Ring of Fire III

Chapter Four

Schwarzach, mid-February 1635

Schwarzach was in the Rhine river bottoms. The “hill” on which the ancient Romanesque cathedral stood might better have been described as a modest hump.

“Gee whiz,” Matt Trelli commented as he climbed out of the Monster after the more senior members of the delegation had already descended. “If they grew corn as high as an elephant’s eye around here, the top of the corn and the top of the hill would be just about even with each other.”

Marcie nodded. “It’s about as big a change from the Alps as we could have found.”

Kanoffski presented the members of Der Kloster to the regent.

De Melon presented the members of the Tyrolese delegation to the duke.

Dr. Bienner made a gracious speech and adumbrated the issues that were to be negotiated.

Bernhard’s chancellor, hauled up from his customary and ordinary duties in Besancon for the occasion, replied. Then he presented the representative from the USE embassy in Basel to the regent and the duke.

The senior delegates retired to their quarters in the episcopal residence to prepare for a diplomatic reception.

Even though Tony Adducci was five years younger than Matt, thus separated from him in the up-time by the yawning generation gap described as ‘not in high school when I was,’ they were so delighted to see one another that they started wrestling in the antechamber. Marcie made them stop.

The reception was meant to be quite preliminary to the serious negotiations. It proved to be momentous, although nobody but the principal parties noticed. More precisely, the observers didn’t notice it that same evening. In the minds of those principal parties, however, the looming issue of “the bride” was settled almost at once.

Duke Bernhard absentmindedly made etiquette-appropriate chitchat with Dr. Bienner and eyed Claudia de Medici. He expected to found a dynasty. Until tonight, his expectations in regard to what that project might involve had been rather vague. His associates of Der Kloster, volubly and vociferously, expected him to found a dynasty. They had hitched their wagons to his star; they expected due rewards, not just now, but for their children and grandchildren.

He had read the briefing papers; here, right in front of him, was a good looking titian-haired widow who in two marriages had successfully given birth to six children, five of whom were alive and flourishing, two of whom were male. She was three months older than he. Both of them were thirty. If she remarried she could-and very probably would-give birth to children for another dozen years.

Five or six children would be plenty, especially if Frau Dunn, the widow of the traitor Horton, could do things to prevent smallpox and plague, reduce fevers, rehydrate cases of infantile dysentery by using a mild saline solution…He had received numerous lectures on the reduction of childhood mortality in the last few months. He had been somewhat annoyed, wishing that the woman would pay more attention to training “medics” for his regiments. Suddenly they seemed relevant.

Why risk his undeniable need for heirs on any of the untried virgins who had been recommended to him as wives when a woman with a truly spectacular track record was standing right in front of him? Not to mention that she clearly understood politics and economics or she would not have proposed the current negotiations. Tyrol held colorable title to significant territories in Swabia, a couple of which he had already annexed. This was-always with the exception of Amalie, of course-the most interesting female that he had ever met.

Well, with the exception of the terrifying, tiny East Indian who was the USE ambassadress in Basel. “Interesting” was a very inadequate term to describe Diane Jackson. However, she was not only married, but well beyond childbearing age. Regrettable.

Not that he had met many women. He had gone from home at thirteen, when his mother died, to the university of Jena under the supervision of a strict tutor, to the army at eighteen. His only sister, born a few months after his father’s death, had died at the age of three. He barely remembered her. Aside from Aunt Anna Sofie, the intelligent, strong-willed widow of Count Ludwig Guenther’s older brother in Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, who was childless, committed to educational reform and social welfare, and Amalie, he had almost never sat down and had a conversation with a female. His recent encounters with Frau Jackson in Basel excepted. Mentally, he shrugged. Women had been in short supply in his life. There had been passing encounters, of course, but he had never kept a mistress. He had no bastards that he knew of.

Everyone told him that the regent of Tyrol was strong-willed and intelligent. Why would a busy man want to bother with any other kind? Bernhard was not averse to strong-willed, intelligent women. Particularly red-haired ones. He squelched that thought firmly and returned his mind to his conversation with Philipp Sattler, who had somehow taken Dr. Bienner’s place while his mind was wandering.

