1634: The Baltic War (assiti chards)

by Eric Flint

  Leebrick already had part of the answer-the end goal. What he wasn't sure of, was how to get there.

  "I'm not that familiar with Westminster. Either of you?"

  Towson nodded. "I know it quite well. Spent years as a lad, helping my father make deliveries in the area."

  "You lead the way, then."

  "Lead the way, where?"

  "Southwark. Liz will hide us."

  Welch and Towson stared at him, their expressions both full of doubts.

  Different ones, as it turned out, as were their different temperaments. Richard inclined to the practical, being from Derbyshire; the Irishman, to the acerbic.

  Richard expressed his first, as he led them down an alley. "Only way across is either London Bridge or taking a boat at Westminster Stairs, which I don't advise. It's the first place they'll look, and boatmen talk."

  "It'll have to be the bridge," said Leebrick. He wasn't looking forward to a walk of two or three miles on streets in this bad a condition, but he saw no choice. Taking a boat would be madness, unless they could steal one-and finding an unguarded boat in midwinter was a dubious proposition. Any time of year, for that moment. Boats were expensive, too.

  "They might close off London Bridge before we can get there," pointed out Welch.

  "Not likely," said Leebrick. "This wasn't part of any well-planned conspiracy. Cork is just putting it together as he goes, taking advantage of happenstance. The ink was barely dry on that stinking document of Porter's. There's no way Cork has control of the military forces in London yet. Not all of them, for sure-which means not enough of them to seal off every exit."

  "True," mused Towson. "But London Bridge is a pretty obvious one, I'd think."

  Even while talking, though, he'd been leading them as quickly as the ground allowed in the direction of the Bridge. By now, they had to be far ahead of any pursuit coming from Cork's mansion.

  "No, actually, it isn't," said Anthony. "Aside from the two of you, no one knows of my liaison with Elizabeth Lytle. I've kept it-"

  Seeing the sour expression on Welch's face, he let that drop for the moment. "The point is, no one has any reason to think we have any connection with Southwark. So why would we try to hide there, instead of leaving the city entirely?"

  "Same reason any criminal does," snorted Welch, his tone sounding as sour as his face looked.

  "Not the same thing, Patrick. All a common criminal has to evade are the courts and constables. We'll be charged with treason-and Cork has enough money to offer a huge reward for us. Southwark's the worst place in England for someone to hide, if there's money being waved about to find their whereabouts, unless they can stay completely out of sight. Scratch any criminal and you'll find an informer."

  Patrick came to a sudden stop, planting his hands on his hips. "Right, so you will. And here's what else is true, Anthony Leebrick-and I'll say it straight out even if Richard won't. Scratch any whore and you'll find an informer, too."

  So, there it was. Towson drew in a breath, almost hissing.

  But Leebrick had seen it coming, and was ready for the matter. "She stopped whoring when she took up with me, Patrick, which not even you will deny."

  He paused, forcing Welch to answer.

  The Irishman drew in a sharp breath of his own. "Fine. No, I'll not deny it. I'll go further and say that I've no particular animus against whores to begin with. On average-and this is based on lots of experience-I've found them no more dishonest than most and considerably less than some."

  A quick smile came to his face; Patrick's saving grace was that he was acerbic about everything, himself not excepted. "Including just about every soldier I ever met, leaving aside thee and me and Richard here. But they're still no less the mercenaries, themselves, even if they use fleshy instead of iron tools in their trade. So, tell me, Captain Leebrick. Why wouldn't your precious Liz turn us in for the reward?"

  But by the time Patrick had finished-as Anthony had expected would happen-he'd already talked himself out of his position. Halfway, at least. It was obvious just from his expression. And he'd talked Richard completely around.

  "Oh, leave off, Patrick," said Towson, sounding quite acerbic himself. "The woman dotes on our dashing captain; you know it as well as I do. Even whores fall in love, you know."

  Patrick did his best to rally, essaying a sneer.

  "Oh, come on!" Towson jerked a thumb at Leebrick. "Why else do you think he keeps her a secret from everybody except us? Most officers brag about their kept women, especially ones as good-looking as Lytle. The reason he doesn't is because he knows he'd be the laughingstock of the companies if they found out he was keeping one he planned to marry."

