by Eric Flint
There was a wagon, also, to take Susanna and Frau Dreeson to the boat, and guards. Duke Bernhard had offered to provide the guards, on the pragmatic grounds that the first part of the route would take them through territory that he held-and held firmly. Horn, Swiger, and Gordon had agreed only on condition that the two women had an equal number of guards from the USE Horse Marines at the embassy. Marc looked at the captain of the guards uneasily, then suspiciously. It was the same Bavarian who had chased them so relentlessly.
Raudegen looked down at him, and smiled thinly. "I'm a professional, boy," he said. "I cut my teeth on the Hungarian frontier. I'm in the duke's service now. When he says capture her, I try to capture her. When he says protect her, I use everything I know to protect her. Not just until your relative from Lyons joins her. All the way to Brussels. Advantage is advantage. If Duke Bernhard can't use her as a pawn for exercising pressure on the archduchess, he will harvest whatever gratitude there may be for delivering her safely to a mistress who values her services. He has no truck with cruelty for its own sake. Nor, for that matter, do I."
****
For traveling, Susanna was wearing the cream-colored turtle-neck sweater with a pencil-slim, ankle-length, mahogany brown velvet skirt. The side of the skit was slit to above the knee, which would allow for such functions as walking or climbing into carriages. She had her left hand thrown back, carrying a matching jacket over her shoulder. The sweater outlined her tiny breast. Marc tried conscientiously to keep his eyes focused somewhere in the region of her nose.
He took her right hand. "Ah, good-bye. Good wishes. It has been a pleasure make your acquaintance." He tried again. "I hope it all works out well for you."
"Kiss him." Marc heard Frau Dreeson's voice coming from the wagon. "See if it's worth all the speculation you've been devoting to the matter. If it isn't, it will save you a lot of bother in the long run."
Susanna looked at her, startled. Then she dropped Marc's hand, stood up on tiptoe, threw both of her arms around his neck, pulled herself up a little farther toward his face while bending his neck down a bit, and kissed him.
Their noses bumped, but they managed to rearrange things. After a while.
"Enough," Veronica interrupted. "There's your food for thought, girl. Time to get going."
****
Margrave Friedrich V of Baden-Durlach managed to persuade both the Basel city council and Duke Bernhard that he should be allowed to move freely between the city and General Horn's headquarters. Gustav Adolf had kindly sent both Duke Bernhard and the city council a formal letter pointing out that the younger margrave's father, Georg of Baden-Durlach, was now the USE's administrator for the Province of Swabia. The amount of public respect that Margrave Friedrich was getting had rapidly ratcheted up several notches.
By noon, he and Leopold Cavriani were having a nice chat about development funding for the iron ore in the Wiese Valley. Margrave Georg was, after all, the legal overlord of most of the iron-bearing seams that Marc had identified-if Duke Bernhard went away again, now that he had so conveniently removed most of the Austrian garrisons from the region and was no longer serving the French.
Leopold gave him a copy of Marc's report before forwarding two on to Jacob Durre. One through the regular post; one by special courier. One, of course, he had left with his regular banker in Basel.
He took the last one along when he and Marc left for home the next day.
Thinking all the while that it was very much too optimistic to hope that Duke Bernhard would go away.
****
Grantville, State of Thuringia-Franconia
Ed Piazza worked his way through a long radio message that had just come in from Jack Whitney, reporting from Horn's headquarters.
I know you are buddies with Leopold Cavriani, Whitney said in the message, so I thought you might want to know that he and his son left for Geneva right after lunch. Cavriani mentioned, sort of casually, that you might be interested in knowing that he's going to send the kid to Naples for a couple of years.
Casually? Leopold never did anything casually. Naples?
Ed jogged down the hall toward the radio room. Mike needed to know this. Preferably yesterday.
****
France
"It is not," Louis XIII said, "that we currently have any options. Not that there is anything that France is in a position to do about it. Of course, it is in the interest of France to have the Netherlands divided from the other Habsburgs."
