The Tangled Web(124)

He folded his hands across his chest. "If I had known about the 'posse' project in advance, Utt, I never would have sanctioned it."

Derek nodded solemnly. In the week since Melvin Springer's arrival in Fulda, he had heard this sort of thing a lot.

At the moment, he was standing near one of the windows of the conference room of the SoTF administrative headquarters, positioned in such a way that if he nodded in one direction, his head was in the sun and his hair was carrot-colored, but if he cocked his head in the other direction, it appeared more rusty in the shade. Andrea Hill had previously protested that this maneuver had a very distracting effect on anyone who had to watch it.

Not that he would deliberately do something to distract Springer, of course. Springer would probably be okay once he got settled in, he told himself firmly. Just because Springer wasn't Wes Jenkins . . .

He refrained from saying, "At least, now we know where the Irishmen are and Brahe has planted a couple of our men and a couple of his men as horse handlers in their camp. To me, that counts as 'ahead of the game.' " He pushed his attention back to Mel Springer.

"Prudence as a watchword . . . caution . . . all due deliberation . . . approval by the proper authorities . . . moderation . . . a temperate approach in the face of uncertainties . . ." Springer's lecture marched on.



"Is Hoheneck back from Mainz, yet?" Harlan Stull asked. "Or did we miscalculate when we let him leave?" The veterans of NUS/SoTF service in Fulda had fled to Andrea Hill's chaotic domain since Mel Springer's arrival. He was perched on one of the high three-legged stools that her clerks used when they were searching through land records.

"He's not back that I know of." Roy Copenhaver shook his head. "He hasn't run off to the Bavarians, though. The last I heard, Brahe had parked him with Wamboldt von Umstadt for temporary safekeeping."

"There's some good news." Andrea pulled a pencil out of her hair. "Neuhoff, another of the provosts for the abbey, showed up yesterday, with several wagons. He brought back the monks' archives—they took them along when they ran away, back when Gustavus came through here the first time. That makes me suspect that Hoheneck intends to settle in. Neuhoff also brought back whatever they haven't used up that was in the treasury that they took along when they absconded in 1631, but I hear there's not much left."

"When it comes to funding, something's better than nothing." Harlan slid off the stool. "That does make it seem more like Hoheneck isn't intending to scarper. Back to the old salt mines, I guess. Mel Springer has been talking to Derek. Now he wants another briefing from me."

"This makes how many?" Roy asked.

Harlan just rolled his eyes.



"There's a man out in the cathedral place with an easel set up." Simrock was talking way, way too fast.

Joel Matowski yawned. "He must like brisk weather. Other than that, there's almost always some artist wandering around town making sketches."

"But this one is sketching almost exactly like van de Passe engraves, and he's not doing it slowly and carefully, as if he were trying to imitate van de Passe's style. He does it quickly, offhand, as if the style is natural to him." Simrock bounced up and down on his toes.

"Well, go back and try to make friends. Chat a little. Find out if he'll open up."

"He's not likely to chat very freely with a guy wearing an orange uniform. Artists, especially if they're political cartoonists, tend to have a sort of antsy feeling about soldiers."

"You may have a point there. I'll go farther than that. You probably have a point there. Where are the girls?"

"They went into the stationery shop with Eberhard and Friedrich."

"You go in, tell Eberhard and Friedrich to stay right where they are, you stay with them, and ask the girls to come out on their own and go look over the guy's shoulder at what he's drawing. It's not as if Tata and Margarethe are ever at a loss for words."

It took the girls about fifteen minutes to make friends.

Friendship led to an invitation. The artist said he would be delighted to attend a Committee of Correspondence meeting held in a "wedding chapel" attached to the Fulda Barracks Regiment sutlery. In fact, he expressed the opinion that he had never imagined the existence of such an arrangement. He asked if the owners would be willing to let him sketch it. Tata said that she couldn't speak for Riffa's parents, but imagined that they certainly would be agreeable.

A half hour after first contact, peace had broken out all over.



"Van de Passe, yes. Your guess was correct. I am flattered, very flattered, to know that you recognize my family's style. That is my name. Willem van de Passe. I have been working in England since 1621, but this autumn I decided that it might be prudent to leave. My father has lived a charmed life—a checkered life, but a charmed one, taking into consideration that he is alive and well at the age of seventy. Those who despise him also, for some reason, merely expel him rather than arrest him or execute him. This has led to numerous sudden decisions to move all his belongings, but his life has not really been a dangerous one. The king of England, by contrast, has been arresting almost anyone who comes to his notice recently. I stopped in Utrecht to see my father and am on my way to Grantville to see my sister Magdalena."