into his doublet. "Take this letter. At Neuburg it will get you through the gate to Egli. Egli can get you the commander of the city militia and to Banér's staff."
* * * *
Pobenhausen, finally. Thankfully. A light rain had started an hour before. Not a good kind of rain; enough that they left footprints on the dirt of the ruts, but not enough to wash them away. They had moved to the side of the road, walking on the grass, so as not to leave tracks marking their passage. Any group of Bavarian soldiers passing this way would necessarily be curious about a group of people moving north.
Pobenhausen was totally deserted. One set of tracks in the ruts. Recent; a runner headed toward Neuburg. No Cavriani.
Why stay in a barn if you could find some better shelter? Mary Ward sent Winifred Wigmore to investigate just how tightly the inn was locked up.
Very tightly. The landlord clearly believed in locks, bars, and sturdy shutters fastened from the inside.
Tacked to the door, a short note. "C. is behind you; wait." No signature. Sister Winifred brought it back to her superior. So it would be the barn shed by which they were standing. The boards on the door were so shrunken that they could reach between them and slowly slide the bar back. A roof. If they were lucky, straw.
