“Oh, yuck,” said Denise.
“Double yuck,” agreed Minnie.
“Yeah, I know, it’s not exactly your cup of tea. But you’ve got to show up, whether you like it or not.”
“What the hell are we supposed to wear?” demanded Denise. “What I know about how to dress for a formal seventeenth fucking century formal dinner is—is—” She looked like a fish gasping out of water as she tried to think of a suitable analogy.
“If I took out my glass eye would they still make me come?” That was Minnie’s contribution.
“Cut it out, both of you.” Again, Noelle pointed over her shoulder with the thumb. “I know you don’t know squat. That’s why I’m taking you to see Sarah and Judy Wendell and the other Barbies. They set up shop in the palace an hour ago, so they can all get ready for the occasion.”
Denise frowned. “Why are they coming?”
Minnie shook her head and gave Noelle a sad look. “Sometimes I worry about her, Noelle. Denise is usually pretty bright, but now and then…”
She looked at her friend. “They’re stinking rich. What more does anybody need to get invited to a fancy whatever-they-call-this? Dinner, ball, soiree, whatever.”
Noelle headed for the door. “Follow me. Now, Denise.”
* * *
As it turned out, the Barbies—especially Judy Wendell—were a lot of help. Denise and Judy knew each other, of course. They were just about the same age and they’d gone to school together before the Ring of Fire. But they’d never been close—and that, for two reasons.
First, they belonged to different crowds. Simplifying a great deal—which, of course, was exactly the way kids in middle and high school categorized everyone—Denise was a bad girl and Judy was a good girl. Denise’s father had been a biker who made his living as a welder; Judy’s father had been an insurance agent. Denise could often be found sneaking a cigarette behind the girls’ gym; Judy had never smoked in her life.
Secondly, the one thing they had in common had tended to keep them apart as well. They had been, by the generally held opinion of most girls and all boys, the two best-looking girls in their class. Neither Denise nor Judy cared very much about their appearance themselves. But the boys who clustered around them did, and that automatically tended to keep them at a distance from each other.
It was too bad, in a way, Denise was now realizing. Judy was a big help getting her and Minnie properly fitted out for the upcoming fancy event. Yet, much to their surprise, Judy was just about as irreverent and sarcastic about the whole business as they were. Looking back on it, Denise could now see where her impression of Judy as a stuck-up snot had probably been unfair. Up close, the girl had a pretty wicked sense of humor.
Besides, both Denise and Minnie had heard the famous story before they’d even arrived in Vienna.
“Pretty hard not to like a girl who knees an archduke in the balls when he gets fresh with her,” was Minnie’s way of putting it.
“Can’t argue with that,” said Denise.
* * *
The event itself went reasonably smoothly. Noelle was relieved to see that the Barbies—especially Judy Wendell—kept a close eye on her two sometime-wayward charges and steered them out of trouble.
Thankfully for her own peace of mind, she never overheard Judy’s running commentary on the various royal, noble, and patrician attendees at the gala affair, which ranged from derisive remarks on personal foibles to explications of episodes far too scandalous for three teenage girls to even be discussing, much less analyzing in detail.
Ingolstadt
“How many are there?” General Timon von Lintelo lowered his spyglass and looked at the officer standing next to him on the wall. That was Lorenz Münch von Steinach, the colonel in command of the Bavarian cavalry units stationed in Ingolstadt. Two reconnaissance patrols had just returned after scouting the area north of the city.
“The exact number of the enemy forces isn’t known, General.” Münch used his chin to point to the north. “That area is too heavily wooded for the scouts to be sure they saw everything. But whatever the precise figure might be, there’s no doubt at all that we’ll be heavily outnumbered.”
Lintelo grunted. The sound had something of a sarcastic flavor, but the general didn’t give voice to it. Lintelo was partial to Münch. Had the cavalry colonel been another officer he might have received an open reprimand for not being able to provide an exact figure for the enemy’s force—and never mind that such figures in the middle of a war were always at least partly a mirage.
