1635-The Tangled Web

by Virginia DeMarce

  He looked at the man. Not much more than a boy, really. "The day's half gone. Are you prepared to start back this evening, or do you need to wait for morning?"

  "This evening. The daylight is still long."

  "Fine," Steve said. "Weckherlin, find him something to eat and drink and a place to sleep, while I pull together a team to send."

  Fulda, September 1634

  "Who do you have back?" Saunders Wendell asked. He was Würzburg's UMWA man. Steve had sent him up as head of the emergency assistance team. "Or is that supposed to be 'whom do you have back?' "

  "Who cares? About who and whom, I mean. We have Harlan and Roy. They were a team. Von Ilten and his men found them walking back from von Buchenau's. It sounds like when the interviewer didn't show up, von Buchenau started to get cold feet. You tell them." Andrea waved at a down-timer.

  He introduced himself. "I'm Ruprecht von Ilten. Buchenau was expecting an Irishman to do the interviewing. When no one had shown up two days after someone was supposed to, Buchenau fed them and let them loose. We gave them mounts and an escort back to Fulda. By the time we got up to the castle, Buchenau was gone."

  Wendell shuffled through his notes. "Any idea where?"

  "Not according to his wife."

  "Any recommendations?"

  "She's a second wife. The first one was childless. About seven months gone with her first child. Set her father in to manage the place, I would say."

  Andrea pulled herself up straight again. "Only if all of you guarantee to back the kid's succession if it's a girl against more distant claims in the male line."

  Von Ilten blinked first.

  Wendell looked back at Andrea. "Go on."

  "Fred and Johnny. They were a team, too. Our friends here had to buckle a bit more swash to get them out of Berlepsch's hands. Dramatic armed confrontations and all that. Gus Szymanski has the casualty list. Johnny's quite a bit the worse for wear. According to Fred, he put up a good fight. Gus has splinted, salved, set bones, and the like. He should be okay, but he's not going to be on his feet for quite a while. Once it won't hurt him too much to ride in a wagon, I want to send him back to Grantville to recover. He married Antonia Kruger from Barracktown and their first baby was born and died earlier this year. I expect he'd like to take her to see his folks. His parents were left up-time, but he has a sister. Simon Jones is his uncle. Just get away from Fulda for a while."

  "I don't see any problems with that," Wendell concurred.

  "Joel you know about. He was with the abbot."

  "Yeah. You haven't found the abbot?"

  "No. But Joel says that the men who grabbed him were speaking English to one another. Three of them, speaking English with an Irish accent. How many Irishmen can there be on the loose in Fulda? I've been here for close to two years now and there's never been one here before. Not that I know of. And we haven't found Orville and Mark." Andrea caught a sob. "Or Wes and Clara. I'm sorry."

  "Who's out hunting now?"

  "Mostly the Fulda Barracks Regiment. They've apologized for you know what."

  Wendell frowned. "No, I don't know what."

  "Derek can explain it to you when they get back. It's just too complicated, and I'm too tired. He has Lawson and Denver with him. Dave Frost is with Captain Wiegand and the Fulda militia. They've combined and split up. Does that make sense? Some of each group are beating their way systematically through every nook and cranny of the von Schlitz properties. Jeffie Garand is with Ruprecht von Ilten's people, heading for Tann. They're all still looking. Everybody's been out. The granges. Even the League of Women Voters."

  Wendell rolled his eyes heavenward. "We have one of those down our way, too. With a sheep named Ewegenia as a logo. She's a caricature of Veleda Riddle."

  Andrea stared at him. "Please don't tell Sergeant Hartke's wife."

  Last Visions

  Bonn, Archdiocese of Cologne, September 1634

  "Where is everybody?"

  The servant at the boarding house where Walter Butler kept rooms looked at the roaring man as if he were a ghost.

  "Fighting, if they are fighting men. Fled, if they had someplace to go. Waiting, if they are the rest of us."

  "Do I have any messages? And get me something to eat."

