“Okay.”
Annabelle thought for a moment. “His mother is a real pain in the neck. From one of those noble families that are just high enough up on the totem pole to be full of themselves but not high enough that they’ve done anything to deserve it other than inherit a title and a speck of real estate. Of course, she was a second wife, stuck with a feckless husband and, I think, 14 or 15 children, and nine or ten of them survived. She knew Kassel and all its resources, which aren’t a lot, economically speaking, would be going to her stepson, Wilhelm, that is, Amalie Elizabeth’s husband. That’s enough to make a woman desperate.”
“You are,” Ed said, “a true treasure my dear.” He kissed her cheek. “You kept the families of all the high school kids sorted out in your mind back when I was a principal in Grantville, and now you sort all these new families for me.”
Annabelle kissed him back. “It’s a God-given talent. The Bible says that we’re not to bury them.”
Rotenburg, Hesse
May 1637
Hermann was standing on the bridge, watching the Fulda River flow past peacefully beneath his feet, tossing an occasional twig, when his wife brought the message down from the city hall. She had wanted to do some shopping for the new baby, even though they were watching their expenses very, very, carefully now that he was no longer drawing a salary as secretary of state, so they were spending the day in town.
He read the transcription from the radio operator and looked up at the pretty half-timbered houses of the city that would have been his Residenz if he were still its ruler. A town, of course, rather than a city, a small town if one defined a city by the standards of Magdeburg. Magdeburg, which could still call upon his services. He sighed.
He had hoped to read some more geography this summer and get back to serious work on his book. Even if a geological and historical description of Hesse was unlikely to become a best-seller, it might bring in a little income. He had a publisher lined up.
He had hoped to complete another series of meteorological observations.
He had hoped to have a little spare time, just to enjoy himself. He had a new telescope, a good one, and would have enjoyed exchanging correspondence with other amateur astronomers.
He might even have found a little time to catch up on the exciting new developments in mathematics.
And been with Juliane this time, during the last months of her anxious pregnancy.
But it looked like he would be going to Lorraine. The Department of State would pay him. They could use the money.
Rotenburg, Hesse
early June 1637
“Since you will be heading out for Nancy very soon in any case,” the message said, “would you mind leaving early and going by way of Jülich-Berg? We’ve had some rather disturbing reports from Katharina Charlotte and Melchior von Hatzfeld. They want a face-to-face talk with someone they can trust.”
Hermann adjusted his plans.
It also said that Constantin Ableidinger would be joining him in Nancy. Not as a cabinet representative, but as an unofficial observer for the Fourth of July Party. Ableidinger would go directly, though; his schedule was tight; he didn’t have time to detour through Jülich.
Juliane hugged Hermann. She had been about to tell him that she was afraid she was spotting again. But if he had to leave right away, it would just worry him. She could call the midwife after she saw him off.
Chapter 54
Nancy, Lorraine
May 1637
“T
he agenda is very boring,” Duchess Nicole of Lorraine told her husband.
Point One. Does Anybody Know Exactly What Gaston Has Done Now?
Point Two. Is There Any Way to Figure Out What Gaston Is Going to Do Next?
Point Three. Is There Any Way to Anticipate Him?
Which will inevitably lead to a digression on,
Point Three, Subdivision A. Not If We Can’t Figure Out What He Is Going to Do Next.
All before we get to Point Four and the real purpose of the meeting, namely
Point Four. Will We Be Prepared to Deal with Whatever Gaston Does Whenever He Does It?
She grimaced. “Especially if it is something that, logically, would be utterly unexpected. It’s not as if everyone who is likely to come hasn’t discussed all these topics to death already.”
“Other things are bound to arise,” General, now Imperial Count, Johann Aldringen pointed out. “Spain ? Savoy? Tuscany? The Papacy?”
“Plague?”
“Oh, certainly, plague. That woman in Basel is a fanatic, but she represents the USE, so we must make a place for her on the agenda, even if it takes up time better assigned to other topics.”
Aldringen cleared his throat and aimed the phlegm at one of the new-fashioned spittoons that were spreading like a fad from Magdeburg. “Plague is like the promise of the Bible in regard to the poor. The plague we have always with us. Every regiment I have ever commanded throughout my career has encountered or carried disease. Often both encountered and carried disease. Camp fever. Dysentery. Coughing sicknesses of various types. I honestly do not understand the fanatical focus of the up-timers on plague, particularly, as if it is so much worse than the rest of them.”
✽ ✽ ✽
Aldringen had been in Metz, discussing supply chains with Abraham Fabert. When he got back to Nancy, his first question was, “Who has accepted?”
“Starting at the top?” Nicole asked.
“Please.”
“Fernando will be busy with something else. Maria Anna is feeling queasy again. The girl is reproducing like a rabbit. They’re sending Alessandro Scaglia.”
“Political Methods and the Laws of Nations?”
“Yes, that one.”
“Good book,” Aldringen said. “There’s a lot of sense to be found in it. I’ll enjoy talking with him if I can find the time. What about the United Provinces.”