That they were heavily outnumbered was the key point anyway. The exact ratio—three to one, four to one, possibly even five to one—was somewhat academic. When Duke Maximilian learned that General Stearns and the USE’s Third Division were concentrating their forces at Regensburg, he immediately drew the conclusion that their plan was to march directly on Munich, rather than trying to recapture Ingolstadt first.
It would be a bold move, leaving an enemy fortress in his rear, but the American general had a reputation by now for being bold to the point of recklessness. So, the duke had ordered almost two-thirds of the soldiers who seized Ingolstadt in January to withdraw and rejoin the main Bavarian army just north of Munich.
Von Lintelo wasn’t privy to Maximilian’s plans, but he was sure the duke intended to meet Stearns somewhere in the open field rather than waiting for him to invest the Bavarian capital. Maximilian was given to boldness himself, and he’d recently hired the Italian general Ottavio Piccolomini to command the Bavarian army. Given the circumstances of that hiring, Piccolomini would have his own reasons to act decisively.
Piccolomini had distinguished himself during the recent Mantuan War—although more as a diplomat than a soldier—but his principal bona fides were peculiarly theoretical. Much like the French marshal Turenne, Piccolomini’s rapid promotion was due primarily to what was said about him in the American history books. Apparently in that other universe he’d been a major figure in military affairs.
Hiring the commander of an entire army because of his other-worldly and future reputation bordered on folly, perhaps, but Maximilian didn’t have many other choices. The duke’s behavior since the treachery of the Austrian archduchess who was supposed to have married him had been savage and often not very sane. As a result, Bavaria had hemorrhaged experienced commanders. Just to name two of the most prominent, General Franz von Mercy and his immediate subordinate Colonel Johann von Werth had both abandoned Bavaria after Ingolstadt had been lost due to the treachery of its commander, Cratz von Scharffenstein. Von Werth had since gone to work for Grand Duke Bernhard in Burgundy and von Mercy had taken employment with the Austrians.
Piccolomini would be anxious to prove himself, therefore. And he would probably share Maximilian’s assessment that Stearns was a lucky commander rather than a competent one. Von Lintelo shared that assessment himself. The American’s luck was bound to run out soon, and where better to have that happen than on the hills and plains of northern Bavaria?
Regensburg
“This seems completely silly for such a risk,” complained Stefano Franchetti.
“Look on the bright side,” said Bonnie Weaver, grunting as she heaved another sack of leaflets over the rim of the gondola. She was in something of a foul mood because the only reason she’d gotten drafted into doing this grunt work was because she’d done Heinz the favor of picking up the leaflets at the printer’s and then discovered that apparently she was expected to deliver it to the airfield herself.
That meant dickering with a nearby teamster company to provide her with a wagon and driver and then deciding she had to accompany the wagon to make sure the delivery was done properly—and then deciding she had no choice but to provide Stefano and Mary Tanner Barancek some help in loading the sacks of leaflets into the gondola because Franchetti was being sullen and Barancek was being Size 4.
“What’s the bright side?” groused Stefano.
“These things only weigh about twenty-fi
ve pounds, which Mary ought to be able to handle well enough. Who knows? If the brass decides to list tonight’s adventure as a combat mission—which they probably will, just to avoid having to wrangle with your boss Estuban over the surcharge—then Mary gets her qualifying run. One of three, anyway.”
“Hey, she’s right!” said Mary, looking cheerful. She went instantly from Struggling Size 4 to Hefty Size 10.
It took only a few minutes more, after that.
“Why so many sacks?” Mary wondered.
“From what Heinz told me, Major Simpson wants the streets of Ingolstadt paved with those leaflets. Have fun tossing them overboard.” And with that, Bonnie headed off. Happily—no fool she, and the teamster hadn’t asked for much and it was a government job anyway, not like she was paying for it—the wagon was waiting to take her back into town.
