by Eric Flint
Marc had the nervous thought that if another group of unhappy farmers was up at the Geuder's castle, he might not have done the families in the wagons much of a favor by motioning them go on. But no—there they were, coming back down the track, none the worse for wear. The wagons plodded past the boundary unhindered. He looked at his father.
"I think," Leopold said, "that it might be excusable to skip church today." As the sergeant and the farmers argued, Durre's party turned around and followed the wagons back toward Nürnberg.
Chapter 13
Familia Restorata
The three women been debating the matter for several months. Their late brother, unlike themselves and their husbands, had remained in Amberg during the Bavarian occupation. He had converted, at least nominally, to Catholicism, as had his wife and children. As had their stepmother. After the plundering of Amberg, when they never heard from any of their brother's family again, they had assumed that they were dead. And mourned.
Until the Battle of Wismar. When the newspapers reported the family and relationships of the dead hero, Hans Richter. Then they had mourned Hans again. And argued with one another, what to do.
Now, she was in the same city. Their stepmother, whom they had long thought to be dead.
"Do you think," Hanna asked, "that she will think that we come to see her now only because we, too, can claim a share of Papa's property if she gets it?
"Why are we going, if not for that?" Margaretha asked. She was the oldest.
"Because our nephew and niece are suddenly famous, so we know who she is?" Clara suggested.
"Or," Hanna interjected, "because sister Elisabetha's widower, Elias Brechbuhl, is an accountant. Here in Nürnberg, he has barely eked out a living, that is true. But he knows where a lot of the Upper Palatinate's bodies are buried. Financially speaking, that is. I still think that it would be a good idea if Elias went with her. We can try to persuade her of that. Lorenz is willing that we should take Elisabetha's children, if Elias goes."
Her sisters looked at her. Once upon a time, before the war, Hanna's husband Lorenz Mossberger had served as chief clerk to an Amtmann. As an exile, he barely made enough to feed his children as a private notary, serving mainly the Calvinist community. His offer to take in three more children was very generous.
Margaretha looked down uncomfortably. Her second husband, a prosperous shopkeeper and Nürnberg native, would have been much better placed to make such an offer. But he hadn't made it. Nor had she suggested it to him.
As the wagons headed back towards Nürnberg, their debate continued.
Eventually, they reached consensus. This very evening, before she left the city, they would attempt to contact the woman who had once been married to their father, Johann Stephan Richter, and who was now married to the mayor of the notorious Grantville. She should at least be given the opportunity to meet her namesakes, the three little Veronicas. Only three, not four. There had been four little Veronicas once, but half of Elisabetha's children had died.
At worst, Hanna pointed out, she could only refuse to see them.
* * * *
By supper time, Veronica felt considerably restored. Naps were excellent things. She joined the rest of the Grantvillers for supper in the public room of the inn. Keith Pilcher was making a good story of the day's adventures. Especially of his thoughts about plastic flamingoes.
Veronica still thought that Maxine Pilcher's philosophy of education was the height of foolishness. She was rather getting to like the woman's husband, though.
The host approached the table. "Gracious lady," he said, addressing himself to the grandmother of the famous Hans Richter. He paused, waiting for her permission to continue. He had already expressed, several times, how profoundly he was honored by having the heroic pilot's grandmother lodge at his establishment. Was he going to do it again? Veronica was on the verge of becoming annoyed.
"There are three women here who ask to speak to you. They say that they are your stepdaughters. That they live as exiles in Nürnberg."
Veronica grasped the edge of the table with both hands. She needed the support. It was never safe to hope.
"Please," she said. "Please." She was not sure whether she was addressing the petition to the innkeeper or to God. "Please ask them to come in."
Chapter 14
Exercitia Futilitatis
Vienna, Austria
"What can it mean, that they are undertaking this mission?" Lamormaini was not the only political advisor in Europe asking himself that question.
