1635-The Tangled Web

by Virginia DeMarce

When Joel got back to Fulda, he reported that just because the election went well, this whole thing was not yet a done deal, by any means.

  Andrea's lawyer pointed out that all those appeals would be very expensive, so that unless von Hutten had more money than he appeared to, or was calling on outside resources, his complaints would make haste very slowly.

  The rest of the meeting was devoted to speculation on possible sources of outside funding.

  Wes told Joel to write up a report. They would send it down to Steve Salatto. First to let Steve know that von Hutten was making a nuisance of himself, since he properly belonged to Würzburg. Second to ask for money to buy the pawned districts back from von Hutten, so they could go ahead and incorporate them into the administrative system they were setting up for Buchenland.

  Not that Steve would be able to come up with that much money before the next fiscal year, at the earliest.

  Who Will Rid Me?

  Bonn, Archdiocese of Cologne, March 1634

  Walter Butler was leaving it to his associates to work out the details. Overall, he thought, he was in a pretty good position for a Catholic Irishman and professional military enterpriser. Or, if one wished to be crude, a colonel of a mercenary regiment. At least, compared to the position he would have been in if Wallenstein had caught him, once the bastard found out that Butler had been one of the point men for Ferdinand II's generals in organizing his assassination in that other world.

  Butler had left Bohemia a year before, hightailing it through Tyrol and the Habsburg lands in Swabia, bringing Dennis MacDonald, Robert Geraldin, and Walter Deveroux with him. While passing through that heavily Leaguist territory, with a decent subsidy that Maximilian of Bavaria had arranged, they had recruited. With four regiments of dragoons, staffed almost to paper strength and well equipped, they had managed to negotiate an advantageous arrangement with the archbishop of Cologne.

  Whose confessor was now sitting in the room with them. Along with Franz von Hatzfeldt, the bishop of Würzburg who had been driven from his lands by the Swedes. And von Hoheneck, one of the provosts of the abbey of Fulda. Both Würzburg and Fulda were now run by the "up-timers." That was, Butler presumed, why the others wanted to talk to them.

  Since the others had initiated the contact, that meant that Butler and his colleagues had something they needed. Or, at least, that they wanted. Which meant that his negotiating position was good.

  At the moment, Deveroux was telling the archbishop's confessor that he was out of his mind. Not a prudent thing to say, but true. Given the layout of the military map right now, there was no way they could take troops into Fulda. Not through Hesse. Not through Mainz and Frankfurt. Not through Württemberg and Franconia. Not. It was too far inside the borders of the USE. Unless the coming summer's campaign changed the way that the Swede's troops were deployed, a raiding party could only figure on being chewed up. No profit. No plunder. Where was the gain in that?

  Surprisingly, the bishop of Würzburg was backing Deveroux up. "He's right, you know. It's not that easy to infiltrate any sizable group of men deep into Franconia. Dingolshausen was a disaster. Melchior's men got in, but not a dozen of the original two hundred got out again. Not to mention that it's caused a public relations problem."

  Hoheneck interrupted. "They don't have to take men in."

  What did he mean by that?

  "If they go in themselves," Hoheneck waved in the direction of the four Irishmen, "there can be troops waiting for them. I have full assurances that not all of the imperial knights of the Buchen Quarter were satisfied with the outcome of last month's election. Particularly not now that they realize that although they have not lost their immediacy legally, every damned peasant on their estates has gained the same rights. There hasn't been time for the up-timers to complete the reorganization. The four of them can go in. It's easy for four men. Get a couple of companies together from von Berlepsch, from von der Tann. Von Schlitz will do the organization. I know where he's gone into hiding. Note that he has maintained sufficient influence over his subjects that they voted not to join the State of Thuringia. He'll have them ready for you when you get there."

  Butler had intended to keep quiet, but he couldn't.

  "What happens to our regiments while we're gone?"

  The Capuchin cleared his throat. "If you leave them here, under the command of your lieutenant colonels, the archbishop is willing to continue paying you at the current rate. Plus the additional compensation for the work in Fulda, of course."

