Ring of Fire - 1635_ The Legions of Pestilence

by Virginia DeMarce

  While a Catholic monastery was not Bernhard’s normal habitat, he had gotten used to it over the past several months. Schwarzach had a convenient set of large buildings in the Rhine river bottoms and was not far from what had once become Fort Louis. What was now becoming Fort... Well, it didn’t have a name yet. He was, in his few frivolous moments, considering Fort Independence.

  “Whether or not you wanted to be doing it or not isn’t the issue, Bernhard. More to the point, is it avoidable?” von Erlach asked.

  “I don’t see how. Not if we hope to continue getting the French subsidy––which, for the time being, we still need rather badly, considering all the expenses associated with constructing the citadel. Not considering our...inaction...before Mainz last spring. Not if we hope to maintain even the thinnest façade of acting in accordance with the agreement I signed with the cardinal.”

  Rosen chewed on his moustache. “Do I have this straight. ? Richelieu wants you to move your cavalry into Lorraine. Reinforce the troops he has occupying the duchy.”

  “Not precisely. That’s what the letter says. He sees, or states that he sees, Gaston’s movements as a potential threat to the French garrisons already in place. That’s what the letter says. What Richelieu wants is for me to use my cavalry to get Gaston out of Lorraine, while keeping Charles’ regiments in Lorraine. What he really wants me to do is separate Gaston from the command of the duke’s regiments. They haven’t been active these last couple of years, but they were really quite effective fighters. While I’m sure that Louis XIII doesn’t like seeing them in Lorraine, I’m sure that he’d like seeing Gaston bringing them into France proper as a personal army even less.”

  Bernhard paused. “And reading between the lines, the French would like us, of course, to get the Habsburgs, in the person of Fernando, out of Lorraine at the same time.”

  Der Kloster sat around the table, chewing on that.

  “You think we have to move into Lorraine?” Erlach said.

  “No way to avoid it. Not with what Bernhard just said. But...” Kanoffski paused.

  “But what?” Rosen asked.

  “The king in the Low Countries is already there,” Sydenham Poyntz interrupted. “Already chasing after Gaston. I can’t see that it would be prudent to risk coming into conflict with the Low Countries over a region that isn’t crucial to our aims. Not even if it’s crucial to French aims.”

  Bernhard assumed an impassive expression. “There is no necessary reason for us to come into conflict with him.”

  “How not?” Rosen released one side of his moustache and gathered in the other.

  “In this case, we can interpret Richelieu’s reticence––his reluctance to put a casus belli with the Habsburgs into writing on a piece of paper which might fall into the hands of foreign powers––to our advantage. So. Why not suggest cooperation to Fernando, instead? We do have a common interest in removing an irritant––in de-flea-ing the dog, so to speak.”

  “Who talks to whom?” Kanoffski had a tendency to get straight to the point.

  “Since you asked, you do. You and...,” Bernhard looked around the table. “...Poyntz. Sydenham, Henry Gage, your fellow countryman, has been poking around this whole matter for Fernando. Go find him. Talk to him. See if he can get you in to talk directly to Fernando’s closest advisers––with Fernando himself, if possible. Explain that we will be moving, that we have no option but to move, and that we have good reason to wish to act in coordination with him rather than in conflict with him.”

  “We do? Have good reason to wish any such thing, I mean?” Rosen managed to chew on both sides of his moustache at once.

  Kanoffski laughed. “I expect that Poyntz may, if he considers it prudent, drip out information in regard to Tyrol. And its regent. I would certainly include that in the discussion.”

  “Drop by little tiny drop, presumably,” Erlach said.

  “Well, of course. But Friedrich is right. By putting it into the context of house politics...the desirability of amicable relations with my fiancée’s in-laws and all that.” Bernhard winked.

  Lorraine

  “It’s not that easy to move east-west in Lorraine,” Johann Bernard von Ohm said. “The French found that out when they invaded in 1632. The rivers all, basically, run north-south. The Meuse, the Moselle, the Meurthe. To get Lunéville , basically, we would have to send a separate force up the Meurthe valley.”

