1637 The Polish Maelstrom

by Eric Flint

  In point of fact, she’d long been one of the most famous women in Europe. Notorious, in many circles. The anti-Semites had hated her with a passion. But Rebecca had been able to dismiss most of her fame as silliness—what Americans called “celebrity,” a concept she found utterly absurd. In essence, it meant you were famous because you were famous, a form of tautological reasoning that any reputable school of philosophy could dismantle easily.

  But over the past three months, since she’d become the secretary of state, Rebecca had been forced to admit to herself that her days of being out of the public eye were now gone—and probably gone forever. That unsettling state of affairs was about to get worse, too, she was pretty sure. She’d passed through Magdeburg on her way from Tuscany to Silesia. Most of the time she’d spent there had been with her latest child, Kathleen, who had been born just two months earlier. She’d also had meetings with Ed Piazza and other top government officials, and she’d taken the opportunity to visit her publisher, who had excitedly informed her that the first-print run of her new book, The Road Forward: A Call to Action, had sold out in less than a week.

  “Of course, almost all of the sales were right here in Magdeburg,” the publisher told her. “But I was surprised by how many orders I got from other provinces, too. The landgravine of Hesse-Kassel ordered fifty copies, can you imagine that?”

  Rebecca could, actually. She knew the woman. Amalie Elisabeth, the widow of Wilhelm V who was now the regent of that province, was one of the most astute political figures in the USE. Rebecca knew that the landgravine had required all of her top officials and advisers to read Alessandro Scaglia’s Political Methods and the Laws of Nations. Rebecca’s book had been written in part as an analysis and rebuttal to some (not all) of Scaglia’s arguments. It would be very much like Amalie Elisabeth to require her advisers to read it as well.

  One aspect of the news was very pleasant to hear. “Big sales” meant a lot of royalties, and she and Michael could certainly use the money. They’d piled up quite a bit of debt and their family kept expanding.

  But “big sales” also meant more fame—or notoriety. Rebecca sometimes found it hard to tell the difference.

  So, she wasn’t particularly surprised to see that the Lady Protector of Silesia and the new Countess of Homonna—Noelle Stull, in a former life—had come out to the airfield to greet her personally. What did surprise her was the presence of the two Poles who’d come with them. One of whom, the last she’d heard, had been imprisoned for espionage.

  Gretchen was never one for “beating around the bush,” as Rebecca’s husband would say. “Grand Hetman Koniecpolski’s dead,” she told Rebecca, as soon as she deplaned. “Murdered, apparently. Poison.”

  Rebecca stared at her. Then at Jozef and Lukasz.

  “I see,” she said. She had the bizarre sensation of simultaneously feeling her spirits rising and her stomach sinking. The rising spirits were due to the obvious possibilities that might now open up; the sinking stomach because she’d hoped to make this a quick visit so she could return home to her infant daughter.

  Rebecca was a down-timer and didn’t share the obsessions of up-timers over the proper care of babies. As long as they didn’t get sick, the creatures were quite sturdy. The up-time terror that any slight disturbance in an infant’s life—a mother gone for a few weeks here and there, for instance—would mutilate their dispositions, was just nonsense.

  Still, it had been disconcerting to realize that Kathleen had really had no idea who Rebecca was. The important attachment she’d made in her first weeks of life had been to her wet nurse.

  But her newborn daughter would just have to wait for a bit. Koniecpolski dead…

  No, not just dead—murdered.

  “We need to talk,” she said to Jozef and Lukasz.

  Pescia, grand duchy of Tuscany

  Italy

  It really was a lovely town. As he leaned slightly out of the window, Mike’s gaze wandered randomly over the surrounding countryside. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just enjoying the view.

  Pescia was situated on a river—the Pescia River, which presumably gave the town its name—which meandered through a valley in the foothills of the Apennines. There were some architecturally interesting buildings, a couple of palazzos and a cathedral that obviously dated far back into the Middle Ages. All of the stone structures would probably be freezing cold before long, but so far the autumn had been quite mild, especially for November. There was still no snow on the ground.

