by Eric Flint
"She's alive, you know. Unless something awful has happened that we don't know about. There's not a lot of news from Poland, here in Grantville, so I'm not sure if all these things have gone off on schedule. But I hope she's still alive. In our world, up-time, I mean, she didn't die until 1650. So there's at least one more around. She even picked a name a lot like yours. The Virgins of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. More approvals. By the pope in 1658 for the constitution, the statutes. Again in 1660 by another bishop of Cracow. It's, sort of, something that's just in the air."
Father Kircher nodded. "This is true," he said. "In France, Father Nicholas Caussin, formerly the king's confessor before he came out on the wrong end in the efforts to bring about a reconciliation between the monarch and the queen mother, is working on a life of the Blessed Isabelle. Neither married nor cloistered. Living a life of Christian piety while active in the world. A devout princess of the thirteenth century, true. But it will be read by many, we think—Father Caussin is a Jesuit—as a challenge to the efforts of both the ecclesiastical and civil authorities to restrict women's freedom to follow their consciences. As was done to the Ursulines. As was done to the Visitandines. We are not quite sure how Cardinal Richelieu will receive it. If the Father General grants permission for it to be published. We are not sure about that, either. It may be deemed too sensitive, given the present political situation. Still..."
The meeting went on. And on.
* * * *
The doorbell rang. Annalise went to answer it. A young man stood there, his arm around the shoulders of a young woman. A little older than herself; pregnant. Otherwise a near mirror image. She stepped back, a little startled.
"Annalise Richter?" the man asked.
"Yes, that's me."
"Your grandmother sent us to Grantville. She said that we could marry here. Thea is Catholic, I'm Calvinist. It's a problem at home. My name is Nicholas Moser."
"Yes, you can get married here. Maybe in either church, depending. Certainly at city hall. Henry can tell you how. Do you have a place to stay? Won't you come in?"
The girl shook her head. "No. That is, I mean, I think I had better say something first. I'm your cousin. Dorothea. My father had your mother murdered; tried to have all of your family killed. But they've probably hanged him by now."
"Oh," Annalise said. "Oh," again. She held on to the doorknob hard.
"In that case, I guess you had better come in. It sounds like you've had a hard time of it."
* * * *
"I don't see," Andrea said, "why we should just teach school. Gina teaches school already, anyhow. Aside from the fact that we don't know Latin..."
"I do," Guadelupe said.
"You do? Why aren't you teaching that, instead of Spanish?"
"Because I speak Latin with a Spanish accent. None of the Germans whom they have hired to teach Latin like it. I am from Bolivia, you know. I was only to be in Grantville for a two year exchange, then go back home. Besides, the down-timer academics, whom they have hired to teach Latin, will not believe that I have a Ph.D. Some things they will believe about up-time, but not that a woman could have an advanced degree. But I do. There, in Bolivia, I teach, I taught, in a women's college. Not a high school."
"Why not start a women's college? The four of us."
"Andrea!"
"Why not? A full-fledged Catholic women's college? If they're making Lutheran ones, why not one for us? We wouldn't even have to put it in Grantville, if we didn't want to. Would Würzburg be better? Or some other town in Franconia? There are more Catholics down there than there are up here in Thuringia. A lot of parents might be happier if they could keep their daughters closer to home. Not send them here. We're as good a faculty as they're going to find. I'm low man, or woman, on the totem pole, and I was just about to get my B.A. There are two master's degrees, here. Honest, guys. We could do it. If we just had enough guts."
* * * *
Rome, Italy
The proposal ended up on Mazzare's desk. Which was inevitable. The buck stopped there, these days.
He looked at it. Franconia. Secular clothing, no habits, just an identifying badge.
Down-timers in Grantville; up-timers in Franconia. Girls' school in Grantville; women's college in Franconia.
Mary Ward and Bernadette Adducci. Both serving the church. Not in the same house. Not in the same city. Not even in the same organization. The idea started looking better and better.
He had a feeling that in this world, Catholic women's religious orders were going to develop on different lines than had been the case up-time. Rather rapidly.
