1635-The Tangled Web

by Virginia DeMarce

  "Clusterfuck," Heisel said. He just loved the sound of that up-time expression. "They're riflemen. Jäger. A couple of them will be behind us before you can fart."

  "What the hell did you expect? We're in the middle of a goddamned forest. It's bound to be full of poachers. Where there are poachers, there are game wardens." Kolb cleared his throat and spat a puddle of phlegm on the ground.

  "They're headed down toward where we left Ulrich." Friedrich didn't bother to keep his voice down. "We've got to get after them." He started to break ranks, only to be hauled back roughly by Heisel.

  "Slowly," Eberhard said. "We've got to get behind them, but stay together and be careful." He turned around and pointed. "You, and you. Hide behind the shed and watch out for the ones Heisel thinks will come up behind us. He's probably right."

  Ulrich sat on his horse in the middle of the narrow mud road, waiting. He couldn't see what was happening in the village, behind the houses. He even hadn't really intended to be in the middle, on the grass verge that was slightly elevated between the ruts made by the passage of farm carts back and forth, but his horse had a mind of its own. Given the least inattention upon his rider's part, the gelding would move off dust onto grass.

  He had no idea where the first rifle shot came from. He looked around. Merckel's horse was down. Merckel had come off cleanly and was picking himself up. A second shot came out of the trees, perhaps five yards ahead of them, from the right. Ulrich opened his mouth to order the men down, but there were three more shots before he could say anything. One came directly from his left, he was pretty sure. One of the soldiers came off. His horse, grazed on the withers, ran straight down the road toward the village.

  "They're all along, on both sides of us," one of the soldiers yelled.

  Just then, von Damnitz and the men with him came up behind them on the road, riding too fast to stop before they had rounded the curve and come into sight of the riflemen. Von Damnitz was senior in rank to Ulrich. He was senior in rank to anyone else in the party on the road, so Ulrich turned to him for direction.

  Instead of issuing orders, von Damnitz froze in place, yelling "Don't retreat." The men who were with him bunched up, making it impossible for Ulrich's small party to turn and head back down the narrow road, away from the village.

  "Don't retreat" didn't last long. Von Damnitz went down. His horse, panicked, forced its way along the shoulder of the road and followed Merckel's horse toward the village.

  Horses being horses, the rest of them, who were not trained cavalry mounts, since nobody had expected this little company to mount a cavalry action, concluded that since two horses were running away, they probably knew something that was bad for the herd. Ulrich managed to control his gelding, but six of the horses, with the men mounted on them, headed right into the line of fire.

  Three of them made it through. The other three fell, blocking the road completely.

  Beyschlag, Merckel, and Bauer tried to get the young duke out of the line of fire, but there wasn't really any single line of fire. The shots from the trees were coming at them from at various angles and from various directions up and down both sides of the road.

  Ulrich yelled, "Since we can't go back, go forward. You'll have to jump." The group headed forward, in the direction of the village. His gelding jumped. Beyschlag's shied and plunged into the trees before it followed. Merckel, on foot, ran around the pile of dead horses, trying to catch up. Bauer went down; his horse followed Merckel and sideswiped him, knocking him into a tree.

  Von Sickingen's Jäger kept up a steady rate of fire. It might not be as fast as it would have been if they were equipped with up-time weapons, but they had worked together for a long time—most of them for a decade, some for nearly two. In a situation like this, they could almost read each other's minds.

  Eberhard's group stayed together and were careful. They did not expect to come to the edge of the village, start to move down toward the location of the gunfire, and suddenly be charged at by a half-dozen panicked horses. They dove toward the shoulders and trees, but not all of them fast enough. Friedrich got his head and shoulders out of the way, but a horseshoe, a sturdy iron horseshoe affixed to the hoof of the mixed breed part-draft horse that had been pressed into service to carry Bauer's weight, came down on his left foot.

  A half-dozen men came out of the brown house.

  Merckel, still running toward the village, howled, "Look out behind you." Eberhard, turning, was hit by another of the horses and knocked down.