Six hundred feet above Ingolstadt
The rockets made a pretty sight, Tom thought. Between their innate inaccuracy and the fact they’d had to aim by moonlight obscured by clouds, none of the missiles got dangerously close except one—and all that one did when it exploded was pepper the bottom of the gondola with shrapnel that never penetrated. And he’d stayed far enough away from both of the rail gun pits that neither one of them ever opened fire at all.
He had Stefano slow down once they got over the city because he wanted to make sure the leaflets didn’t fall outside of the city walls. There wasn’t much chance of that happening, with the very light wind that night, but Tom didn’t want to take any chances.
This expedition was based on pure guesswork, as was true of almost any psychological warfare tactic. But Tom thought his guesswork was probably on the money, and if he was right he’d be saving himself and something like twenty thousand soldiers from the USE army and the SoTF National Guard a fair amount of grief.
“Okay, that’s the last one,” said Mary. She was breathing heavily and the moonlight shone off a sheen of sweat on her face. Between her slenderness and the pace at which they’d been working, she was close to exhaustion by now.
“All right, Stefano,” said Tom. “You can go to full throttle.”
Damn, those lawnmower engines made a racket.
For some odd reason, two rockets were sent after them when they were at least half a mile beyond the city limits. Whoever fired them was probably motivated by sheer frustration, because there was no chance at all they could have done any damage.
“Do you think it was worth taking the risk?” asked Stefano, when they were another five miles away and headed back toward Regensburg. The young pilot was sounding quite cheerful now, though. Combat bonus pay was nice, once you knew you’d gotten clear.
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Tom replied.
Ingolstadt
The battalion of Italian mercenaries had several men who could read German, and even two who could read English. But it hardly mattered since the contents of the leaflets were translated into Italian and Spanish also—as well as French, Polish and Dutch.
AMNESTY
ALL BAVARIAN SOLDIERS WHO SURRENDER WILL BE GIVEN AMNESTY WHEN WE CAPTURE INGOLSTADT EXCEPT THE TRAITORS IN THE 1ST BATTALION.
The 1st Battalion had been the one whose treachery had allowed the Bavarians to retake Ingolstadt.
“Well, fuck,” said one of them, after his buddy translated it for him. He didn’t read at all. At least half of the battalion was illiterate.
But, by daybreak, every single one of them knew what the leaflets said.
* * *
The first breakout took place just before noon. General von Lintelo didn’t move quickly enough and make sure all of the guards at the gates were from reliable units. About thirty Italian mercenaries from the 1st Battalion got out through the west gate before control was restored. An hour later, another twenty or so overpowered the guards at another gate and got out of the city as well. Several dozen more—no exact count was ever made—got out right after them.
Thereafter, von Lintelo regained control of all the gates.
Until nightfall. Two hours past sundown, after a quick negotiation, the Swiss mercenaries guarding the west gate pocketed their bribe and led the Italians out of the gate themselves.
Maybe there’d be amnesty given to Swiss who weren’t in that battalion… and maybe there wouldn’t. Words were cheap. Every soldier in the garrison, no matter what his origin or what unit he belonged to or what language he spoke knew that by now, sixteen years after the White Mountain and five years after the sack of Magdeburg, there were no troops as hated in central Europe as those in the employ of Bavaria. They’d all heard of the enemy’s new battlecry: “Magdeburg quarter!”
And the Bavarian troops had behaved almost as badly when they took Ingolstadt as they had five years earlier in Magdeburg. If the USE army retook the city, there was most likely going to be another slaughter. Amnesty be damned. Magdeburg quarter.
Chapter 7
Vienna
“So what does Wallenstein want—besides keeping his head?” Ferdinand III, in that moment, reminded Janos Drugeth more of his pig-headed father than himself. His tone was sour; the expression on his face more sour still.
Janos glanced at Noelle. He was pleased to see that she was withstanding imperial disfavor without any seeming effort. Her own expression was polite, attentive—and in some indefinable way that was much too subtle to warrant taking any offense, it was also distant. So might a taxonomist study an interesting new insect to see how best it might be classified.
“Keeping his head suggests that he’s also keeping his throne,” she said evenly.
Ferdinand waved his hand. “Yes, yes, of course.”
