Ring of Fire - 1635_ The Legions of Pestilence

by Virginia DeMarce

  “Did it occur to him that such pointed emphasis will only serve to reinforce Count Egon’s fears, and their fears, about how southern Swabian Catholics would be treated in a USE Province of Swabia?”

  Friedrich of Baden-Durlach looked surprised. He was. Honestly surprised.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “It’s your problem, Kanoffski.” The grand duke of Burgundy looked exasperated. “Though it’s a real nuisance that now you won’t be available for the Lorraine campaign. Barring the unexpected, the Sundgau and Breisgau are entirely your problem. Consult with Erlach on general policy, of course. However, make sure that everyone––the Landesadel, the city officials from Freiburg down to the most rural of country towns, the village councils––everyone who is anyone––is fully aware that they are now part of Burgundy. Defections will not be tolerated.”

  “So, basically, I am to inform the local worthies, ‘It’s best if you don’t even think about allying with Egon von Fürstenberg. Let me assure you, though. If you should think about it, do not act on your thoughts.’ With an addition that if they do act on their thoughts, ‘steps will be taken.’ I should be accompanied on this tour by enough force to make the point clear to even the least perceptive and attentive.”

  “Precisely.” Bernhard smiled. “That’s what I like about you, Fritz. You have such a quick grasp of the essence of a situation.”

  “Just remember that a lot of them are likely to interpret these purely political measures as religious ones––that the Protestants, being in power, are taking an opportunity to stomp on the rights of the Catholics.”

  “Get Moscherosch to write up a batch of propaganda for you. You know what we need. Something along the lines of, ‘It’s all really for your own good. Honestly.’ He has a real talent for manufacturing that sort of thing.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “Dr. Bienner, this is––coming right at this juncture––immensely annoying.”

  The chancellor nodded.

  “We do not need distractions in Swabia just as We have reached a critical juncture in Our negotiations with both the USE and Burgundy.”

  Bienner nodded again.

  “Let Our administrators in every Tyrolese possession in Swabia be made aware that We will take a very, very, very dim view of anyone in the Tyrolese possessions in Swabia who conspires with Egon von Fürstenberg.”

  “It shall be done.”

  “Add a postscript. Something on the order of, ‘And if you’re in the Breisgau or the Sundgau, or any other historically Tyrolese possession currently administered by the Grand Duchy of Burgundy, including Alsace, just in case you aren’t taking what Grand Duke Bernhard tells you seriously, just try it and you’ll have to deal with Us.’”

  Bienner’s secretary added another point to the careful notes he was taking.

  “And...” The regent tapped a finger on the table. “Contact the imperial administrator of the proposed Province of Swabia. Let him know that We will move two of Our regiments into the Vorarlberg and Vorderösterreich as a precautionary measure against the development of dissent there––and that We are prepared to use them in cooperation with any measures he may feel required to take in regard to dear Egon.”

  She smiled. “That should add a certain...ecumenical...dimension to the persuasive efforts that Georg Friedrich and Bernhard will no doubt feel impelled to make.”

  The Imperial City of Leutkirch, Swabia

  “I know what it is,” the mayor of Ravensburg said. “The up-timers even have a word for what they are doing. It is ‘big government authoritarianism.’ Some call it ‘totalitarianism.’ I do not believe we must necessarily subject ourselves to it.”

  The other heads in the banquet hall swiveled toward him. “Do you have any suggestions?” someone asked. “Any options?”

  “A century ago, during the Reformation, some former Swabian imperial cities ‘turned Swiss.’”

  That lay on the table for a while.

  “Be practical. We all realize, if we have given thought to it, that our cities, individually, no longer have the size, wealth, and influence to be recognized as ‘city states’ on the model of Augsburg or Ulm by the USE and given seats in the House of Lords.”

  “It’s worse than that. The USE hasn’t even offered us the option of a collective ‘bench’ representative such as the prelates and imperial knights had in the Reichstag. They are determined to reduce us to the status of mediatized small towns within their ‘Province of Swabia,’ no longer self-governing, with all our history lost.”