  Deveroux came in. "There's no place safe. Looters are out in the town, already. I left MacDonald watching the horses."

  Butler turned to the servant. "Pack up all the food that isn't perishable for us." Back to Deveroux. "I'll read these while we're riding."

  "Damn," Butler said. "Triple damn."

  "What?"

  "The archbishop of Mainz went back. The up-timer who is now supposed to be the cardinal-protector of the USE got the Swede to give him a salva guardia."

  "No way would Gustavus Adolphus give him a safe conduct."

  "According to Hatzfeldt, he did." Butler handed the paper to Deveroux. "We may have to reconsider our options."

  "We need to catch up with our regiments. Or whatever may be left of them by now. What good is a colonel without a regiment?"

  "Hatzfeldt didn't write what he was going to do himself. That's sort of odd."

  "Maybe he didn't know himself," MacDonald said. "Maybe he was waiting for something to happen when he had the time to leave you the note."

  "Anything else interesting?"

  "No. The rest was just bills."

  The three of them had their first good laugh of the day.

  Gruyard smiled, but did not laugh. He never laughed.

  They caught up with the retreating army.

  Geraldin had left Fulda before the other three Irishmen and Gruyard. Because of the donkey and the hay cart, he approached Bonn after them.

  In some ways, a single man driving a hay cart could get more answers than riders who clearly fell into the category of "armed and dangerous." He didn't even try to go into the city. There wasn't any point. Swinging around it, he headed west, hoping that he was in front of von Uslar's Hessians rather than behind them.

  He was, so he kept going. Once he caught up with the army, he turned over the prisoner to the custody of the archbishop's confessor and went on to catch up with Butler and the others. There was a war on and he needed to join his regiment.

  Field Headquarters of the Archbishop of Cologne, September 1634

  Johann Bernhard Schenk von Schweinsberg thought that this was the fifth interview since he had arrived. Possibly the sixth. He was losing track.

  The first two had been fairly polite. The next one had been rather intense. Since then . . .

  The interviewer had a copy of the pamphlet. The one with the witchcraft allegations. Clara and Salome.

  He would have laughed, if moving his mouth had not been so painful. He was going to miss his teeth, if he lived through this. He had been rather fond of his remaining teeth. They were so useful for chewing things. Especially when he had been eating the hard bread of a common soldier with Wallenstein's army.

  Or carrots. He laughed a little anyway.

  The clerk who was keeping the protocol of the interview scowled.

  Who was here? Schweinsberg took stock of his eyes. The left one hurt less. He opened it.

  "Where's Hatzfeldt?" he managed to enunciate.

  "Gone to Mainz," a voice answered.

  "Shut up, Hoheneck," someone said. "You're here to witness, not to chat."

  The interviewer posed the next question.

  Schweinsberg opened his mouth carefully. He had to answer. Get as much of the answer out as possible as if it were a reply to the question. Then the end of it, before Gruyard cut his lips again.

  "Someone," he said. "Someone is going to have to go to Fulda to . . ." He gasped.

  "To take the nuns into custody for the abominable crime of witchcraft?" The questioner offered him an answer.

  "To take up the care of the abbey."

  His mind drifted back to the abbey church and the plainsong of the reformed monks he had brought from St. Gall. Then to St. Mary's in Grantville.<
br />
  Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,

  Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

  Great God of heaven, my victory won,

  May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heaven's Sun!

  He sagged down.

  Gruyard looked at him consideringly.

  A man in black robes, who had been standing inconspicuously in the rear of the room, started forward, the oils in his hand.

  "Too late," Gruyard said.

  "Is he faking?" the interviewer asked.

  "No. He wasn't in very good shape when Geraldin brought him in, I'm afraid. I've done the best I can."

  "Too bad," the interviewer said. "He never did confess. A trial would have been very useful. Pamphlets just don't have the same effect. Not in the long run." He turned to the priest. "There's nothing for you to do here. He died an unrepentant, unconfessed sinner, incapable of receiving the last rites."

