by Eric Flint
The waiter returned, bringing two hot cups of coffee. Piccolomini waited until he was gone, and then picked up his cup and leaned back in his chair. Still speaking rather softly, he said: “Well, then. Let’s savor our coffees, and then I’ll take you to meet someone.”
“Roth?”
Piccolomini shook his head. “No, Roth himself is in Prague, so far as I know. The man I’ll be taking you to is one of his agents. Uriel Abrabanel, of the famous clan by that name.” The Italian blew on his coffee. “Famous among Sephardim, anyway.”
Quite famous, in fact. The Jewish shoemaker whom Franz had known in his youth had once told him, very proudly, that he himself was—admittedly, rather distantly—related to the Abrabanels.
“Famous to many people, nowadays,” said Franz, “seeing as how the wife of the prime minister of the United States of Europe is an Abrabanel. And has become rather famous herself—or notorious, depending on how you look at it.”
Piccolomini nodded, and took an appreciative sip of his coffee. “She has, indeed. The redoubtable Rebecca Abrabanel. I’ve been told that Cardinal Richelieu himself remarked upon her shrewdness—which, coming from him, is quite a compliment.”
“Yes, it is. Although many people might liken it to one devil complimenting another on her horns and cloven hoofs.”
“Oh, surely not,” chuckled Piccolomini. “The woman is said to be extraordinarily comely, in fact. So I’m told, anyway.”
He chuckled again, more heavily. “What I know for certain, however, is that she’s the niece of the man you’ll be meeting very soon. So do be alert, Franz. Uriel Abrabanel would be described as ‘comely’ by no one I can think of, not even his now dead wife. But he’s certainly very shrewd.”
It was Franz’s turn to hesitate. Then, realizing he simply needed to know, he asked: “At the risk of being excessively blunt, Octavio, I must ask why you are doing me this favor?”
Again, the Florentine issued that distinctively heavy chuckle. “Good question. You’d really do better to ask Janos Drugeth. Know him? He’s one of the emperor’s closest advisers.”
Von Mercy shook his head. “The name’s familiar, of course. He’s reputed to be an accomplished cavalry commander and I try to keep track of such. But I’ve never met him and don’t really know much about him.”
“Well, Janos is also one of Ferdinand’s closest friends, and has been since they were boys. This was his idea, actually, not mine.” Piccolomini made something of a face. “For my taste, the reasoning behind it is a bit too convoluted. Quite a bit, being honest.”
Franz cocked an eyebrow. “And the reasoning is…Indulge me, if you would.”
“I suppose there’s no reason you shouldn’t know. Drugeth is not in favor of continuing the hostilities between Austria and Bohemia, and thinks we’d be wiser to let things stand as they are. Personally, I disagree—and so does the emperor, for that matter. But Ferdinand listens carefully to whatever Janos says, even when he’s not persuaded. And Janos suggested this ploy as a way of encouraging Wallenstein to look elsewhere than Austria for any territorial aggrandizement. We know that he’s appointed Morris Roth to expand his realm to the east. But how is Roth supposed to do that without a military force? So, Drugeth thinks we should help provide him with one.”
Von Mercy nodded. Up to a point, he could follow the reasoning. War had a grim and inexorable logic of its own. Once the Bohemians began a real effort to expand to the east, in all likelihood they would find themselves getting drawn deeper and deeper into the effort. The more they did so, the less of a threat they would pose to Austria to the south.
There came a point, however, at which the logic began to crumble. Granted, Franz was more familiar with the geography of western Europe than central Europe. Still, one thing was obvious.
“‘Expanding his realm to the east’ will take him directly into Royal Hungary, Octavio.”
Piccolomini grimaced. “So it will, indeed—and don’t think I didn’t point that out to the emperor and Janos both. I thought that would end the business, since the Drugeth family’s own major estates are in Royal Hungary. But Janos—he’s an odd one, if you ask me—didn’t seem to feel that was much of a problem. In the end, the emperor decided there was enough there to warrant making the connection between you and the Jew in Prague.”
