by Eric Flint
Not, of course, that Leopold had been trying very hard to arrange it. He hadn't even asked Egli and Mengersdorf to see what might be done. Personally, he had no desire to spend any more time among the Bavarians than he had to and he certainly didn't want to risk Mary and Veronica inside Bavaria again.
What the archduchess didn't know wouldn't hurt her. He hoped. He had done his best to ensure that Baner's Swedes had no suspicion at all that she was within their grasp.
Besides, it would be easier for him to get horses on the north shore. Not easy, but easier. The only horses in Neuburg now were military horses. Not that they had necessarily been military horses a few weeks ago, but they were now. Requisitioned. "Contributed," as the down-timers put it. The former owners, if they were lucky, held chits for reimbursement.
****
"You know what?" Mark Ellis asked Dane Kitt that evening.
"What?"
"I was over in Neuburg, today, at the bridge. Looking to see the way the down-timers put in those footings. Might be able to learn something from it.
"Now that the bridge isn't filled up railing-to-railing with Baner's soldiers going south, as many people as possible are trying to get out of the city. Get over to this side, find someplace to stay, I guess, away from the siege. Lots of women with children, old people. Don't want to risk getting penned up, I suppose. At least, I keep thinking that if we managed to cross to the south, what's to prevent Maximilian from trying a crossing to the north, somewhere to the west, between here and Donauworth, and trying to pen us up in Neuburg the same way we've penned his garrison; then come over and cut Neuburg off from Ingolstadt. He grabbed Donauworth at one point, you know, even back before this war started. I expect he's not a bit pleased that the Swedes took it back and are letting it be an imperial city again. Well, sort of, at any rate; they have a pretty big garrison in it and I don't think that the city council has much right to talk back to the colonel.
"Anyway, there were a couple of old ladies crossing, with their family, I guess. Them, a couple of men, a younger woman. But if I didn't know better, I would have sworn that it was Mrs. Simpson and Mrs. Dreeson."
"Naaah," Dane said. "What would they be doing here?"
****
Between Neuburg and Donauworth
Egli had crossed first, to try to find horses. Mengersdorf crossed the bridge with Cavriani and the three women. The two factors would be going back, of course. Business was business and it didn't stop just because there was a siege going on. Cavriani Freres would go out of business fairly promptly if the money from its ordinary commissions ceased to flow into its bank accounts.
Egli apologized. His best efforts had resulted in the purchase of only two horses. At least, he thought, these two might possibly, just barely, each manage to carry a rider as far as Donauworth before the knacker had to be called. Even so, the price had been exorbitant. At Donauworth, perhaps, Herr Cavriani might have better luck.
Veronica smiled triumphantly. "I," she announced, "will walk." She was feeling much better about life now that she thought it was safe to wear her false teeth again. As long as she kept her mouth closed most of the time so no one started to wonder about their perfection, they were probably safer there than in her pouch.
Mary, obviously, would ride. Her feet were still very tender, although she had bought new, well-fitting, shoes in Neuburg. Not to mention several pairs of stockings, the softest Veronica could find in the shops. She was shocked by the cost, but Cavriani had insisted that they were a good investment and he was sure that the Herr Admiral would be happy to reimburse Cavriani Freres when he had a chance.
That left the second horse. In the end, Cavriani rode. He had overcome Maria Anna's will in the matter of an impossibility such as leaving Neuburg to the west on the south bank of the Danube. When there was a possibility, however… and, in all truth, her argument was not bad. His German was far more cultured than the gutter German she had learned from laundresses and gardeners in the Schloss at Graz. If something happened that they had to speak extensively, she would make a far more convincing maidservant than he would make a manservant. So. A merchant traveling with his wife and her two maids. The merchant's "wife" looked quite a bit older than he did, but that was not uncommon in this day and age.
The sky was bright blue, with a few feathery white clouds. Egli had insisted that they all wear broad-brimmed pilgrim's hats.