  "Against my advice, I remind you," said Patrick. "I want that registered on the record. This current mad scheme even more than that idiot proposal of marriage."

  From Welch, that was complete capitulation. Towson set off again, leading the way to the bridge.

  They got across London Bridge with no problems at all. So far as Anthony could determine, whatever pursuit had been organized still hadn't gotten out of Westminster.

  "So, here we are in Southwark," said Patrick, a while later, "about to test a legend. Is there really such a thing as a whore with a heart of gold?"

  From anyone else, Anthony would have taken offense. But he and Patrick went back a long way together. So he just chuckled. "And after it's all over, you'll insist the test was false, anyway."

  Welch frowned. "Why would I do that?"

  "You idiot," said Towson, chuckling himself. He dug into his coat and pulled out Porter's bag. "I'll be glad to set this great heavy thing down finally, I can tell you that. Patrick, you benighted Irishman, there's enough silver in here to offset any reward of Cork's. Halfway, at least."

  Welch stopped again, planting hands on hips. "You miserable bastard, Leebrick. You're cheating!"

  "That's why he's the captain," said Towson, "and we but his lowly lieutenants."

  "Dear God," said Richard Boyle, his face pale. "Endymion? Murdered?"

  He looked away, his eyes ranging across the crowd that was now packed into the outer rooms of the palace. Mostly courtiers, standing about and gossiping pointlessly, with some harried officials here and there trying to make their way through the mob. The king had arrived, just minutes earlier, and Cork had had to threaten to have soldiers fire on the crowd to clear a path for the litter. Then, do the same shortly thereafter to clear a way for the royal heirs and the queen's corpse.

  "Dear God," he repeated. "I can't believe it. He was alive-right here!-just-just-"

  "Cork, pull yourself together," said Sir Paul Pindar sharply. "I'm as sorry as you are about poor Endymion, but Wentworth will be here any moment. Don't you understand? Porter's murder casts the final die-and it's perfect."

  The earl gaped at him. For all his ruthlessness, Cork was a man who'd made his way up using money, not steel. The same could be said of Pindar, of course, but the merchant's fortune had come from the often steely demands of the Levant trade, not peddling influence and making advantageous marriages.

  "He's right, Richard," said Sir Francis Windebank. "A signed testimony is one thing. Might be forged, who's to say? But now there are bodies to point to, corpses anyone can look at. Brutally slain, by men whom everyone can now see must have been skilled and deadly assassins. Appointed to their posts by Strafford himself. Probably working in collusion with a foreign power."

  That was sheer gibberish, from any logical viewpoint. But Boyle was starting to regain his wits. Gibberish, yes, if you pulled it all apart. But if you ran it all together quickly-past a dazed and grief-stricken monarch-and you controlled the ensuing investigation yourself… and had plenty of money to throw around…

  "Yes, you're right. Poor Endymion-but he'd be the first to tell us to seize the occasion."

  There was a stir at the outer entrance. A moment later, Thomas Wentworth was forcing his way through the crowd.

  "Clear a path, damn you!" he shouted angrily. "Ma
ke way! I'm the earl of Strafford!"

  He caught sight of Richard. "Cork!" he cried out. "Is there word of His Majesty? I could find no sign of him-"

  Before Wentworth got halfway through that last sentence, Boyle had already gauged the crowd in the vicinity. Courtiers, mostly, not actual ministers except the secretary of state standing right beside him. Best of all, the soldiers were the same ones he'd used to bring in the king. And given their captains the promise of a very hefty bonus.

  "Arrest that traitor!" he bellowed, pointing at Wentworth.

  Chapter 23

  Brussels, the Spanish Netherlands

  Don Fernando was, of course, only twenty-three years old. That accounted for many of the things that he had already achieved. He did not yet know that they were impossible. His aunt Isabella and her advisers, on the other hand, did-and she was still the ruler of the Spanish Netherlands.

  Isabella Clara Eugenia was certainly old enough to know better. According to the incredible encyclopedias to be found in Grantville, she should have been dead by now. More than three months ago, in fact, on the first day of December 1633.