The news that the wife of Grantville's mayor and the wife of Gustav Adolf's up-time admiral were on their way to the Upper Palatinate had caused great consternation in many European capitals, not only Vienna. There wasn't a city in Europe in which the policymakers believed that Veronica Richter was primarily preoccupied with the needs of her own household, family, and business. It was appallingly naive of those up-timers to assert that Admiral Simpson would permit his wife Mary to undertake such a journey for the purpose of getting money to open an institution for the training of teachers for village schools.
What a manifest absurdity! It would have been utterly simpleminded of any responsible man to accept such transparently ridiculous reasons at face value. Which left, of course, the problem of deducing the real significance of the trip.
The only capitals where the trip received minimal attention were those of the north and west. The ladies were, after all, traveling in the opposite direction. In the dispatches from London and Copenhagen, Stockholm and Paris, it rated scarcely more than a passing mention. In those from Spain and Italy, it was barely noted.
Lamormaini himself believed that the visit by the wife of Grantville's mayor might portend a renewed attack on Bavaria, given the instability that Duke Maximilian's misguided attempt to abdicate had introduced into the political situation there. Although, in that case, it was not clear why the admiral's wife was included in the mission. Bavaria, after all, like Thuringia and the Upper Palatinate, was land-locked.
He started to cast around for alternative explanations.
* * * *
"Isn't it frustrating?" Archduchess Cecelia Renata asked her older sister. "Two of the women from the up-time are going to be so close to us, really. It isn't that far from Vienna to Amberg. And yet, we won't get to see them for ourselves."
"They are scarcely zoo exhibits, imported from Asia or Africa for you to view," Doña Mencia de Mendoza said dryly.
"Your Highness," said Frau Stecher. "If you would be so kind as to raise your left arm to shoulder height."
"Well, yes." Cecelia pretended to pout as she lifted her arm. "But really, aren't you even curious?"
"It is hard not to be. Yet, really, they are not our proper concern," Doña Mencia answered.
"Thank you, Your Highness. That will be sufficient," Frau Stecher said. "Now, Archduchess Maria Anna, if you would be so kind."
"If the up-timers keep changing the world," Maria Anna commented as Susanna Allegretti helped her slip into an inside-out-bodice that was bristling with pins, "they may be. Our proper concern, that is. Because we, Papa and Ferdinand, of course, Uncle Max, and whoever it may be that you marry, are the ones who must keep control of the changes, if they are not to destroy everything. So Ferdinand says. Bavaria is even closer to the Upper Palatinate. Maybe, some day...."
Turning to Doña Mencia, Maria Anna continued, "Cecelia is not alone, you know. I also wish, sometimes, that I could see them for myself."
"Remember your proverbs, Your Highness. Remember your proverbs. Beware of what you wish for. You may get your wish."
* * * *
"Both of the archduchesses," Frau Stecher reported. "Both of them, I found, displayed a most unseemly interest in the up-timers."
Her contact thanked her gravely.
Father Lamormaini, upon reading the report, sighed. Whoever it may be that you marry. Thank goodness, Maria Anna was to be married soon, and to Germany's most reliable supporter of the Catholic cau
se. That was a relief. He could stop worrying about her. She would be someone else's responsibility. Now to think about Cecelia Renata's marriage. To the right man.
* * * *
Brussels, the Spanish Netherlands
"We are, after all, in the middle of a war," Don Fernando mused to his advisers. "I suppose it is too much to hope for that the lovely Grantville ladies who are now in Amsterdam would be willing to explain the significance of this trip to us."
There was general consensus that it was far too much to hope for.
He tried asking the delegation that came from Grantville to discuss the disposition of the funds in the Wisselbank. But they said only that, as far as they knew, Veronica Dreeson was going to settle her first husband's estate and Mary Simpson was looking for funding for the normal school in Magdeburg.
That was no help at all.
Don Fernando and his advisers didn't spend much time considering the matter, though. At the moment, they were far more interested in the doings of Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, down in the Franche-Comté.
