"So now," Scott said, "we get to ride the ram."
"Speaking of which . . ." Johnnie F. tossed a newspaper on the table. It was one of the ones printed in Franconia. "Have you seen `Brillo's Little Red Rider'? They've got Princess Kristina riding Brillo in that one. You've all got to read it."
"Later," Steve said firmly. "Right now, we need to deal with the petition that the knights and lords have sent to Gustavus Adolphus. This is what I've gotten back from Ed and Arnold in Grantville. And from Mike Stearns."
"They're different?"
"Mike's language is considerably more colorful, and . . ."
"And?" Scott asked.
Steve sighed. "We have an intervention from Margrave Christian of Brandenburg-Bayreuth. Diplomatic, at the moment. Very diplomatic. Just asks us to consider the difficulty in which our policies are placing the Protestant nobility of Franconia. Doesn't say anything about a military action, not even obliquely. Dr. Lenz, however, the agent representing the Freiherr Fuchs von Bimbach, claims that the margrave is prepared to undertake an invasion of Franconia in support of the petitioners."
David Petrini interrupted. "Of course, they're trying to take advantage of the fact that Gustav Adolf himself is very busy in the north dealing with the League of Ostend, so they presume that they're really appealing to Oxenstierna. Who, in his heart, believes that the nobles really should rule."
"Aren't they forgetting," Anita asked, "that he's all the way up in Stockholm and unless someone radios the petition to him, he isn't going to get it very soon?"
"Unless it's really meant for Wilhelm Wettin—a stick he can use against Mike," Steve answered.
"Oh, holy shit!" Scott said. "I go out of town for a few days and all hell breaks loose!"
"Brandenburg-Bayreuth?" Johnnie F. asked. "I'd just heard it called Bayreuth before. Brandenburg, I know, turned into Prussia later on. But what are the Hohenzollerns doing down here?"
"The Hohenzollerns started `down here,'" Weckherlin answered. "These men, now, Margrave Christian in Bayreuth and his nephews in Ansbach, are a cadet line of the family represented by Margrave George Wilhelm up in Berlin, who is a brother of Gustavus Adolphus' wife. The Hohenzollern family though, back in the middle ages, began here. As the Burggrafen in Nürnberg, holding the big castle there for the Holy Roman Emperors. Acquisitive bunch, overall."
He hesitated a moment; then, added: "This is perhaps more serious than you may assume. By themselves, the knights and small lords will have a difficult time getting organized. They will not hesitate to become violent, but the violence is likely to be disjointed. For a fact, it seems to me, the farmers are much better organized. Better led, too, from what I can determine."
"Who's leading the knights?" Scott asked. "This von Bimbach character?"
Weckherlin waggled his hand. "To a degree, yes; to a degree, not. He is certainly the most prominent figure. But he is not really very popular among the knights. His arrogance and overbearing manner is not something which only the farmers resent. And the nickname of `Pestilenz' is applied to his agent by knights as often as it is by farmers and townsmen."
"But you're saying it could still get serious?" asked Steve.
"If the Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth chooses to intervene, yes," replied Weckherlin, nodding. "Very serious. He is not a small lord, and his geographic position makes him important to Gustavus Adolphus. The emperor can ignore a pack of unruly knights. He cannot ignore Margrave Christian."
Kulmbach, Bayreuth, late March, 1634
Margrave Christian of Brandenburg-Bayreuth was at the Plassenburg, in Kulmbach. He had moved his official residence to Bayreuth in 1625, but when he needed to think, he still went back to the Plassenburg. He had left Marie and the children in Bayreuth; they were safer there, right now.
He hated war and all that war meant. When he was a child, his tutors had shown him what Margrave Albrecht Alcibiades had done to Bayreuth and the rest of Franconia with his feuds. Not just told him; that madman had died less than thirty years before his own birth. His tutors had been able to show him the scars on the land, the burned villages never rebuilt, the ancient churches sacrificed upon the altar of ambition and greed.
For as long as possible, he had strived to keep this new war out of his lands. For years, he had succeeded. His brother, Margrave Joachim Ernst of Brandenburg-Ansbach, had died in 1625 after a career that involved helping to organize the Protestant union in 1608, helping to dissolve the Protestant union , and finally going into imperial service. Christian had become regent for his nephews, Friedrich and Albrecht.