“It’s reasonable for me to ask. He’s administering Bar, which is mine, as well as Lorraine. That means that he is carrying out acts in my name. I’ve heard the rumors from the up-time encyclopedias, such as that Wallenstein was jealous of him and prevented his promotion. Even that he was involved in the assassination of Wallenstein in the other world. Will that cause problems for the duchy with the USE, since they are allied with Bohemia now?”
“Well...he’s a very zealous Catholic. A competent commander and administrator. Self-disciplined. His critics consider him to be more ambitious than he should be, given his family background.” The queen in the Netherlands grinned. “His chin is very long and pointed. His hairline is receding. Exactly what do you want to know?”
“Is he cruel?”
“I’ve heard people use the word ‘hard.’ Quite a bit. I don’t think that I’ve ever heard ‘cruel.’”
Lorraine
Against all reasonable expectations, Gaston made it to Neufchâteau with the remnants of the cavalry.
Against all reasonable expectations, the infantry regiments had waited for his return.
In the category of what could only be a divine miracle, Bernhard’s forces, which had circumvallated Neufchâteau while Gaston was gone, were pulled away to assist in the search for his cavalry.
Gaston successfully entered the fortress.
Then he was stupid enough to leave it again.
Monsieur Gaston decided that it was time to return to France, considering that France was so conveniently nearby.
✽ ✽ ✽
Thysac’s scouts observed the pullout.
They reported it to Aldringen.
Aldringen thought a while.
He had developed a certain sense of how Bernhard’s people worked by now. There was the inner circle––Der Kloster.
For weeks now, the senior members of Der Kloster had clearly been distracted by something they were not revealing. It did not seem likely that they would give him their full attention now, even if he appealed to them in the name of Claudia as regent of Lorraine.
They were Bernhard’s men.
She was Bernhard’s wife.
But...
In Lorraine, there were two perfectly competent military contingents, belonging to Bernhard’s forces, yet not commanded by members of the Kloster. In the name of Claudia, he could call upon de Guébriant and Schaffelitzky. Men who were, perhaps, not fully trusted by the Kloster insiders. Men who were not, therefore, quite so distracted by whatever was going on at Châtel-sur-Moselle.
The three of them made an unlikely and spontaneously formed troika.
Not to mention that, thanks to de Thysac, they knew where Gaston’s infantry was to be found, which direction it was going, and how fast it was moving.
✽ ✽ ✽
“To His Grace Bernhard, etc.
“Yesterday morning,” Shaffelitzky wrote, “by the mercy of God Almighty, Colonel de Guébriant, General Aldringen, and I, after a night march that began before dark and lasted until just before dawn, guided by scouts native to the Duchy of Lorraine, successfully joined our contingents together for a combined strength of over three thousand cavalry, fifteen hundred dragoons, and nearly ten thousand infantry counting the Lorraine militia which M. et Mme. Haraucourt and M. de Thysac have brought into Aldringen’s service.
“Expecting that Monsieur Gaston would not anticipate us before tomorrow and since the men and horses, although tired, were well fed and well rested before these last two very strenuous days, we determined to move against him at once. We attacked at dawn, when his encampment was at its least alert.
“With this letter, I am sending all his banners, two captured lieutenant colonels, a large number of other captured officers, and some two thousand other prisoners. Unfortunately, Monsieur Gaston himself fled before our victory was complete. The highest ranking prisoner taken is Marchéville, who was found lying severely wounded on the field. My personal surgeon is attending him and predicts that he will survive, although with the loss of an arm and, probably, of an eye. This should not reduce his ransom value for his captor.
“May I mention that our expedition is in need of provisions, ammunition, and a month’s pay for the men, since I offered bonuses if they executed this maneuver successfully. That offer, combined with their reasonable expectation of ransoms for the prisoners, has thus far enabled me to control plundering.”
He finished the field report and looked at de Guébriant. “I only hope he’s alert enough to read it.”