“Frederik Hendrik is busy, too. Ought one to wonder what he and Fernando are doing? Amalia never involves herself in things like this. She advises him, of course, and would be perfectly capable of being directly involved in politics, if necessary. He’s sending Constantjin Huygens.” Nicole smiled. “With a personal radio array of some kind, one would presume.”
“Good man. Diplomat and poet. Not to mention a fair musician. He’s played at both the English and Danish courts. Years ago, of course, before King James died. I’ll be interested to see what he’s done lately.” Aldringen directed his secretary to send the appropriate notes of thanks to Lorraine’s protectorate to the north.
“And to the south?”
“Bernhard is coming himself, accompanied by Claudia. Sensibly, they’re leaving young Ernst Wilhelm and little Dorothea Maria back home with the nannies and wet nurse, so we don’t have to worry about that.” She hesitated. “They’re bringing Nicholas François, but Claude has gone from Savoy to Tuscany with Vittoria.”
Nicole’s mouth drooped a little. She loved her sister and had hoped for a chance to see her after this period of Bernhard-imposed exile of the couple. “I was so sorry to hear about her second stillbirth last January. Do you suppose God will ever grant them a living child? Maybe we can talk to Bernhard....”
“Not if it would distract him from the main business of the conference,” Aldringen said pragmatically.
“He’s bringing the up-time woman from Basel. She’ll want to talk about plague.”
“Ambassador Jackson, yes.”
“And quite a few of his staff, of course, including the man who married Christian IV’s second daughter last winter.”
“It should be interesting to meet them.”
“Do you suppose she was presented to Scaglia when he was in Copenhagen in 1634? I understand it was Christian’s custom to line up those morganatic children of his and present them to foreign dignitaries as if they were actual royalty.” Nicole sniffed.
The symbol of Lorraine was a thistle.
Occasionally, Aldringen wondered whimsically
whether or not the ruling family had adapted to the symbol or the symbol had been chosen as appropriate to the ruling family.
Chapter 55
Nancy, Lorraine
mid-June 1637
The Burgundy delegation arrived in plenty of time for the preliminary consultations, to find Scaglia and Huygens already present and consulting.
Matt Trelli and Marcie Abruzzo weren’t along. The grand duke had sent Matt to Freiburg to talk to Kanoffsky. The grand duchess had sent Marcie to Augsburg; nobody else knew exactly why except that it involved the possibly questionable activities of one of the up-timers who had moved there.
Sophia had indeed been presented to Scaglia when he was in Copenhagen in 1634. He remarked to Huygens that she had changed quite a bit from what he observed then. “Not so much in her appearance, other than the spectacles that are now perched on her nose, as in how she presents herself. She used to hang her head, look down at the floor, hunch her shoulders together, hold back. Almost as if she could make herself invisible if she tried hard enough; that she would happily make herself invisible if she could.”
The next morning, they were walking out of the gardens that filled the inner courtyard of the 15th-century ducal palace, over toward the front of the next-door, almost equally old, church of Saint-François-des-Cordeliers. Sophia looked at it critically. “If it is Gothic, it is very plain Gothic. I think I like it. I wonder if it is permissible for someone who is not Catholic to inspect the interior. I would take someone with me, of course. Papa is very nervous about Catholics.”
“I would be pleased to escort you when you have leisure,” Scaglia offered.
“I like the palace here, as well. It’s very old-fashioned, but the smooth expanses of stone wall, with elaborate ornament only at the gates, are so much more restful, so much less stressful, than the ornate modern styles.” She stopped, tilting her head up at the hills surrounding the city to get a better angle through her spectacles. “Isn’t there any place flat?” she asked. “We are surrounded by hills in Besançon and surrounded by them again here. The only way I can feel at all comfortable is to pretend that I am not truly outdoors, but rather in a room, with the hills as the walls.”
There was gossip to be pursued, so better to pursue it out here in the open than in the palace’s ground floor string of reception and dining rooms where the conference would be held. There were fewer people to overhear.
“Yes,” she said to Huygens, whom she had also met previously. “Of course I know what the reports from English envoys to Copenhagen have said about my father. Especially the notorious one in 1632, in which they reported that he got drunk every day and slept with a whore every night.
“It was probably true about his getting drunk every day; he was drinking very heavily then. Not just the way there is heavy drinking in most of the German courts. Heavy drinking is part of the life there, but in those years, it was much worse than usual.
“As for the whore, it was only true if the English diplomats considered Vibeke Kruse to be a whore instead of a recognized royal mistress, because it wasn’t a different whore every night. After he repudiated Mama, it was always Vibeke. As it still is Vibeke; she lived in the palace then with her son and daughter. They are now six and four years old. She still does live in the palace along with her children.”
She looked up, suddenly defiant. “I am away now, not having to live in the same location, avoid making Papa angry, so I will say it. For you to repeat to your master, if you wish to. I despise that woman and in my heart, I despise Grandma Ellen for procuring her for my father.”
After that outburst, she spoke more thoughtfully. “The king has actually been drinking a lot less, these past few years. You can tell Frederik Hendrik that, too. When I think about it, he started cutting down late in 1633 or early in 1634. Not that he doesn’t still drink a lot, but less,” Sophia said. “Less for several years now.”