  One of the men coming out of the brown house yelled back at Merckel. "Don't shoot us. If you're fighting Sickingen's men, you're our friends."

  Merckel's best guess, in the middle of the whole mess, was that either the von Sickingen family were not popular landlords or that the village was populated by poachers. Possibly both.

  The village men, with their weapons, almost evaporated into the trees from which the firing was coming.

  "My name is Didier Schultz," the farmer said an hour or so later. "This is my house, where we were hiding in the loft, waiting for enough of von Sickingen's Jäger to come into sight at once to make it worthwhile for us to shoot them. If we had just picked off one, they would have pinpointed our location right away. The women and children are up in the hills. The livestock, too. That's the best practice. When soldiers come your way, run away. We would have been gone, too, but we just weren't fast enough. It's so close to dark now that there's no point in giving them an all clear this evening. In the morning, I'll send my son Henri up to bring everyone down. For now, though, I offer my hospitality, such as it is."

  "We took Duke Ulrich next door," Merckel said. "Where it's a little quieter. His brothers, too."

  Schultz nodded. "That is the house of my brother-in-law, Heinz Hochban." He gestured toward another man. "My son Henri is named for him."

  "We don't have one of the famous up-time trained medics," Beyshlag said. "We don't even have a down-time trained medic. We're just a company, not a regiment. The surgeon went with Colonel von Zitzewitz and General Brahe. Heisel has already set Duke Eberhard's arm and splinted it, but he's pretty sure he has a broken collarbone, too. He isn't up to setting that. Is there anyone in the village who can do something for Duke Ulrich?"

  "The priest might," Schultz said, "but he's up in the hills with the women and children. He's the papist priest whom the von Sickingens have forced on us. We were all good Lutherans here." He thought a moment. "You're fighting for the Swedes, aren't you?"

  "Yes," Beyschlag agreed. "Under General Nils Brahe."

  "Good Lutherans," Schultz affirmed, "just like the Swedes. But the papist isn't bad at doing things for the sick. I do have to give him credit for that, and at least he's an old man who doesn't fool with our women and girls. He knows tinctures that can break a fever or dry up wet lungs. Sometimes, at least. It's all the will of God, really."

  "I have opium," Hochban said. "The apothecary in Landstuhl gave it to me back when my mother was dying of the crab and screaming all night so no one could sleep. There was some left, but he wouldn't buy it back. It's only three years old, so probably it's still good." He paused, looking hopefully at Beyschlag. "Cost a fortune, too, it did."

  "Give it to him," Hertling said. "We'll pay."

  "The horses are in the lot," Schultz said, starting with what was, in his view, the most important question. "The live bodies of your soldiers are in the church. The live bodies of von Sickingen's men are locked up in the new granary. The dead ones of both are in the crypt where they won't bother anyone in this heat until you can send a messenger to find your commander. Tomorrow morning, when everyone else comes back down, we'll harvest whatever is usable from the bodies of the dead horses. Then we'll push the rest into the ravine."

  "What do we do now?" Beyshlag asked.

  "Wait for Captain Duke Eberhard to wake up, I guess," Hertling said. "That horse knocked him cold as well as breaking his arm."

  "We need to send a messenger to General Brahe."

&
nbsp; "Nobody's going tonight," Schultz said. "It's getting dark."

  "We don't know where he is," Merckel said. "The captain knew where he was yesterday evening. 'Somewhere between Landstuhl and Merkweiler' isn't very helpful as far as directions go."

  "No," Beyschlag said. "We have to use the radio. We have to stay here and call the general for help."

  "Do you know how to use it?" Merckel could be trusted to get to the heart of any issue, at least if there was a discouraging word to be found.

  "No, but I know where it is. At least, I know where it should be, the 'tuna tin transmitter' and the antenna. They were in the captain's saddle bags." Beyschlag stood up.

  "So if that horse wasn't one of the dead ones, you can get it. If the horse didn't fall on it and smash it, that is."

  Hertling pushed his hair back from his forehead. "Merckel . . ."