“Just in case he isn’t, have your secretary send a duplicate copy to the grand duchess. Give another one to Aldringen to send to the king in the Netherlands. Bernhard may skin us alive once he recovers, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it.”
✽ ✽ ✽
“We can only reasonably presume that the plague is among the cavalry Monsieur Gaston hired away from Phalsbourg as well as among his locally recruited soldiers from Lorraine,” Aldringen said. “It’s certainly among my locally recruited soldiers from Lorraine and in Fernando’s regiments that were at Metz, although not excessively.”
“If it wasn’t before, it is now,” Schaffelitzky answered. “Well, my regiments were already carrying some. And equally reasonably, we have to presume that any soldiers who escaped will spread it as they flee. Even more, we must presume that as he is in flight himself and unable to pay them, they will scatter and carry it along the disparate paths they take.”
Aldringen nodded. “At least they are headed for France rather than into Alsace or at us.”
“We hope, not that I wish the plague on my own home,” de Guébriant sighed. “That would seem logical, but they could be going in any of a half-dozen different directions.”
“Or all of them. I cannot imagine that Clicquot managed to keep control of the remnants.” Schaffelitzky stood up. “Who among us is going to call for plague-fighting assistance? Is there any to be had?”
“We can ask Burgundy to send more. Claudia, as regent, is the responsible party. Out of the Low Countries, perhaps. Or, as a real stretch, out of the USE. Send a message to Merkwiller-Pechelbronn. Perhaps they will be willing to assist in snuffing out their plague problem at its source.”
Merkwiller-Pechelbronn
“It just never stops,” Derek Utt said. “You fight a battle, you lose some men no matter how careful you are, but then it’s over till the next battle. This goes on and on. How many people have we buried, just right here?”
“About eight hundred,” Matt Trelli said, “a lot of them refugees who came south while Gaston was still running loose. Who is it this time?”
“Lawson Thompson. He and Tina have two little kids back in Grantville. And Sergeant Hartke. I can just imagine what Dagmar is going to say.”
✽ ✽ ✽
“I’m sorry, Nina, but he didn’t make it.” Gus Szymanski patted her shoulder.
Mel Springer’s wife didn’t cry. “It makes me so mad,” she screamed. “Mad as hell. Mainly at him for doing anything so stupid as come into a plague-ridden region when he didn’t have to. Mad at Ed Piazza for sending him over to Fulda. Mad at this whole damned century we’re stuck in.”
Gus didn’t say anything.
“We’ve been waiting for Eva to die, you know.”
He nodded. The older of the two orphaned German girls that Mel and Nina had adopted was already sickly when they wandered into Grantville back after the Ring of Fire, and she had gotten steadily worse since then. Some kind of a genetic problem, Doc Adams said. Eva didn’t manage to get enough nutrition out of what she ate. Nothing anyone could do.”
“I was braced for that. But it’s not right for Mel to die. It’s not right, do you hear me? Not right. Why him and not me? I’m the one who’s been working at the clinic, seeing patients. He’s just been walking around ‘inspecting’ things.”
Gus nodded.
“It’s not right!”
✽ ✽ ✽
Because Monsieur Gaston’s raid on Merkwiller-Peche
lbronn was a violation of USE territory, Nils Brahe and Derek Utt called more contingents, amounting to four full regiments, into the Province of the Upper Rhine to assist with the military clean-up and plague quarantines.
This meant, of course, that four more regiments would be exposed to active plague conditions and would have to be quarantined after their immediate duty was over to ensure that they did not carry the contagion back to Mainz and Fulda.
This all, of course, complicated the issues of food supplies, provisions, and living quarters again.
But it also provided enough margin that they were able to spare prevention squads for Aldringen.
✽ ✽ ✽
“Damn it, Garand.” Matt Trelli threw himself off his horse. “Get away from her. We’ve managed to pen up the rest of this batch of peasants for quarantine, but there’s a reason the villagers left her here. She’s already sick with the plague. Dying. There’s nothing we can do.”