  Someone knocked on the door. "You're going to have to finish up in there. The camp is moving."

  The interviewer nodded, then realized that he could not be seen through the door. "We'll be right out."

  Hoheneck lingered behind the others. There was nothing he could do for the abbot, but . . . He noticed that the priest was also still in the room. "Administer the rites," he directed. "Mark the burial site, if you possibly can. At the very least, make a record of it."

  The priest nodded.

  Johann Adolf von Hoheneck was glad for the bustle of the breaking camp. Saddling his horse, he moved out. He wasn't going with the army. Neuhoff was still in Cologne. He would try to protect the archives and treasury from plunderers. He had to go to Mainz, himself. Get a salva guardia. Then to Fulda. To take care of the abbey. He assessed himself without illusions. He might not be much of a monk, he might be an ambitious noble, an unwilling and ungrateful Benedictine, but insofar as God had chosen to make him a monk, he was a monk of Fulda and he would defend its interests. As prince and abbot.

  Anthem

  Buchenland, September 1634

  "Through here," the young man said.

  "This is quite a track." The hunting parties had recombined and divided once more. Captain Wiegand looked down rather than ahead, careful where he was placing his feet. A half dozen picked men were following him. The rest of the group was heading for Tann openly and frontally.

  "Well, as my grandfather said, it's not as if we don't owe him."

  "Owe?"

  "The man from the Special Commission. The one you're looking for. Irli his name is, I think. He kept the meeting short and snappy when Grandpa reminded him about the hay. They got in the whole winter's supply at Neuenberg that day, before that thunderstorm and hail hit in the night. It would all have been ruined if he'd held them up."

  He stopped a minute, then slid between two rocks. Wiegand suddenly understood why his picked men were all very thin men.

  "Down this way. They took them out of the castle and into the cave two days ago."

  "How did you ever find this?"

  "I, ah, I've got a girlfriend who grew up here. On the von der Tann estate."

  Orville Beattie and Mark Early were fine. A bit shopworn after two weeks as von der Tann's "guests," but fine.

  Actually, they told Andrea after they got back to Fulda, the man had been pretty considerate.

  She decided to hand this one off to Saunders Wendell. He could buck it up the chain to Steve Salatto to decide what to do about it. Especially since the rest of the men had seemed a bit uneasy about this call. She wished Gus would let Harlan out of the infirmary. He was Wes's deputy. She wasn't. But Gus was fussing about Harlan's blood pressure.

  "Where do you suppose he went?" Clara asked.

  "Who?"

  "The man who was going to torture us."

  "I don't know. But I really prefer not to make a closer acquaintance with him, so to speak," Wes said. "If I have the choice."

  "Do you think we're going to get out of here? There hasn't been anybody around. No one at all."

  "We'll get out if we ever manage to pry the hinges off this door. Presuming that we manage it before we starve."

  "We won't starve for a while yet," Clara said cheerfully. "Consider our good fortune. They locked us in a pantry. Even though we're out of water, we still have a half keg of beer. It even has a slop jar. And a window to throw the slops through, so we don't have to live with them."

  Wes put down the garden spade that he was using as a crowbar, sat on the bed, and laughed.

  * * *

  Karl von Schlitz was protesting bitterly against his rearrest. His lawyer had tried to argue double jeopardy. Andrea's lawyer had rebutted.

  Von Schlitz's lawyer protested even more strongly in regard to the arrest of the two sons. There was nothing but suspicion against them, he insisted. At the very least, the government should allow them to sign Urfehden. The administration had no reason not to release them on bond.

  "The hell of it," Derek Utt said to Saunders Wendell, "is that we really don't have anything on them except suspicion. And I swear that we have looked through every building on their estates from cellar to attic, more than once. Being sure to make plenty of noise, so that if Wes and Clara were in some kind of priest's hole, they would hear us and yell. If they can, of course."

  Wendell looked grim. "I can't stay much longer. We've got to get back to Steve. They're running a crisis over in Bamberg, too."

