by Eric Flint
Stone walls wouldn’t burn, true. But any Schloss was full of incendiary materials. By the time the raging fires died out, hours from now, the castle would be a gutted ruin. Parts of it were already starting to collapse, where the stone work had depended on wooden supports.
There was no opposition, any longer, except from a knot of soldiers at the front gate. The only reason they hadn’t surrendered, Johnnie F was quite sure, was simply because they couldn’t. The farmers were taking no prisoners.
For a moment, Johnnie F.’s gaze drifted to the left, before he forcibly took his eyes away. He had a bad feeling he’d remember that pile of butchered corpses for the rest of his life. After killing every soldier they’d dragged out of the castle, the ram’s people had stacked their bodies in one place. More or less. He didn’t think a single one of those bodies was still intact. The farmers had used their tools-turned-into-weapons with a vengeance.
There was a sudden flurry of motion at the front gate. A body of horsemen was emerging, with four mercenaries in the lead.
Horse-people, rather. There was a woman in the center of the group, riding alongside a well-dressed man.
“That’ll be the Freiherr and his family, trying to escape,” Blackwell said, calmly. “He’s got one kid, if I remember right. A boy, somewhere around eight years old.”
The soldiers in the lead were trying to cut their way through the mob at the gate. One of them fired a wheel-lock pistol. A farmer stumbled to the ground, spilling a weapon that looked like a scythe blade attached to a long pole.
A big man stepped out from behind a tree, to their right. A Jaeger, from his clothing. He was perhaps sixty yards from the battle raging at the front gate. His rifle came up—
Johnnie F. hissed. That was no—
Crack!
The soldier who’d fired the wheel-lock was swept from his saddle. “That’s an up-time gun,” Johnnie F. muttered.
“Sure is,” agreed Scott. He leaned over his saddle and spit on the ground. “Don’t think we’ll ask where he got it, neither.”
Easily, fluidly, the big Jaeger worked the bolt on the rifle and brought it back up to his shoulder.
The Freiherr had now broken away from the soldiers and was driving his horse toward the road.
Crack! Down he went. Within seconds, half a dozen farmers had surrounded his body and were hacking him into pieces with axes and those ungainly-looking scythe-weapons.
Johnnie F. heard a woman scream. Several of the ram’s people had seized the reins of the Freiherr’s wife’s horse and were dragging the mount to a halt. He saw another farmer stab her in the side with a long spear. The woman screamed again and slid off the saddle.
Johnnie F. saw that she’d had her son perched on the saddle in front of her. The boy landed on the ground along with her. But, scampering like mad, he evaded the axes and scythes that were already butchering his mother and made his escape under the horse’s belly. Once clear of the knot of farmers around his mother, he raced for the nearby woods.
Eight or nine years old, sure enough. His face was pale, his eyes wide, his mouth open in a soundless scream.
Johnnie F. saw the big Jaeger tracking the boy with the rifle.
“Oh, Jesus.”
Crack! Then, after jacking another round into the chamber, he fired again. His first shot had probably killed the boy already. The second one, striking the prone little body, was just to make sure.
“Ever read much about peasant rebellions?” asked Scott, almost idly.
Unable to speak, Johnnie just shook his head.
“Well, I did.” Blackwell pulled out a small notepad and gestured with it to the burning castle. “This is pretty much SOP. Burn down the nobleman’s castle—making damn sure to eliminate all the tax and other records—and kill him and his entire family. Women, children, babies and all. Don’t leave a single one of them alive, who can inherit. If somebody does, it’ll have to be a cousin. Somebody who doesn’t really know much about the area or the people in it.”
Johnnie F.’s stomach heaved, but he managed to fight it down.
Scott started writing in the notepad. “Okay, scratch Mitwitz,” he said. “I have a feeling this is going to make my job a lot easier. You watch, Johnnie. Once the word spreads, you’ll see most of the other Freiherren pulling in their horns. Right quick.”
He chuckled harshly. “Some of them’ll probably come racing into Wuerzburg and Bamberg, to put themselves and their families under our protection. Which we’ll be glad to give them, of course. But we won’t lift a finger to stop the farmers from torching their abandoned castles. As far as I’m concerned—speaking as a military man—the only good Schloss is a dead Schloss.”
