"Economically," Roy Copenhaver pointed out, "it would be a good thing if it did. Open up markets and the like. If they're running it through Hersfeld, that's still twenty miles of bad road from most of the farms in Buchenland."
"What do you need from us?" Wes asked.
"If all of you, at least as many as can be spared off other jobs, could start spending more time in the field, backing up our efforts, it would be a real help." This time the bright expression on Orville's face was more genuine.
Buchenland, June 1634
"Damn it, Derek!" Wes Jenkins was yelling again. "Your cursed Fulda Barracks Regiment is more trouble than it's worth."
"They are just trying to demonstrate their loyalty to the government."
"Threatening to defect to Hans von Hutten on the grounds that he will let them shoot peasants is not a really outstanding declaration of loyalty. In fact it sounds more like mutiny to me."
"They feel that by not suppressing the revolt, they are failing in their duty."
"They are just itching because they haven't shot or plundered anybody for a year and a half. Especially plundered."
"Garrison duty is always difficult."
"Well, make it plain to them that they can't shoot any of the farmers or citizens of Buchenland unless I give them permission. Peasant revolt or no peasant revolt. And tell them that there is no way that I'm going to turn them over to von Hutten so he can shoot our citizens. Or Würzburg's citizens, for that matter. Lock them in the barracks, if you have to."
"Set their wives to guard them," Clara Bachmeierin suggested.
Wes stared at her.
"They have houses now, in Barracktown. Cabins with wood floors, a lot of them. Some even have fireplaces with stone chimneys and hearths. Windows with shutters and oiled paper. Doors with latches. A school for their children. Sergeant Hartke's oldest boy turned out to be so smart that Andrea's lawyer gave him money to go to the Latin school that the Jesuits run here in town. He would rather send the boy to a Calvinist school, but there isn't any. Hardly any of them want to go back to tramping around after a regiment on the march."
Wes looked at Derek, raising his eyebrows.
"I can try it. I really don't want to use Wiegand's Fulda militia to guard them, unless I absolutely have to. If this blows over, they'll need to work together again."
"You really mean that?" Deveroux looked at Karl von Schlitz with disbelief. "They are not holed up behind Fulda's walls, huddling together in the administration building?"
The imperial knight was looking a little pale, having spent quite a lot of time recently living in a rather small pantry off the main kitchen of his great-uncle's long-ago mistress's miniature castle.
"My sons assure me that it is true. Because of the unrest, the administrators, almost all of them, and the abbot as well, are riding the length and breadth of this newly invented Buchenland, trying to make the peasants happy."
"Why should peasants be happy?" Robert Geraldin asked with honest bewilderment.
Dennis MacDonald glared at him. "They shouldn't, of course. Their suffering in this life will be compensated in the next, like the beggar outside of the rich man's house."
"That," Deveroux said, "is beside the point. Do you have any way of getting their itineraries?"
"Yes. Fritz and Oswald can get them for you."
"Well, glory and hallelujah!"
"Not to mention," one of the von Schlitz sons said, "that they are very lightly guarded, if at all, only by members of the Fulda city militia, because their regiment tried to mutiny."
Deveroux jerked his head up.
"You mean this?"
The son—Friedrich, it was, Fritz von Schlitz—howled with laughter. "Because they won't let the soldiers shoot the peasants, would you believe it? So you will have a peasant revolt to blame any 'accidents' on and the Thuringian troops who pour into Fulda to avenge their administrators after you are long gone will be shooting their own innocent 'citizens.' "
Felix Gruyard smirked.
Walter Butler shook his head. It was enough to make a man believe in divine providence.
Bonn, Archdiocese of Cologne, July 1634
"The archbishop is not receiving callers this morning."
"But," the reporter said cheerfully, "I would like to obtain his comments upon the news that the pope has elevated the priest from Grantville to the dignity of cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and appointed him as cardinal-protector of the United States of Europe."
"Trust me," the doorman said, "you don't want to hear his comments."
"Oh," the reporter said, "but I do. Not to mention that I have a duty to my readers. What are the archbishop's comments?"