The Tangled Web(109)

"I understand."

"Make sure the communications center is aware that this information in these reports is not urgent and that far from having a courier ride hard, much less utilizing the radio or any other innovative modern technology, definitely not going to the expense of railways or planes, this is the type of material that best travels by way of what Major Utt calls 'a slow boat to China.' "

Barracktown bei Fulda

On the theory that he did not customarily bring every new recruit to Wes Jenkins's attention, Derek Utt determined that the transfers were a strictly regimental matter. He buried the names of his four new recruits—well, nine new recruits, counting Corporal Hertling and the four goons, er, bodyguards, er, experienced soldiers—in a list of quite a number of other new recruits, which he sent off attached to a non-urgent report to Scott Blackwell in Würzburg, from which destination it might eventually make its way to someone in Grantville. The only special note he made for Blackwell next to their names was "CoC."

Mainz, July 1634

"Papa won't give me permission to marry, and I can't get married in Mainz without it." Margarethe pouted while she pitted cherries.

"Not to mention that Friedrich is in Fulda. That really makes it more difficult for you to get married." Tata picked up another onion and started to dice it for the noonday stew.

"So you understand." Margarethe's tears might have been real. Equally well, they might have been the result of standing next to the onion board.

"Papa and Mama don't understand how much I miss Eberhard either," Tata sniffed. "It was very unsympathetic and unfeeling of Major Utt to refuse to take us along. Especially Margarethe, since she's going to get married. We hope. Doesn't he have any sympathy for romance?"

Since the question was rhetorical, no one answered it, but Kunigunde Treidelin and Ursula Widder made sympathetic noises. Both of them had succumbed to a spurt of unusual sentimentalism after Eberhard's dramatic announcement of the forthcoming marriage in the Horn of Plenty taproom.

"So it's obvious that we need to go to Fulda. Isn't it, Tante Kuni?"

"Maybe I could help." Kunigunde looked at Ursula. "I have a little money hidden away."

"In case of a rainy day," Ursula said.

"Don't be silly. There are a lot of rainy days, even in summer." Kunigunde had a literal mind. "In case the armies come again and we have to flee."

"Do you have a wedding dress?" Ursula asked.

Margarethe shook her head. "I don't have any money of my own, ever. Papa used to give Theo money and he would share it with me, but since Papa's been so annoyed with Theo recently, he won't give him anything. He even refused to pay for his tuition at the university for another term. He was going to send him to some awful Calvinist Hochshule. That's really the main reason he volunteered for the army. He was broke."

"Somehow I didn't think it was patriotism," Ursula said.

"Who would?" Tata picked up another onion. "Simrock volunteered because his uncle at the newspaper, who's also his guardian, told him it would be better for him to get out of Mainz, since somebody investigating the riot at Sybilla's funeral has figured out that he planted the article."

"I was going to be married once," Ursula said. "We lived in the Palatinate, then. We had waited so long, because my fiancé had to support his mother. Then the elector agreed to become king of Bohemia and my fiancé went to Prague as a wagoner in their glorious procession. He didn't come back and didn't come back. He died there, at the first Battle of White Mountain. I was going to be married in a red dress."

Tata dropped her onion and hugged Ursula. It might have been the onion juice on her hands that made the older woman's eyes water. Ursula hugged her back and turned to Margarethe. "I'll buy you a brand new dress to be married in. It will be cherry red and you will look quite lovely."



The dress cost more than they expected, which is the way of gorgeous dresses, even though Kunigunde got a good bargain on the fabric and Ursula knew a seamstress who didn't overcharge and so far had avoided the notice of the tailors' guild.

"We don't have enough money left," Kunigunde complained. "Not enough for a safe trip. We need to be able to trust the driver you ride with and make sure that there are some respectable families traveling in the same group. Trustworthy carters don't come cheap."

They dug into the monthly kitchen budget for the inn. The patrons of the Horn of Plenty were going to get rather meager fare for the rest of July.

The girls looked more than pleased with themselves when a freight wagon deposited them and their possessions in front of the Fulda Barracks a week later.