by Eric Flint
Then, in May, Duke Maximilian of Bavaria had sent the colonel and the troops he commanded to reinforce the garrison. To “help” the bishop; Duke Maximilian had said frankly that Forchheim was too valuable to let the bishop manage its defense. Just barely in time, considering that the Swedes and the Nürnbergs had attacked again not two weeks later. And again in July. Beaten back both times, of course, for which the city fathers were duly grateful.
After the Alte Veste, Wallenstein’s retreating army had come through, taking more food and leaving more disease.
Then, when the bishop fled again in the fall of 1632 after Wallenstein’s defeat at the Alte Veste, he had left the treasure behind. That meant that the town—which meant the colonel—was now responsible for its safety. But rations were running out. Fast. While the mayor understood, of course, that the soldiers of the garrison naturally had first claim on what food remained, nonetheless . . .
The mayor’s voice trailed off.
Colonel von Schletz grunted. It wasn’t as if he had not heard the whole lament before.
But what he was seeing now was something new. Not a siege. Most of what was happening outside Forchheim was in sight, but out of cannon shot. At least, out of shot of any artillery he had available in the city, which weren’t bad. He could shoot as far as the Regnitz bridge or the Keller Forest. Forchheim had the only powder mill in the prince-bishopric of Bamberg. He could keep the cannon supplied with powder until they ran out of supplies to manufacture it. Which they would, soon. But, at present, he did not have anything to shoot at.
The up-timers ought to be sending a challenge. Something dramatic on the order of: “We will burn Forchheim to ashes!” That would allow him to reply something on the order of: “The city still has enough beer and wine to put out the fire without resorting to water.”
It was a ritual. It wasn’t for nothing that the Forchheimer had picked up the nickname of Mauerscheisser because of their mode of demonstrating that that there was still food inside the walls, too. After all, that which went in must come out. They figured that it might as well come out in a location that made a point.
At that stage, the besiegers should start to burn down the surrounding villages, forcing the farmers to take refuge in the woods, hunting them down like animals. But he had a feeling that it was not likely. Instead, the farmers who were still around were planting undisturbed. The up-timers were, apparently, even attempting to provide them with draft animals.
And they were undertaking some kind of construction.
If it were an effort to divert the stream of the Wiesent, depriving Forchheim of its water supply, he could understand it. It could be done, he thought, if they started up around Gosberg. But there was no sign of that.
The motto of von Schletz was: “I will hold this place.” Which he intended to do, no matter how hardly he had to treat the townspeople.
For that matter, no matter how hardly he had to treat the gentleman canons of the Bamberg cathedral chapter. They had also fled to Forchheim and had not, most of them, managed to get out of town when the bishop did.
For most of the past year, Colonel von Schletz had managed to do more than hold Forchheim. He had responded to every attack with night-and-day cannon shots, no matter what the weather, so they got no rest. They had taken away more losses than his own men. Then, when Tilly fell, he had become de facto the imperial commander for the entire region. Well, episcopal commander, of course, if one wanted to be technical about it. Through the summer of 1632, when he wasn’t dealing with the occasional besiegers, he had sent out dragoons and foraging parties, near and far, raiding through the area to deny its resources to the enemy. And, of course, bring in as much as possible, so it would be there when the next siege party came along.
The farmers complained, of course, just like the townspeople. It couldn’t be helped. That was the nature of war. This summer, though, he couldn’t get out to raid because of the way these allies of the Swedes had burned clear every inch of land between Forchheim’s walls and their own perimeter. Every time he tried a sally, he was turned back. No matter which gate he came out of. He had no idea how the up-timers did it.
But what in hell were the Swedes doing now? Or, more precisely, the up-timer? He knew that the forces outside Forchheim were no longer really Swedes, but he continued to think of them that way.
One up-timer. Walter Miller, the visitors said his name was. He was living in Eggolsheim-Neuses and setting up the outlines of the local administration. Plus, there were five hundred or so soldiers. Not more, von Schletz thought. And a lot of laborers. Really a lot of laborers. But they were not building siege works.