  Given how she felt this morning, that did not surprise her in the least. However, instead, she was quite alive and sitting in a wheeled chair at the conference table in her palace in Brussels, in the presence of her very closest and most trusted advisers and confidants. Wearing, as she had since she'd joined the order in 1625 a few years after her husband's death, the vestments of a nun of the Sisters of Saint Clare rather than the flashy court apparel and regalia of her younger years.

  The decision that they had just placed on the table was not, perhaps, impossible. It was just… dangerous. Dreadfully dangerous.

  "It is my will," she said.

  Hers was an imperious voice, still, for all that it was beginning to quaver with age. Infanta of Spain by birth; daughter of Philip II, archduchess of Austria by marriage, joint sovereign of the Netherlands with her husband Archduke Albrecht VII of Austria, and sole sovereign since his death twelve years earlier.

  "It is signed. Witnessed. Sealed. From the first, it was my father's intent that the Netherlands should be an appanage for us, for Albrecht and me. The lawyers have revisited all the provisions of my marriage contract in detail. For us, and for our children, to revert to Spain only if we did not have children."

  A shadow of regret for three tiny, frail, babies, dead so long ago, flitted across her face. "Not that they should return to being directly ruled from Madrid after my death. I bore children, so the Netherlands became ours, no matter that they died soon after their birth. Mine, since my husband Albrecht's death. Not, of course, that it will prevent other lawyers, paid by other masters, from interpreting the clauses in other ways. So be it.

  "It is my will," she repeated. "My nephew Fernando has earned my trust. I have bequeathed my holdings to him. Let the king of Spain react after he finds that the deed has been done. It will not be long."

  Her confessor Bartolome de los Rios y Alarcon shook his head. "Please, Your Grace! You are not dead until you are dead-and you are only sixty-seven years old."

  The archduchess gave the Augustinian priest a rather cool look. Arch, it might be called.

  "Only?"

  De los Rios seemed discomfited, and looked away. Across from him at the table, Pieter Paul Rubens chuckled. "He's a priest, Your Grace-and Spanish, to boot. You can hardly expect him to say it out loud."

  He shifted his chair forward and planted his forearms on the table. "But since I am merely an artist-and Flemish, to make it worse-I will undertake the crude business. You thought you were on your deathbed last summer, remember? And yet here you are, quite definitely alive. The only reason you know you were 'supposed' to have died at the end of last year is because you read it in a copy of a Grantville book."

  She nodded. "And… so?"

  A bit sternly, he said, "So read some of the other books. In the world that book was written, the average age at death of an American woman was almost eighty. And most of them were active and alert-reasonably enough-until the end. So stop predicting your imminent demise. Who knows?"

  "I say it again-and so? In that same world, my three children would not have died in infancy. But they did, nonetheless."

  She leaned back in her wheeled chair, sighing. "Let us not quarrel. Especially since it hardly matters anyway. Whether I live or die"-she pointed to the papers on the table-"if this transpires, it will be my great-nephew and not I who will have to defend it in a test of arms. Not even when I was twenty could I have led an army into the field as its commander, after all."

  De los Rios winced, as did two of the other advisers at the table. Those were Henri de Vicq, who was Flemish, and the Walloon Gerard Courselle. Both of them were men well past middle-age. De Vicq was sixty years old and Courselle, sixty-five.

  "Perhaps it will not come to that," the priest said.

  "Perhaps not," said Isabella. "But who at this table can make such a promise-or claims to be able to foresee the future? Keep in mind that while King Philip IV may be reluctant to wage war against his younger brother, he has counselors also. The count-duke of Olivares is not likely to hesitate, and those around him, still less. Spain has dominated the field of battle for so long, I'm afraid, that a military solution comes immediately to mind, whenever it is challenged."

  Silence fell on the room, for a moment. Then Rubens shrugged and said: "It's still not so easy as all that, Isabella. Just to begin with, how would they send troops from Spain or the Italian possessions? The Spanish Road is no longer open-and won't be, so long as Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar squats atop part of it while the Swedes squat upon much of the rest. Each for their own reasons, neither is about to allow passage to Spanish troops-and both are strong enough that any Spanish army that fought its way through them would be too weak to do anything once they reached the Netherlands. If they could fight through at all, which they might against Bernhard but I doubt very much could do against the Swedes."