****
Their progress toward Donauworth was slow. It was only twenty miles, but what should have taken one day was going to take two. The road was clogged with cattle and sheep, their drovers, wagons hauling grain.
General Baner had decided that his army had to eat. While he had been profanely delighted-as nearly ecstatic as he ever became-to find that a cattle drive from Hungary had arrived at the Ochsenschlacht island in the river south of the fortress only two days before his troops did and several hundred steers were penned up there, next to the slaughtering facilities, when his first troops arrived, that would not feed a regiment for very long. Baner had inspected the earthworks along his "secure supply line" from Neuburg to Ingolstadt. He was far from sure that it was as secure as a prudent commander would want it would be. He was getting as much food inside the earthworks along the old Sandrach channel of the Danube south of Ingolstadt as he could, while he could.
Within, of course, the limitations of how much fodder was available to keep the animals alive until they were eaten. Sieges were always a problem, especially when the besiegers themselves were penned in, as his forces on the south bank were. Moreover, there was a limit to how much he could draw from the communities on the north bank, even if he paid for the provisions. Farmers had this habit, nasty and inconvenient from the viewpoint of military leaders, of wanting to feed themselves and their families and save seed grain for the next season.
As Duke Maximilian was finding out. There was said to be considerable unhappiness in many districts of Oberbayern in regard to the new exactions and contributions associated with his current troop movements. It would not be surprising if some of Bavaria's rural folk broke into outright rebellion, before too long.
Well, Cavriani thought, once they got to Donauworth, it would just be another two hundred miles to Basel. As the crow flies. In reality, up and down hills, across creeks, along river banks, and trying to get through Swabia without meeting either the Swedes or Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar.
He wondered if Don Fernando was aware just how limited in size Maria Anna's escort really was.
****
Maria Anna had far too much time to think, walking along like this. She was not even, Herr Cavriani had said, to pray her rosary as she stood at the side of the road waiting for the drovers and shepherds to pass, here on the north shore, in Pfalz-Neuburg. Although there were many Catholics in the region since Wolfgang Wilhelm had converted in 1613, one did not wish to draw unnecessary attention to oneself. The papers Cavriani was carrying now said that they were from Geneva. All of them. Genevans did not say rosaries.
It was hard to pray without it. She was accustomed to the beads slipping through her fingers, one by one. A focus of concentration, an aide-memoire. Pray without it, count on her fingers, tapping the nails. An Our Father for Papa, a Hail Mary for Mama. An Our Father for Ferdinand and Ferdinand the Most Recent-he would have grown so much by now. He might even be walking and starting to talk. A Hail Mary each for Mariana and Cecelia. She remembered each member of her family. But then her mind came back to where it had been before.
Her loyal household. Where were they all? What had happened to them because of her? Had they escaped or had they been caught up in Duke Maximilian's madness? One of the newspapers had contained a list of those executed. An Our Father for Dr. Donnersberger, who had been a faithful servant. A Hail Mary for Countess Polyxena, who had been a pretty little fool, untrustworthy, but had surely done nothing to earn a beheading in the Schrannenplatz. A whole rosary of thanks for the safety of Dona Mencia.
Susanna. What had become of littl
e Susanna? Surely, if Dona Mencia was safe and on her way to Brussels, Susanna was with her. After all, she was with the party that Maria Anna had sent back to see Dona Mencia safe. But why hadn't Dona Mencia said so? It would have only taken one word, or two. The radio could do that. A rosary for the safety of little Susanna, so bright and perky, so cheerful and chatty. So brilliant a designer. A Hail Mary for Frau Stecher, who had seen this and envied the girl so deeply, realizing that one day, not so far in the future, she would be supplanted.
Maria Anna jumped back a couple of steps to avoid a sheep that was trying to run off the edge of the path. The golden rose banged against her thigh under her skirts. Prayers for the church.
Prayers for Papa; prayers for his health; prayers for his recovery. Prayers that, if need be, he would have a good death.