Forchheim, July 1633
The mayor pointed out in detail that Forchheim’s economy was in ruins. The owners of the inns, the Ox, Moonlight, Lion, Crown, Apple, Seven Towers, Old Post, many others, had no commercial customers. The up-timers allowed people to come into the city. But only people. No goods. No money. They stopped all wagons and pack animals at the distant perimeter and diverted them away from Forchheim. Its citizens could stand on the parapets and see them go. Somewhere. Elsewhere. The people who had come and gone more than once reported that their purses were held by the soldiers watching the perimeter, but actually returned to them again when they left. No outsider was to purchase goods or services in Forchheim.
The mill owners, too. They still had water power, but they had no supplies. Not just the flour mills, but the hammermills, the wire mills, the sawmills. They were all standing idle. There was no one around to buy their products, even if they had raw material.
Many of the citizens wanted to leave. Not, however, at the price of having all their property confiscated. Von Schletz had told them that if they walked out, it would be barefoot in their shirts and shifts.
Outside the perimeter, now, no road led to Forchheim. According to the visitors, the “heavy equipment” brought upon the order of the up-timer, plus just ordinary men and women with wagons and shovels, had dug up the trade route that had led through Forchheim for as long as documents existed. Dug it up. Covered it with topsoil. Plowed the soil and sowed it.
There was a new road, the visitors all said. From Baiersdorf to Poxdorf to Pinzberg. From there to Wiesenthau and Kirchehrenbach. Then across the Wiesent to Mittlerweilersbach and then to the new town of Eggolsheim-Neuses. Another bridge, a beautiful, permanent, bridge, at Neuses.
A beautiful road. Graded, ditched, and graveled. Smoothed and rolled, with ditches and culverts, bridges and security guards. A road that no rational traveler would abandon, even if the political scene should change again. Just far enough away from Forchheim that few travelers would bother to detour to the town. Especially not given the new inns that were being built near the new bridges.
The permanent residents of Forchheim prayed very hard to their favorite saints. The three holy virgins:
“Barbara mit dem Turm
Margaretha mit dem Wurm
Katharina mit dem Rädlein
das sind die drei Mägdlein.”
At present, it did not seem probable that even Barbara with her tower, Margaret with her dragon, and Catherine with her wheel, all combined, could save the town. They promised a pilgrimage. If and when they were allowed to make one.
Colonel von Schletz approved. Prayer was a good thing for civilians.
The people of Forchheim appeared to be praying a great deal these days. There were regular processions through the streets, to St. Martin’s church, to the chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The number of deaths, the priest told him, was almost twice as high as usual.
Of course, his men were bored from such a long spell of forced inaction. They tended to take it out upon the members of the households where they were quartered. Sieges were difficult for soldiers.
Bamberg, July 1633
“I hope that you realize,” Vince Marcantonio said to John Kacere, “that the money that Walt Miller is spending on your brain child, on this wonderful new road around Forchheim, has eaten up th
e entire budget for road improvements in the prince-bishopric of Bamberg. We’re getting one luxury road for about fifteen miles. Nobody else is getting so much as a street sign this year.”
“Don’t think of it as a road,” John said.
“What should we think of it as, in your opinion?” Wade Jackson asked.
“Alternative medicine,” John answered. “Believe me, a full-scale siege would cost a lot more.”
Vince sighed. “True. But a regular siege would come out of the military budget. Not out of the road budget.”
Forchheim, August, 1633
Colonel von Schletz decided to try one more sally. The largest of the summer. He gathered his men and led them out in an effort to break through the perimeter that the Swedes had set. Idly, he noted that every woman in Forchheim had apparently decided to do her laundry this morning.
With a final prayer for protection to Saints Barbara, Margaret, and Catherine, the mayor of Forchheim gave his orders. The gates closed behind the majority of the imperial garrison. And stayed closed, when the Swede’s soldiers drove them back toward the city’s walls. Held by men who had nothing left to lose. Men whose wives and daughters were on the parapets, pouring buckets of boiling water down on von Schletz’s dragoons.
