Duke Albrecht, who usually stayed home to run the Wettin family’s day-to-day business, so to speak, interjected, “He also had enough sense not to annex Mompelgard-Montbeliard, as the French call it, when he took southern Alsace. That is a Wurttemberg exclave, you do realize? The young dukes are Gustavus Adolphus’ allies. And they are Lutheran! That’s one major potential point of contention that Bernhard had sense enough to walk away from.”
“He isn’t insane,” Philipp Sattler said. “He also left Mulhausen alone-Mulhouse, the French call it. Trying to annex a city that’s been an allied Swiss canton for over a century, even if it’s not geographically contiguous to anything else in the Swiss Confederacy, would stir up a hornet’s nest. Better just to pass it by.”
Wilhelm Wettin frowned and kept counting his youngest brother’s offenses on his fingers. “The Sundgau, formerly Austrian-Tyrolese to be more precise. The Breisgau, formerly Austrian-Tyrolese, to be more precise. Innumerable Reichsritterschaften and petty lordships. And in regard to those, he has the gall to say that he has done nothing different from what your own State of Thuringia-Franconia has been doing in Franconia.”
“Ah,” Mike said. “Actually, that last is pretty close to the truth, as far as I know.”
This did not seem to mollify Wettin at all.
Mike continued. “Also, he did leave the Basel border and has pulled his troops out of southern Swabia into the Breisgau, at least for the winter, which means that Horn can also go into winter quarters in a more favorable location than right on the northern border of Switzerland. And, as far as I know, the margrave of Baden-Durlach, as USE administrator of the proposed Province of Swabia, from the perspective of his headquarters in Augsburg, is not totally dissatisfied with the current situation.”
Wettin stopped counting off his fingers and examined his fingernails. “It is a lot to ask. I don’t make this request as the leader of the loyal opposition. We have come together to ask as his brothers. We have dealt with Bernhard all our lives, you realize.”
Duke Albrecht continued to sit quietly. Wettin, apparently, was not capable of continuing his request to the end.
Albrecht leaned forward. “Please,” he said. “We would like to have a copy of the ambassadress’ report. Frau Jackson’s report. We would like to know how she persuaded him to go away from Basel. Nobody else has ever managed to persuade Bernhard to do anything that he did not want to do.”
“By the time Diane was finished,” Mike said, “he no longer wanted to threaten Basel’s borders, at least if I understand Tony Adducci’s report correctly. It involves a map that Lee Swiger sketched, and all sorts of arrows that Diane drew on it, following lines that Archduchess Maria Anna had marked with her finger. In short, she illustrated that he is going to have enough on his plate for the time being dealing with the lands you just listed-so much on his plate that he should not be suckered into any more distractions on the right bank of the Rhine. He was convinced that he should focus on protecting his core territories, if he really wants to keep them. That wasn’t the purpose of the map, but that is how Diane used it.”
Duke Albrecht raised an eyebrow.
Mike cleared his throat. “Well, ultimately, Diane said she recognized the problem almost at once. Your brother never went to kindergarten. Therefore he never learned the lessons of Everything I Ever Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten. She’s been giving Bernhard a ‘back to the basics’ course on prudent and proper sandbox behavior, so to speak. With flannel boards, cutout figures, and everything.”
“There should be a hiatus for a few months,” Nasi said, his tone placating. “Bernhard is going to be preparing and entrenching, organizing and making plans to deal with the plague epidemic ‘scheduled’ for Swabia in the spring and summer of 1635 according to the history books.”
Stearns nodded. “He’s already hired a nurse out of Grantville. He’s got three well-recognized down-time plague doctors coming in from Franconia right about now-the Padua men that Claudia de Medici, the regent of Tyrol, loaned our administrators in Bamberg to deal with the outbreak in Kronach. I think he’s smart enough to know that a ruler is a lot better off with living subjects than dead ones.”
Wettin’s face was still sour. “ ‘Dumb’ was never one of our touchy, overambitious baby brother’s problems.”
Chapter One
Bolzen, Tyrol, January 1635
“Those progress reports from the plague physicians we sent to assist Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar last November complete the old business on the agenda.” Wilhelm Bienner, chancellor of the County of Tyrol, closed one folder.
Claudia de Medici inclined her head at the members of her inner council. “The next item on the agenda is unannounced. I wanted to avoid the premature spread of gossip.” Her steely gray eyes fixed on a couple of her advisers, but she forbore to make any additional comment. “For the remainder of the meeting, I will have present additional persons whom I have recently seen fit to add to my staff.”
She signaled to the doorman. He exited into the antechamber, returning with, obvious to anyone who looked at them closely, two up-timers and a down-timer.
“Your Grace, is this…?” The questioner’s voice dwindled away into a mumble.
“Yes,” Claudia said. “It is wise.” She looked around the table. “Does anyone else doubt that it is wise?”
If anyone else did, he found it prudent not to say so.
The regent smiled like a cat. “Gentlemen, may I present to you Don Francesco de Melon, formerly the imperial/Bavarian military commander of the fortress of Kronach in northern Franconia.” She waved.
De Melon bowed.
She waved again.
He took the designated chair.
“Also, from Grantville, in the Ring of Fire, Herr Matthaus Trelli, formerly commander of the State of Thuringia-Franconia’s military forces during the recent siege of Kronach. Prior to the Ring of Fire, he had studied the subject of Medical Lab Technology for two years at Fairmont State University in West Virginia. This study required two more years, but Herr Trelli informs me that because of financial problems, he had left the university and was working at a ‘clinic’ in the same time to earn sufficient money to complete his professional preparation. He is personally acquainted with the famous Professor Thomas Stone who is now lecturing in Padua.” The ritual of waves and chairs followed.
“And Herr Trelli’s wife, whom he married just this past month in Wurzburg, the gentle-lady Frau Laura Marcella Abruzzo.” Claudia’s voice firmed. “Lady Abruzzo, before the Ring of Fire, was also a student at this same Fairmont State University in West Virginia. As you may have heard, if not believed, this ‘co-education’ was common up-time. Lady Abruzzo had completed three years of a four-year course of study in the subject of Civil Engineering Technology. We have been informed that not only nobles but also commoners educated their daughters well.”
Turning to Bienner’s clerk, who was taking minutes, she pointed. “Take a memo. Dr. Bienner is to write yet once more to both Quedlinburg and Prague, asking them about women’s colleges. I will not have Tyrol lose its preeminent economic position because it fails to modernize.”
The clerk made a note.
“As to Lady Abruzzo. Since the Ring of Fire, because this university in Fairmont, West Virginia, was not included within the Ring of Fire, she has spent two years apprenticing to the experienced partners who founded USE Steel in Saalfeld to become certified by them as a fully qualified engineer.”
At the mention of the word “steel,” several of the previously unhappy faces around the table transformed themselves. Their current expressions might be described as mollified.
“I am delighted,” the regent said, “to welcome these up-time fellow Italians as they join the administrative staff of the County of Tyrol.” She waved.
Marcie Abruzzo did not curtsey. Like the men, she bowed. Then she took her seat.
“Begin as you mean to go on,” her Grandma Kovacs always said.
“Fellow-Italians,” Matt said to de Melon. “The Trellis came from somewhere around Venice, I think, but my mom is Irish. Dad’s mom was Irish. Marcie’s dad’s family immigrated from Sicily, but her mom’s Serbian.”