  The town was attractive enough that he wished he could take a couple of days to just sightsee. But that simply wasn’t possible.

  The problem wasn’t that his host would grow impatient at his absence. Whether because of his cultural upbringing or simply his age, Fakhr-al-Din had very leisurely notions of the proper pace of political negotiations. The problem was a crude and simple one. As pleasant as his stay here was proving to be, Mike was still not happy at what he considered the emir’s lackadaisical, almost nonchalant, attitude toward security. The least he could do was not add to the problem by parading himself around the town in plain view.

  He wasn’t worried that he’d be recognized. This was an age of woodcuts, not photographs. The likelihood that the inhabitants of a town in seventeenth-century Europe—even in the USE, much less Italy—would recognize Mike from having seen a woodcut of him was miniscule.

  But he wasn’t concerned about casual passersby and inhabitants. The real risk came from spies who were following them, even if they were only guided by rumor.

  “You worry too much,” the emir had told Mike, just the day before. That hadn’t been a reproof so much as a tease, since Fakhr-al-Din had been smiling when he said it. “Who would attack us here? And why?”

  He’d waved his hand, as if brushing away an annoying but harmless insect. “The Ottomans? No, they’re accustomed to restive provinces. They made no attempt on me during my first exile in Italy. Why should they do it now?”

  Because of the Ring of Fire, Mike was tempted to say. Everything is different now.

  It was ironic, in a way. Mike’s usual criticism of the reaction of down-time rulers to the Ring of Fire was that they developed the delusion that they could use knowledge of the future—no, a future—to unerringly guide them in the present. What they failed to understand was that this present, the one created by the Ring of Fire, was a historical reality of its own. The future of another universe could serve as something of a guide, but only in the broadest possible sense. It was not a blueprint.

  But that didn’t mean that the Ring of Fire had been irrelevant. No, it really had changed all of the world, especially its political affairs. This world’s rulers often raced about hysterically, thinking they could control the future. That belief was a delusion—but the hysteria was real and was a danger of its own.

  Fakhr-al-Din came into the room and joined Mike at the window. “A beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is,” said Mike.

  Magdeburg, capital of the United States of Europe

  The first thing Rebecca did when she returned from Breslau was go to her home and make her way to her new daughter’s room.

  Kathleen was awake, happily. Her wet nurse, Sibylle, handed her to Rebecca as soon as she came into the room.

  Rebecca cradled her infant and gazed down at her, with a big smile.

  Kathleen stared up at her mother. Her mouth was open, as if she was trying to figure out a mystery.

  She couldn’t speak, of course. She was only two months old. But Rebecca had no trouble interpreting her daughter’s expression.

  Who are you?

  Chapter 12

  Breslau (Wrocław), capital of Lower Silesia

  “We’re agreed, then?” asked Gretchen. She pointed at Lukasz, who was sitting against one of the walls of the room close to the entrance. “He will head up the diplomatic mission to Vienna and Jakub will go with him. Meanwhile, Krzysztof and Red will return to Galicia.”

&n
bsp; “Early tomorrow morning,” Red said. He was sitting against the same wall, along with the two Polish szlachta who had come with him to Breslau. “We’ve got to get back as soon as possible.”

  He closed his mouth, opened it, then closed it again. Gretchen knew he’d wanted to argue once again that they really needed Jakub to go back with him and Krzysztof, but he’d already lost that argument the day before. Red Sybolt was a stubborn man, but he wasn’t outright pigheaded. Noelle had insisted that at least one of the three people from Galicia had to accompany the diplomatic mission—the fake diplomatic mission—to the Ottoman court.

  “Face facts, Red,” she’d said forcefully. “Sure, Lukasz can head up the mission—but that just means he swaggers around looking very Polishy szlachtish.”

  Several people had winced at that expression. They were speaking Amideutsch but even by the mongrel standards of that still-emerging language “Polishy szlachtish” was something of an abomination.