* * *
“I don’t know,” Walt Miller said to the mayor of Forchheim. “You’ve still got the river. And a fair bit of infrastructure. But what’s done is done. The road is there and it’s going to stay. The administration is going to stay put, too. I expect that a fair number of your people can find work in Eggolsheim-Neuses. The laws we’ve put into effect there establish open citizenship. All they have to do is register to vote.”
Walt was feeling a little apologetic, to tell the truth.
“I’m afraid that your town has turned into a historical monument. On the bright side, though, in a couple of hundred years you’ll probably start picking up some tourist trade. Tom O’Brien’s on his way down to make sure that no imperial or Bavarian troops can ever fort up in the place again, but I’ll ask him to leave you enough of the walls to look scenic here and there. That’s about the best I can do.”
Eggolsheim-Neuses, September 1633
The company of riders who delivered the month’s payroll also brought the news about what had happened to Willard Thornton and Johnnie F. in Bamberg.
Walt Miller barely knew Willard, but he liked Johnnie F. He didn’t have anything against Willard, either—a nice enough guy, the few times he had ever talked to him at the Home Center, back in Grantville.
The riders also provided a synopsis of the generally prevailing opinion that the Bamberg officials had dared to try it, the fixed court and the flogging, because the Bamberg staff assigned to the Special Commission on the Establishment of Religious Freedom hadn’t been spending much time on the project, so they thought they could get away with it.
“Damn,” Walt said to himself. “Talk about blowing it.”
Then he went out for the day’s work. The formal ribbon-cutting for the opening of the Forchheim Bypass.
In The Night, All Hats Are Gray
Virginia DeMarce
Bamberg, January 1633
“Hi, Janie, what’s up?”
Stewart Hawker wandered into the back room of the land tenures office in what had once been the official residence of the prince-bishop of Bamberg. He would have thrown himself into a chair, except that there weren’t any extras.
Janie Kacere smiled. “Repenting my sins. Not any recent ones. The ones I committed when I was twelve and thirteen that inspired my parents, even though they were far, far, from prosperous, to decide that I belonged in a girls’ boarding school run by nuns until I graduated from high school. Nuns who thought everyone should take Latin.”
She hopped off her stool, wondering where the down-timers had gotten the idea that a desk was a slanted board set on a pedestal. Up-time, they only showed up as dictionary stands in libraries and in the annual TV show about Scrooge and Tiny Tim.
“I don’t really think that the School Sisters of Notre Dame were the model for the famous PNDR who haunt so many ‘back when I went to parochial school stories’ for my generation, but they came close. Which means that I’m sitting here, freezing my feet and trying to figure out German land tenures instead of being back home in Grantville with central heating.” She picked up the brick that had been under her feet, carried it over to the fireplace, grabbed a pair of tongs, and substituted a hot brick at the base of her stool.
Stew raised his eyebrows. “What’s a PNDR? Plain old Presbyterian, here, Janie. Not one of the initiated.”
She laughed. “Purple Nuns of Divine Retribution. An imaginary teaching order. Heroines of many a legendary saga of chalk and rulers. We firmly believed that having eyes installed in the backs of their heads was part of the ceremony in which they took final vows.”
“Gotcha. Why are you repenting your sins?”
“Kleuckheim. Seventy-nine pieces of property divided among nine different owners. The law court belongs to Hochstift Bamberg, which means that we, now, have to adjudicate all the local squabbles or find some lawyer who will do it as one of our employees. But they pay taxes split between the collection office in Lichtenfels and a ‘canton’ of imperial knights. At least, I think that’s what the word means, but I thought that there were only cantons in Switzerland.”
“Welcome to Franconia. May I borrow one of your hot bricks? I’ve brought you a list.”
“What now?”
“Independent lordships and imperial knights to be found in a triangle between here, Bayreuth, and Kronach, more or less. Mostly Protestant. Lots of people I sure would have never met if the Ring of Fire hadn’t happened. There’s a feud between families named von Künßberg und von Giech. They both want to tell us their troubles. Regular Hatfield and McCoy stuff.”