Claudia, standing on the other side of the room and conversing politely with the abbot of Schwarzach and the mayor of the town, eyed Duke Bernhard. He was a man who was not an ex-cardinal. How refreshing. Considering that her father had been an ex-cardinal, her second husband had been an ex-cardinal, and now poor Leopold’s cousin Maria Anna had married another ex-cardinal, she could only consider a man who was neither an ex-cardinal nor one of her subordinates to be an interesting variation in the category “male human being.” It would be interesting to have a man in her life whose official portrait did not depict him in a cassock. She mentally dismissed all consideration of her first husband, the obnoxious duke of Urbino to whom she had been married off when he was fifteen and she was sixteen. Horrible boy. The nicest thing that Federigo Ubaldo della Rovere had ever done for her was die. Not that she was sufficiently deluded or self-centered to believe that the assassins who murdered him had done it to make her life easier, but, still, she made it a point to remember them in her prayers. Leopold had been much nicer, but he had also been nearly twenty years her senior.

Duke Bernhard looked fairly healthy. Athletic. Superb horseman. The briefing papers said something about chronic indigestion, but he had enough sense that he had hired an up-time nurse.

He had already demonstrated that he was one of the best generals of the age. He clearly had ambition. She would not have had any reason to initiate these negotiations if he didn’t. Perhaps, with encouragement, he would help her pry her daughter from her first marriage out of the clutches of her grandparents. Letters from Italy indicated that Vittoria, now almost thirteen, was…not pretty. That, alas, she bore an unfortunate physical resemblance to her late father, the unlamented duke of Urbino. Under the circumstances, she would need her mother’s guidance if she were to achieve a happy future.

She had the absolutely irrational thought that Duke Bernhard was taller than she. How unusual. How…irrelevant. She squelched the thought firmly and returned her attention to making social conversation with the local worthies.

Five days later, the negotiations came to a satisfactory conclusion in the form of a preliminary prenuptial settlement. The details remained to be worked out, of course. Still, it would be a match firmly based on substantial mutual advantages, not to mention a shared appreciation of the value of real estate.

True, Bernhard was Lutheran, while Claudia was Catholic. Still, as she pointed out, the Vienna Habsburgs could scarcely complain, considering that they had been approaching the point of offering Cecelia Renata as an option. Given the religious situation in the lands they would be governing-in a real sense, the disparity of cult might even be counted as an advantage. As for the children, they would simply follow the normal arrangement-the girls would be baptized in her faith and the boys in his. That made no problems for Tyrol-Claudia’s children by Leopold were the heirs there.

“Your Grace,” Matt Trelli said. “Marcie and I really think that it would be a good idea for you to leave us-well, me, at least-here in Swabia. From what Tony Adducci says, the main thrust of the plague will come here in the southwest, not in Tyrol. We just-well, after Kronach and everything, I just feel like I need to be part of the prevention team that the Swiss and Duke Bernhard are putting together.”

The regent looked at him. “You work for me and you will return in accordance with your employment contract. You signed it voluntarily.”

Matt backed out of the room.

De Melon hurried after him. “Don’t do anything rash. She intends to place you as the head organizer of the plague fighters in Tyrol. This is something I have heard. It is not unimportant there. Given the heavy, constant, overland commercial traffic, it will be a challenge to maintain the quarantine without damaging the economy.”

“Matt, listen to me,” Marcie said that evening. “Okay, I get it. She didn’t explain her reasons. That’s sort of how people who were born to run things work. They don’t know that they have to explain. Actually, they don’t have to explain. They might get more cooperation if they did, but-honestly, Matt. They’re just not up-timers. You can’t expect a down-time aristocrat to run her bailiwick the same way Steve Salatto managed things in Bamberg. Anyway-think of it as sort of like being in the army. You couldn’t have backed out of that, either, just because you didn’t like some order Cliff Priest gave you.”