Then, glancing over at Johnnie F., he shook his head. “Yeah, it’s ugly as all hell. On the other hand, when it’s over and done, I don’t expect the casualties to come to more than a few hundred people. You know how many people these stinking worthless knights and nobles massacred a century ago, when they put down the last big farmers’ rebellion?”
“Somewhere around a hundred thousand, people say.”
“Yeah. The number might be exaggerated, of course. But even it is, so what? Call it fifty thousand. That’s still a slaughter about two orders of magnitude greater than anything the ram will do.”
Blackwell’s tone of voice was cold. He pointed with the notepad to the small corpse in the distance. “Do you think the knights gave any more mercy to farmers’ kids? Dream on.”
Johnnie F. didn’t argue the matter. He agreed with Scott, in the abstract. He just didn’t, personally, have the stomach for it.
Looking away from the corpse, his eyes came to the boy’s killer. The big Jaeger had his up-time rifle slung back over his shoulder, and was returning Johnnie’s gaze with a level stare of his own.
It was not a threatening stare. But there was no give in it, at all. Not a trace of an apology in those eyes.
“Maybe this will end it, once and for all,” Johnnie F. said. Hoping.
“That’s what I figure. Let’s go. One Schloss down, and good riddance.”
Franconia, July, 1634
Freiherr Fuchs von Bimbach looked at his chancellor. Dr. Lenz hoped that he wasn’t about to kill the messenger.
“Intolerable,” Bimbach said. “The idea that this upstart ‘State of Thuringia-Franconia’ as it calls itself made no attempt whatsoever to protect the castle at Mitwitz is an outrage.”
Lenz cleared his throat. “The Freiherr there,” he felt obliged to say, “is allied with you. Is actively in arms against their administration.”
He was fudging the tenses, here. But given Bimbach’s furious mood, Dr. Lenz thought it would be unwise to dwell on the fact that the Freiherr at Mitwitz was no longer an ally and was certainly no longer actively in arms. The Freiherr was, in fact, a corpse. More precisely, several pieces of a corpse.
“Nonetheless,” Fuchs von Bimbach orated, “the castle itself is a symbol of duly constituted legal authority. Which, basically, they simply gave over to these peasant hordes. Made no effort at all to turn them away from it. It appears from this report that their so-called ‘military administrator’ actually observed the destruction. Took notes on it, even.”
He got up from his chair and paced around the table. “This is simply more than we can tolerate. There has to be a way to bring these up-timers to their heels. And the ram along with them, since they are tolerating its depredations. Openly tolerating them. Some way to bring down both at once, Lenz! Both at once!”
Chapter 14:
“Call Off The Ram, Or They Die”
Bamberg, late July, 1634
“Herr Meyfarth.” He looked up from the pedestal desk at which he was preparing the Sunday sermon.
“Herr Meyfarth.” The knock at his door was repeated; from the voice, it was his landlady.
“Yes, yes. I’m coming.” He tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. It was one of the worst things about him, he knew. When he was working, he hated to be in
terrupted. Yet the nature of the work of a parish pastor was that it was full of interruptions.
“Someone is here to speak with you.”
“Thank you,” he said absentmindedly. “I’m coming now.” He wiped his pen, but left the book open.
He did not recognize the men, but they appeared to know him. Scarcely surprising in itself; a pastor was naturally noticed when he went through the streets. “Good afternoon, gentlemen. What is it?”
“If you could come? A difficult birth.”
He did not recall that any of those women who had been attending his sermons was expecting a child right now. Possibly, always possibly, someone from one of the families who had fallen away under persecution and were ashamed to come back. In any case, an innocent child in need of baptism.
“Just let me get my case.” He hurried back up the stairs for the small case in which he kept his manual and small bible, the host and wine for the mother, just in case; a little vial of water.
* * *
“Frau Thornton.”
Emma looked up. The woman standing at the other side of the booth counter looked very upset.
“Please, excuse me many times. I am the landlady for Herr Pastor Meyfarth. I know that your husband is his friend. This is true, isn’t it?”