"Possibly not in the long run, Sire," Cardinal Richelieu replied. "Not if the two of them have a dozen healthy children. Don Fernando is calling himself 'king in the Low Countries' and 'Netherlands' is a quite expansive concept. Much of the coastline of northern France is quite low-lying."
"The coastline of northern Germany," the king of France pointed out, "lies even lower. Consider the actions of Ostfriesland. Oxenstierna made it very clear at the Congress of Copenhagen that the Swedes were not happy about that. Personally, I consider it inspired on the part of Count Ulrich to have petitioned for admission to the United Provinces even before his dear cousin Gustav's army got into his territory. Of course, both of their mothers were sisters of the old Lutheran prince-bishop of Bremen who's being supplanted by Prince Frederik of Denmark now. I certainly hope that the thought of the low-lying coast of his new 'Province of Westphalen' keeps Gustav Adolf awake at night, damn his hide."
****
Somewhere in Swabia
"Well, fuck," said Major Simpson.
"That's getting to be a distressingly common expression in your lexicon," said his commanding officer, Colonel Heinrich Schmidt. The tone carried more in the way of amusement than reproof, though.
Tom ignored him, as did Lt. Commander Eddie Cantrell. Both of the young up-time officers were too intent on glaring at the radio transcript.
"Fuck a duck, " was Eddie's useless contribution. He looked around almost wildly at the countryside. Then, his eyes came to rest on the artillery train.
The great, huge, heavy, ponderous, unwieldy, break-your-back-befor e-breakfast-rupture-you-by-lunch-and-put-you-in-a-grave-by-nightfall artillery train.
"You mean to tell me we've dragged these fucking cannons halfway across Europe for nothing? "
"It was your idea in the first place," pointed out the colonel. "The two of you both. I was an innocent party to the affair, brought in only after the fact."
Tom ignored that too. "Now what?" he demanded.
Heinrich grinned. Seeing the expression, Eddie winced. Then, leaned over and rubbed his leg just above the peg that supported it. "Oh, my aching foot-and-pegleg. Don't tell me."
The colonel shrugged. "We can hardly leave the valuable things just sitting here somewhere in Swabia, after all. No, gentlemen, I'm afraid it's back we go-and we'd best not dally, either, or winter will be upon us. Imagine having to haul these monsters through snow drifts as well."
"Well, fuck," said Tom.
"Maybe something will turn up," said Eddie, ever the wild optimist.
****
Something did turn up, to everyone's surprise. A miraculous intervention by the emperor himself, in the form of a radio message that came the next morning.
Pointless to bring them back to Luebeck. Even the admiral has now given up salvaging the Monitor for more than parts and the steel. Take the guns to Ingolstadt. I might want to use them against Maximilian, before too long. Or against Austria, perhaps. There are many possibilities down there. So best to keep them in place.
"Ingolstadt's not so bad," mused Eddie.
"Still be a back-breaker," cautioned Tom. But he was clearly in a much better mood. No matter how you sliced it, getting from Swabia to northern Bavaria was a lot better proposition than returning the guns to the Baltic.
"We might even make it before the first snowfall," was Heinrich's sardonic contribution, such as it was.
****
USE army camp, outside Ingolstadt.
"It's an outrage!" complained Eric Krenz. "Just
when that fat swine Baner agreed to let us at least take liberty in the town."
Hands on hips, he glared around at the tent camp that had been set up by the artillery regiment. "And now! Pack all this up and march to Magdeburg."
"Give it a rest," said Thorsten Engler. "It's the army, Eric. What do you expect?"
Give it a rest and Eric Krenz, of course, never fit well in the same sentence, if Krenz had a grievance.
"Exactly my point!" he insisted. Piously: "In military terms, we should stay right here. In case the war with Bavaria flares up again."
Thorsten would normally have satisfied himself with a simple, sarcastic retort, but he actually found himself interested in the military equation. Willy-nilly, whether he'd ever intended it or not, having been promoted to officer rank had caused a subtle change in his attitudes. He couldn't help it. Thorsten was a natural foreman, and although he had no craving for a position of authority, once he found one given to him, he simply had to take it seriously.