The rest of the troop seconded him, raising a great noise and fuss.
Jeffie looked up from where he was kneeling. “She’s a little girl. You can’t just ride off and abandon a little girl.”
“I damned well can,” Matt said. “I was at Kronach. I’ve been on the plague-fighting front for a long time now. The Padua doctors are right. When it comes to epidemics, you have to be cruel to be kind. She’s going to die, no matter what we do.”
“She doesn’t have to die alone.”
Matt glared at him. “What about Gertrud and the baby?”
“There’s no way in hell that I can go back and look my own wife and child in the eye if I knew that over here, I left this little girl to die alone.”
“The whole damned Duchy of Lorraine is full of little girls who are dying alone. You’re just not looking them in the face. Do you know what it’s like to die of plague?”
“Hell, yes, I know what it looks like to die of plague. I watched my father-in-law die of it a couple of weeks ago, remember. Give me the damned mask and gloves and leave me here.”
Trelli climbed back on his horse, throwing down the sanitation packet. The rest rode off.
“What’s your name, honey?” Jeffie asked. He poured a little home-made sugar/saline energy drink from his canteen into her mouth.
“Barbeline, mon capitan. Barbeline Cayel.”
“Well, Barbeline. Do you like to listen to stories? Once upon a time,...”
Merkwiller-Pechelbronn
August 1635
“Utt refused to report Garand as a deserter,” Matt wrote to Marcie in frustration. “Officially, he’s ‘missing and presumed dead.’ That’s what we radioed over to Fulda, for what comfort it may be to his wife, considering that she’d already lost her dad. If you ask me, he’s out in the woods somewhere, or at least his body is, dead as a doornail. This sort of thing comes close to driving me nuts. Maybe you’re right, that a lot of us are too squeamish to survive down-time in the long run. Denver Caldwell died yesterday, along with six down-time soldiers from Utt’s regiment and seventeen refugees. I never knew him much. He was a couple of years younger than we are, different churches, and he didn’t go to college. He married a down-time girl over at Fulda Barracks.”
✽ ✽ ✽
“Damned cat,” Matt Trelli said. “Ran right between my legs. I hate cats.”
“He’s been hanging around ever since Joel died,” Derek said. “I’m not too fond of him, myself. I throw him some scraps now and then, but don’t let him indoors the way the others did. Sometimes he sneaks in––he seems to think he has a right to live inside. He was Andrea Hill’s.”
“Well, keep him away from me. I hate cats.”
“He ducked under the bed. I’ll roust him out later. How many have we lost today?”
Grantville
“...formal letter of consolation from General Nils Brahe to the administration of the State of Thuringia-Franconia on the death of Colonel Utt,” Robert Herrick read from the pulpit of the Episcopalian church.
“...torn from us in his youth, which in these difficult times has caused immense sorrow to all of us who knew him...”
Mary Kat blinked as the words slid past her.
“"...God has seen fit to remove him from the miseries of this world,...”
That was from Brahe’s personal letter to her. She’d loaned it to Father Herrick to read at the service, too. Brahe referred to Derek as his friend. She believed him. At least, in the years away, Derek had found a friend.
“...so that he might gain possession of that eternal and happy life which awaits us in heaven where we will follow him when it pleases God to call us."”
All right, it just said what she believed herself.
Or, at least, what Grandma had taught her to believe.
But the down-timers were just so damned...fatalistic.
The baby started to whimper and root at her shoulder. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought him to the service. It wasn’t as if he’d be able to remember. He was only a week old. But at least he could grow up with people telling him that he had been there. That would be some kind of a connection between them.
At least, Derek had known about him. Hadn’t seen him, but by grace of radio communication knew about him and named him. Maybe that was some comfort.
Maybe. But it just wasn’t fair.
She looked at her watch. The little congregation was standing up with a rustle.