Janos decided it was time for him to intervene. Perhaps he’d be able to nudge the imperial foul mood in a more useful direction.
“I think it might be better if we considered what we might want from Wallenstein.” Seeing the still-mulish look on his monarch’s face, his tone roughened a bit and, for the first time since the audience began, he transgressed protocol by using the emperor’s given name. He normally only did that when he and Ferdinand were alone.
“Ferdinand, the Turks are coming. There is no doubt about it any longer. They haven’t begun the march from Belgrade yet but that’s just because they’re waiting for the spring grass to grow a bit more. And by all accounts of our spies, that army Sultan Murad has assembled in Belgrade is enormous. It’s probably as big as the one Suleiman brought against us a century ago.”
Ferdinand now looked weary rather than petulant. He wiped his face with his hand.
“Do you really think it’s that big?”
Janos shrugged, the motion constrained both by the chair he was sitting in as well as his cumbersome dress uniform. “Who really knows? The number in the chronicles of Suleiman’s siege ranged from one hundred and twenty thousand men to three hundred thousand. All I can say for sure is that we’re somewhere in that same range today. If you press me—yes, I know you are—I’d guess at the lower end of the range. Spies almost always overestimate an enemy’s numbers.”
He sat up straighter and leaned forward, his hands planted on his knees. “But it doesn’t matter, Ferdinand. Even if he only has one hundred thousand—even ninety or eighty thousand—we’re badly outnumbered. In 1529, the Spanish emperor Charles V sent pikemen and musketeers to support us, and when the Turks attacked in 1683—would attack, did attack, however you put something that happens in another universe—the kingdom of Poland came to our aid. Today? Whether they admit it publicly or not, the Poles and the Spanish will be supporting the Turks. So will the Russians, most likely.”
Ferdinand head came up. “The Russians also? Do you really think so?”
Janos waggled his hand back and forth. “Define who you mean by ‘the Russians.’ I don’t doubt the Tsar would support us. But Mikhail’s off in Ufa trying to hold together some sort of government in exile. Sheremetev holds the real power in Moscow and he favors the Poles and they’ll favor the Turks. The point is, we’re only going
to have two possible allies in this coming war.”
Ferdinand’s expression went back to being mulish.
Janos threw up his hands. “Face it, will you? We need the United States of Europe—and we need Bohemia.”
* * *
Noelle was simultaneously appalled, apprehensive—and, being honest, a bit thrilled. She’d known Janos was close to the Austrian emperor but she hadn’t realized just how close that relationship really was. There were rulers in Europe—there’d certainly been rulers in Austria!—who’d have ordered Janos arrested for the way he was talking to his monarch. Some of the harsher and more intemperate of those rulers would have had him beheaded as well.
And… this was the fellow she intended to marry. Not simply marry, either, since it wasn’t as if either of them planned to settle down for a quiet life in some out-of-the-way province, raising children and chickens. (Her mind veered aside for a moment. Did they raise chickens in Austria? She realized she wasn’t sure.)
No, they planned to remain right here in the capital of Austria-Hungary, and continue to be engaged in High Matters of State. The one time she’d used that expression in front of Denise and Minnie—“High Matters of State”—their response had been immediate:
“That translates as ‘chopping block’ in English.” That came from Denise.
Minnie’s contribution was: “Yeah, but I think they let your family bury the head with your body afterward. Better than what usually happens to common criminals.”
Janos turned to Noelle. “Help me out here. Explain to Ferdinand what the USE is likely to offer—and want in return.”
Appalled, apprehensive—and a bit thrilled.
Prague, capital of Bohemia
“Yes, I’m comfortable here, Don Francisco. Quite comfortable—as you’d expect of a suite in Wallenstein’s own palace. But it’s still a prison and you know it perfectly well.”
Duke Albrecht of Bavaria turned away from the window and gave Francisco Nasi a look that was more exasperated than angry. That same exasperation had been subtly indicated by his use of the name “Wallenstein” rather than the new title: “Albrecht II, King of Bohemia.”