1636: The Ottoman Onslaught Page 26

  “No. Why should I? Don Francisco doesn’t need both of us to report back to him. And while it’s true my reports are better than yours—more concise; better organized; way less commentary—yours are still good enough for what he needs to know right now.” She slipped into a slightly singsong tone, as if reciting something memorized. “Yes, boss, the Ottomans are coming to Vienna, there is no doubt about it in anyone’s mind. The Viennese are worried but they’re not as worried as they ought to be. They keep thinking that the up-time history books are some sort of magic talisman. Didn’t happen in 1529; wouldn’t have happened in 1683; so how could it happen now? That kind of silliness.”

  Denise glared at her. “You just want to stay because you’re scheming. About that stupid fucking prince.”

  “First, he’s not a prince. Except in a few places—I’m quoting the immortal words from The Princess Bride—that word does not mean what you think it means. Leopold Wilhelm is an archduke.”

  “Same thing. Close enough.”

  “Not the same thing. And to quote other immortal words, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”

  “You’ve never played horseshoes in your life.”

  “Of course not. It’s amazing how many stupid games you Americans came up with. Football! Thankfully, most of them didn’t make it through the Ring of Fire. Secondly—”

  Minnie ignored her friend’s splutter of outrage at this grotesque denigration of American games, which was ridiculous anyway because Denise’s opinion of football was abysmal and so far as Minnie knew she’d never played horseshoes once in her life.

  “—you can’t call it ‘scheming’ because a scheme implies that you’re trying to pull a fast one on someone who’d never agree to what you want him to do if you just proposed it straight up and you know as well as I do that Leopold’s got the hots for me. The problem, him being an archduke, is that he can’t figure out how to approach the subject on account of the last time he put the make on an up-timer he got his balls mashed.”

  “You’re not an up-timer.”

  “I’m an honorary up-timer. You’ve said so yourself about a thousand times.”

  Denise looked sulky. “I don’t think I said that more than once or twice. Maybe half a dozen times. Tops.”

  “Still true—and what’s more to the point, Leopold agrees with you. That’s why he’s scared of me. Which—we’re up to point three now—is why I need to stay in Vienna so I have the time to decide if I want to pursue it myself—which I probably do, since I still thinks he’s pretty cute—and, if so, I’ll need the time to educate him in the proper ways of a man with a maiden.”

  “You’re not a maiden. Not even close!”

  Minnie gave her friend a look of pity. “I’m speaking in poetry, not prose. I can do that because I’m a singer.”

  * * *

  Elsewhere in the room, two other people were having another dispute on the subject of leave-taking.

  “There is no reason for you to stay, Cecilia Renata. Having one of us remain in Vienna during the siege is quite good enough.”

  Leopold Wilhelm tilted his head so he could look down his nose at his sister. That did less good than it might have with someone else, because Cecilia Renata was no slouch herself in the down-nose-looking department. True, he had the advantage of four inches in height, but that was easily offset by her advantage of three years of age.

  The noses being evenly matched, Leopold tried sentiment. “I won’t be able to concentrate on my duties, because I’ll be so worried about you.”

  “I am not planning to stand on the walls with a musket, brother. If it makes you feel better, I can have the cellars under the outer wing stocked with supplies so I can take shelter there during especially heavy bombardments.”

  That… wasn’t a bad idea, actually. The cellars were deep enough to provide protection from any cannon fire, certainly. And in the very unlikely event that the Ottomans managed to breach the walls and make an incursion into the city, they would also provide his sister with an excellent hiding place. The entrance to the cellars had been disguised when it was built for precisely that purpose.

  That wing was a portion of the imperial palace that was not directly connected to the rest of the Hofburg. It had been built in the middle of the last century, and its original purpose had been to provide separate housing for crown prince Maximillian. His father, Ferdinand I, suspected his son and heir of Protestant sympathies and wanted him quarantined from the rest of the family.

