Up-Time Pride and Down-Time Prejudice

by Mark H. Huston

  Up-time Pride and Down-time Prejudice

  By Mark H Huston

  Up-time Pride and Down-time Prejudice Copyright © 2017 by Mark H Huston. All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Eric Flint’s Ring of Fire Press handles DRM Digital Rights Management simply: We trust in the Honor of our readers.

  Cover designed by Laura Givens

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing: Aug 2019

  Eric Flint's Ring of Fire Press

  e-book ISBN-13 978-1-948818-48-3

  Trade Paperback ISBN-13 978-1-948818-49-0

  Contents

  Preface Glory

  Chapter 1 What kind of name is that?

  Chapter 2 Short Good Bye

  Chapter 3 Fugger Are A Challenge

  Chapter 4 Welcome To Tyrol

  Chapter 5 And you are...?

  Chapter 6 Welcome to Schloss Tratzberg

  Chapter 7 Dress the Part

  Chapter 8 Side Money

  Chapter 9 Meet the Fugger

  Chapter 10 Schwaz

  Chapter 11 Class, is not dismissed.

  Chapter 12 Meanwhile back at the ranch.

  Chapter 13 Lost and Found.

  Chapter 14 The Dinner

  Chapter 15 A New Dress

  Chapter 16 The Dance Lesson

  Chapter 17 The Ball

  Chapter 18 The After Party

  Chapter 19 You wanna what?

  Chapter 20 Not Demons, Demons

  Chapter 21 It Must be Demons

  Chapter 22 Regina

  Chapter 23 Dewatering and Power

  Chapter 24 Gunfight at the Coal Corral

  Chapter 25 Confessional

  Chapter 26 Til the Cows Come Home

  Chapter 27 It’s all Machiavelli’s Fault

  Chapter 28 Détente for Christmas

  Chapter 29 The Mountain

  Chapter 30 St. Georgenberg

  Epilog

  Preface Glory

  Late September 1632, The Battle of Alte Veste.

  Jacob Fugger, Count of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn, Knight of the Calatrava order, at twenty-six years of age, the eldest son of Johann Fugger the elder, Count of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn, and Countess Eleonore Von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, reined his war horse to a halt. One of his captains stopped behind and to his right.

  Below him, lay chaos and death. He was familiar with both. One of his strengths as a commander was his ability to partition his brain, to look past the urgency, the horror, and the death, and to see the patterns, strategies, and rhythms of a battle. To analyze dispassionately. Fight now, mourn later.

  Behind him, concealed among the trees, was the Fugger Cuirassier Regiment, perhaps the best cavalry in the Catholic army. Their training was superb, and their mounts the best in the land from the Fugger stables in Swabia. They had the most modern equipment, and more importantly, would follow the young count anywhere, into any battle. They had been tested in this war often with the protestant forces, and they were victorious each time they were tested.

  But this…

  What he looked at today was more then he could process. The death was overwhelming, and the battle so foreign that it defied all his previous experiences. Down the hill, below him, large self-propelled war wagons had just broken the Catholic lines. Thrice the size of a normal horse drawn wagon, twice as tall, and armored in thick metal, they had gone through lines of pikes and muskets like they were toy soldiers. Volleys of musket fire had no effect. Pikes snapped and bounced off, in the rare times a brave pikeman even got close. From the sides of the self-propelled wagons, came rifle fire. Accurate, deadly, and rapid. A ripping, cracking sound, unlike the boom of the matchlocks. Men fell away like stalks of wheat before the scythe. Those who did not yield were crushed beneath the massive black wheels.

  He had heard about the Swedish forces and their association with the up-timers, as they were called. People from the future. His family’s spies and factors had been in their town, Grantville, from almost the beginning. But the reports did not prepare him for anything like this.