  "Is there any hope that the imperial knights might let you take their men with you on the way out? It would be really nice," Hatzfeldt said wistfully, "to wreak a little destruction on the Hessians."

  "Not a bit. If they strip themselves, the SoTF will just come in with troops from Thuringia and wipe them out."

  "Even if they keep their couple hundred troops, the SoTF will just come in with troops from Thuringia and wipe them out."

  "Not the same kind of situation as Jena or Badenburg or the Crapper. Not even the same as the Wartburg. A batch of different opponents, up in hilly country, who know the terrain. Even with just a couple of hundred men . . ."

  "A couple of hundred men if they were decently equipped. But without . . ."

  The archbishop's confessor got up from his chair. "Let me know what you decide." He left the room.

  The professionals reverted to shop talk.

  "The main objective, then, is to abduct the abbot." Archbishop Ferdinand's confessor nodded his head firmly.

  "Yes," Hatzfeldt said. "That has to be the first goal. Get hold of Schweinsberg and get him to Bonn." He waved at the four Irishmen. "Any one of you can do that. We don't care which one. Decide it among yourselves."

  "Why us? In particular?" Deveroux asked.

  Butler had wondered about that, too.

  "Because you speak English," Hatzfeldt said. "Schweinsberg is not the only target. We wish to interview the NUS administrators, which will better be done there. Take Felix Gruyard with you—he's good at what he does. Smuggling out one man is a different matter from smuggling out a half-dozen. These up-timers have learned German, of course. The administrators in Fulda, I mean. But still, it is not their first language. If we want to get the maximum amount of information from them, in a short period of time, it will be much better to have interrogators who can question them in their own language. So split up. One of you to each of the targets. Then, while you are doing that, we hope very much that by holding them the imperial knights will disrupt the administrative system of all of Franconia. The others, in Würzburg and Bamberg, will send their forces toward Fulda. Then, if Melchoir—my brother—can send a force through Saxony and Bayreuth . . ."

  "Will send their forces to Fulda?" Butler asked. "Or do you just hope that they will send them?"

  "It's hard to understand the up-timers. But from all we can learn about them, they are very protective of their own people. It's a calculated risk, of course. But, then, life is a calculated risk."

  "Meanwhile, what will you be doing with the abbot?"

  "Once he is here, the archbishop and I can persuade him to stop cooperating with these abominable up-timers. Persuade him to stop collaborating with the Protestant Swede. Or, if it comes to that, depose him. The emperor and pope would have to agree to that to make it permanent, but if we keep him in prison here while the haggling is going on, it will have the same effect. The archbishop can appoint me as interim administrator."

  Hoheneck cleared his throat.

  "You were thinking of some other candidate for administrator?" the archbishop's confessor asked.

  "I was just going to point out that any administrator should be appointed by the archbishop of Mainz rather than the archbishop of Cologne," Hoheneck said.

  "Casimir Wambold von Umstaedt is a refugee in Cologne also," the Capuchin answered. "He will allow himself to be guided by Archbishop Ferdinand's wisdom, I am sure."

  Hoheneck was not so sure of that. After all, the archbishop of Mainz wa
s close to Friedrich von Spee, who had been in Grantville and was now in Magdeburg. Overall, the archbishop of Mainz was closer to the Jesuits than to the Capuchins.

  As, in fact, were the abbots of Fulda.

  While it appeared that Hatzfeldt might have quite a lot in common with Echter. If the bishop of Würzburg was going to try to use this to pull Fulda under his authority and come out of it, once the imperials eventually won this war, with an expanded sphere of influence and Fulda nothing more than one mediatized monastery . . . what would be the point in becoming abbot of Fulda?

  Privately, he was quite certain that Hatzfeldt was the wrong candidate for administrator.

  Fulda, Buchenland, April 1634

  "The 'Ram Rebellion' or 'Brillo Movement' does not appear to have spread significantly from Würzburg into Buchenland."

  Wes finished up his monthly report.

  He was profoundly glad that he had been able to write that last sentence.