* * * *
Grantville
The letter came by regular mail, addressed to Miss Mary Ward, in care of the parish. She read it. Then, looked at the telephone in the rectory office with some trepidation.
Was a woman who had spoken before the college of cardinals to be intimidated by a mere machine? Firmly, she picked up the receiver and poked the numbers in order.
"Miss Adducci. May I speak with you? Privately."
"Why yes, of course. I will come right over."
"No, not here. I am at the rectory. Too many people. Is here any place private at your office? Truly so?"
"If you don't mind sitting in an interrogation room."
"Interrogation room?"
"Where we question prisoners."
"Ah." In spite of the time she had spent under investigation by the inquisition, Mary Ward had never experienced even the terratio verborum, the first level of interrogation in which the executioner merely explained what each instrument of torture was and how it functioned. One at a time. In detail. She had heard that for many prisoners, however, that by itself was quite sufficient to impel them to confess their crimes. Holding a meeting in an interrogation room?
Bernadette seemed to realize that Miss Ward had spent a long time under surveillance by the inquisition. "Just a plain room, painted white, with green chairs and tables. Nothing more."
"Oh. Oh, well, yes, then. Thank you."
* * * *
"You have a nephew named Tony Adducci, who is in Basel?"
Whatever Bernadette had expected, it wasn't that.
"Why, yes."
"Can you contact him? On this radio?"
"I could, I guess." Bernadette was a little doubtful. "I wouldn't ask Ed Piazza for permission to use it, though. Not unless it was a real family emergency. Not just casually."
"This isn't casual, I think." Mary Ward paused. No one had told her not to mention that they had traveled for some time in the company of the other three women. She had decided for herself that it would be more discreet not to mention it. Had directed her sisters not to mention it. Now, though....
"You are acquainted with a Mrs. Simpson? The wife of the admiral?"
"Mary Simpson. Yes. Where? Do you know where she is?"
Mary Ward handed over a letter. "When she wrote this to me, she was in Neuburg. But about to leave."
"In Neuburg. Where you were? What on earth? Was Ronnie Dreeson there? Why didn't they come home?"
Mary Ward paused. "Their task, I think, was not yet complete. It is best, perhaps, if you read the letter." She handed it across the corner of the table.
Bernadette read through it. "Yeah," she said. "This probably does rate asking Ed for permission. I think he's back from Magdeburg. Let me give him a call and see if we can use the radio if it comes up this evening. See if somebody can raise up my nephew Tony in Basel. Just to let Diane get prepared for visitors."
She looked at it again.
"I absolutely do not believe that Mary just dropped this little bombshell into the regular mail, COD. Even though a lot of the mail we get these days is still COD, in spite of the new stamps."
"It arrived," Mary Ward pointed out. "How else could she reach us? And it had not been tampered with. Trust me, I would know. Even if it had been opened by an expert, I would know. A lot of my mail has been opened before it reached me, these last few year
s."
Chapter 55
Vultures Culturae
Neuburg
"We cannot," Leopold Cavriani said, "even get out of Neuburg on the south side of the river. The city is, at the moment and until something decisive happens at Ingolstadt, more or less completely invested by the Bavarians. Not only can't we get out, but it would be insane for us to try to go through the lines. The only sensible thing to do is to cross the bridge to the north bank and follow it at least as far as Donauwörth."
Maria Anna had no desire at all to be on the north bank of the Danube. That would put her inside the USE; at the mercy of the Swedes, if they should find her. Not even as far as Donauwörth. Not even for twenty miles. She said so emphatically. She would rather risk the Bavarians. Even her will, however, eventually had to bow to reality. They could not get out of Neuburg on the south bank.
Not, of course, that Leopold had been trying very hard to arrange it. He hadn't even asked Egli and Mengersdorf to see what might be done. Personally, he had no desire to spend any more time among the Bavarians than he had to and he certainly didn't want to risk Mary and Veronica inside Bavaria again.