  "Let's put out placards," Andrea said. "All over Fulda. Not asking about Wes and Clara. Asking if anybody knows anything about some other building that von Schlitz has. List the ones we've looked at. Offer a reward for information about any others. Von Schlitz has to have been hiding somewhere between when they took him off the wagon and when he surfaced again."

  "All right," her lawyer said. "I'll take care of it. Give me the list and I'll take it to the printer."

  "I have it here," Captain Wiegand said. "You can make a copy off this one."

  The lawyer took it. Looked down it. Shook his head. "It's not complete."

  "Yes it is."

  "No." The lawyer turned to Andrea. "Have Louis bring in those duplicate Urbare that we had from the provost over that way."

  She frowned. Who was Louis? Oh, the gofer. She sent him.

  The duplicate ledger landed on the table with a thunk. The lawyer started leafing through it.

  "Here, this page. They've omitted everything on it. It has to do with a small estate that the current owner's great-uncle purchased for the use of his mistress."

  * * *

  "Someone's coming," Clara said. She listened for a while. "A lot of someones, with horses."

  "We'd better get back as far as possible, until we figure out who it is. Why don't you get onto that pantry shelf that we've emptied."

  "While you peek out the window? No way!"

  "Clara!"

  "Either both in the back of the pantry or both peeking out the window. Andrea has told me all about equal rights for women. That's in the constitution, too."

  "It doesn't mean," Wes said with some frustration, "that a man can't take care of his own wife."

  "It means he can't keep her from having any of the fun. Anyway, I can hear the Fulda Barracks Regiment anthem. No one else sings it." She came up to the window. "Look, I can see the banner too. Orange and white. They've finally figured out where we are."

  "Well," Wes said, "that's more than I've managed to do. I was wondering, all the while we were working on those hinges, how we would find our way back. It's nice to have the cavalry come to the rescue. Or the mounted infantry, I suppose, if you want to be technical about it."

  "You were their rock, their fortress and their might,

  "You, Lord, their captain in the well-fought fight."

  Wes frowned. "Derek really shouldn't have let Veleda Riddle pick out an anthem for the regiment, even if she is Mary Kat's grandmother. Why did the only kamikaze Episcopalian in the United States of America have to live in Grantville? They're usually pretty sedate and uptight, but
if Veleda has her way, Fred will have to use his reserved tennis figurines for Episcopalians on his map."

  Clara leaned her head against his shoulder. "Once we tell them that we married each other, we will have to fill out a lot of paper work, you know."

  He cleared his throat. "Maybe we should just tell them that we're going to get married when we have a chance and then do it properly."

  "If you think that I am going to move back in with Andrea while her little lawyer spends six weeks or three months drawing up a proper betrothal agreement and marriage contract, you are crazy, Wesley. There isn't even a Lutheran church in Fulda to read the banns."

  "But . . . Clara, I'm the administrator. I should be setting a good example, and all that. And I don't want anyone to think that I am treating you with less than complete respect."

  "You think they will consider it to be more respectable that I have been in this pantry with you for so many days and we don't tell them that we have married each other?" She turned around.

  After the way she kissed him, he agreed that he would be a crazy idea to even suggest such a thing as having her move back in with Andrea. But.

  "Oh may your soldiers, faithful, true, and bold,

  "Fight as the saints who boldly fought of old.

  "And win with them the victor's crown of gold."

  The horses disappeared behind a hill on the curving road. The singing faded. Pretty soon, the lead horses were in view again.

  "Maybe we could have a church ceremony later? I'd really feel a lot better if we had a marriage license from Grantville and Reverend Jones said the words. Even after the fact."

  That much, she conceded, could happen. Whenever they went back to Grantville. It would make the lawyers and bureaucrats happier. The main reason they hated do-it-yourself marriage was that it did not leave a record and caused all sorts of subsequent arguments if it turned out that one partner was already married to someone else, or if one or the other party tried to back out. "Not that either of us ever would."