"Well…" The lieutenant scratched his chin. "At a guess, I'd say the emperor has decided that Maximilian poses no threat for at least a year. Not with his court in disarray, large parts of his army vanished-and certainly not if the rumors we've heard about the farmers' revolt are even half-true."
"So?" demanded Krenz. "Now's the time to jump on the bastard, then."
Engler shook his head. "You're not thinking clearly, Eric. Even if we succeeded in taking Bavaria, then what? We'd have a farmers' rebellion on our hands-and probably a rebellion in most of the towns, too. We'd have to keep an army there for years, before everything settled down."
"Quarters in Munich," said Krenz. "Years of that don't sound too bad."
Thorsten couldn't help but smile. "Sergeant Krenz, you are to far-sighted vision what a hog is to scenery, when there's a full trough in front of him. 'Oblivious,' is the most polite term I can think of. For the next year, at least, the emperor is far more concerned with Saxony and Brandenburg-and who knows how far east?-than he is with Bavaria."
He waved a hand at the camp. "So let's start packing everything up. Concentrate on the task of getting ourselves back to Magdeburg before the first snowfall, shall we? Instead of pining pointlessly about whatever comforts-or lack thereof-we might find in Munich."
Krenz still had his hands on his hips. He leaned forward slightly and gave Thorsten an accusing glare. A sneer came with it, too.
"You don't fool me, with your new-found-ha! you, a farm boy!-military sagacity. You just like the idea of Magdeburg because Caroline's in Magdeburg."
Engler saw no reason to dignify that charge with a direct reply. Especially since there was some truth to it.
Quite a bit, in fact. His fiancee was in Magdeburg, after all. And while Caroline Platzer was an enthusiastic supporter of the German custom of fenstering, she was still an up-timer in most regards. So she saw no reason to require her betrothed to climb through a window just to get into her bed. She'd have the door open for him, instead, with herself smiling in the doorway.
"Get a move on, sergeant!" he commanded brusquely.
Chapter 71
Cor Ad Cor Locquitur
Amsterdam
"Overall," Rebecca said, "I am rather proud of our handiwork. They make a handsome couple."
"They are leaving tomorrow?" Fredrik Hendrik asked.
"Yes," Rebecca said. "They want the wedding to take place as soon as possible, naturally. Don Fernando wants very much to be married at the Cathedral in Brussels. I think that he wants, even more, to present Maria Anna to the Infanta, to Isabella Clara Eugenia, since everyone thinks that the time remaining to her is very short. Indeed, many people are astonished that she has lived this long. Since it is a hundred and twenty-five miles, even though they will be traveling with minimal pomp and almost no luggage, just the necessary staff personnel and a really big security detail, it will take several days for them to make the trip. That allows time for the great nobles of the southern Netherlands to get to Brussels, though scarcely time for any of them to get new clothes."
"The death of Ferdinand II, of course, provides Fernando and Maria Anna with every excuse for marrying quietly, since the bride will be in official mourning. The extensive formal processions and such can come later," Fredrik Hendrik said.
"True," Rebecca replied. "And Gretchen gave them advice on how to get married in a hurry."
The stadtholder raised his eyebrows.
Rebecca winked. "Borrow the dress."
Mike laughed raucously.
"That is exactly what Maria Anna plans to do. Gretchen and Jeff gave her a wedding present, too. I didn't expect Gretchen to do that, given her grumbling against nobility in general and Habsburgs in particular."
"Dare I ask?"
"Jeff went shopping and bought an Indian sari in the oriental imports section of the Amsterdam marketplace. It is red chiffon sprinkled with gilt stars and a fancy gilt border. Practically transparent. The color should look great on Maria Anna, she's so brunette. That would have been okay by itself, but Gretchen did some minimal stitching and turned it into a sort of regency-style nightgown. Gathers over the bosom and floating panels. No seams down the sides below the high waistline. It's really, ah, very…" Rebecca paused.
"Victoria's Secret?" Mike completed her sentence.
Rebecca looked blank.
"The kind of thing to inspire a husband to go shopping in the oriental bazaar."