Three hours on the road from Neuburg, Cavriani called a halt for lunch. They hadn't even gotten to Rennertshofen. Then they would have to wait to cross the Ussel. It would be amazing if they got to Marxheim before dusk. Then they would have to cross the Lech. Lunch was bread and… olives? Cavriani laughed. "Egli says that the Swedes, apparently, do not care for olives. They were one of the few things that the Neuburg grocer still had in abundance, not marked up." They had plenty of water; Maria Anna ate olives with abandon.
While they waited at the Ussel, Mary got down to walk for a short distance. She was trying to toughen her feet again. Maria Anna stood, holding the horse, watching her.
****
A man standing near the ford looked up, glanced at her casually. Looked again. Surely not. But so like, so very like the missing archduchess.
Captain Raudegen was not especially happy to be holding water buckets for horses. A captain of cavalry should have risen well above such a duty. Colonel von Werth had sent him, with five men, to scout north of the river to find out whatever he could. But he was not to do it by riding rapidly through the countryside. If such a raid was to come, it would come later. Instead, Raudegen had been instructed to stand at fords, counting the men and animals going past them. Among other things. Colonel von Werth had not mentioned his intentions, but the possibility of a raid in strength north of the river, against Baner's camp outside Ingolstadt, was certainly a good one.
Raudegen did not like Colonel Johann von Werth. He respected his abilities, but he did not like him at all. "Von" Werth, to start with. Everyone knew that he had been born a plain "Jan van Wierdt" in a village up around Cologne, about 1591. The Low German of the region, like Dutch, did not use "van" as a designator of nobility, but just to say that a person was "from" here or there.
The colonel spread the story of a family tradition that once upon a time, in Friesland, the family had been knights, driven out after the Reformation for its unshakable Catholic faith, But he admitted that he and his eight brothers and sisters had worked in the fields, that he himself as a boy had herded swine, and that after his father's death he had worked as a hired man on farms owned by others.
So Jan van Wierdt joined the army when he was nineteen-yes, it was said, starting as a water boy for horses, performing the same service that Raudegen was performing now. As he rose from the ranks under General Spinola, he modified his name into the High German form. With all of the associated implications. "Von Werth" or, depending upon the document, von Worth, Werd, Weert, or even, in the French form, de Weerth. Within ten years, he had made captain; in another ten, colonel in the Bavarian Eynatten regiment.
A water boy from a village on the lower Rhine. Raudegen was ambivalent. The son of farmers. What did it say about the hierarchy of society? After Pappenheim, von Werth had been the second most effective cavalry commander in the service of the imperial forces-certainly the most effective in the service of the Bavarian forces. It was a matter of judgment, at any given time, just how closely the Bavarians and the emperor were allied with one another. At the moment, Werth was in command of Duke Maximilian's cavalry south of Ingolstadt.
What did it say about Raudegen's own prospects? There was no noble predicate preceding his name, either. It was, in fact, a military alias. So who knew how high the son of a village farrier might rise? That Raudegen was the son of a village farrier was the reason von Werth had assigned him to this scouting mission. He, too, knew how to stand at a ford and water horses, with none of the danger that a noble captain might run of breaking out of character.
There were all sorts of stories going around in the army, coming from the books of Grantville. That in another world than this, in May of this very year, von Werth had played a significant part in a great Catholic victory at Nordlingen; that as a reward, Ferdinand II really had made him a Freiherr, whatever ambiguities his social status may have had before. That Maximilian had promoted him. Feldmarschalleutnant und Generalwachtmeister. Lieutenant Field Marshall and Major General.
In this far less favorable world, von Werth was in a stinking camp south of Ingolstadt. Champing at the bit, wanting to do something, anything, to move against Baner.