  That lay on the table, too.

  “We may not be what we once were under the Hohenstaufen,” the mayor of Lindau said, “but by all that is holy, we are still more than a batch of overgrown villages.”

  “Will the Swede allow us to secede, or will our citizens suffer?”

  “We wouldn’t actually be ‘seceding from’ the USE, never having been formally accepted into it. The Province of Swabia remains in the ‘planning stage.’ Legally, we will just be declining a proffered invitation.”

  “An invitation at gunpoint.” That came loudly, if anonymously, from one of the mayors seated well down the table.

  “We can even say, ‘Thank you, very much’ as we decline it,” another mayor snorted.

  “How would the cantons respond?” That question, from the influential mayor of Constance, was a signal that the suggestion floated by Ravensberg was not being discussed here as merely a straw in the wind. Some of the cities had been thinking about the possibility before this day’s meeting.

  Throughout Swabia, various city councils started to murmur; whisper; think about it; and, a surprisingly short time later, take action.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “What do you think, Egon?”

  “Let’s write off the lowlands. Write off any territory inside the County of Burgundy. Warn all of our friends whose lands are easily accessible to regiments on foot or on horse that they need to be extremely circumspect. Focus our attention on the mountains––landholdings around Heiligenberg and on the Swiss border, which it would be very expensive, in men and materiel, for the USE to move against. That’s where we should build our new confederacy now. There may come some other day when it will be practical to expand it further to the north, but for now, keep it in the mountains.”

  Bolzen, Tyrol

  “So. These documents complete the agreements pertaining to entry of Tyrol into the USE as a state.” Philipp Sattler nodded. “With the modifications you have accepted, the new regency council for your sons should prove to be very satisfactory. May I say, Your Grace, that Tyrol has done rather well out of this, largely at the expense of the proposed Province of Swabia.”

  Claudia de Medici looked at him calmly. “Tyrol deserved some recompense. Some territories which properly should belong to this county are no longer within the USE at all.”

  De Melon put his fingers over his mouth to hide a smile at her veiled reference to the Breisgau and Sundgau. The regent and Bernhard had managed to hide not only the finer points of their pre-nuptial agreement, but their matrimonial intentions altogether, from Sattler––and, presumably, from the remainder of the USE bureaucracy, all the way up to the emperor.

  With Francisco Nasi, one could never be sure. If the spy had guessed, or even knew, he had apparently chosen not to bring the matter to the attention of his superiors.

  Lorraine

  After the latest depredations by Arpajon’s men, Haraucourt and Thysac took matters into their own hands.

  It seemed inappropriate to mention to Clicquot or Marchéville, much less to Monsieur Gaston, that Arpajon was under arrest.

  They just might not understand.

  It seemed even less appropriate to bring up the topic that they had secretly sent messengers to Grand Duke Bernhard offering to open the gates of Commercy on condition that their own and the other of Duke Charles’ regiments, with the exception of Arpajon’s, be allowed to march out with honors.

  They assured the grand duke that A
rpajon’s men could easily be segregated from the remainder.

  Bernhard raised a bushy eyebrow at the rest of der Kloster.

  “It could be a mask for treachery,” Bodendorf warned.

  Rosen chewed on the right side of his moustache. “They’re the two who chased Fernando’s men back into Luxemburg.”

  “Can we ask them for some kind of security?”

  Harauourt offered precise directions to the manor where his wife and daughters lived.

  “Good enough for me,” Rosen said.

  Bernhard nodded.

  That much went well.

  Unfortunately, Monsier Monsieur Gaston and his senior advisers hid themselves among the stable hands and slipped out of the trap.

  Schwarzach

  “The intended marriage is going to be something of a shock to the USE officials. Especially the provisions in regard to the Breisgau and the Sundgau. If you are serious about the proposed modus vivendi,” de Melon suggested, “what about a sweetener?”

  Bernhard raised a bushy eyebrow.