  In the event, Maximilian had remained faithful to the Catholic church, and when he succeeded his father as Holy Roman Emperor in 1564, he transferred his residence to the Hofburg proper. In the years thereafter, the outer wing had been used for a variety of purposes, one of them being a place for Leopold to begin accumulating the collection of art which he intended to become one of the best in Europe. He’d only gotten started on the project, of course.

  Thinking of his nascent art collection…

  Regardless of whether Cecilia Renata stayed in Vienna or left, it would be a good idea to move his art collection down into the cellars. A stray cannonball might do unspeakable damage.

  But that was a matter to be dealt with later. For the moment, he still had an obstreperous sister to deal with.

  Sentiment having failed, he fell back on logic.

  “The whole point of having me remain behind in the capital while our brother and his heir leave for the safe refuge of Linz is because, being male, I can assume command of the city’s forces. You, being female, cannot. So what is the purpose of having you stay as well?”

  “That’s pure twaddle. The command of the city’s forces will actually be in the hands of General Baudissin and other experienced commanders. I know it, you know it, every soldier knows it—or they’d be sleeping a lot worse at night, not meaning to disparage my little brother’s non-existent military reputation—and probably every street urchin knows it as well.”

  A low blow. Accurate and true, but low.

  Happily, at that very moment the oldest of the four siblings appeared at their side. Cecilia Renata, despite being a woman, did not actually have to obey Leopold. But she did have to obey Ferdinand III, emperor of Austria-Hungary, King of Croatia (and still formally King of Bohemia as well, at least until Drugeth returned from Prague and a new treaty was signed).

  “Brother,” Leopold said, lowering his nose just enough to indicate with disapproval their sister, “who is also the emperor of Austria-Hungary and holder of at least two pages worth of additional titles when written in Chancery copperplate, tell Cecilia Renata she has to leave Vienna when you do.”

  “Brother,” said Cecilia Renata, “tell Leopold Wilhelm he’s being an officious ass. I’m staying. That’s all there is to it.”

  Ferdinand III, emperor of etc., etc., etc., had simply come over to enquire as to their respective states of health. He looked at Leopold, then at Cecilia Renata, back at Leopold, back at Cecilia Renata, shook his head and walked off.

  “You see?” The female nose elevated in triumph.

  * * *

  “He’s a fucking prince—fine, archduke. Same difference. He’ll take advantage of you.”

  “How does ‘advantage’ come into the simple matter of whether I screw him or not?”

  “He’s up here”—Denise raised her hand high—“and you’re way down here.” The left hand waved about as low as she could place it.

  “Only if that’s the position we assume. I could be on top of him, instead. Or he could be—”

  “Cut it out!”

  Minnie smiled. “I appreciate your concern. But I can’t help wonder where that concern was hiding when I was cavorting with the hostler in Dresden who built the airstrip for us.”

  “That was different. Godeke was a commoner. Like my boyfriend Eddie. Not a damn prince—fine, fucking archduke—taking advantage of you.”

  Minnie squinted, as if she were trying to decipher very fine print. “You Americans are just plain weird
, sometimes. If the hostler had gotten me pregnant, I’d have been in a difficult position since Godeke was a nice guy but I had no desire to marry him. So I would have had to raise the kid with no help beyond what little I could squeeze out of him in a court of law, which was maybe three turnips. Nineteen-year-old hostlers earn what you call squat and I wouldn’t even go that high.”

  She turned her head to contemplate the person across the room who was the nexus of their quarrel. “Whereas if he sires a bastard on me I’m sitting what you’d call pretty for the rest of my life.”

  “He’ll abandon you! He’ll say the kid isn’t his!”

  “Why in the world would he do that?” Her squint got even squintier. “Royal scions always have bastards, everybody knows it—including and maybe even especially their wives. If anything, it’s an advantage all the way around. From a prospective bride’s point of view, it proves he’s fertile. From an established wife’s point of view, it means maybe he won’t be pestering her except when he needs an heir.”