He gave Franz a stern look. “But I stress that we will want your vow not to take the field against us.”
“Yes, certainly. But you understand, surely, that if I enter—indirectly or not, it doesn’t matter—the service of Wallenstein, that I will simply be freeing up some other general and his forces to come against you.”
The Italian shrugged. “True enough. But they’re not likely to have your skills, either. I think what finally convinced the emperor was Drugeth’s point that if we simply let you roam loose as a free agent, since we didn’t want to hire you ourselves, the end result was likely to be worse for us than having you leading Wallenstein”—he waved his hand toward the east—“somewhere out there into the marshes of the Polish and Lithuanian rivers.”
Once more, that heavy chuckle. “It was hard to dispute that point, at least.”
* * *
After they left the tavern—or “café,” rather—Piccolomini glanced up at the sky, which had grown leaden.
“Getting cold,” he said, reaching up and drawing his cloak around him more tightly.
Von Mercy followed suit. The temperature wasn’t too bad, but there was something of a wind that added considerably to the chill. “Where are we headed? Unterer Werd?”
Piccolomini shook his head. “No. The ghetto would be too far from the center of things for Abrabanel’s purposes. And he’s got plenty of money.” With his chin, he pointed straight ahead down the street. “Just up there a ways. Less than a five-minute walk.”
Franz was a bit surprised, but only a bit. Although Jews in Vienna usually lived in the ghetto located on the island formed by the Danube and one of its side branches, the city did not enforce the provision strictly if the Jew involved was wealthy enough.
As they walked, Franz noticed two other taverns sporting the new title of “café.”
“I swear, it’s a plague,” he muttered.
Glancing in the direction of von Mercy’s glower, Piccolomini smiled. “If you think it’s bad here, you should see what it’s like in Italy. My younger brother is the archbishop of Siena and he told me there was almost a public riot there a few months ago, because of a dispute involving the rules in a game of soccer.”
“A game of…what?”
“Soccer. If you don’t know what it is, be thankful all you have to contend with is the occasional tavern with pretensions. And pray to God that you never have to deal with the intricacies of baseball.”
“Intricacies of…what?”
“Never mind. Stick to the cavalry, Franz.”
A few dozen yards further along, Piccolomini pointed with his chin again. This time, at a small shop they were nearing. There was a sign over the door, reading: SUGAR AND THINGS.
“There’s the real money,” said the Florentine general. “That shop’s owned by a partnership between two local merchants and one of the American mechanics whom the emperor hired recently to keep his two automobiles running. Sanderlin’s his name—although it’s really his wife who’s involved in the business.”
“They are sugar importers?”
“Yes—but mostly they process it into something called ‘confectioner’s sugar’ and sell it to the city’s wealthiest residents and most expensive restaurants.” He shook his head. “Sugar is already worth its weight in gold. What they do with it…”
He shook his head again. “But people are besotted with things American—especially anything they can find involving Vienna in those up-time tourist guides. So, they say Vienna needs its cafés with coffee and pastries—and the best pastries require confectioner’s sugar.”
“A plague, as I said.”
“May as well get used to it, Franz,” Pi
ccolomini said heavily. “When Wallenstein’s Croats failed in their raid on Grantville, all of Europe was doomed to this lunacy. Even in Paris, I’m told.”
He stopped in front of a nondescript doorway. Just one of many along the street, marked in no particular way.
“And here we are.”
* * *
Uriel Abrabanel proved to be, just as Piccolomini had said, a man whom no one would think to call “comely.” He was saved from outright ugliness only by the fact that an animated and jovial spirit imparted a certain flair to his coarse and pox-marked features. It was hard to believe, though, that the man was closely related—uncle, no less—to Rebecca Abrabanel, reputed to be one of the great beauties of Europe.
