The Tangled Web(2)

Wes sat down again, looking at the letter in front of him. "We have a Christmas present. The abbot's coming back, Ed Piazza says. In all his full glory, waving the banner of the Counter-Reformation and claiming that he has the right to do his thing under 'freedom of religion' and the constitution of the New United States."

"From Cologne?" Andrea asked hopefully. "With archives?"

"No, from Prague. He attached himself to Tilly and ran in a different direction, taking what little he had in the way of an army with him. He's been hanging around with Wallenstein since then. He must be fairly tough, though—he's been living like a common soldier. Duke John George of Saxony gave him a safe-conduct through Saxony to come back and an escort to the border of the New United States. They handed him over down by Halle." Wes sighed. "Good old Duke John George. With friends like that, we really don't need enemies."

"Is he bringing imperial troops disguised as his personal staff?" Harlan asked.

"God, I hope not. The landgrave of Hesse would be only too happy to send a batch of his troops back into Fulda in the guise of 'protecting' the king of Sweden's new allies, given how few of our own people Frank Jackson has been able to spare for us here." Derek Utt, the military administrator, spent as much of his time keeping a wary eye out for raiding "friendly" troops as he did for raiding "enemy" troops.

"How many military, exactly, do we have now?" Wes asked him.

"Besides me? A half-dozen up-timers. Seven, if you count Gus Szymanski, who's the emergency medical technician and nearly sixty years old. Aside from Gus, the most senior person is Mark Early, who's nearly thirty. He's doing most of my administrative stuff. Procurement, quarters, payroll. The next is Johnny Furbee, who is twenty-seven. I'm basically using him to help me train some military police from local town and village militias. The other four are kids. Good kids, and at least they all have high school diplomas, which Johnny doesn't, but they're still kids trying to teach what little they know about modern military procedures to a couple hundred of those ex-mercenary combat veterans that Gretchen picked out from the prisoners. The training that Johnny is giving the militias is ad hoc since he was never an MP himself and neither was I, but it's something, and at least they have a vested interest in keeping the ex-mercenaries from raping their wives and daughters. The kids and the new MPs do good to keep our people from relapsing into looting the locals, to tell the truth. That's it. I don't know whether to hope Frank sends us more down-timers or be glad that we don't have too many to control."

Wes looked at him, thinking that Derek himself had just turned thirty. But he was not only older in years than the younger men he called "kids." He was a lot older in experience. Derek was a Gulf War vet. He'd been a member of the active reserves; married, with a kid, just a baby. They were left up-time. Wes understood. His wife Lena had been left up-time too, although his two daughters were in Grantville, Chandra with two kids and Lenore finally going to get married next month, which he would have to miss. Not that he would have chosen Bryant Holloway for her if he had been doing the picking.

Derek had lived in Fairmont. He had just come over to Grantville the afternoon of the Ring of Fire to go to the sport shop with his sister Lisa's husband. He had volunteered for the army the afternoon that Mike Stearns called for people. Once Mike and Frank Jackson had gotten past their first stage of relying so heavily on the United Mine Workers, he had moved up fast in the army of the New United States.

Wes nodded his head. "If he tries to bring in troops disguised as staff, stop them at the border, but I really don't think that Ed and Frank would let him get that far with them. He's free to come back as an abbot. He can walk right in carrying his staff. Hell, he can even ride in, if he wants to. We'll even provide him with an escort from the Thuringian border to the gates of the abbey. But he's not a prince of the Holy Roman Empire any more and he might as well learn it right there as anywhere else. What route is he taking?"

The meeting got down to the nitty gritty.

Grantville, December 1632

"Because you are offering a salary."

Ed Piazza looked at the down-time woman who was sitting in a straight chair across from his desk. He knew that the chair was hard and remarkably uncomfortable. In his first job, a wise old teacher showed him that by sawing a quarter of an inch off the front legs of a chair and sanding them, front and back, so they sat flush on the floor, it wasn't enough to notice but anyone using it was constantly sliding toward the front, in the direction of the floor, requiring him to brace his legs. It was remarkably useful for keeping parent-teacher conferences within their assigned time limits and Ed had taken his pair of wooden chairs with him from job to job, defying the advance of metal folding chairs. Even now, the people he motioned toward them rarely stayed in his office any longer than was absolutely necessary.