  Beyschlag shook his head. "Even if you don't know how to use it, Hertling, you must have seen the captain use it. You're always standing right behind his shoulder."

  "I've seen him use it. That's not quite the same thing."

  "Does Lieutenant Duke Friedrich know how to use it?"

  "I think so, but I'm not sure."

  "He's with his brothers. They may die. He won't want to leave them."

  "He won't be leaving them right now," Hochban said, opening the door. "I gave him some of the opium too, for his foot."

  "I'm pretty sure the antenna plugs into this hole," Hertling said. "Heisel, tie the other end of this wire to a rock and throw it over the highest thing you can find in the village."

  "Did I enlist in the army to spend my days throwing rocks over chimneys?"

  "You enlisted to do what you're told. I'll hold on to this end of the wire. If I plug it in first, it might take the tuna tin with it, and we'd end up with the transmitter halfway up the roof of a house."

  "How do you send the clicks?"

  "You send them with this switch here. One way you send and the other way you receive what other units send you, but I'm not sure which way is which."

  "Try it both ways. It won't hurt the machine."

  "You hope," Merckel said.

  "The only ones I know are for 'SOS.' What good will it do to send that if nobody at the other end knows who is sending it or where we are?"

  "Beyschlag, was there a book with this thing?"

  Beyschlag stood up again.

  Heisel opened the book to a display of the letters of the alphabet, each with a combination of dots and dashes underneath it. Hertling checked the S and the O against his memory. "Yes, that's it."

  "What do we need to tell them?"

  "We're here, in a mess."

  "Duke Ulrich is going to die."

  "We're somewhere between Landstuhl and Pirmasens. But . . ." Beyschlag looked at the map he has fished out of Duke Friedrich's doublet. ". . . we don't know exactly how far we are from either one." He looked up at Schultz. "Where are we? What's the name of this village?"

  "Weselberg," Hochban said.

  "Sure. It would have been way too much to hope that the name would be short. At least it has an S in it."

  "Radio operators like very short messages," Heisel said.

  "Jeffie Garand has a word he likes. SNAFU. Look up those letters, Beyschlag, and write them out for me. Does anyone have any paper?"

  "Use the back page of the Morse code book. It's blank. More to the point, does anyone have a pencil?"

  "Schultz, do you have a lantern or a lamp? It's getting dark."

  Schultz dug out an ancient clay oil lamp. "Tell them that they have to go past the old mill at Obernheim, because we're closer to Pirmasens than that. Everyone knows where the mill is. The burned-out village was Harsberg."

  "It's actually good that it's getting dark. They like to send the radio messages out right before dark or right after dark."

  "Beyschlag, write out a whole message. I'll start with the SOS. Here goes."

  "Do you think we sent it often enough?"

  "How do I know?"

  "I tried it ten times each way, with the switch up and the switch down."

  "I don't actually know how fast these radio messages travel," Beyschlag said. "Faster than a horse can gallop, I'm sure. And the radio can travel at night, when a horse can't unless he knows the road. Like Heisel said, the radio likes to travel at night."

  "So what do we do now?"

  "Wait and hope that General Brahe sends somebody for us."

  ". . . for the soul of our late brother in Christ, Ulrich, who was born a duke of Württemberg and died in the flower of his youth as a baptized and confirmed child of his savior, giving full faith to the forgiving grace of his God and acceptance of His righteousness."

  "He was unconscious when he died," Merckel muttered. "He wasn't doing any believing at all."

  "Hush, Lutz, the pastor isn't done."

  "Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He springs up like a flower and withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure (Job 14:1–2).

  "As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more (Psalm 103:15–16)."

  General Brahe's chaplain looked up from his prayer book. "Take comfort, however, from the promise that is associated with these words."

  "For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth for ever (1 Peter 1:24–25)."

  * * *

  Friedrich laid his crutches down next to the stool. "I just wish," he said, "that the Lord could have seen fit to let our brother flourish and endure a little longer."

  "It was a good funeral sermon." Eberhard rearranged his sling. "But, sometimes, other words seem more appropriate. Montaigne quoted some older writer as saying, 'It is no marvel that hazard has such power over us, since we live by hazard.' We die by hazard, as well, it seems."