  He leaned forward still further, his expression intent. "That means transport by sea, and that requires a fleet-and it remains to be seen exactly where Admiral Oquendo will end up, when the time comes. He is deeply bitter over the way the Spanish navy provided Richelieu with his cannon fodder at the Battle of Dunkirk-with the consent of Philip IV and the count-duke of Olivares."

  "If the time comes," the archduchess said. She smiled a bit wanly. "Let us not overlook the minor detail that my great-nephew has not agreed to any of this. And without Don Fernando-leading, not simply acquiescing-it will all mean nothing."

  Rubens looked at her from lowered eyes. "He is much inclined that way, though. Of that, I am certain."

  The old woman shrugged. "Yes, so am I. And-again-so what? You know him, Pieter, by now probably better than anyone of us here at this table. He is a prince of Spain, for good or ill, not a Flemish burgomaster. And he's very young, too, which makes it all the harder."

  Rubens nodded. "Yes, I know. He will wait, until the test of arms in the spring. But I can tell you this, Isabella. He may be waiting like a very young fox, but fox he surely is. I know enough of military matters to know that his troop dispositions are not those of an impetuous commander eager to sally forth onto the field again, as soon as the season permits. There will be no repetition of Haarlem, come the spring. He will make Fabius Maximus look like a daredevil."

  That brought a little round of laughter. Rather relieved laughter.

  "You're sure, Pieter?" asked Alessandro Scaglia.

  Rubens swiveled his head and examined the man, for a moment. Privately, Pieter still had doubts about the former Savoyard diplomat. He thought Isabella had been incautious to draw him into her very closest circle. The problem wasn't that he disliked Scaglia-he'd quite enjoyed his company, actually, the few times he'd spent with the man-it was simply that the Savoyard's history was almost too cosmopolitan. Could a man who had served so many courts really be depended upon, in the end, to serve only one? Most of all, why had he left Savoy's servi
ce in the first place? Rubens had never gotten a very satisfactory explanation of that.

  But, mentally, he shrugged. It was done now, for better or worse. Scaglia already knew enough, if he changed his allegiance, to have all of them executed for treason except the archduchess herself. Because of her royal blood, she'd more likely be walled up in her beloved convent of the Discalced Carmelites attached to the palace-with Spanish guards at the door of her cell, instead of nuns.

  Besides, there was something downright preposterous about Pieter Paul Rubens faulting another man for an excess of cosmopolitanism. That stray thought almost made him laugh out loud.

  "Yes, I'm sure, Alessandro. Partly from my own observations-alas, I've become far better educated on military affairs than I really ever wanted to be-and partly from various remarks made to me by the cardinal-infante himself. Most important of all, however-my opinion, at least-is that I've watched carefully which officers Don Fernando has made his closest subordinates, as the siege went on."

  Scaglia lifted an eyebrow. "Ha. I wouldn't have thought to look there. But I don't really know any of them all that well to begin with."

  "I do, by now," said Rubens. "Here is where it stands."

  He lifted his forearms from the table and began counting on his fingers.

  "His closest military confidant-no question about this-is Miguel de Manrique."

  "Ah," said Scaglia. "That is… significant. I agree."

  Bartolome de los Rios y Alarcon looked from one to the other. "I'm a priest, not really a diplomat and certainly not a soldier of any kind. Please explain."

  "Manrique commanded the Spanish army that surrendered to the Americans at the Wartburg," said Scaglia. He held up his hand, with thumb and forefinger almost touching. "He came this close to being executed for it, after his return to Spain. It was the worst disaster for Spanish arms in a century, at least."

  "It was Don Fernando who got him out of the clutches of the Inquisition and brought him to the Low Countries," Rubens elaborated.

  "The point to all this," Scaglia continued, "being that if there is any captain of Spain least likely to underestimate the enemy, it is Manrique-and from what Pieter tells us, he is closer to the cardinal-infante's ear than any other of his officers."