Ring of Fire - 1635_ The Legions of Pestilence

by Virginia DeMarce

  “The messenger who delivered it was soaked to the skin,” Marcie said. “There are some kinds of drenching rain that will go through just about anything––plastic raincoats just as much as waxed leather, so it isn’t an up-time versus down-time kind of thing. The wet will find any available crack.”

  “He has fired a disobedient commissary who refused to bake on command. I should certainly have done the same in his place––he was only requiring thirteen thousand pounds of bread and gave the man two days’ advance notice.” She tilted the paper. “I think there was more here about the importance of the regular furnishing of provisions as a way of keeping the troops contented.”

  Since this seemed to be only common sense––Marcie remembered the comments that guys up-time used to make about MREs––she didn’t add anything.

  “He wishes that I would...” Claudia frowned. “What is this?”

  “Speak with the margraves of Baden? Deal with the margraves of Baden about something? That might be it.”

  “Perhaps. The ink has run too badly. I will have to send him another letter and ask him to repeat it.”

  The regent didn’t sound as irritated by needing to write him an extra letter as she might have been, Marcie thought.

  Luxemburg

  Monsieur Gaston ran like a frightened rabbit.

  Haraucourt and Thysac pursued.

  The whole thing was such a pleasure.

  Zuñiga and Salcido were waiting right where they had promised to be.

  Gaston was sent back to Brussels to be kept in custody. Clicquot and Marchéville were also sent to Brussels, where they were likely to face considerably more severe disciplinary measures.

  Not, however, until the senior officers of both parties sponsored an immensely enjoyable dinner, each side paying the expenses of the other.

  It was always such a pleasure to meet true masters of one’s art and craft, even if they did happen to be on the other side.

  It was always possible that at the next encounter they would be on one’s own side.

  “I wonder why Puylaurens isn’t with him,” Salcido said. By that time, they were on their fourth bottle of good Moselle wine, so his thought evaporated into the air.

  Magdeburg

  Amalie Elisabeth gestured.

  The footman who had brought in the trays, being well trained, bowed, backed out of the room, closed the door, and stationed himself on the outside. The mistress of Hesse House did not appreciate untimely interruptions.

  “Do you suppose that the emperor will actually issue an apology?” The dowager countess of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt put the first topic on the table. It was a fascinating question that had been occupying Magdeburg’s parlors for quite some time.

  “Now? I never have expected him to, and surely Bernhard’s latest actions in Lorraine have come very close to destroying any prospect that the emperor will accept the modus vivendi.” Eleonore Dorothea of Anhalt-Zerbst, wife of Wilhelm Wettin, stirred sugar into her hot chocolate. “If only he weren’t so...bothersome. Sometimes I suspect he does these things just to irritate his brothers.”

  Elisabeth Sofie of Saxe-Altenburg opened her mouth and chanted softly, in English,

  Speak roughly to your little boy,

  And beat him when he sneezes:

  He only does it to annoy,

  Because he knows it teases.

  “What?” The eyes of several indubitably adult women fixed on one of the teen-aged girls in the room who were there, in theory, to observe and learn––not to contribute their opinions.

  “It was in one of the up-time books that Helene Gundelfinger gave me to read. There’s a copy in the school library, now, too. Don’t you think, sometimes, almost, cousins Wilhelm and Albrecht, and even Ernst though not so much so, act like the grand duke were still an annoying child?”

  “Instead of an annoying grown man?”

  “No sugar, thank you.” The abbess of Quedlinburg, who also was Wettin’s cousin, preferred her chocolate dark and bitter. “Sofie ElisabethElisabeth Sofie has a point. None of Bernhard’s actions in Lorraine have been aimed directly at the USE.”

  “They can be interpreted, by those who wish to so interpret them, as self-aggrandizement in an arena where it isn’t in the USE’s best interests.”