  “Throw in the agreement of both parties, yourself and Claudia de’ Medici, that if the two of you leave no surviving children, aside from what reverts to Tyrol and will thus be an integral part of a USE state anyway, the County of Burgundy as a single entity will become a USE province.”

  Bernhard raised that eyebrow even higher.

  De Melon spread his hands wide. “Hey, it was just a suggestion.”

  “It’s a damned good one,” Kanoffski said. “Carrots with your sticks, Bernhard. We’ll all be dead by the time it might happen. Offer Gustavus some carrots.”

  Bernhard turned his mouth into something more the shape of a prune than a carrot. “Secret articles.”

  De Melon smiled. Hooked. Now to reel him in. It was such fun to design secret articles and put them into treaties.

  Besançon and Innsbruck

  The intent of marriage between the grand duke of the County of Burgundy and the regent of Tyrol, by birth a grand duchess of Tuscany, was announced simultaneously in both capitals.

  It was followed by swarms of newspaper reporters and widespread diplomatic shock, a flurry of radio traffic, and a medley of indignation, fascination, and––at the French court, at least––horror.

  “You have to admire her,” Cecelia Renata said in Vienna. “At least I do. Claudia is...enterprising.”

  “I can’t say I expected it,” Maria Anna commented in Brussels. “Maybe I should have, when we didn’t get additional information after she went to meet with him last month. It does make sense. A lot of sense. For both of them.”

  Then someone leaked the proposed modus vivendi.

  International suspicion focused on a deliberate leak by way of Bernhard’s publicist.

  Magdeburg

  Wilhelm Wettin exploded. “I thought these were two separate sets of negotiations, Philipp: one having to deal with Tyrol’s proposal and the other with the one coming from Burgundy. The only common thread was that you had to go south to deal with each of them.”

  “The real ‘common thread’ in my negotiations with both Claudia and Bernhard was real estate in Swabia––his, hers, theirs, and what each of them would really like to add to their existing holdings.” Sattler assumed a meditative expression. “Acquisitive pair, I must say.”

  “At least,” Mike Stearns said, “we got Tyrol’s entry through both houses of parliament and signed by the emperor before they dropped this bombshell.”

  Wettin frowned. “It will just make it harder to get the emperor to accept the modus vivendi.”

  “Ah,” Hermann of Hesse-Rotenburg said. “Have you seen Bernhard’s latest addition to the proposal? No?” He handed Wettin a memorandum. “Your brother is quite clever. The emperor is quite pleased at even the most remote prospect that at some undefined date in the future, if unlikely contingencies come to pass, Burgundy might possibly become an integral part of the USE.”

  Wettin raised a bushy eyebrow. “Pleased enough to issue the apology that Bernhard wants?”

  It occurred to Sattler in passing that the two brothers resembled one another to an extraordinary degree, at least physically.

  Weimar

  The odors of sausage and fried apples wafted out of the Hortleder family dining room.

  “Look, Papa.” Anna Catharina dropped the newspapers next to her father’s place at the breakfast table. He was running late, this morning, so instead of his usual slice of cold bread at dawn, the family was eating a cross between breakfast and lunch at mid-morning. “Your clerk was so excited when he saw the news that he ran right over here with them, rather than taking them to the office as usual.”

  She looked at her fingers with distaste and picked up a hot, wet, napkin to wipe the ink off them.

  Hortleder perused the stories; then handed each paper in turn to Gary Lambert, who did the same.

  The napkin followed to each reader, finally coming to rest next to Frau Hortleder’s plate.

  “What do you make of it?”

  “Bernhard is maturing. I have been following his career with interest, of course. One does that with former pupils.”

  “Papa,” Anna Catharina said. “What?”

  Hortleder smiled indulgently at his only daughter. “He is no longer the young general of two years ago who felt that he had proved himself at Breitenfeld and who therefore felt his honor was impugned by Gustavus’ slighting comments––who felt that Gustavus didn’t believe that he was good enough to accomplish the things he set out to do. Neither, though, is he yet the icy man whose calculations, in another world, took the fortress at Breisach in a quite different way than he occupied it in this one.”