What the archduchess didn't know wouldn't hurt her. He hoped. He had done his best to ensure that Banér's Swedes had no suspicion at all that she was within their grasp.
Besides, it would be easier for him to get horses on the north shore. Not easy, but easier. The only horses in Neuburg now were military horses. Not that they had necessarily been military horses a few weeks ago, but they were now. Requisitioned. "Contributed," as the down-timers put it. The former owners, if they were lucky, held chits for reimbursement.
* * * *
"You know what?" Mark Ellis asked Dane Kitt that evening.
"What?"
"I was over in Neuburg, today, at the bridge. Looking to see the way the down-timers put in those footings. Might be able to learn something from it.
"Now that the bridge isn't filled up railing-to-railing with Banér's soldiers going south, as many people as possible are trying to get out of the city. Get over to this side, find someplace to stay, I guess, away from the siege. Lots of women with children, old people. Don't want to risk getting penned up, I suppose. At least, I keep thinking that if we managed to cross to the south, what's to prevent Maximilian from trying a crossing to the north, somewhere to the west, between here and Donauwörth, and trying to pen us up in Neuburg the same way we've penned his garrison; then come over and cut Neuburg off from Ingolstadt. He grabbed Donauwörth at one point, you know, even back before this war started. I expect he's not a bit pleased that the Swedes took it back and are letting it be an imperial city again. Well, sort of, at any rate; they have a pretty big garrison in it and I don't think that the city council has much right to talk back to the colonel.
"Anyway, there were a couple of old ladies crossing, with their family, I guess. Them, a couple of men, a younger woman. But if I didn't know better, I would have sworn that it was Mrs. Simpson and Mrs. Dreeson."
"Naaah," Dane said. "What would they be doing here?"
* * * *
Between Neuburg and Donauwörth
Egli had crossed first, to try to find horses. Mengersdorf crossed the bridge with Cavriani and the three women. The two factors would be going back, of course. Business was business and it didn't stop just because there was a siege going on. Cavriani Frères would go out of business fairly promptly if the money from its ordinary commissions ceased to flow into its bank accounts.
Egli apologized. His best efforts had resulted in the purchase of only two horses. At least, he thought, these two might possibly, just barely, each manage to carry a rider as far as Donauwörth before the knacker had to be called. Even so, the price had been exorbitant. At Donauwörth, perhaps, Herr Cavriani might have better luck.
Veronica smiled triumphantly. "I," she announced, "will walk." She was feeling much better about life now that she thought it was safe to wear her false teeth again. As long as she kept her mouth closed most of the time so no one started to wonder about their perfection, they were probably safer there than in her pouch.
Mary, obviously, would ride. Her feet were still very tender, although she had bought new, well-fitting, shoes in Neuburg. Not to mention several pairs of stockings, the softest Veronica could find in the shops. She was shocked by the cost, but Cavriani had insisted that they were a good investment and he was sure that the Herr Admiral would be happy to reimburse Cavriani Frères when he had a chance.
That left the second horse. In the end, Cavriani rode. He had overcome Maria Anna's will in the matter of an impossibility such as leaving Neuburg to the west on the south bank of the Danube. When there was a possibility, however...and, in all truth, her argument was not bad. His German was far more cultured than the gutter German she had learned from laundresses and gardeners in the Schloss at Graz. If something happened that they had to speak extensively, she would make a far more convincing maidservant than he would make a manservant. So. A merchant traveling with his wife and her two maids. The merchant's "wife" looked quite a bit older than he did, but that was not uncommon in this day and age.
The sky was bright blue, with a few feathery white clouds. Egli had insisted that they all wear broad-brimmed pilgrim's hats.
* * * *
Their progress toward Donauwörth was slow. It was only twenty miles, but what should have taken one day was going to take two. The road was clogged with cattle and sheep, their drovers, wagons hauling grain.