  Minnie shrugged. “But it’s all a moot point, anyway. First, because right now I’m still just thinking about it. Second, because I have the needed supplies to avoid getting pregnant if I decide to go ahead—as you know perfectly well, since I got them from you in the first place. And, thirdly, because I don’t give a damn—no, let me expand that into full blasphemic proportions: I don’t give a good God-damn—what the theologians say about birth control.”

  All Christian denominations in the seventeenth century except some of those imported by the Americans disapproved of contraception, and had since the second century of the Christian Era. It wasn’t just Catholics, either. Both Martin Luther and John Calvin had weighed in against the practice.

  Minnie, however, was a free-thinker on this as on pretty much any and all questions of a cosmological, cosmogenic, spiritual, theological, doctrinal, sacerdotal, ministerial, sacred, sacrosanct and sanctified nature and didn’t care what any establishment had to say on the subjects. She figured her glass eye gave her all the authority she needed to make up her own mind.

  She brought that glass eye to bear on Denise, to drive home the point. While, with the other—the one that actually worked—she glanced around to see what Archduke Leopold Wilhelm was doing.

  At the moment, he was trying to pretend he wasn’t looking at her.

  Splendid. The likelihood that the answer would wind up being “yes” moved up a notch.

  When she brought the real eye back to Denise, she saw that her friend was still being sulky.

  “And what about you?” she demanded. “What if you get pregnant?”

  “Eddie would do the right thing,” Denise said stoutly.

  “Well, of course he would. But that’s the whole problem in a nutshell, isn’t it? What’s the ‘right thing’ for a pilot to do when he hasn’t got a pot to piss in except that empty bottle Eddie keeps in the cockpit for when he can’t hold it in?”

  “That’s not true!” Denise said hotly. “Eddie’s got—got—lots of stuff. Well, his family does, anyway. And besides, I don’t care. Neither should you. It’s the principle of the thing.”

  Minnie was back to squinting. Very, very fine print.

  “How did you Americans get so weird? I’ve read that famous Constitution of yours. Three times. I don’t remember any place where it says that it’s forbidden to ever be practical about anything. Is there a secret amendment, maybe? Written in invisible ink or something?”

  Chapter 27

  On the Isar River in Bavaria

  A few miles north of Munich

  Tom Simpson surveyed the Isar river, paying particular attention to the two barges moored to the nearby dock, each of which was carrying a ten-inch naval rifle. The barges were more like big rafts than anything else. The Isar was very shallow in a lot of places. That was part of the reason it had taken them so many days to get the rifles down here.

  “Let me see if I can translate my commanding general’s Newspeak into some resemblance of the King’s English,” he said, turning to face Mike Stearns. “After I’ve spent weeks busting my ass—well, okay, I’m an officer; busting my ass busting grunts’ asses—in order to get you the naval rifles the Bavarians spiked and in the case of two of them tried to drown, you want me to figure out ways to slow down our progress with the two still-soggy bastards.”

  Tom jerked a thumb at the two rifles on the barges. “Or do you want me to roll these over and dump them into the Isar? That way, we’ll have four soggy bastards.”

  Mike Stearns pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I’m sure there’s something in military regulations that prohibits subordinate officers from being excessively sarcastic.”

  Tom grunted. “Probably would be, if the USE military had a Uniform Code of Military Justice, which we don’t. So that means down-time rules apply and since I’m your brother-in-law I get to be sarcastic. I’m afraid the major general is just going to have to suck it up.”

  “Since you insist on speaking the King’s English, your assessment is pretty much correct.” Mike nodded toward the two guns on the barges. “Those will do fine for starting to beat down Munich’s walls.”

  “Go faster with four of ‘em.”

  “I don’t want it to go faster. We’re not going to be launching any assaults so casualties will be light and almost all of them will be Bavarian because those ten-inch rifles have a much longer range than anything the Bavarians can shoot back with. We can take our time reducing the walls. If we speed it up that just means I have to order a ground assault sooner and I’m still hoping to avoid that altogether.”