  Hortleder laid his fork down. “And, perhaps, by the grace of God, he will never, quite, become that man in this world.”

  Chapter 11 Wedding Bells

  Lorraine

  Haraucourt and Thysac, suffering from seriously injured pride, offered to pursue Monsieur Gaston and his associates.

  “Don’t catch him,” Bernhard said. “Gaston is more trouble than he’s worth. Just keep chasing him, and delaying him, until I notify you to let him cross the border into the Spanish Netherlands. I’ll send runners ahead. Fernando can have someone there to arrest him. Ultimately, he’s Fernando’s problem, not mine. It wasn’t Burgundy that granted him political asylum in the first place.”

  Bolzen, Tyrol

  Marcie entered the regent’s office in response to the little bell (“just like an old-fashioned school bell, handle and all” she told Matt) that was always on the table by Claudia’s side, along with her clock. No one could say the lady wasn’t punctual.

  “Finally,” Claudia de Medici said. “A letter from the grand duke. It seems like it’s been forever.” She pried off the wax seal. “He must have realized that I would say ‘finally.’ The first thing he does is excuse himself for not being more diligent in writing to me, using the excuse that he’s been busy lately.”

  Marcie had felt a little doubtful about being drafted to help the regent decipher letters from her fiancé. Probably better her than Dr. Bienner or some other bureaucrat, though––much better than one of the court’s gossipy Italian ladies-in-waiting. Once she realized that Grand Duke Bernhard was not inclined to put intimate statements into writing, her mind had become easier. “With everything that’s going on in Swabia, he probably has been dreadfully busy.”

  “He writes just the way he speaks,” Claudia said as she peered at his latest missive. “Absolutely practical and straightforward. There are no literary flourishes in his German. As I am teaching myself to deal with his handwriting, I have noticed certain cues. He consistently uses ‘gk’ where many place just a ‘g’ at the end and ‘p’ rather than ‘b.’ Here, for example, he places Margrave Georg Friedrich of Baden in ‘Augspurgk.’ He writes Donau as ‘Tona;’ Donauwörth as ‘Tonawerd;’ Dresden as ‘Tresten’––what’s going on in Dresden? Dinckelsbühl is ‘Dinckelspill.’ Sometimes it’s easier to start with the proper names
and then work around them.”

  Marcie nodded “I did notice, when we were at Schwarzach, that even his casual conversation has a rather rat-a-tat-tat quality. His use of so many explosive consonants in his writing just reflects his pronunciation, I suppose.”

  Claudia worked her way through the letter. “He is concerned about recruitment problems and the cost of recruitment bonuses. He’s allotting four hundred Thaler for a company of horse; two hundred Thaler for a company of foot. That’s enough per man to make it worthwhile for boys to join. He feels a need for more systematic funding for the army, given that receipts from France are so irregular, not to mention inadequate. He plans to issue directions for holding regular annual appropriations sessions of the Estates in Burgundy and set up one common body of Estates for the county as a whole. He’ll let the traditional local Estates, chosen however has been customary, continue to meet, but only to deal with local matters.”

  “Just tell ’em‘em so, will he?” Marcie grinned. “Elect a parliament, or else, guys. Representative government by fiat.”

  “Grand Duke Bernhard has very little tolerance for ineffectiveness.” The regent waved her hand at the neat piles of paperwork on the table. “Well, neither do I. Though I have to ask myself. Why am I developing a fondness for this impatient, irascible, utterly single-minded man? Why does he, sometimes, even amuse me?”

  Marcie looked at her. “I don’t know if you’ve found this out for yourself yet, Your Grace, but life’s a lot easier if you at least like the guy you marry. Maybe amusement will do for a start.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “Grand Duke Bernhard wishes he were receiving better intelligence. Doesn’t everyone?” Claudia commented, holding the letter up to the light. “Part of this is water damaged.”