  “We don’t need to get there,” Moritz Pensen von Caldenbach pointed out. “Not unless Gaston comes a lot farther south than he has so far. He’s supposedly somewhere around Verdun right now, so we can pretty much ignore the southeastern quarter of the duchy.”

  Bodendorf scratched one ear. “The simplest, of course, would be to follow the Moselle through Épinal to Toul; then swing around to Nancy. That would take us half way, or almost. Leave the northern half for Fernando to worry about.”

  “The half where Gaston actually is?” Caldenbach laughed.

  “I’ll occupy Toul for Fernando,” Bernhard said, “if I can talk the commander into surrendering, given that I didn’t bring the siege guns along, but I don’t want Toul. Not at all. Lorraine is pretty solidly Catholic––not a mixed bag like Alsace and the Breisgau. I have enough Catholic dioceses on my hands already. There has to be some other way to sort this out once we’ve disposed of Gaston. Find some local people for me to talk to about Toul. And, as always, ‘May God be with us.’”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “So this Lutheran who usually has his military headquarters in a Catholic monastery on the other side of the Rhine had me hauled out of my bed to tell him about the inner workings of the imperial diocese of Toul before he moved his regiments farther north,” Remiot said.

  “This calls for another bottle of wine.”

  “So I told him. ‘The prince-bishop of Toul? Ah, well, that was the duke’s brother who dispensed himself from being a cardinal and eloped with his cousin. He’s up in the Spanish Netherlands now with your friend Fernando keeping him under arrest.’”

  Apremont pulled the cork. “Did you tell him that the chapter hasn’t gotten around to electing a new one, yet, though Gournay has been suffragan all along, has kept doing the work, and probably will be elected once things calm down. Well, maybe. The king of France insists that he has the right to nominate, the cathedral chapter claims that it still has the right to elect, and the pope insists that it’s an appointment reserved to him, so it could take a while.”

  Remiot nodded. “It will depend on the Habsburgs in the Low Countries, now. Gournay has the favor of Duchess Nicole, though––and of Vincent de Paul, for what that may be worth. I’d be more likely to place my bets on the duchess.”

  “The ex-cardinal was just ten years old when he was appointed to the succession and fifteen when he succeeded. He never took holy orders. The pope gave a dispensation because he hadn’t reached the canonical age, of course. The church tends to do that sort of thing for brothers of dukes. If he wants to talk to someone, he’d better talk to Gournay.” Apremont laughed until he cried, but, then, he was rather drunk by now.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “I damned well hope that God is with us. I don’t mind saying that I’m uneasy,” Ohm swigged deeply from his beer stein. “We aren’t ready for this adventure in Lorraine. Overall, our troop strength is down to about sixteen thousand and, at least in my opinion, too much of that is infantry. Untrained infantry, a lot of it, or at least untested infantry, recruited out of Burgundy itself. We should have at least six thousand horse.”

  “Ah, Papa. Such gloom.” Caldenbach laughed. “For you, there will always be too much infantry and not enough cavalry. Infantry is good enough for garrisons.” Caldenbach had once, before the Ring of Fire, been Ohm’s son-in-law. Although the young Maria Justina had died in childbirth after only a year of marriage, the two of them remained as close as father and son could be.

  “He could be right.” That was Bodendorf. “Rotenhan is worried, too. Lieutenant Colonel Rehlinger
has a lot of concerns.”

  “Conrad Rehlinger’s father is the grand duke’s banker, for God’s sake. Conrad always has a lot of concerns. If Bernhard doesn’t pull the County of Burgundy scheme off, that firm is going to take a really deep bath.”

  “Is Schaffelitzky going to bring his men?” Caldenbach asked. “I know that Rohan thinks highly of his performance when he was in the service of Venice and he’s done well under Gustavus, too.”

  “The grand duke is negotiating,” Ohm said gloomily. “It’s a matter of money, I expect. If he does, it will be a help––bring us up close to strength. The last time I heard, he had over two thousand effectives under contract.”

  “He’s an exiled Bohemian, isn’t he? Like Kanoffski.” That was Bodendorf again.

  Ohm shook his head. “Not recently exiled. His father, already worked for the dukes of Württemberg and got estates in the duchy. I’m pretty sure that’s where he grew up––somewhere near Besigheim. ‘Von Muckodell’ tacked onto their name from somewhere in the east is just a historical memory.”