But von Mercy was skeptical of that reputation, anyway. He didn’t doubt the woman was attractive, probably quite attractive. But he was sure that the near-Helenic reputation given to her appearance was mostly the product of the same glamorous aura that surrounded everything American by now, almost four years after the Ring of Fire. An aura that was just as strong—probably stronger, in fact—among the peoples who were the USE’s enemies than those who lived under Stearns’ rule directly or counted themselves as his allies. Unlike the Swedes or the Germans or the Dutch, who had had many occasions to encounter Americans or their Abrabanel associates directly, for most Austrians or French or Italians (outside of Venice)—to say nothing of Spaniards or Poles—they remained mostly a matter of legend and hearsay.
And if much of the hearsay and many of the legends involved their wicked ways and nefarious schemes, there was no reason those couldn’t be combined with other qualities. So, if Mike Stearns was a relentless savage bent upon destroying all that was fine and sensible about Europe’s social and political arrangements, he was also surely the most cunning and astute barbarian who had stalked the earth since Attila raged out of the east. So also, if his Jewish spymaster Nasi was evil incarnate he was also intellect incarnate—just as Stearns’ Jewish wife combined the appearance of a goddess with a spirit fouled by the demons of the Pit.
For, indeed, the same aura extended to those closely associated with the Americans, even if they were not American themselves. That was especially true of the Jews, especially the Sephardim of the widely flung and prominent Abrabanel clan.
Franz believed none of it. He’d read some of the philosophical and theological speculations concerning the nature and cause of the Ring of Fire. But, in the end, he’d come to the same conclusions that, by all accounts, the Americans had come to themselves. Namely, that they had no idea what had caused the miraculous phenomenon, and they were certainly not miraculous themselves. Just people, that’s all. Granted, people from a distant future possessed of incredible mechanical skills and knowledge. But no more exotic, for all that, than visitors from Cathay.
Less exotic, in most ways. They spoke a well-known European language, and most of them were Christians. And all of them except a small number of African and Chinese extraction were of European origin. Solid and sturdy origin, at that: English, German, and Italian, for the most part.
As von Mercy had been ruminating over these matters, Abrabanel had spent his time studying Franz himself. Eventually, he seemed to be satisfied with something he saw, if Franz interpreted his expression correctly.
“Not a bigot, then,” Abrabanel said softly. “Octavio told me as much”—here he gave the Florentine general a sly glance—“and I was inclined to believe him, even though he is an Italian and thus of duplicitous stock. So unlike we simple and straightforward Hebrews and even simpler and more straightforward Lorrainers.”
Franz couldn’t help but laugh. Partly, at the jest itself; partly, at the truth lurking within it. For, in point of simple fact, the seemingly bluff Piccolomini was a consummately political general, as you’d expect of a man from a prominent family in the Florentine aristocracy. He’d spent a good portion of his years as a military officer serving more in the capacity of a diplomat or even—in truth if not in name—as what amounted to a spy.
Duplicitous, as such, he might not be. But Franz didn’t doubt for a moment that lies could issue from Octavio Piccolomini’s lips as smoothly and evenly as a gentle tide sweeps over a beach.
He recalled himself to the matter at hand. “No, I am not a bigot. I claim no particular fondness for Jews, mind you. But I bear no hostility against you, either. What I don’t understand, is what any of that has to do with your purpose in asking me here.” He nodded toward Piccolomini. “Nor why you needed to use him as your conduit.”
“In answer to the second question, I am not actually using Octavio as my conduit to you. It would be more accurate to say that I am using him as my conduit—say better, my liaison-at-a-comfortable-distance—with Emperor Ferdinand.”
The logic was clear enough, once Franz thought about it. “Ah. You feel that if you employed me directly, the Austrians might fret themselves over the purpose of the employment. And then, out of anxiety—”
“Oh, that’s far too strong a term, Franz!” protested Piccolomini. “Don’t give yourself airs! We would—at most—be motivated by reasonable caution.”
He bestowed a fulsome grin upon von Mercy and Abrabanel both.
Franz returned the grin with a thin smile. “Out of reasonable caution, then”—he looked back at Uriel—“they would take steps that you might find annoying.”
“Oh, ridiculous!” boomed Piccolomini. “That he might find disastrous to his plans! Utterly destructive to his schemes. Might lay waste his entire project for years to come.” The grin returned. “That sort of thing. Much the better way to put it.”