“Why, yes. Willard is out of town this week, though. Can I help you?”
“Men came for the Herr Pastor, yesterday. To bring comfort to a difficult birth, they said. They did not give their names. He went with them, naturally. But he has not returned.”
“Couldn’t members of his church help you more than I can?”
The woman looked even more distressed. “I have already been to them. They know of no one who would have had need of him, no one expecting a child. We have checked with the two families they know of who expect God to bless them soon with the gift of a child. Both mothers are well; neither sent for the pastor. No one knows.”
“Why come to me?”
“It is said that you know the ram.”
Emma smiled. So much for discretion. Gathering up the literature she had on display, she packed it into the tightly woven basket at the rear of the booth; then picked up the basket and put it on top of the three-legged stool on which she sat when no inquirer was there. Just in case of rain; it should stay dry until she got back.
Drat, she had missed a couple. Rather than open the balky catch on the basket again, she dropped them into the big pocket on her work apron. It was a Grantville Home Center special; the pockets were big, and the motto was an attention-getter when she worked the booth.
“Come with me, please.”
* * *
Constantin Ableidinger sighed. He had had men from the ram watching them for so long. There had been, as far as they could tell, no attempts against them. With everything else that was going on, he needed every reliable, trained man he had at his side. He called the Jaeger back, to be in other places, to do other things.
Now, both Herr Meyfarth and Frau Thornton, gone. And a note on his desk.
Call off the ram, or they die.
As if he could call off the ram, now! What kind of fools could these men be, to think that anyone, even the ram himself, with a word or gesture, could call back a flood? Find the men who were in Bamberg last spring. Where would they be, now? Thousands in the field. Start asking. Where were they, the Jaeger who had guarded them?
Herr Thornton. He was out of the city. Where was he? Did Ottheinrich leave a list, of the villages they were to visit? Was he safe? The itinerary was here; quickly, he sent out a runner to follow the route.
What tie could there be between Meyfarth and the Thorntons, other than the ram?
* * *
“You are sure that you saw this?” Martha Kronacher asked anxiously. “Sure?”
The ewe’s little flock of apprentices, Martha’s younger brothers and their friends, had been talking to people all over Bamberg for two days.
Her brother Melchior had been pushing them hard. He did not like the look that had come over Martha’s face when she heard that Pastor Meyfarth was gone. She was sincerely concerned about Frau Thornton, to be sure, but with Pastor Meyfarth, she appeared to take it personally, so to speak.
“Yes, I am sure,” the fishmonger said, in response to a question asked by Stew Hawker. “In the market, speaking to Frau Thornton. At the booth where she has the books and pamphlets. It was Herr Pastor Meyfarth’s landlady. I am sure that I recognized her. I don’t know her name, but she’s a widow who keeps a small boarding house, for working men. Has for several years. Respectable, very respectable. The rooms are cheap.”
“Has anyone checked there?” Ableidinger asked.
“The other boarders are coming and going,” the Jaeger in the room answered. He was the biggest of the ones whom Ableidinger had brought with him into Bamberg. The scariest one, too, Martha thought. “Complaining that this morning there was no breakfast. The woman is gone.”
“Is she a Lutheran that he was boarding with her?” Wade Jackson took up where Stew had left off.
Martha frowned suddenly. She did not recall having seen die alte Neideckerin at any of the pastor’s sermons.
Her mother came into the room.
“Neighbors say that the family was Protestant, Constantin,” the Jaeger continued. “Before, you know. Before 1628. She welcomed the Herr Pastor when he let people know that he was coming.”
“Family?”
“None,” the fishmonger answered. “None that anyone knows of. Not any more. There was a husband, but he died. A daughter. I don’t know what became of her.”
Else Kronacher spoke up. “I do.” She turned to Ableidinger. “Constantin, I recommended the boarding house because Rudolph Vulpius and old Kaethe thought that Pastor Meyfarth would be safe there. As safe as anywhere. Die alte Neideckerin is a relative of Frau Anna Hansen, who was burned as a witch in 1629. Or, possibly, her husband was the relative. In any case, they came under suspicion. They sent Judith, the daughter, away, to safety.”