  “But he doesn’t really know anything about what’s happened in Galicia over the past year and a half. If the Ottomans question him at all—and they’re almost sure to—he’ll fumble around and they’ll start getting suspicious.”

  “We can brief him—”

  “Red, cut it out. Aren’t you the one who just got through saying you had to leave immediately? You can’t possibly teach Lukasz everything he has to know in a short time.”

  “She’s right,” Krzysztof said. He smiled at Lukasz. “Even if my brother were as smart as me—”

  Lukasz smiled back. So might sibling tigers have exchanged toothy yawns.

  “—he’d need days—a week at least—to have everything he needed to know fixed in his mind.”

  “I agree,” Jakub had chimed in. That had pretty much settled the argument. Red still wasn’t happy about it, but he understood the old saying what’s done is done.

  Gretchen’s finger moved to indicate Noelle, who was sitting at the table to her left. “She will go with Lukasz, posing as his wife.”

  Red had argued about that, too. What’s the point of bringing another person who doesn’t know squat?

  The term “squat” then had to be explained to several of the people present, since it hadn’t yet worked its way into standard Amideutsch. (Insofar as “standard Amideutsch” wasn’t an oxymoron.)

  Gretchen had gotten a little exasperated at that point. “Red, how many times do we have to keep trampling over the same ground? Noelle’s going for two reasons. First, she’s probably smarter than any of you. She’s got the advantage of being a woman. So listen to what she tells you.”

  Gretchen wasn’t exactly what up-timers meant by a “women’s libber.” She thought a lot of that philosophy was questionable and some of it was downright preposterous.

  “She’d have driven second wave feminists nuts,” Melissa Mailey once said to a friend. “Gretchen thinks the differences between men and women are deep and profound. The problem is that people have screwy notions about which gender is really superior. Think of her as a female chauvinist and you won’t go far wrong.”

  With a jerk of her head, Gretchen indicated the beautiful teenager sitting to her right “Secondly, Noelle’s going along because in combination with Denise that’s bound to reassure the Ottomans concerning Lukasz’s bona fides. Who but a swollen-headed szlachta would bring his wife and mistress on a diplomatic mission?”

  Denise didn’t look very pleased at that depiction of her role in the expedition, but she didn’t say anything. She really wanted to see Minnie again.

  “What about bodyguards?” asked Lukasz. “I’m not particularly worried about being attacked by highwaymen, of course.”

  So might a crocodile announce that he wasn’t too worried about being attacked by catfish. A couple of the people in the room snorted.

  “But if I don’t show up in Vienna with a cavalry escort—at least ten men—the Ottomans will get suspicious. Even the scruffiest Cossack chieftain would be accompanied by some bodyguards. And I can’t take the men who came here with my brother and Red Sybolt because they need them as an escort back to Galicia. Some of that territory they’ll be crossing is lawless and infested with bandits.”

  Gretchen had already considered that problem. She’d consulted with Eric Krenz, who’d then discussed it with Lovrenc Bravnicar.

  “The Slovenes have agreed to send a detachment,” she explained. “True, they’re not Poles, but…” She shrugged.

  Jakub chuckled harshly. “As if Turks are going to worry over the fine distinctions between Slavs.”

  Lukasz shook his head. “Don’t forget how many Ottoman officials aren’t Turks themselves. They’re from the Balkans. They’ll know the difference between Slovenes and Poles—and Bulgarians and Albanians—especially if they hear them talk.”

  He shrugged. “I’m not worried about that, however, because those same officials won’t care. It won’t strike them as odd. Why should it? The Ottoman Empire itself is a mixed-up jumble of tribes and nations.”

  Gretchen waited to see if anyone else had a comment to make. When she was satisfied they didn’t, she looked at Jozef Wojtowicz. The former prisoner was sitting at the same table as she, Noelle, Denise and Eric, but he was opposite Gretchen and had his chair pushed back a foot or so. As if he was not quite part of the discussion.