  The noise the war wagons made was odd, a deep growling noise, accompanied by a robust and throaty whine, that sounded like mining machinery. The young Count was deeply familiar with mining machinery, mining was the core of the family business. But this noise was much more refined, a higher speed mechanical noise, more precise than any machinery with which he was familiar. There was the usual battlefield background of dust, burned powder, horses, and men too long without a bath, but this was different. A smell of burned oil, full of sulfur, and it wafted up the hill towards their position.

  He knew the order to charge would come very soon. The wagons – no. What had his spies called them? Mining trucks. The mining trucks had paused after the lines were broken, waiting for the infantry behind them. Next they would move towards the old castle on the hill, from where Wallenstein and his generals were conducting the battle. Looking to his right, he saw a courier, galloping his horse across the ridge, rider and animal moving as one, caution tossed aside like the luxury it was. The courier would hold the orders he knew were coming. Charge the mining trucks with his cavalry, turn them back, allow the reinforcements to come up and plug the line.

  He nodded to his captain, who nodded to his lieutenants, who did not need to nod at the sergeants. They were already moving, shouting orders, calling down the lines, snarling at an errant artilleryman who scrambled out of the way. The regiment made ready. The sounds of equipment being checked, the clank of armor, buckles and cinches squeaking, and horses snorting told the young count the regiment was ready to go behind him.

  The courier arrived in a flurry, breathless from his chaotic ride. He was a boy, of no more than fourteen, not yet shaving. Count Jacob Fugger nodded to the boy. The captains gathered around. “Report.” Said Jacob.

  “Wallenstein is shot and badly wounded, General Gallas is dead. He was killed from the enemy lines, almost a mile away.” The boy swallowed, face dirty and flushed, fighting back fear and panic. “You must attack the metal war wagons and delay them. Infantry is coming up behind you.” He gestured to the rear, then looked down the hill at the indestructible metal buildings on wheels, bristling with strange guns. “God be with you.” His voice cracked as he jerked the reins on his winded horse, and was gone, back the way he came.

  His captains showed little emotion, no more than a raised eyebrow. All of them were much older than the count. He met their eyes. “We will charge. Focus on the foremost wagon. Circle it, and aim for the slits where they are firing, and the openings where the front is. That looks like where it’s piloted from. Suggestions?”

  The men shook their heads.

  The count sat erect in his saddle. “Very well. Be ready, and truly, may God be with us.” The captains dispersed, and he was left alone. He turned to face the enemy. He could hear the rhythmic clockwork sound from the mining trucks as they paused below them. It was one of those unusual quiet moments in a battle, a respite while the pieces were being moved around the chess board. Birds chirped hopefully in the trees around them.

  He reached under his cuirass and plucked a silver crucifix from the chain around h
is neck. He kissed it and said a prayer. He thought of his home, and his uncle’s schloss in Tyrol, where he had last seen his wife a few short weeks ago. It was beautiful there, the mountains, and the valley below. He looked around him. The trees starting to change to the fall colors, the shallow valley below him, the old castle to his right, the scent of gunpowder and woodsmoke, horses and leather, it was all so alive. He absorbed it like the elixir it was. He tucked the crucifix back into his armor.

  It was time. He stared towards the enemy, focused on the field in front of him. He picked out his path, where he would place the animal as he charged, where he would break and start to circle the first truck. There. There. There. He saw the charge in his mind’s eye, his men streaming behind. Finally satisfied, he nodded to himself. He drew his blade. He heard three hundred other men do the same thing, all keyed to his every movement. There was no need for flashy commands, for trumpets, for flags. They all knew. Spurred, the horse hesitated a moment, rocked to its hind legs, and launched. The count pushed his helmet down on his head, settled in the saddle, and hung on, his powerful legs gripping the sides of the animal. His vision narrowed to the view directly in front of him. He was only vaguely aware of the thunder from other charging animals around him. He guided the horse with a sure hand and pressure from his legs, the sword in front of him like a gun sight, pointed unerringly at its goal.