  “Schaffelitzky actually is coming. Definitely.” Bodendorf was firm about that. “I heard that much from Erlach. He’s somewhere in the Sundgau, with nearly two thousand horse.”

  “Last time I heard, it was ‘over two thousand,’” Ohm protested.

  “He’s been on the move and you always lose some in transit.” Bodendorf was a practical man.

  “I have to say that relieves my mind. Some.” Ohm took a huge swig of beer. “But the grand duke is still leaving Schon by himself in Besançon and sending Hattstein to Dôle. That splits the cavalry badly. Damn, but I wish that Taupadel hadn’t decided to stick with the Swedes. I expected it of Nassau and the Rhinegrave, since they had lands that might fall into Gustavus’ power, and Birkenfeld never was able to bring himself to be subordinate to Bernhard. No man whose house had a seat in the old Reichstag was likely to risk not having one in the CPE Chamber of Princes, but losing Taupadel hurt.”

  Caldenbach laughed sharply. “They got their just deserts––every single one of them has lost those precious seats in the new USE House of Lords, the way Gustavus set up the provinces at the Congress of Copenhagen.”

  “There’s no way to avoid splitting the cavalry.” Bodendorf’s interest in the wider political implications was minimal. “Bernhard has to protect both his own new capital and the Franche Comté’s old capital. He can’t afford to lose the court system. Nor, certainly, the tax records. Also, Dôle is where the parlement meets. That’s what they call their Estates. They’ll have to keep meeting there for a while, at least. Besançon doesn’t have a big enough assembly hall yet.”

  “And Rotenhan is at Belfort,” Ohm grumbled.

  “Bernhard could scarcely leave the main pass between the Vosges and the Jura undefended.”

  “That’s what I said to start with, Bodendorf. The grand duke is spreading himself too thin.” Ohm got up, a little unsteady on his feet.

  “At least he plans to bring de Guébriant’s command up into Lorraine with us.” Caldenbach stood also, pulling Ohm’s arm over his shoulders.

  “Oh, sure. A Frenchman to fight another Frenchman in Lorraine. None us have been in the field with him before.”

  “I think––hope––the man is loyal. He has a good reputation.”

  “He doesn’t know it was Bernhard who ransomed him out after Ahrensbök.”

  “He isn’t supposed to.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “It’s an eagle on his standard. See.” Private Joachim Karpff, with the dignity and prestige that went with having served under the grand duke since the days when he was just a colonel fighting under the Danish crown, gestured toward the waving banner under which Bernhard was marching. “White. That shiny fabric is called damask. The embroidery is real gold thread. The eagle is his.”

  “What do you mean, ‘the eagle is his’?” Private Hallier was a new, very young, recruit, out of Burgundy. They weren’t in formation yet. As the rear guard, they would move out last.

  “It’s his own eagle. When he was born, they say, an eagle flew over the castle in Thuringia where his mother was in labor. Hardly any eagles over there. It was an omen that he would do great things.”

  “What’s the motto?”

  “Something Latin.”

  “That’s no help.”

  “Ask the chaplain.”

  “They say there was a bad omen at his birth, too,” Ensign David Sinclair said, holding their own company’s banner carefully upright. “That he was born with a caul. He’ll come to a bad end.”

  “Not while I’m alive, you superstitious Scotsman,” Karpff said. “I’ll follow him wherever he goes. To hell itself and back, if I have to. And while I’m alive, I’ll make sure you do the same. If that banner ever goes down, you’ll answer to me.”

  Corporal Caspar Klumpe shook his head. “Don’t let the preacher hear you saying that. He’s a Lutheran, but the grand duke makes him keep an eye on us Catholics and Calvinists, too.”

  “There goes Captain Starschedel with the grand duke’s war horse,” someone behind them yelled.

  “Ugly beast.” Hallier wrinkled his nose. “Black as a raven.”

  “That’s the fellow’s name. Rabe. Tip your hat.” Karpff reached out and grabbed the offending hat.

  “To a horse?”