  “In cooperation with the king in the Low Countries, who is the emperor’s uneasy ally at the moment.” Amalie made a slight face. If Fernando were not the USE’s uneasy ally at present, life would be easier for Hesse. Or, at least, Hesse’s prospects for self-aggrandizement in the Rhineland would be better. “If they succeed, he’ll do as well out of it as Bernhard.”

  “Gustavus won’t like that, either.”

  “He can’t do anything about it now,” the abbess said. “Not with the eastern front opening up. In any case, if he has to choose between Bernhard and Fernando in Lorraine or the French in Lorraine––which was the situation when this started––he would, aside from any possible loss of face, have to prefer the former.”

  “Why?” Sofie ElisabethElisabeth Sofie poked herself into the adult conversation again.

  “France and the USE are the mill wheels. Lorraine is––always has been and always will be––the grain ground between them. If there’s no grain, the wheels grind directly upon one another and cause much more damage to themselves.”

  “So the modus vivendi will go through?”

  “Probably. On the condition, in everyone’s mind but not publicly spoken, that in another six months, another year, there will always be another roll of the dice. Have you seen the van de Passe cartoon with the crowned heads of Europe dicing for lands and people?”

  “Hasn’t everyone?”

  Schwarzach

  “Triumph,” Moscherosch said. “I just love writing about triumphant victories. It’s so much easier than wallpapering over near defeats, much less real defeats, or trying to interest the readers in waffling, interminable, negotiations.”

  “Which reminds me,” John said. “Somebody will have to negotiate an agreement about what to do with Lorraine now that they have it.”

  Moscherosch looked up. The left corner of his mouth quirked. The quirk spread upward to his left eye, across to the other, and down to the right corner of his mouth. “Do you take suggestions?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “From a publicity standpoint... Shall we have another ‘Ladies’ Peace?’ That will truly bring in the readers. All sorts of historical folderol about the 1529 Treaty of Cambrai between Margaret of Austria, who was regent in the Low Countries, for her nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and Louise of Savoy for her son Francis I of France. See if the king in the Low Countries will send his queen. Maria Anna is always a reliable draw for readers. The regent...Claudia is a regent... We can sort of fuzz it that at Cambrai, it was Margaret of Austria for the Habsburgs... An end to interminable warfare. Peace, prosperity, and enough happiness to go around. Much better than a lot of diplomatic droning.”

  “They aren’t married, yet,” John said. “Practically, Claudia can hardly negotiate on the grand duke’s behalf if she isn’t his wife.”

  “Well, make her his wife. In time for the negotiations. I can do something with that. Just think. Call the people who fly the ‘Monster.’ Coverage of the arrival of the ladies. Wedding coverage. Talk about golden opportunities, just landing in our laps.” Moscherosch was close to incoherent with delight.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “Ye gods and little fishies,” von Kanoffski said that evening. “I hate to say this, Bernhard, but your little pen-pusher has a point.”

  Von Erlach nodded solemnly. “Yes. It’s clear that noble self-sacrifice is called for. You can’t put it off any longer. It’s definitely time that you get married. Not some time this year or next year, but right now.”

  Kanoffski grinned. “I think we all suspect just how much of a sacrifice that will really be.”

  After Bernhard went back to his office, Kanoffski said, “Five thousand USE dollars, Lut
z, that she’ll give birth by... umm, well, Christmas would be cutting it a bit close. Make it Epiphany.”

  “Done.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “The only thing I really hate about this marriage,” Claudia said the evening before the ceremony, “is having to leave the children behind. They belong in Tyrol, of course, but still... It was hard to leave Vittoria behind when I married Leopold. She was only four years old. But I knew there was no way that the Tuscan authorities would let me take her. As a special kindness, they allowed me to keep her with me during my widowhood, but I was living in Florence at the time––in a convent, under my family’s direct supervision. As a girl, she doesn’t inherit Urbino, but she does inherit the private fortune of the della Rovere family, and has been betrothed to my nephew since she was eighteen months old. They won’t let her out of their hands if they can possibly help it, but at least she’s with my mother.