"And you're certain about this?" Don Fernando asked his advisers. "Bernhard took his forces no further north than Schwarzach on the Rhine?"
Miguel de Manrique waggled his hand back and forth. "Well, not quite. Bernhard himself went no further than Schwarzach, true. But he did send three of his cavalry companies toward Mainz."
One of the other officers snorted. "Amounts to the same thing. They're still in no position to come to the aid of the French and Danish armies outside Luebeck."
Manrique shrugged. "True enough. The gist of it all, Your Highness—and, yes, we believe our reports are accurate—is that it appears Bernhard plans nothing more than a token gesture. Just barely enough to deflect his employer Richelieu's wrath."
Don Fernando nodded. Then, rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "There's another interpretation, you know. Perhaps Bernhard is acting according to secret orders from Richelieu. The cardinal might be planning to betray his Danish allies, the same way he did the Dutch at Dunkirk."
The cardinal-infante and his officers contemplated the possibility for a moment. Then, almost simultaneously, they all shook their heads.
"No, too complicated," said Don Fernando. "Even for Richelieu."
* * * *
Leipzig, Saxony
Duke John George was uneasy. He had been uneasy ever since he took Heinrich Holk into his employ after Holk and his army had been driven out of Prague. He needed Holk's troops as a barrier against Wallenstein, but they were all too likely to turn against his own people. He had felt the need to hold them along his own borders with Bohemia; however, the people of those borders were sending petitions against their presence—and the petitions were becoming increasingly sullen in tone.
He had considered sending Holk south—not authorizing him to operate in the Upper Palatinate, of course. Authorizing him to do something about Leuchtenberg might work. It would involve crossing part of the Upper Palatinate, of course. During the crossing, Holk and his men could forage there. Not in Saxony.
The discussion continued around the conference table. Now this. The woman—the wife of Grantville's mayor. If they were sending her to Amberg, it could only mean that the Swede was intending to provide significant reinforcements to Banér. If the Swede was intending to provide significant reinforcements to Banér, it must mean that he was very confident of success in the north. If he was very confident in the north, he must have data that John George did not. If he had that confidence, where would he turn next? To the south? To the east? Which way would Banér move, if he were reinforced? Against Ferdinand? Or north, against Saxony?
May it please God in heaven, to the east; not to the north. Not toward or through his poor Saxony. Not again.
They had best hold most of Holk's troops where they were for the time being. And deal with those increasingly sullen petitions the best they could. Perhaps with just a few companies to make a feint towards Leuchtenberg?
* * * *
Prague, Bohemia
"One thing I am sure of," Judith Roth said, "is that if Veronica Dreeson says that she's going to Amberg to settle her first husband's estate, then she's going to Amberg to settle her first husband's estate."
She made that pronouncement in the great salon of the mansion that she and her husband Morris owned in Bohemia's capital. Being as Don Morris was one of King Wallenstein's central advisers, the salon was frequently occupied, of an evening, with a significant percentage of Bohemia's movers and shakers.
Everyone else in the room begged to differ.
The grandmother of Hans Richter, the hero of Wismar, would not go on so insignificant a mission.
The grandmother of the revolutionary, Gretchen Richter, would not go on so insignificant a mission.
The wife of the up-time admiral really could not be so concerned about the education of teachers that she would leave the national capital of the USE and devote three months of the year to a trip to a much less significant regional capital.
The speculation continued. There must, certainly, be a deeper underlying significance to this trip. Perhaps it portended a major effort of the USE on behalf of Wallenstein; perhaps it indicated that the USE feared that Wallenstein's situation was precarious and this was an effort to persuade the regent to release Banér's troops for use in Bohemia; perhaps there was to be a coordinated revolutionary uprising in Bavaria and Austria, led by the Committees of Correspondence.
Judith raised her eyebrows and sighed. She thought that she had an advantage over the others. She had actually met both Veronica Dreeson and Mary Simpson. Numerous times, in fact.
"They are," she said, "really quite single-minded. Both of them. Trust me."