Her husband, Henri de Ruvigny, interjected a question about Scaglia’s book, Political Methods and the Laws of Nations. He was interested in the “soft landing idea” and had a few observations connected to what Professor Grotius was currently teaching at the University of Jena.
The daytime conversations, with intervals in which the participants changed their clothing, blended smoothly into the dinner conversations.
Most of the time, Bismarck listened. He realized very well that he was a decade younger than Ruvigny and far less experienced in negotiations, although he was learning.
Copenhagen had certainly been a learning experience.
Finally, though, “Last winter,” he commented, “while the duc de Rohan was studying the works of the up-timer Dr. Seuss, he spent some time on one called The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. His researcher in Grantville, a very helpful woman, sent along a reprint of another book, a century or so older than the Grinch, by an Englishman named Charles Dickens, called A Christmas Carol.
“She said that before the Ring of Fire, the up-timers watched a dramatization of it faithfully every Christmas season on their televisions – probably more of them watched it than went to church. The high school drama classes in Grantville have presented it three times since the Ring of Fire. The Voice of America presents a dramatic reading every Christmas, each time with new readers, so as many people as possible get to participate. The Quiney brothers translated it into German and Philip Massinger’s company has added it to their winter repertoire. Carey Calagna mentioned it to me after we all got back from Savoy in the spring, so I read it.”
He gave a short summary.
“I do not share the views of those who assert that God sent us the up-timers so that we could look at them and exclaim, ‘Oh, how wonderful. We can find out from them how to make our world like the one they came from; Let us become like them; just get there faster.’
“I think rather that by the up-timers, God has sent us the three ghosts, to show us what we have been, what we are, and what we will become if we do not mend our ways. It is a call to repentance, as much as the cries of the Old Testament prophets were calls to repentance.
“But also a statement that it is not too late. We can make enough changes so that future, the one that was theirs, is not ours. The mirror of their future reflects our faults to us in all their wretchedness, but also acts as a guide, showing us how to ameliorate them. How to use what the up-timers brought us to preserve the best of what we have now.”
“We need,” Scaglia said, “to escape the condition of the newborn child, who has no knowledge of the past but a very clear awareness of his own immediate wants and needs and a selfish desire for their immediate fulfillment. With maturity, a human may escape that condition to some extent. Some move so far from it that they become altruistic. Others, sadly, never move beyond it at all. But our perspective will always start at the tip of our own noses.”
Chapter 56
Jülich
mid-June 1637
“S
o you suspect that some of the merchants in Essen....” Hermann was duly lending a trustworthy ear to Katharina Charlotte and Melchior, interjecting harmless but calming comments as they talked.
“Even beyond Düsseldorf, you say....” Half the time, he just repeated some phrase one of them had already used. It seemed as if it was Charlotte who was upset; Melchior was more philosophical about the entire mess. His own task here was to soothe, to moderate, to....
Melchior’s secretary interrupted the conversation, saying that there was a messenger come up from the docks, with the news that a barge had docked the day before, carrying plague.
Hermann stood up, saying he had better go see for himself...now...and send a report to Diane Jackson...as soon as he had seen for himself. The ambassadress was not a patient woman.
Charlotte reacted with standard logic, which was that when plague appeared, every prudent person stayed as far away from it as possible and if necessary fled to an uninfected location.
Hatzfeld said they could certainly send someone else to investigate; the
re was certainly no need for Hermann to do it himself.
“I’m not about to send someone else into a danger that I won’t risk myself, General von Hatzfeld,” the former secretary of state said. He looked down at his foot with the prosthesis. “From the earliest time I can remember, our tutors reminded me regularly that I was defective; that I would never be able to pursue the honorable military career to which noblemen are born. That I could not even get on a horse without a mounting block.”
He smiled. “Though I got around that by the time I was twelve, by training one of my own young geldings to let me mount from the ‘wrong’ side. Still, Hatzfeld, I am not a military officer, whose calling from God necessarily involves directing others into danger and is a fool if he does not remain in a position to keep an overview of the field.
“I’m not even a civilian official any more. Just a private person and I have more private, personal, honor than to send one of your men into a danger that I’m not willing to risk for myself.”
“I’ll go back with him, Your Grace,” the waiting messenger said as they walked out into the antechamber. “If there’s contagion, I’ve already been exposed to it, probably, and he’ll need someone local to show him the way.”
Hatzfeld nodded his permission.
“Your name?” Hermann asked.
“Manoah van Veldeke. I’m from over in Limburg, a village near Maastricht. I’ve worked the rivers since I was a boy.”
“Manoah?”
The man cleared his throat. “My father took notions, sometimes. I have a brother named Samson.”
✽ ✽ ✽
Hermann followed his new guide through the streets, humming a haunting song he had learned from the up-timers in Magdeburg. I didn’t want to leave you on your own this summer, Juliane; it was the last thing on my mind.[4]
Ring of Fire - 1635_ The Legions of Pestilence Page 40