  “Now...to do it all over again. They are six, five, four, and three. Isabella Clara is so sweet and lively. Leopold used to call her ‘Pumpernickel.” No grandparents with them; no aunts or uncles. I can visit them, of course. That’s written into the provisions for the new regency council. Once a month, using the Monster. Maybe, when the boys get older, they can visit me for longer times. It would be logical. They should get to know their Swabian territories...”

  Matt Trelli nodded. “It’s the way things go, though. Say what you will, Your Grace, people up-time had to leave their kids behind sometimes, too. Steve Salatto and Anita Masaniello left their little girls in Grantville with their grandparents when they were sent down to Würzburg in 1632. If Marcie and I had gotten married earlier and had kids, I’d have had to leave them behind all the time I was deployed in Franconia.”

  “Men always leave their children behind,” Marcie said. “Always have and always will. That’s one of the prices that we’re paying for equality. Now women have to leave their kids behind, too. Remember the Gulf War?”

  Claudia stood up. “I only wish that I hadn’t let them talk me into putting Isaac Volmar on the regency council. Yes, he is a lawyer, doctor utriusque juris and all that. Yes, he hates the French, if that’s a qualification. Basically, though, he does not agree with this marriage. He will be a disruptive element. He will do everything in his power to alienate the other regents from me, and to make difficulties with the USE and with Herr Piazza when he comes to assist with the changes that are necessary under the new constitution.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Marcie undid her braids. That’s how she was doing her hair these days––braided and twisted into a chignon––long was really easier than short down-time, unless a person was the type for a pixie cut, which no hairdresser outside of Grantville itself was willing to tackle, anyway. “Now see, Matt, she’s brought us along on her staff, so you’re in Swabia where you wanted to be and can go fight plague to your heart’s content. Aren’t you glad, now, that you didn’t blow up at her after the first meeting back in February.” She started brushing ferociously.

  Matt fought down his irritation. Sometimes he got a little tired of Marcie’s relentless practicality.

  She kept talking. “You know what, though? “I get along fine with the regent, but Duke Bernhard gives me the chills. It must be something like marrying that character Marlon Brando played in The Godfather. This is a man who looks like his motto ought to be ‘Damn, but I’m good,’ if ever I saw one.”

  “He is good.” Matt reached for his toothbrush. “From everything I’ve been able to pick up, he is good, in precisely the way you mean it. Very good indeed. Maybe better than is good for him. Or for us.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “It’s not going to be a very impressive wedding ceremony,” Bernhard said. “There just wasn’t time to arrange for large numbers of internationally prominent guests––or even for delegates from them. Nils Brahe is dashing over from Mainz to represent Gustavus Adolphus. The queen of the Low Countries will be here, since she was coming to Nancy in any case. Since the papal dispensations for you have been flying along on the radio waves, the archbishop of Mainz is coming with Brahe to represent Pope Urban VIII. My brother Albrecht and his wife. That’s about all, though.”

  Claudia patted his hand comfortingly. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not as if it’s the first time I ever got married. My wedding to Leopold had all the splendor anyone could have asked for, but he borrowed almost all of it from either the Fuggers or Bavaria and I didn’t enjoy the bear-baiting that was included in the entertainments.”

  Bernhard looked a little disconcerted. “Even so...”

  “We wouldn’t want to give a bad example by having a big gathering, when we’ve forbidden them for other people because of the plague. What would it look like to your average town mayor if his daughter is required to marry quietly at the church door, with no guests but immediate family, and then the grand duke himself held a huge party?”

  “Even so...” He swallowed.

  “Also, it wouldn’t be fair to the residents of your capital for you to put on a really impressive ceremony here at Schwarzach. That’s aside from the problem that even if we packed the monastery and every house in the town to full capacity, Schwarzach just doesn’t have room for hundreds of prominent guests with their entourages. The Rhine river bottoms in the spring are not a favorable location for pitching elaborate tents. And, as soon as it’s done, we have to leave––we have to go to Nancy for the negotiations. When guests travel a long distance, they expect to stay for a while.”

  He took a deep breath. “Even so...”