  "I like the other passage better."

  "For, whatsoever some say, valor is all alike, and not one thing in the street or town, and another in the camp or field. A man should bear an illness in his bed as courageously as he does an injury in the field, and fear death no more at home in his house than abroad in an assault."

  "I hope he didn't have time to be afraid at all. I hope that it all happened so fast that he didn't even see what hit him."

  Mainz, May 1634

  "The campaign was a great success," Botvidsson reported with satisfaction. "General Brahe was expecting a short, victorious war and that's what he got. The king—the emperor, I mean—is delighted and has extended his congratulations on behalf of the USE. According to the best intelligence we have received, the Sickingen family is headed for Bonn to take refuge with the archbishop elector of Cologne."

  "I'm sure," Erik Stenbock said, "that dear Ferdinand will be delighted to have even more guests battening on his hospitality."

  Buchenland, June 1634

  "Who is this 'McDonnell' in the cartoon in the Mainz newspaper?" Geraldin asked. He threw it across the breakfast table in the castle of Karl von Schlitz, imperial knight of Buchenland.

  "It's Dennis," Deveroux answered. "Drunk as a skunk. Some damned reporter must have heard about what happened last month. The Swedes can't tell the difference between 'Denis McDonnell' and 'Dennis MacDonald.' "

  Geraldin examined his fingernails. "Neither can most Irishmen. He spells it 'McDonnell' sometimes himself."

  Deveroux snorted. "We have a perfect right to misspell our own names. I'm sure I've signed mine a half-dozen different ways. Foreigners should be more considerate." He pointed across the table. "It's a pretty good likeness, don't you think, Dennis? The drool? The spittle? The vomit? The—"

  "Arrrgh!"

  "We miscalculated, back in March," Butler groused. "If we'd had any idea that Nils Brahe was going to take his forces haring off into the southern Palatinate and northern Alsace, we could have
done a proper raid into Fulda. We wouldn't have run into any serious opposition. That Fulda Barracks Regiment is nothing but a bad joke."

  "Spilt milk." Deveroux looked at von Schlitz. "You are sure, really sure, that the up-timers and Schweinsberg are wandering around this territory, with only minimal guards, trying to make the peasants happy?"

  Von Schlitz had to do quite a bit of persuasion before the Irishmen were willing to believe it.

  Butler shook his head. "If Taaffe and Carew were here, they would be trying to persuade me that this behavior by the up-timers is a dispensation of divine providence. It's almost enough to make me believe them."

  Felix Gruyard smirked.

  Fulda, June 1634

  "So then they sent Duke Ulrich's body home." Derek Utt leaned against the window in the conference room, looking at the other up-timers in Fulda. "At least, they sent it as far as Belfort in Mömpelgard. That will be Montbéliard on the wall map there—that's the way the French spelled it, up-time. The family has a chapel there. It was too warm for them to try to get it across the Rhine to Stuttgart. If they want to bury it in the capital of the duchy, long-term, I guess the procedure is to wait a couple of years. Eberhard's feeling horrible about the whole thing, like it was his fault."

  "Damn," Joel Matowski said. "He was just a kid. The youngest of them, I mean. And since we headed off west just a couple of days before the guys were supposed to come up to Fulda, he never did get a look at the American way of life, such as it is out here in the boondocks. He really wanted to do that. I was sort of hoping I'd be able to get some leave and take them on a tour of Grantville."

  "Yeah," Jeffie Garand answered. "Too bad. You'd have had an excuse to see Alice again, too. I'm sure you weren't thinking about that. Not at all. On the other hand . . ."

  "What?"

  "Gertrud adores me. But she's still a down-timer, and Ulrich of Württemberg was a duke, even if he was only fifteen and it seemed likely that he'd develop the family pot belly if he lived long enough. If they had shown up here in Barracktown, it would've been like having a rock star competition back up-time. I'd have been real happy to see his backside if you'd taken him off to get a taste of West Virginia in Thuringia."