  “It’s the custom. The raven’s carried the grand duke through a lot of battles. Tip your damned hat.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Inside the command tent, Bernhard finished signing a pile of letters, orders, reports, directives, and requisitions. “That finishes the routine stuff. I wish we were in harvest season, not early spring. It would be so much easier to get grain. It would be so much cheaper to get grain.”

  His secretary, Michael John, nodded impassively.

  “Have we received a reply from Rohan?”

  “He accepts your offer of becoming Statthalter in the Franche Comté during your unavoidable absence, given your willingness to let him have Tobias von Ponikau as his second-in-command.”

  “Thank goodness. A permanent, or even semi-permanent, rift between us now would not have done either of us any good at all. “Now.” The grand duke pulled out another letter. “As for our honorable ally in the Low Countries.”

  John waited.

  “I’m perfectly willing to cooperate with Fernando on this. However, if he gets annoying or starts acting overbearing and generally Habsburg-ish, tweak his tail a little. You can always remind him that I descend from Sybilla of Cleves and could, if I took the notion, go play in his sandbox up around Essen. In my younger days, I was even known to include ‘Duke of Jülich, Cleves, and Berg’ among my titles when I was in the mood.” Bernhard stood up.

  “Not that I’m in the mood. The USE ambassadress in Basel, Frau Jackson, has taught me a great deal about sandboxes.” He stretched and laughed. Out loud. For the first time in as long as he could remember. “Go get some sleep. I’ll finish the rest of this myself.”

  John bowed his way out.

  Bernhard picked up a quill and pulled out a clean sheet of paper. He would at least start a letter to Claudia before he dropped with exhaustion. “I don’t know whether I ought to start this note with an apology or a narrative...” The letter got to be rather longer than a note. He ended by saying that he wouldn’t bore her with his problems any longer.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “He’s learning,” John said with a grin. “Thank goodness.”

  “What is he learning?” Erlach, finishing up his own daily pile of paper work, yawned. “I’ve absolutely got to get back to Breisach. Who knows what the fucking hell is going on there while I’m pinned down here.”

  “That territories don’t administer themselves.” The secretary stretched. “That running one is even more work than organizing an army on the move. Kanoffski needs to get back to Freiburg, too. If you want to know what I think... Well, Johann Hoffmann thinks so, too––he used to serve the grand duke as secretary, but now
he’s back working for Wilhelm Wettin. He knows all of the Saxe-Weimar brothers pretty well.”

  “I’d be fascinated.”

  “All these years, when he was dreaming of having a duchy of his own...or a county, I suppose, now.”

  “Yes.”

  “What he really saw was a plinth somewhere. Or a pedestal. Up on it, a statue of himself in armor. On the base, an inscription that read ‘Bernhard the Conqueror.’ With all the daily or near-daily military field reports long behind him and somewhere, in a back room, one of his brothers doing the civilian work for him. But now, with all the older ones busy doing other things...”

  “And to think that you look so harmless, John.”

  “As I said. He’s learning. Thank goodness.”

  “Is he learning fast enough?”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “I have it,” Johann Michael Moscherosch said triumphantly.

  “Have what?”

  Bernhard’s poet and public relations man looked up irritably. “The campaign theme, of course. I’ve been working on the press releases.”

  Michael John winced.

  “This campaign demonstrates that anyone who criticized the grand duke’s withdrawal of his cavalry from before Mainz into southern Alsace in the spring of 1634 was sadly misled about the intentions of this upstanding general and now sovereign prince. Grand Duke Bernhard is fully prepared to defend by force, when necessary... etc. etc. etc.”

  Moscherosch stood up. “We need to hire a cartoonist. There’s no point in risking what some satirist like van de Passe might make of what we’re doing in Lorraine. We’ll issue our own––plates, ready for the printers to use. Let me think. I need another writer, too. No matter how I try to disguise my style, somebody might figure out that I’m writing all the articles and distributing them. The grand duke just doesn’t have enough staff. Simplicity is all well and good, but he’s still trying to live like an ordinary mid-level officer rather than a ruler.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “We have received,” Rosen said, “another charming missive from Père Joseph, this one enclosing a rather large chart. He has ideas, it seems, in regard to what the French subsidy should be buying for France in the way of conquests.”