  “After the negotiations are over, we can do a formal and spectacular ‘entrance’ into Besançon. That will be a good substitute. We can do it at some later date when we have the time and the city has had a chance to make preparations. Really superb public celebrations don’t occur spontaneously. There’s a lot of planning involved.” Claudia’s voice trailed off...

  Bernhard developed hopes of completing a sentence.

  “In the autumn,” she resumed. “September or October are good months for ceremonial events. We can do an ‘entrance’ then, if the plague has abated. I’ll mention it to Moscherosch. He can include it in the press releases.”

  “Will you pay attention to what I am about to say!”

  Bernhard could achieve a truly impressive voice volume when he was in the mood.

  Claudia blinked.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  “It’s really hard to make much out of this,” Moscherosch complained. “What am I supposed to write?”

  The grand duchess told the Abbot Georgius of Schwarzach that if he knew what was good for his monastery, he would conduct a Catholic ceremony. He knew what was good for his monastery. The grand duke told his chaplain Daniel Rücker to conduct a Protestant one following that. Rücker, being Lutheran, appeared to be actually happy that the grand duke did not consider the Catholic ceremony sufficient. The grand duchess, presumably, then went to confession and told her own chaplain that she had, for reasons of political expediency, willingly gone through a Protestant ceremony, after which, also presumably, he assigned her some kind of penance.

  “Honestly, that’s not exactly what the reading public is waiting for. They want fairy tales. Romance.”

  Kanoffski laughed. “You could try adding that the groom wore his best leather buff coat, the members of Der Kloster having persuaded him that full body armor would give the wrong impression altogether, and the bride wore the best dress she had with her, which went surprisingly well with that red hair, given that it’s pink. He pulled some of the gems and jewelry out of his hoard, more or less at random, to decorate her with, too.”

  Moscherosch looked at him with utter disgust.

  “A bet,” Reinhold Rosen said. “A bet Fritz. I’ll lay you a thousand USE dollars that she’ll be pregnant within three months. Well, make that conditional on his not having to hare off on campaign somewhere.”

  “Sorry, but I’ve already got a wager going with Erlach. Find another vict
im.”

  Chapter 12 Everyone is Feeling so Cooperative and Enthusiastic

  “Unser volck ist dermassen obedient und behertzt gewesen, das ich es nicht genuch beschreiben kan.”

  April 1635

  Nancy, Lorraine

  “N

  ewspapers,” Doña Mencia de Mendoza announced happily. “Frankfurt on top.” The lady-in-waiting cum shrewd political advisor deposited the pile in front of the queen in the Low Countries.

  As a response to the Irish colonels’ raid upon Pechelbronn–—ostensibly, at least–—the King in the Low Countries has proclaimed his annexation of the left-bank territories of the archdiocese of Cologne, their former employer, and moved his army into them, despite some previous rumors to the effect that they, like Cologne city-state itself, would join the USE. He has reached a detente with the USE, negotiated by the Republic of Essen, in regard to this move, by promising not to make any effort to annex the city state of Cologne itself (with hinterland) which is already a city-province of the USE.

  Maria Anna looked up from her reading. “Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?”

  Claudia de’ Medici, formerly regent of Tyrol and currently grand duchess of the County of Burgundy by virtue of her third marriage, which had taken place a scant couple of weeks before, giggled. “Wait until you get to the next paragraph. The writer becomes more opinionated.”

  That accomplished, this upstart “king” has extended his “protectorate” over Metz, Toul, Verdun, and northern Lorraine while the emperor of the USE is preoccupied by the campaigns in the east. He has accompanied this action with many sanctimonious statements in regard to how the ineffective government of the Lorraine duke creates openings for such events as the recent passage of the Irish dragoons formerly in the employ of Ferdinand of Bavaria through Lorraine and beyond through the Palatinate and into Swabia (see editorial below in regard to the scandalous lack of alertness on the part of the USE military that permitted the Pechelbronn raid) and the incursion by Gaston d’Orleans.