  He was vaguely aware of the thin smoke from the line of mining trucks in front of him, guns firing, he knew, trying to cut down the cavalry before it reached its goal. The trucks, all of them, as if by signal, began to move to form a defensive line. They moved quickly, more than he could imagine for something that large. In another ten seconds they would overwhelm the first target, circling like hornets in a swarm, overpowering the enemy defenses. If they could get there before they formed up…

  The count felt something hit him in the side like a hammer, his grip on his sword and the horse failed at once, and he found himself suddenly on the ground, bouncing like a rag doll, and landing face up, seated on his rump, looking to the south. He blinked. He tried to stand and found he could not. He was vaguely aware of horses thundering by. Of screaming, of other men falling. He used his hands to search for what was wrong, running them down his sides, and found part of his hip missing. He watched as his blood ran quickly onto the ground, fascinated for a moment how it mixed with the dust. Very fine dust, like powder. He swallowed, laid his head back, and tried to think of home. His young wife. Family. Childhood friends. The white courtyard at his uncle’s castle. And mountains. Yes, mountains. They were so beautiful, and now, in September, there would be snow.

  Thinking of snow-capped peaks, he died.

  Chapter 1 What kind of name is that?

  January, 1634. Wurzberg, State of Thuringia and Franconia.

  "R

  usso! Hey, Mary Russo! Mary? You in there?” The door to the storage room in the basement of the Wurzberg Rathaus banged open. It was followed by a blast of icy cold January air, which made the candle waver in the near darkness.

  “Yeah, I’m in here, Albrecht. Close the door! I was just starting to thaw out.” Mary Russo straightened up from her small standing desk in the corner of the storeroom and wiped her eyes. She didn’t want Albrecht to see that she had been crying. She snuffled and blew her nose into a handkerchief and cleared her throat. “I think I’m getting a cold,” she said, sniffing. “I’ve only been here a week and I’m already coming down with something…”

  Albrecht was a down-timer and a co-worker of Mary’s. He was an okay guy, as far as Mary knew, she had only met him a few days ago, when she first arrived from Grantville. It would be embarrassing to be found crying in the cold and dark basement of what was basically the city hall for the town of Wurzberg. She was the new kid here, nineteen years old, just out of basic training, graduated early from high school, and dropped into what her superiors must have thought would be an easy job. Sort out property records. Simple enough. And property records by themselves were nothing to cry about. She was crying about why they were so messed up. The town of Wurzburg, with a population of maybe fifteen thousand people, had in the last four years, murdered around 900 of its citizens for witchcraft. Beheaded some of them, then burned the bodies. Burned many of them alive.

  She was reading the records of a family. They had an eight-year-old girl, and an eleven year old boy. They had confessed, after torture and examination, to having sex with a demon. Eight and eleven. The word ‘examination’ had chilled her to her bones. Their parents watched them burn after they were ‘mercifully’ beheaded, and then they were burned themselves. Alive. Next to the still hot ashes of their children. She found the accounts in a wooden box marked as trash, behind some crates, where it was tossed, forgotten. There were many more files. Hundreds more. She leaned against the little desk, one of those stand-up desks like Ebenezer Scrooge had his employee stand at all day in the cold and the dark, with the records scattered around her. Stacks. Piles. File after file of torture, death, and burnings at the stake. Children. Women, rich people, poor people, actors, tinkers, tradesmen, burghers, the daughter of the Burgermeister, priests, a girl who was described as the “prettiest girl in town”, old women, young men, it didn’t end. File after file after file. She held the notes of the torturers in her hands, the list of questions, the list of answers. The signatures. All routine. Neatly written. Stamped. Initialed. Countersigned. She couldn’t stop sobbing as she read.