  Maybe there were some advantages to being in a spot that was such an economic backwater and political boondocks that nobody else cared about it. Not even revolutionaries.

  Fulda, Buchenland, May 1634

  "It's the surveyors," Orville Beattie said.

  Roy Copenhaver turned a page in his notebook. "What surveyors?"

  "The ones planning for pushing the railroad network out farther. It's a long way off, considering what a struggle it was to find supplies just for Halle-Stassfurt-Magdeburg. Iron by itself . . . But they're doing more surveys this summer. Gustavus Adolphus wants to see a line head out from Erfurt-Eisenach to Frankfurt am Main and Mainz. Tie his administration together. So they're laying out a route along the Fulda Gap. The landgrave of Hesse-Kassel signed onto the project and approved having it come through his lands way last fall. Howard Carstairs had some old topo maps he had squirreled away—he served with Third Armored—so they're making pretty good time, in spite of the changes."

  "Why does this lead to a peasant revolt?" Wes Jenkins frowned. Surveyors in the north didn't seem to connect with the stuff he had been getting from Steve Salatto to the south.

  "The landgrave doesn't seem to have explained it all very well," Orville said. "Not surprising, since he's been out in the field managing armies for Gustavus Adolphus, his wife has been in Magdeburg politicking, he got his brother appointed Secretary of State so he's in Magdeburg too, and they seem to have left a vacuum into which the rumors could come flying. The district administrators can't explain anything to the farmers and village councils because they don't know anything much themselves."

  "Anything specific about the rumors?" Roy asked.

  Orville wrinkled his nose. "This is what I've gotten from the granges. The leaseholders, the people who actually farm the land, have gotten the impression that they're going to be thrown off with no compensation. Apparently a few of the surveyors made some rather loose statements about using the power of eminent domain to take the right-of-way if owners didn't sell voluntarily. 'Owners' brought to mind landlords. The farmers got the impression that any payments that come out of this will be going to businessmen, or charitable institutions, or nobles, who hold the Lehen. Not to the guys on the spot, who will be left holding the short end of the stick and trying to get the value of the broken leases back from the owners. Who most likely won't be interested in making payouts."

  "So?" Andrea pulled her pencil out of her hair and started twirling it around with her fingers, like a cheerleader's baton.

  "So they're having a peasant revolt. Meetings, gatherings, marches, protests, broadsides, poems, pamphlets, guns pointed at local administrators." Orville put a bright and cheerful expression on his face. "All the regular amenities, as I understand how these things go."

  "Brillo?" Wes asked with some trepidation.

  "Not in Hesse. His fame does not yet seem to have reached such exciting spots on the map as Friedlos and Schrecksbach. I sort of hate to tell you, though . . ."

  "What, Orville?"

  "We're seeing more and more of the ram stuff here in Fulda. In Buchenland, that is. Especially to the south where it borders on Würzburg. The 'Hearts and Minds' people are circulating through the whole area, trying to talk things down. The best argument we have right now is that the railroad isn't coming through Fulda anyway."

  "Economically," Roy Copenhaver pointed out, "it would be a good thing if it did. Open up markets and the like. If they're running it through Hersfeld, that's still twenty miles of bad road from most of the farms in Buchenland."

  "What do you need from us?" Wes asked.

  "If all of you, at least as many as can be spared off other jobs, could start spending more time in the field, backing up our efforts, it would be a real help." This time the bright expression on Orville's face was more genuine.

  Buchenland, June 1634

  "Damn it, Derek!" Wes Jenkins was yelling again. "Your cursed Fulda Barracks Regiment is more trouble than it's worth."

  "They are just trying to demonstrate their loyalty to the government."

  "Threatening to defect to Hans von Hutten on the grounds that he will let them shoot peasants is not a really outstanding declaration of loyalty. In fact it sounds more like mutiny to me."

  "They feel that by not suppressing the revolt, they are failing in their duty."

  "They are just itching because they haven't shot or plundered anybody for a year and a half. Especially plundered."

  "Garrison duty is always difficult."

