Ring of Fire II(40)

"I have not said so."



"If I had a qualified son . . ." Weinhart's voice trailed off. "But my wife and the boys born in my first marriage all died in the plague of 1610–1611 in Innsbruck. Perhaps if we had these up-time devices then, the DDT, the medicaments . . . But that is irrelevant. The children of my second marriage are still young. Ignaz, the oldest boy, is only seventeen. Franz sixteen. Paul and Caspar are just starting Latin school."



"Do you need to go now?"



Weinhart shook his head. "The up-timers have quarantined Kronach, of course. In addition to the fact that the commander has closed the city gates from the inside. Quarantine is really the only way to control spread of plague. Total quarantine. But it's hard on the people inside the lines if there's no decent hospital and no enforcement of destroying the bedding and clothing. If it were summer, it would be a public health emergency already, but winter is coming. The plague almost always becomes less fierce in cold weather. Kronach should survive the winter."



Guarinoni intervened. His early education by the Jesuits was never very far from his mind. Next to medicine, perhaps even above medicine, returning the lapsed peoples of Europe to the Catholic faith was his passion. "If we don't go, there won't be any Catholics left in Kronach for us to assist. In the spring and summer of 1634, if they have not opened the walls, a Catholic city, the fiercest Catholic city in Franconia, may die. There is time to prepare. Time for us to learn more about Grantville and time for them to learn more about our capabilities. We can assist these up-timers in Bamberg with the outbreak at Kronach, Your Grace, but we can also learn from them at the same time. While serving God and the Church. But it must be soon."



Claudia de Medici continued to tap her fountain pen on her bracelet for quite some time after she dismissed them. Then she pulled the written proposal toward her and started to read. After a few moments, she picked it up and walked to the window.



Wilhelm Bienner, watching the regent, wondered if Dr. Weinhart, also, had noted the restlessness that the regent's self-discipline was barely keeping leashed these last few months. The duchess was tired of merely sending an occasional merchant who could double as a researcher to Grantville, no matter how fascinating the music and other information they brought back. Was Weinhart perceptive enough to be offering a route by which she could take a larger part on the stage of Europe? He untied a packet of the unending paperwork that made government function, rolled up the red tape that had tied it neatly, and started to scribble marginal comments.



Two hours later, Duchess Claudia returned to the table. He looked up, waiting.



"Let's send them to Franconia. But not only them and not only to Franconia. There must be something to toss to Leopold's brother in Vienna, as one tosses a bone to a dog. Let Vienna have the musicians. And the music. Ferdinand's spirits are in need of cheering, I hear. So. A harmless distraction. What trouble can this sentimental play about a pious up-time Austrian girl who married a baron possibly cause?"





Outside the Walls of Kronach, Franconia

October 1633



Winter was setting in hard, already. It had snowed five or six inches overnight—hard to tell exactly how much, with the wind whipping it around—but cleared off at dawn. Matt Trelli stood with his binoculars fixed on the Rosenberg fortress at Kronach.



The old commander must have died. Or be sick, at least. He hadn't been out on the walls for—Matt thought a minute—not for a couple of weeks now.



A gust whipped around the corner of his lookout. Up-time, Matt Trelli figured, he'd been as pious as most Catholics. At least, as pious as most Catholics with divorced parents and a remarried father with whom he wanted to stay on reasonably good terms. Mr. Piazza had never complained in CCD classes.



Here, though, down-time . . . he remembered to thank God for some of the weirdest things. This morning, the topic was "thermal underwear, sincere gratitude for." With a postscript concerning "down parkas, sincere gratitude for." So he wasn't in uniform. What the hell? He was warm. And he had a uniform around somewhere if Cliff Priest or Scott Blackwell should happen to show up.



No real way to tell who had succeeded Neustetter in command. There were two choices.



The first possibility was Francesco de Melon, the Bavarian officer—military adviser Matt thought—whom Maximilian of Bavaria had sent to assist old Neustetter when the war moved into Franconia in 1631. Really, given that any practical assistance was far more likely to come from Maximilian of Bavaria than from the Austrians, Melon had probably been Neustetter's boss, for all practical purposes.