  What was odder was that Christin George was sitting next to him. Not quite, rather. She was sitting forward with her elbows propped on the table and her chin resting on cupped hands. She hadn’t been part of the planning, so her presence was something of a mystery. But just before the meeting Jozef had told Gretchen he wanted Christin to attend and she’d acquiesced readily enough. Denise had frowned at her mother’s presence but had raised no objection either.

  Jozef spoke up for the first time since the meeting began. “Meanwhile, I will go to Poznań to find out what happened to my uncle. And, if possible, to see if we might find sympathizers among the Polish troops in the city. The Grand Hetman was very highly thought of. And plenty of them know who I am.”

  “Won’t anyone be suspicious?” asked Eric.

  “Why should they be? If anyone knows of my presence here, they’ll also know I had been captured. How did I escape?” He raised his hands and spread them, in an insouciant gesture. “I am a master spy. Such men make escapes. It is well known.”

  When he lowered his hands, he turned slightly toward Christin. “But to further allay anyone’s suspicions, I have asked Christin to accompany me and she has agreed.”

  “Hey!” Denise squawked.

  Gretchen ignored her. “Posing as your wife also?” she asked.

  For the first time since she’d made Jozef Wojtowicz’s acquaintance, the man seemed somewhat abashed. “Ah… Well. No,” he said.

  “That’s what I thought!” Denise rose and pointed a stiff forefinger at Jozef. J’Accuse!

  “Mom, he’s just trying to take advantage of you! He’s a lech!”

  Without lifting her chin out of her hands, Christin swiveled her head to gaze upon her irate offspring. “Honey, let me get this straight. My seventeen-year-old daughter—”

  “Eighteen! Almost nineteen!”

  “Only by your New Math. My seventeen-year-old daughter is warning me that my boyfriend is a rotten bastard and I have to stay away from him? Talk about a role reversal.”

  Denise looked sulky. “Well… You and Dad did it to me.”

  “Ted Hancock was a rotten bastard and you know it. You said so yourself less than a year later. Besides, the real issue was that you were fourteen and he was twenty. That’s why Buster warned him off.”

  “That’s what you call it? ‘Warned him off’? Dad threatened to kill him!”

  “No, he didn’t. He told Ted that if he came near you again he’d beat him within an inch of his life.” Christin shook her head, still keeping her chin cupped. “Not a murder threat. And to get back to the point, I’m almost ten years older than Jozef. An impartial observer would accuse me of taking advantage of
him, not the other way around.”

  Lukasz intervened in the family quarrel. “It’s a good idea, I think. It’s true that Jozef has a reputation. If he shows up in Poznań with a beautiful woman whom he seems genuinely attached to—especially an older one—people will be too bemused to suspect him of evildoing.” He lifted his chin to point at Denise. “His usual girlfriends are closer to her age. My one concern is that Christin is an up-timer.”

  He gave Denise’s mother a look that wasn’t skeptical, just questioning. “This is not a big problem for the people going to Vienna, because Noelle and Denise just have to be seen, not heard—and then, seen from a distance. But, up close, it’s usually hard for an up-timer to pass as a down-timer.”

  He made a slight brushing motion with his hand. “Don’t ask me why, because the differences are subtle. Just take my word for it.”

  “Or take mine,” said Jozef. “He’s right. I can almost always tell if someone’s an up-timer. On the other hand, I have a lot of experience dealing with Americans and being around them, which is not true of almost any down-timers. So they won’t know they’re American, but they will know they’re not what they claim to be. They’ll smell a rat, as you would say.”

  He looked at Christin. “So, can you do it? Pose as a down-timer, I mean?”

  “Don’t see why not. I’ll be a stranger in a strange land, don’t forget. I’ll be posing as a German, not a Pole, and my German—regular German, I mean, not Amideutsch—is pretty damn good.” She shifted languages: “Even got a Thuringian accent, people tell me.”

  She opened her mouth and peeled back her lips, still with her chin cupped in her hands. The teeth thus displayed were not in bad shape, by down-time standards. They were white and none were missing. But it was obvious that unlike her daughter Christin had never gotten orthodontic care as a child.

  “Even got lousy teeth.”