  "Well, make it plain to them that they can't shoot any of the farmers or citizens of Buchenland unless I give them permission. Peasant revolt or no peasant revolt. And tell them that there is no way that I'm going to turn them over to von Hutten so he can shoot our citizens. Or Würzburg's citizens, for that matter. Lock them in the barracks, if you have to."

  "Set their wives to guard them," Clara Bachmeierin suggested.

  Wes stared at her.

  "They have houses now, in Barracktown. Cabins with wood floors, a lot of them. Some even have fireplaces with stone chimneys and hearths. Windows with shutters and oiled paper. Doors with latches. A school for their children. Sergeant Hartke's oldest boy turned out to be so smart that Andrea's lawyer gave him money to go to the Latin school that the Jesuits run here in town. He would rather send the boy to a Calvinist school, but there isn't any. Hardly any of them want to go back to tramping around after a regiment on the march."

  Wes looked at Derek, raising his eyebrows.

  "I can try it. I really don't want to use Wiegand's Fulda militia to guard them, unless I absolutely have to. If this blows over, they'll need to work together again."

  "You really mean that?" Deveroux looked at Karl von Schlitz with disbelief. "They are not holed up behind Fulda's walls, huddling together in the administration building?"

  The imperial knight was looking a little pale, having spent quite a lot of time recently living in a rather small pantry off the main kitchen of his great-uncle's long-ago mistress's miniature castle.

  "My sons assure me that it is true. Because of the unrest, the administrators, almost all of them, and the abbot as well, are riding the length and breadth of this newly invented Buchenland, trying to make the peasants happy."

  "Why should peasants be happy?" Robert Geraldin asked with honest bewilderment.

  Dennis MacDonald glared at him. "They shouldn't, of course. Their suffering in this life will be compensated in the next, like the beggar outside of the rich man's house."

  "That," Deveroux said, "is beside the point. Do you have any way of getting their itineraries?"

  "Yes. Fritz and Oswald can get them for you."

  "Well, glory and hallelujah!"

  "Not to mention," one of the von Schlitz sons said, "that they are very lightly guarded, if at all, only by members of the Fulda city militia, because their regiment tried to mutiny."

  Deveroux jerked his head up.

  "You mean this?"

  The son—Friedrich, it was, Fritz von Schlitz—howled with laughter. "Becau
se they won't let the soldiers shoot the peasants, would you believe it? So you will have a peasant revolt to blame any 'accidents' on and the Thuringian troops who pour into Fulda to avenge their administrators after you are long gone will be shooting their own innocent 'citizens.' "

  Felix Gruyard smirked.

  Walter Butler shook his head. It was enough to make a man believe in divine providence.

  Bonn, Archdiocese of Cologne, July 1634

  "The archbishop is not receiving callers this morning."

  "But," the reporter said cheerfully, "I would like to obtain his comments upon the news that the pope has elevated the priest from Grantville to the dignity of cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and appointed him as cardinal-protector of the United States of Europe."

  "Trust me," the doorman said, "you don't want to hear his comments."

  "Oh," the reporter said, "but I do. Not to mention that I have a duty to my readers. What are the archbishop's comments?"

  "No comment." The servant slammed the door.

  Franz von Hatzfeldt looked rather anxiously at Johann Adolf von Hoheneck. "Is this appointment of a cardinal-protector for the USE something we should be taking into consideration in regard to Fulda?"

  "There's nothing that we can do about it. It's too late to call the Irishmen and Gruyard back. We don't know exactly where they are. We have no way to communicate with them. And, in any case, we aren't paying them."

  Schlitz, July 1634

  "So I went into the town to get some news," Gruyard muttered. "I got it, didn't I? We can't sit walled up on top of this stupid hill forever. It isn't as if there's anyone in Fulda who might recognize me."

  "It just goes to show," Karl von Schlitz orated, "that the demonic up-timers are in league with the Roman anti-Christ."

  "Come down off it," Geraldin said. "Who do you think that you linked up with when you sent those feelers out to Hoheneck? Martin Luther?"