Raudegen finished his task and walked downstream to where five other Bavarian cavalrymen in plain clothes were waiting for him. They had expected nothing more exciting from this day's work than a count of sheep and oxen being driven toward Neuburg and Ingolstadt. Only one went back across the Danube, carrying a message to von Werth and his commander, General Franz von Mercy, whom Duke Maximilian had borrowed from the Lorrainers. Raudegen himself took the others and headed back to Rennertshofen, profoundly wishing that they had horses. They had left their horses on the south bank. If he was wrong, he was making a laughing stock of himself. If he was right…
****
They were across the ford. Walking again, next to Mary's horse, Maria Anna thought that she might as well start now. She would begin a novena, for the salvation of Mary Simpson's Socinian soul.
She told her so, as they ate their supper. There were no rooms to be had in Marxheim. Cavriani had bought a salad of peas from a vendor and fresh bread; they had a place to camp and tether the two horses in the fenced courtyard behind the bakery.
"Oh, into guilt tripping, are you?"
Some explanation followed. What a lovely concept, Maria Anna thought. She rested her chin upon her knee, meditatively.
"To think," she said, "that I have been 'guilt tripped' all my life and no one ever told me. I am not embarrassed to 'guilt trip' you. People do it all the time." She gestured at Veronica, who was pulling a bucket of water for the horses from the cistern on the other side of the yard. "Just as Mother Superior Ward's making the rosary of twigs was to give Frau Dreeson one. Which it did."
They had a rather nice discussion of tactics and techniques. Not, Mary pointed out, manipulation. It was nicer to consider it under, well, some other word. But it had to be done. Otherwise, if one did not bring people to some common focus of purposes, there would be no schools, no operas.
"Opera? You like opera?" Opera had not entered the conversation as long as they were traveling with the English Ladies. "Have you ever heard this?" Maria Anna started humming; Mary laughed and started singing along.
"I saw the original production of The Sound of Music."
In the back courtyard of a bakery in Marxheim, plans for the expansion of Europe's commitment to opera, generously defined, began to arise; then spread to ballet. In the course of it, Maria Anna and Mary each discovered that the other would really rather converse on these matters in excellent literary Italian, or in French, rather than in somewhat fractured German. Their conversation rapidly became more voluble. The discussion moved to contemporary artists of the Netherlands, and to the interior decoration of state buildings in national capitals.
Veronica, who did not know a word of either Italian or French and had no desire to learn, looked at them sardonically, curled up, and went to sleep.
Leopold Cavriani smiled into the dark. "Culture vultures," Annabelle Piazza had called such people. Idly, he wondered for a while about the best way to put the phrase into Latin. When he had a chance, he would have to ask Marc's frie
nd Bocler back in the Upper Palatinate. Then he went to sleep as well.
****
Raudegen was uncertain. The younger woman certainly had an uncanny resemblance to the archduchess. But he could scarcely believe that an archduchess of Austria would walk while permitting another woman to ride. There could be no other woman in this part of the Germanies who outranked her. But now that he had seen the other two women with her, he was nearly sure. He had been there, that day in Freising, when the "witches" were dumped out of the barrels. Possibly, just possibly, an archduchess might walk and permit the wife of the up-time admiral to ride, given the way that the war between the Swede and the League of Ostend was going.
He would risk following them for another day, at least. He had come up through the ranks; he had not gained his commission through mental timidity any more than he had gained it through physical cowardice.
****
From Donauworth to Ulm
Egli had been right in both of his predictions. The two horses he had bought at Neuburg reached retirement age by the time they got to Donauworth. But there, more horses were to be found, not to mention another factor employed by Cavriani Freres de Geneve and, thereby, access to more money. Cavriani bought four decent horses, whether Veronica wanted to ride or not. He obtained clean clothing, not new, but of good enough quality to justify the horses, from a second-hand dealer. They kept Egli's broad-brimmed hats.
****
Four horses. That meant that the group had the money, obviously, to purchase them. Plus different clothing. The younger woman's stance on horseback was very like that of Archduchess Maria Anna.