“Indeed,” said Uriel, smiling also. “This way, at every stage, the Austrians are kept—to use a handy little American expression—‘in the loop.’ I think that will serve everyone nicely.”
Piccolomini brought a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat noisily. “Except…well, Wallenstein, perhaps. If he finds out that I’m involved in any way. I assume he’s still holding a grudge?”
“Well, yes. Of course he is, Octavio. His name is Albrecht von Wallenstein and you did, after all, plot and carry out his murder.”
Piccolomini waved a meaty hand. “In another world! In this one, it never happened! And that, only according to a detestable play by a German of very dubious reputation. Why, the man hasn’t even been born yet. How can anyone believe a word he says?”
All three men laughed, now. Friedrich Schiller’s drama Wallenstein was now one of the best-known plays in central Europe and very widely published and performed—despite the fact that it wouldn’t have been written until the year 1800 and only one copy of it had existed in Grantville. Partly, because the subject was still alive and now king of Bohemia, a position he’d never achieved in Schiller’s universe. And partly—such was the universally held suspicion—because Wallenstein secretly financed the play’s publication and many of its performances. Although Wallenstein had its criticisms of the man who gave the play its title, the portrait of him was by and large quite favorable.
When the laughter died away, Uriel shook his head. “But I saw no reason—and see none now—for Wallenstein to know anything of your role in this business. All he will know, if all goes well, is that I met a fortunately unemployed cavalry commander of excellent reputation in Vienna and hired him on behalf of Don Morris.”
Piccolomini rubbed his jaw for a moment, and then nodded. “Well. You’re probably right.”
Uriel turned to von Mercy. “My proposition is simple enough, General. As you may or may not know—and I suspect you do, at least the gist of it—the king of Bohemia has entrusted Don Morris Roth to see to Bohemia’s interests to the east. Among those interests—this is at the center of Don Morris’ own concerns, as well as mine—is included a reasonable and just resolution of the Jewish issues involved.”
Franz managed not to wince. He could think of several possible resolutions to what Abrabanel was very delicately calling “the Jewish issues involved” in the politics of the Polish–Lithua
nian Commonwealth and the sprawling lands and peoples of Ruthenia. But neither “reasonable” nor “just” was likely to be part of them.
But all he said was, “Not so easily done. And if it can be done, it won’t be done by cavalry.”
Uriel now grinned. “And an honest man, too! No, General, it can’t be done by cavalry. In the end, in fact—such is Don Morris’ opinion, and I share it—the matter can’t be resolved by any sort of military force. But what cavalry can do, as we wrestle with the problem, is keep someone else from imposing their own very unreasonable and unjust solution.”
“Possibly. Although it will take more than one regiment of cavalry.”
“Quite a bit more, in fact.” Abrabanel leaned forward in his chair. “But here’s the thing, General. We can train—so we believe, at least—a powerful enough military force out of our own resources.”
Franz raised an eyebrow. “From Jews? Meaning no offense, but I find that unlikely.”
Abrabanel shrugged. “It was done in another universe. A very powerful military force, in fact. But it won’t simply be Jews, in any event. The Brethren are with us also, and—”
“Socinians.” That came from Piccolomini, who, for all his cosmopolitanism and sophistication, had more than a little in the way of straightforward Italian Catholic attitudes. The word was practically sneered. “Heretics who make Lutherans and Calvinists look sane. And I thought they were pacifists, which just proves how mad they are.”
“No, you have them confused with the Polish Brethren. The Brethren I speak of are the Bohemian Brethren, the ones descended from the Hussites. They’re quite Trinitarian, I assure you.” He made a little fluttering motion with both hands. “But whether they are heretics or not—and as a Jew, I would not presume to judge such Christian matters—I can assure you that they are quite capable of fighting, Octavio. They did very well against Holk’s forces last year.”
He turned back to von Mercy. “But here’s the thing—as you well know from your own experience. Without the traditions involved, there is no way we can forge a good cavalry force on our own.”