The Tangled Web(20)

The guy with the pamphlet was backing down.

"I don't see what you're screaming about," another one of them—Karl von Schlitz—was saying to Wes. "You had them all torn down before one person in ten saw them. And it cost enough to get van Beekx to . . ." His voice trailed off. "Add in the Whore of Rome, too."

Wes had stopped yelling. He was smiling. "Just how, Herr von Schlitz," he asked, "do you happen to know how much it cost to do that?"

Derek moved his men in to form a double line, closer to the knights. Wiegand brought the city militia to replace them around the edges of the field.

This contributed a lot to the continuation of rational discussion. By the end of the afternoon, all of the imperial knights of the Fulda region were willing to swear upon their Bibles that Clara Bachmeierin was a desirable member of the Special Commission.

A couple of them even expressed the view that the Special Commission was desirable.

Not von Schlitz. Over some protest by his colleagues, he was "voluntarily" remaining in Fulda for meaningful discussions with the NUS administration about alleged treasonous contacts with the archbishop of Cologne.

Fulda, August 1633

August was a pretty good month. The NUS administration got news of the first flight of the Las Vegas Belle. Wes dipped into his own pockets and held a party for the whole town of Fulda. Barbequed mutton. As he said, his pay had mostly just been accumulating, since there really wasn't a lot in Fulda that a person could spend it on.

Harlan Stull wasn't sure how many of the guests really believed in airplanes, but the government wasn't paying for it, so it wasn't his problem.

Then the news of the second Battle of White Mountain arrived. The abbot asked Roy Copenhaver if he was pardoned for having been hanging out with Wallenstein. If he was, he suggested, it would be really nice to have some of that income-producing property back, because otherwise the clergy of Stift Fulda were going to have a pretty hungry winter. Most of the population hadn't really gotten into the swing of voluntary church contributions.

"Herr Piazza," he said, "says that if I am to save souls, I must use carrots rather than sticks."

"Sounds like Ed."

"So." The abbot smiled. He was missing more than a few teeth. "I need a supply of carrots. Please."

Roy didn't give him any property back, but the administration did agree to turn over the wine from two formerly monastic vineyards for him to sell. Mostly because Harlan didn't want to get into wine marketing, which seemed to involve international cartels and a lot of other really complicated stuff, but Schweinsberg seemed a lot happier after he had sold it.

And Johnny Furbee married his German girlfriend. She was from Barracktown, though, so it didn't gain them any brownie points with the citizens of Fulda.

Fulda, September 1633

What with the news of the Dutch defeat at Dunkirk, September was a downer. People started to ask questions like, "Are they ever going to remember to rotate us out of here?" About all that could be said for September was that the Special Commission wound up the hearings and hired a wagon to take the accumulated paper to Grantville. Joel Matowski turned up, too late to do the Special Commission any good, really, but by having him there, Derek Utt would be able to send his other up-timers, in rotation, for some R&R in Grantville.

Since the wagonload of paper was going anyway, Wes sent along Karl von Schlitz under guard. Mostly to counter the rumors that he had been torturing the man. Let the Nice Nellies see for themselves. Anyway, Derek and Wiegand hadn't managed to get much out of him. Mangold was Catholic, so it was easy enough to see why he might have linked himself up with the monks who had gone into exile in Cologne. But von Schlitz was Lutheran. It didn't seem to add up.

Well, it hadn't, until Andrea's drab little lawyer pointed out that a lot of Lutherans hated Calvinists even more than they did Catholics and von Schlitz was one of them. Combine that with the landgrave of Hesse's efforts to make the knights his vassals before the NUS showed up, and figure that the NUS was allied with the king of Sweden who was allied with the Hessians, who were Calvinists . . .

It made sense, in a warped sort of way. But now Ed Piazza could worry about it. And maybe Francisco Nasi could get more out of the guy.

Wes wrote a memo to Ed Piazza on the topic of needed legal reforms, with a courtesy copy to Steve Salatto. In the course of it, he mentioned that the administration in Fulda had made several arrests in connection with an outbreak of scurrilous pamphlets, commented that he had refused to authorize the use of judicial torture in the case, and added that, by the way, the pamphlets had been produced on a very ingenious down-time designed and manufactured duplicating machine marketed by a Herr Vignelli from Bozen. He sent this memo off in the same mail bag as his memo on the topic of needed improvements in the postal system, which was appended to his memo on rural transportation which accompanied his urgent memo in regard to cost overruns in the land titles department.