  Many records had disappeared when Swedish troops took the city, stolen away by the retreating Catholic troops and clergy. But some were left, hidden or forgotten. And it was Mary’s job to find and sort through them. Figure out who was going to have to pay the taxes. Because that’s what a government did. Figure out the taxes. And until they figured out who owned what, they couldn’t figure out who should pay the taxes. And they needed the taxes. She thought she joined the military, like nearly her entire graduating class, and was going to fight for freedom. Justice. The American Way. Instead she was in a dark and cold basement, reading accounts that broke her heart, to see who owned property. For taxation.

  It would have been far easier to shoot someone.

  Albrecht was waiting patiently for her in the door. “Did you find some good information in here? They took a lot when they left, burned files too.”

  Mary pointed at the files stacked around her, and the empty wooden crate on the floor. “I think they left this crate, or forgot to burn it. It’s marked with an ‘M’, for mull I think. Trash. So crap got stacked on it, and it got buried down here. Maybe that’s why people ignored it.”

  “What are the files?” He picked up one of them and started to leaf through it. They were remarkably thin.

  “Witch trials.” She was managing to hold it together pretty well, she thought, after what she had been reading all morning. “Copies, anyway.” She sniffed again and rubbed her eyes. There was little light in the room other than the candle. Illumination managed to leak in through a small, grubby window that was high on the wall. Since she was in the basement, she could see the feet of people walking by the window during the day.

  Albrecht nodded enthusiastically. “That’s great! Almost all of these were missing. Captain will be happy you found them. We have been shorthanded here, and it’s nice to have someone to dig through some of the areas we just haven’t had time to do.”

  “Glad I can help. So, what did you come down here for?”

  He laughed, holding the file. “Almost forgot. Captain wants to see you. He’s up at the castle in his office. I will box these up and take them upstairs.”

  She grabbed the file she had been reading. The name on it was ‘Hoenegg’. “I will take this one to show Mr. -- err, Captain Eckerlin.” She folded the rag paper bundle and stuffed it into her back pack, the same one she had been carrying since before the Ring of Fire, when all she was concerned about was what courses she was going to take in High School, and how soon it would be until she got her driver’s license. It seemed like an et
ernity ago.

  Before she went across the bridge and up the hill to the castle, or more accurately Festung Marienberg, she took a moment to walk over to the town square, where the Marienkapelle was located. In front of that church was the place where they burned the witches. It was only a dark spot on the dirty ground now. Today was not a market day, but Mary knew that even on a market day, nobody would set up their stalls in that spot. The first thing the up-timers did when they came in, after the Swedish Army occupied the town, was to tear down the pyre. It was a semi-permanent installation, like a fire pit and gallows combined. She looked at the dirty spot in front of the large Catholic church and said a quiet prayer for the Hoenegg family.

  She turned away and made her way across the old stone bridge over the Main River, and up the hill to the administrative offices located in the Marienberg Fortress. It was a brisk ten-minute walk. The cold air helped to clear her head, and her tear-clogged sinuses. The fortress was taken by Gustav Adolphus’ troops when they swept through Franconia in 1631, shortly after the Ring of Fire brought Mary and the town of Grantville back to this time. Gustav’s troops were not kind to the fortress, and it still showed in the area around the building, and in the condition of the interior. It had been thoroughly plundered, which was about standard for armies in the here and now. Some rooms were burned, scorch marks showing on the outside where the smoke had poured out. There were a couple of wings of the buildings that were still gutted and open to the weather. The SoTF military liaison offices occupied only a small area of the building, and she headed for the second-floor offices where Captain Eckerlin lived.

  She trotted up and went into the front room of the offices. There were a half dozen people in the outer office, and it was at least somewhat warmer with the heat generated from the fireplace and the bodies. She took off her up-time winter ski jacket and stocking cap and hung them up on a coat tree. She checked her “uniform,” which in her case was a up-time army shirt from her dad, with “Russo” on it, jeans over long underwear, and her own up-time boots. She checked in with the down-time receptionist, and she was ushered in to see Captain Eckerlin.