  Tom didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then, sighing a little, he took off his hat and ran fingers through his thick hair. “You’re playing a risky game, Mike. If Gustav Adolf figures out that you’re stalling him, there’ll be hell to pay.”

  “Not… exactly. Or maybe I should say it’s not that simple.” Mike removed his own hat and copied Tom’s fingers-through-the-hair movement. “Gustav Adolf is a very smart man and about as experienced a general as any alive. I’m sure he’s already figured out that I’m slowing everything down. But what he thinks and what he knows—and can prove—are two different things, and the political risks cut both ways. His authority is solid on the surface but it’s still spongy-soft on the inside, because of everything that happened after Lake Bledno. He can’t afford an open clash with me—not for a while, at least—over something that’s so murky he can’t prove that I’m guilty of anything.”

  He put the hat back on his head, wishing for a moment that military protocol didn’t insist on the blasted things. In cold weather, hats were splendid. On a warm day in late May, coupled with a uniform that was too heavy for the season to begin with, they were a damn nuisance.

  But, customs were customs—for no institutions as rigidly as armies, except maybe some churches. So, the hat went back on his head. Generals had to sweat just like grunts did.

  Not as much, of course. They got to ride horses and were exempt from manual labor. But they had to sweat some.

  “Besides, I’m not actually that sure just how bound and determined our emperor is to squash Maximilian like a bug,” he added.

  Tom’s eyes widened a little. “I thought he was hard as nails on that subject.”

  “Officially, yes.” Mike barked a little laugh. “I’ve seen him do his inimitable roar on the subject in front of a room full of officials and courtiers. When he wants to, that man can bellow like nobody’s business.”

  “I’ve heard him,” said Tom, wincing. “But you’re saying you think it’s an act?”

  Mike shrugged. “With Gustav Adolf, you can’t ever be sure. He’s got intimidation down to a science and he’s usually playing the power game on several levels—simultaneously, mind you, not sequentially.”

  “I’m not sure what that means.”

  “There was bound to be at least one Bavarian spy in that room, who heard Gustav Adolf swear that he would see Maximilian’s corpse trampled under oxen and t
he remains scattered to the winds.”

  “An actual spy? Really?”

  Mike shrugged again. “Define ‘spy.’ I doubt if there’s anyone at court in Magdeburg who’s the Bavarian equivalent of James Bond. But someone who’s willing to let his palm get greased for information, from time to time? By persons whose identity and purpose remains carefully unstated? There’s probably a dozen of those.”

  “Point.”

  “So Maximilian is sure to know that Gustav Adolf has vowed to have him die a horrible death, which means—maybe—you never know with that bastard either—”

  “That he’ll be more willing to cut a deal. Gotcha.” Tom took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then, grimaced.

  “Okay, boss. One slowdown coming up. You do realize I’m going to have to let some of my men in on it? I can’t fake it entirely on my own.”

  “Yeah, I figured that. But I think we’ve got at least a month before Gustav Adolf starts making a fuss about it.”

  “That long?”

  “Oh, yeah. Even without screwing off, it took you this long to get just one of the guns out of the river—and it was the easier of the two.”

  Tom’s expression was on the sour side. “Ten-inch guns are heavier than hell and the Danube’s a muddy river. It didn’t take long before they were buried in the river bed—if you want to call that muck a ‘bed’—and we’re working with seventeenth century technology. What slowed us down the most, though, was that you didn’t leave me more than skeleton crew to do the work.”

  “Oh, come on! You had a bigger crew than that. I figure it was closer to a starving-concentration-camp-inmate-sized crew.”

  “You did that on purpose,” Tom said accusingly. “I can see it all now.”

  “I did have a major campaign on my hands against one of the most redoubtable armies in Europe. I did face a very competent and experienced opposing general. I did need every good artilleryman I could get my hands on.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah—and I’m sure you pointed all that out to the emperor in your reports. At great length.”