He moved over closer to the fireplace. “Fascinating places I would never have visited if I had stayed up-time: Schney. Plankenfels. Thurnau. Schmeilsdorf. Burglesau. Mitwitz. Nagel. Tüschnitz. Schmölz. Veitlahm. Wildenberg.
“With castles. I never dreamed there were so many castles in the world. I read a National Geographic article about castles on the Rhine, once upon a time, for a school report. Those weren’t a patch on the ones around here. Big things, some of them, but more of them are about the size of that absentee owner’s house back home in Grantville—the one where they found the elephant gun. Or the one that the Clarks from New York built. Even the High Street mansion where we have the government offices now.”
He tossed an envelope on Janie’s pedestal. “That’s the list. Right in the middle of the other guys, there’s a little place called Marktgraitz that belongs to Bamberg, so we’re going to have to think about getting the rights of way renewed. Plus, from the other direction, there’s a report on the legal status of the Benedictine Abbey of Banz. Würzburg says it’s subject to their bishop, the guys here say it’s subject to the bishop of Bamberg, Fulda asserts some kind of a claim going back to the early middle ages, and the monks say that they don’t owe nobody nothin’.”
He paused. “Um. By the way. The couple of monks I found there, rattling around in the buildings, said that Gustavus Adolphus, or some division of the Swedish army, at least, took the abbot prisoner last summer. They’d appreciate it if we would try to locate him and send him back home. There’s a note about that on the back of the report, if you would pass it on to Vince Marcantonio. Or to whomever is in charge of locating misplaced abbots.”
“Thank you Stew. I think. What next?”
“Next trip will be Kronach and up beyond it, if I have my itinerary straight. Further north. From what I’ve heard about Kronach so far, I’m not expecting a red carpet. It’s a big fortress. On the main trade route from Nürnberg to Leipzig. In a pinch, I’ll do what the Swedes did.”
“What was that?”
“Go around it. At least, for this time.”
“Good luck.”
“I’ll probably need it.”
/> * * *
After Stewart Hawker sat through the next day’s staff meeting, he was even more convinced that he would need luck. After he had listened to Matt Trelli’s report on Kronach. On what, as Matt said, Gustavus Adolphus “apparently sort of forgot to mention to Mike Stearns” before Grantville sent its administrative team down to Franconia. That the Swedes hadn’t actually taken Kronach. That it was still sitting, there, unconquered and closed up, a fortress defended mainly by its own residents. The city militia.
When Matt got to the part about, “they have a history of making war, sort of independently, on the independent Protestant noblemen in the region,” Stew waved for attention. As soon as Matt finished, Vince Marcantonio recognized him.
“I was working out of Lichtenfels, the last survey trip I made. It’s not really ‘sort of independently’ I think, from what I learned when I was going through the independent lordships up that way last week. There’s a little town called Burgkunstadt this side of Wildenburg. It belongs to us—it’s part of Bamberg, I mean. The Freiherren and the imperial knights that I talked to say that the people there and the people from Kronach actually do organized, cooperative raiding on the lands of the Protestant nobles in between them. And on their subjects, of course.”
“It would be a good idea,” Vince said, “if we got the other side of the picture.”
“It would be a great idea,” Stew agreed. “If the Kronacher didn’t start shooting at anyone who approaches their city walls. Which includes us. They haven’t been conquered and they aren’t about to be.”
“Who is likely to know something about Kronach?” Wade Jackson, the UMWA man, asked.
After a while, a silent while, Stew realized that he was going to have to say something. “Ah, Meyfarth maybe. Steve Salatto’s adviser over in Würzburg. He worked for the Duke of Saxe-Coburg before he died. People say that it was probably Coburg troops, fighting for the Swedes, who skinned five Kronach guys alive last summer. Guys who sneaked out of the the city while the Coburgers were besieging it, to try to spike their cannon.”