There wasn’t an organ in the Episcopal church yet. The building had been in terribly bad shape, up-time. Abandoned. They’d started with the basement and the roof. So far, they had restored the sanctuary. Unboarded the stained glass and brought specialists in to repair the frames, replace the cracked panes, and re-lead them back together. They’d get a new down-time organ built as soon as the congregation could afford it.
Down the curving staircase in the entryway. The old coal baron who paid to have this built, way back when Grantville was a boom town, knew the flooding habits of Buffalo Creek. No basement, utility space on the ground floor, and the worship space upstairs. He’d made the double staircase as impressive as possible.
Not exactly handicapped-accessible, but impressive.
Everyone out, into the street, down to the Methodist church. Simon and Mary Ellen were loaning the use of their organ. Linda Bartolli was coming over from St. Mary’s to play it. She was the best organist in town. Open windows, with a couple thousand more people standing around.
Her parents hadn’t been able to get back to Grantville for this. Ed Piazza had given all the state employees the afternoon off. Her father was running the memorial service in Bamberg. Right now.
There was someone in Fulda, directing the regimental chorale. Right now.
There was someone at the oil field. She couldn’t remember who it was. One of the captains who had served under Derek. Right now.
Two o’clock sharp. Linda struck up the first chord of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Sine nomine.
Regimental anthem, for the highest-ranking military officer the up-timers had lost so far. That’s what all this was about. Derek only happened to be her husband and little Charles Roger’s father. That was accidental. This whole service was about the war.
Oh, may your soldiers,
faithful, true, and bold
Fight as the saints who
boldly fought of old
And win with them
The victor’s crown of gold.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Lorraine
“As far as I’m concerned,” Aldringen said, “Gaston is his brother’s problem again. And Richelieu’s. It would be the height of stupidity for us to cross into French territory. I’ll keep a heavy watch on the western border. You had better focus on chasing down the men from his mercenary companies that went into the Province of the Upper Rhine. The Low Countries can worry about any who may have headed north toward Luxemburg.”
Nils Brahe concurred.
“The most absurd thing,” Abraham Fabert said, “is that in a way I started this.
It was my failure as a military engineer to take Moyenvic, near Marsal, back in 1631 that really started Louis XIII’s plan to annex all of Lorraine, I am afraid.”
Aldringen shrugged. “No point in crying over spilled milk. Now about these ironworks by Metz, you were saying to General Brahe that...”
Chapter 26 Hindered by My Discomforts
“Ich bin aber an meinem ohrt durch meine unpässlichkeit, deren ich nun mehr, Gott lob, gentzlichen endlediget, verhindert...”
Lorraine
August 1635
The grand duke of the County of Burgundy opened his eyes.
They informed him that he was in the same bedroom in Châtel-sur-Moselle where he had been the last time he had a clear memory of anything other than pain and fever.
The pain, he ascertained, as much milder than it had been.
The fever, it appeared, was gone.
Perhaps he was dreaming.
There seemed to be, seated next to his bed, the redoubtable USE ambassadress to Basel, Frau Diane Jackson. He closed his eyes and kept them that way for some time.
When he opened them again, she was still there.
“How long has it been?” He asked.
“Since you were last both awake and rational?”
“Yes.”
She looked at the up-time style disposable calendar with little blocks for each day that was hanging on the wall next to his bed.
“Three weeks. No, more. Twenty-three days.”
“Is everything lost?”
“Child. You are not the center of the universe. Other people have held it together for you, which is probably more than you deserve and why they should be so loyal is not something I will ever understand. But they did, so learn. It is time for you to get over the delusion that you are indispensable.”
She stood up. “Now, I will call Herr John. To him, you will say, ‘Thank you’ now. As you have the chance, you will say it to your lady wife, to Herr Rehlinger, to your officers. My husband’s mother always told the sons I have lost to the up-time, ‘It gets easier every time you say it.’”
✽ ✽ ✽
The minute Kamala Dunn opened the door, the man napping next to Bernhard’s bedside jumped up.
Ring of Fire - 1635_ The Legions of Pestilence Page 22