The others shook their heads pityingly.
* * * *
Munich, Bavaria
"Why," Joachim Donnersberger asked, "are they coming? Clearly, it can scarcely be about a bit of property in the Upper Palatinate. There is no way that they can expect us to believe that. The Dreeson woman's first husband had a small printing business, not a great mercantile concern."
Contzen and Vervaux looked at one another. The willingness of the Jesuit Order to draw its recruits from all social classes gave many of them a perspective on property rather different from that of the urban patriciate or the nobility. "It may be," Vervaux suggested, "that the amount is not insignificant to her."
The remainder of the privy counselors sublimely ignored this absurd idea.
"At least," Richel interjected, "we do have observers in place. We will know, as soon as can be, what she really spends her time doing. What both of them spend their time doing. If we can get someone else into the household of the Swede's cousin, we really should. The true intent must be that they are bringing instructions for him. Or for Banér, which amounts to the same thing."
"There is now," Duke Albrecht said, "a concentration of Banér's troops around Ingolstadt. Whatever the instructions the women are bringing, clearly they are so private that the Swede is unwilling to risk the possibility of a disloyal operator of their 'radio.'" Not, he thought, that this was excessive caution on Gustav Adolf's part. There would soon be at least one radio operator in Amberg who was willing to transmit information to Bavaria on the rare occasions that he was alone in the room.
Breaking the codes was another matter altogether.
* * * *
Duchess Mechthilde had a private conversation with her brother, the landgrave of Leuchtenberg. More accurately she tried to, for Wilhelm Georg's mind was no longer fully reliable. She would have liked to have called in his sons, but one was at Ingolstadt and the other in Vienna. Or should have been in Vienna, if he had not been sent to accompany Ferdinand II's heir on a tour of inspection of fortifications in Hungary.
Although the family had fled from Leuchtenberg and the Swede's regent in the Upper Palatinate was now administering it, this did not mean that a significant portion of the population was not loyal to the landgrave and resentful of the usurper. Mechthilde thought
that something ought to be done. Duke Maximilian had clearly lost his edge; Bavaria was being run in his name by the privy council. The privy council had no more nerve than the average committee. If something was to be done in the Upper Palatinate, it would be up to Leuchtenberg, but she had no way to do anything. It was frustrating.
* * * *
Amberg, Upper Palatinate
The Swede's regent of the Upper Palatinate was equally puzzled. "Why is she coming? Why not?" Duke Ernst asked. He threw up his hands. "Tell me why I should be surprised."
In 1628, Duke Maximilian had demanded that all residents of the Upper Palatinate either become Catholic within six months or leave the country. Just in Amberg, the capital city, about ten percent of the citizens had left.
Duke Ernst continued. "Within the past two years, we have received letters from exiles in Regensburg and Nürnberg. That was to be expected, of course. Those are the nearest major Protestant cities. But there have also been letters from Basel and Geneva, from London and Edinburgh. If the former denizens of Amberg have gotten that far from home within the past five years, why should some of them not have gone to this Grantville?"
Turning toward Böcler, he held out his hands, as if in supplication. "But why does it have to be the wife of their mayor? Why does it have to be Hans Richter's grandmother? Why couldn't it have been some perfectly ordinary person? And why the admiral's wife?"
Böcler had no answer. In his heart, however, he could not have been happier. He could hardly wait for his duties to be over so that he could go back to his own room and insert the outline for a new chapter in his projected historia.
This was going to be much more interesting than the originally announced arrival of a trade delegation to discuss iron mining. Not that the economy wasn't important, of course. But it was hard to narrate economic matters in such a way that they kept the reader's interest. Intrepid ladies, on the other hand, offered fascinating possibilities.
* * * *
Grafenwöhr, Upper Palatinate
Kilian Richter, while not giving a single thought to Mary Simpson, had a pretty clear idea why his sister-in-law Veronica was coming back. The prospect of her return did not make him happy.