General Banér had decided that his army had to eat. While he had been profanely delighted—as nearly ecstatic as he ever became—to find that a cattle drive from Hungary had arrived at the Ochsenschlacht island in the river south of the fortress only two days before his troops did and several hundred steers were penned up there, next to the slaughtering facilities, when his first troops arrived, that would not feed a regiment for very long. Banér had inspected the earthworks along his "secure supply line" from Neuburg to Ingolstadt. He was far from sure that it was as secure as a prudent commander would want it would be. He was getting as much food inside the earthworks along the old Sandrach channel of the Danube south of Ingolstadt as he could, while he could.
Within, of course, the limitations of how much fodder was available to keep the animals alive until they were eaten. Sieges were always a problem, especially when the besiegers themselves were penned in, as his forces on the south bank were. Moreover, there was a limit to how much he could draw from the communities on the north bank, even if he paid for the provisions. Farmers had this habit, nasty and inconvenient from the viewpoint of military leaders, of wanting to feed themselves and their families and save seed grain for the next season.
As Duke Maximilian was finding out. There was said to be considerable unhappiness in many districts of Oberbayern in regard to the new exactions and contributions associated with his current troop movements. It would not be surprising if some of Bavaria's rural folk broke into outright rebellion, before too long.
Well, Cavriani thought, once they got to Donauwörth, it would just be another two hundred miles to Basel. As the crow flies. In reality, up and down hills, across creeks, along river banks, and trying to get through Swabia without meeting either the Swedes or Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar.
He wondered if Don Fernando was aware just how limited in size Maria Anna's escort really was.
* * * *
Maria Anna had far too much time to think, walking along like this. She was not even, Herr Cavriani had said, to pray her rosary as she stood at the side of the road waiting for the drovers and shepherds to pass, here on the north shore, in Pfalz-Neuburg. Although there were many Catholics in the region since Wolfgang Wilhelm had converted in 1613, one did not wish to draw unnecessary attention to oneself. The papers Cavriani was carrying now said that they were from Geneva. All of them. Genevans did not say rosaries.
It was hard to pray without it. She was accustomed to the beads slipping through her fingers, one by one. A focus of concen
tration, an aide-memoire. Pray without it, count on her fingers, tapping the nails. An Our Father for Papa, a Hail Mary for Mama. An Our Father for Ferdinand and Ferdinand the Most Recent—he would have grown so much by now. He might even be walking and starting to talk. A Hail Mary each for Mariana and Cecelia. She remembered each member of her family. But then her mind came back to where it had been before.
Her loyal household. Where were they all? What had happened to them because of her? Had they escaped or had they been caught up in Duke Maximilian's madness? One of the newspapers had contained a list of those executed. An Our Father for Dr. Donnersberger, who had been a faithful servant. A Hail Mary for Countess Polyxena, who had been a pretty little fool, untrustworthy, but had surely done nothing to earn a beheading in the Schrannenplatz. A whole rosary of thanks for the safety of Doña Mencia.
Susanna. What had become of little Susanna? Surely, if Doña Mencia was safe and on her way to Brussels, Susanna was with her. After all, she was with the party that Maria Anna had sent back to see Doña Mencia safe. But why hadn't Doña Mencia said so? It would have only taken one word, or two. The radio could do that. A rosary for the safety of little Susanna, so bright and perky, so cheerful and chatty. So brilliant a designer. A Hail Mary for Frau Stecher, who had seen this and envied the girl so deeply, realizing that one day, not so far in the future, she would be supplanted.
Maria Anna jumped back a couple of steps to avoid a sheep that was trying to run off the edge of the path. The golden rose banged against her thigh under her skirts. Prayers for the church.
Prayers for Papa; prayers for his health; prayers for his recovery. Prayers that, if need be, he would have a good death.
Three hours on the road from Neuburg, Cavriani called a halt for lunch. They hadn't even gotten to Rennertshofen. Then they would have to wait to cross the Ussel. It would be amazing if they got to Marxheim before dusk. Then they would have to cross the Lech. Lunch was bread and...olives? Cavriani laughed. "Egli says that the Swedes, apparently, do not care for olives. They were one of the few things that the Neuburg grocer still had in abundance, not marked up." They had plenty of water; Maria Anna ate olives with abandon.