“Where?”
“She was not a native of Bamberg, you know. The old woman. She married into the city. Vulpius took Judith to the lands of the Freiherr Fuchs von Bimbach, over by Bayreuth.”
“Hell and damnation!” Wade Jackson exploded out of his chair. “We’ve got to call Vince. Notify Steve and Scott. Right away.”
He looked for the big Jaeger. The man had already left the room.
* * *
“You’re certain?” Noelle asked.
The cook nodded. “Yes. I recognized die alte Neideckerin and Pastor Meyfarth. The other woman with them, I don’t know. But the blacksmith’s son says she’s one of the up-timer heretics. The wife of the one who was flogged in Bamberg, before the ram put a stop to it.”
Her hands folded on her lap, Noelle stared at the wall in her tiny living quarters. As if, somehow, the blankness of the wall could dispel the blankness in her mind.
“What in the name of... What is von Bimbach doing? That’s insane!”
“He’s a madman,” the cook said, shrugging. “He always has been, even when he was a boy. When he loses his temper, he’s capable of anything. Even at the age of six, he was that way. I remember him.”
She might, at that, Noelle thought. The cook had to be close to sixty years old, and she’d worked in the von Bimbach Schloss most of her adult life.
“Still...”
She shook off the disbelief. Lunatic act or not, Fuchs von Bimbach’s kidnapping of the three people from Bamberg might finally provide the handle to topple him. The fulcrum, rather, for the lever she already had more or less in her hands. By now, well over half of the castle’s staff was either working for the ram or sympathetic.
Even the soldiers didn’t seem attached to their lord. And they were obviously very nervous about the situation. Everyone, by now, knew what had happened at Mitwitz. The only ones of that Freiherr’s mercenaries who had survived has been the ones who ran away, and did it quickly.
She rose to he
r feet, abruptly, filled with determination.
“Right. Three things. First, find out exactly where they’re being kept. Second, send word for Eddie Junker. Tell him to come to the Schloss immediately. And tell him to bring my Browning with him.”
That required a moment to clarify the term. Brow-ning. Never mind what it is. Eddie knows.
Third—”
She eyed the cook, wondering if there’d be an argument. “I want you to pretend that he’s a new servant in the kitchens. He needs to be here all the time, from now on.”
There was no argument. The cook simply nodded. “No one will ask.”
She left. After a minute or so, Noelle followed her into the corridor. Then, headed for Judith Neideckerin’s chambers.
When she arrived, she found von Bimbach’s mistress staring bleakly out of the window.
“He has had my mother imprisoned also,” she said, after glancing over her shoulder to see who had entered. Still staring out the window, she added: “Tell the ram to send me an icepick. I’ll drive it into the bastard’s ear tonight.”
Noelle shook her head. “No. We have to let this unfold for a bit.”
Angrily, Neideckerin spun around. “What if he hurts my mother?”
Noelle took a deep breath. “He won’t do that right away. We have time to organize. And your plan with an icepick won’t work, anyhow. He probably won’t come to see you—he’s not that stupid—and if he does, he’ll search you for weapons first.”
Still angry, Neideckerin’s eyes swept her chambers. “There’s somewhere I could hide it. Must be.”
“He’ll have soldiers search your quarters. If he comes at all. Which he most likely won’t.”
After a few seconds, Judith’s shoulders slumped. “Please, Noelle. She’s my mother.”
Wishing she felt as much confidence as she was projecting in her tone of voice, Noelle said: “I’ll take care of it.”
Wuerzburg, August 1634
“So most of it is under control,” said Scott Blackwell. “Since Mitwitz burned, more than half of the imperial knights and petty lords have caved in and formally withdrawn their support for the petition. A number of them have come into Bamberg or Wuerzburg for the sake of the military protection we give them, even though that sort of amounts to house arrest. Well, call it ‘city arrest.’ Most of the rest are sulking on their own lands. Under siege by the ram’s men. Usually by far more of the ram’s men than their own lands could possibly account for, but I’ve avoided examining that too closely. Only six more burn-outs, and those of lords who promised something and then reneged.”