"Precisely." She looked down at her swollen belly. "After the baby is born, of course. Which Anne Jefferson tells me should be almost any day now."
Mike looked slightly relieved at the reminder that his wife would be giving birth with an up-time nurse present. There was no way, of course-not at this late stage in the pregnancy-that they could fly to Grantville. The baby would have to be born right here in Amsterdam. For the same reason, they wouldn't be able to attend the upcoming wedding in Brussels of Don Fernando and Maria Anna.
Rebecca was sorry for that, since she would have enjoyed being there for the occasion. But she was also privately amused by Mike's attitude. Anne Jefferson herself thought that the down-time and very experienced Dutch midwife would handle the matter just fine. Probably better than she could, in fact.
"I might," he said, "just do that. Now that you have brought the matter up."
****
Brussels
There had been several busy, but comparatively quiet days. Contrary to protocol, Fernando and Maria Anna had ridden side by side during the trip to Brussels. He had justified this by saying that he did not really have enough guards along to provide two separate details. Dona Mencia had contributed a request that her brother be allowed to share the carriage, which gave Maria Anna an opportunity to volunteer to ride-and Don Fernando the chance to give her a really gorgeous horse as a first wedding present.
"Given that you are coming to me without a sixty-eight clause treaty protecting your interests, dower, and everything else," he said frankly, "I might as well start making it very clear to your brother that you will receive from me, voluntarily, every perquisite that normally it would have taken our diplomats months to negotiate."
"I doubt that it's been the first thing on his mind lately," Maria Anna said. "But, of course, it will be one more item that he doesn't have to worry about, so he will be properly grateful."
Without pomp was a relative concept, of course. They had created time for two noon meals with local nobility, regional officials, and municipal officers, one at Utrecht in the new kingdom's northern provinces, the second at Antwerp in the old southern provinces, so neither could claim to have been disadvantaged. There had been a third formal meal today, after their arrival at Brussels. Don Fernando had reserved the afternoon for catching up on paperwork; the evening, he had kept free for an unofficial dinner with the members of his privy council. Maria Anna had spent the afternoon being fitted for a trousseau. That left the twilight.
Dona Mencia, was, it had to be said, dozing. Perhaps even sleeping-certainly, her chin
had dropped somewhat, although it would have been unkind to describe her breathing as a snore. Don Fernando's secretary, making the most of an autumn evening in the Netherlands, was writing at his desk in the back of the room, next to the windows that faced onto the street.
"Shall we walk along the terraces?" Fernando asked.
"That would be nice. It seems to have stopped raining." Maria Anna picked up her shawl.
The first traverse along the arcades, which covered almost a quarter of a mile facing the gardens, was devoted to the day's events. At the end, they noted that Dona Mencia still appeared content, while the secretary had lit a lamp to supplement the fading light of the sun.
The second traverse through the colonnades was devoted to Don Fernando's request for an update on the escape from Bavaria and Maria Anna's intervening adventures, along with what they might mean. "Somewhat more open than you have felt it possible to give me when a half dozen other people were listening," he specified.
"I had a lot of time to think," Maria Anna said. "Walking and riding for so many weeks, that is almost all that I did. Think and pray. My information is not good, of course. I really only know what I read in the newspapers, so you must forgive me if some of my premises are incorrect."
"Of course," Fernando said. "That is understood."
"The most important for us, in the long run, should be that there were two betrayals this summer-the one at Ingolstadt against Duke Maximilian and then that by Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar against the French."
"You see them as linked?"
"Not in their origins, I believe. But in the way that the pamphleteers will show them. For both Colonel von Farensbach and Duke Bernhard were, at one time in the past, in the employ of the Swede-and the traitor Cratz von Scharffenstein has now done the same. Someone who does not see them as simple opportunists can discern a whole pattern, deeply laid, by which Gustav Adolf has been employing double agents, infiltrating them deeply into the councils of his opponents-the French, the Bavarians, our own. In the case of Farensbach, since his family is from the Baltic, a writer might well argue that the roots go far back in time, a decade or more before the Swede intervened in the German wars. Mary Simpson says that they called such writers 'conspiracy theorists' up-time."