The Tangled Web(38)

"According to Hatzfeldt, he did." Butler handed the paper to Deveroux. "We may have to reconsider our options."

"We need to catch up with our regiments. Or whatever may be left of them by now. What good is a colonel without a regiment?"

"Hatzfeldt didn't write what he was going to do himself. That's sort of odd."

"Maybe he didn't know himself," MacDonald said. "Maybe he was waiting for something to happen when he had the time to leave you the note."

"Anything else interesting?"

"No. The rest was just bills."

The three of them had their first good laugh of the day.

Gruyard smiled, but did not laugh. He never laughed.

They caught up with the retreating army.



Geraldin had left Fulda before the other three Irishmen and Gruyard. Because of the donkey and the hay cart, he approached Bonn after them.

In some ways, a single man driving a hay cart could get more answers than riders who clearly fell into the category of "armed and dangerous." He didn't even try to go into the city. There wasn't any point. Swinging around it, he headed west, hoping that he was in front of von Uslar's Hessians rather than behind them.

He was, so he kept going. Once he caught up with the army, he turned over the prisoner to the custody of the archbishop's confessor and went on to catch up with Butler and the others. There was a war on and he needed to join his regiment.

Field Headquarters of the Archbishop of Cologne, September 1634

Johann Bernhard Schenk von Schweinsberg thought that this was the fifth interview since he had arrived. Possibly the sixth. He was losing track.

The first two had been fairly polite. The next one had been rather intense. Since then . . .

The interviewer had a copy of the pamphlet. The one with the witchcraft allegations. Clara and Salome.

He would have laughed, if moving his mouth had not been so painful. He was going to miss his teeth, if he lived through this. He had been rather fond of his remaining teeth. They were so useful for chewing things. Especially when he had been eating the hard bread of a common soldier with Wallenstein's army.

Or carrots. He laughed a little anyway.

The clerk who was keeping the protocol of the interview scowled.

Who was here? Schweinsberg took stock of his eyes. The left one hurt less. He opened it.

"Where's Hatzfeldt?" he managed to enunciate.

"Gone to Mainz," a voice answered.

"Shut up, Hoheneck," someone said. "You're here to witness, not to chat."

The interviewer posed the next question.

Schweinsberg opened his mouth carefully. He had to answer. Get as much of the answer out as possible as if it were a reply to the question. Then the end of it, before Gruyard cut his lips again.

"Someone," he said. "Someone is going to have to go to Fulda to . . ." He gasped.

"To take the nuns into custody for the abominable crime of witchcraft?" The questioner offered him an answer.

"To take up the care of the abbey."

His mind drifted back to the abbey church and the plainsong of the reformed monks he had brought from St. Gall. Then to St. Mary's in Grantville.

Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,

Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

Great God of heaven, my victory won,

May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heaven's Sun!

He sagged down.

Gruyard looked at him consideringly.

A man in black robes, who had been standing inconspicuously in the rear of the room, started forward, the oils in his hand.

"Too late," Gruyard said.

"Is he faking?" the interviewer asked.

"No. He wasn't in very good shape when Geraldin brought him in, I'm afraid. I've done the best I can."

"Too bad," the interviewer said. "He never did confess. A trial would have been very useful. Pamphlets just don't have the same effect. Not in the long run." He turned to the priest. "There's nothing for you to do here. He died an unrepentant, unconfessed sinner, incapable of receiving the last rites."

Someone knocked on the door. "You're going to have to finish up in there. The camp is moving."

The interviewer nodded, then realized that he could not be seen through the door. "We'll be right out."

Hoheneck lingered behind the others. There was nothing he could do for the abbot, but . . . He noticed that the priest was also still in the room. "Administer the rites," he directed. "Mark the burial site, if you possibly can. At the very least, make a record of it."

The priest nodded.



Johann Adolf von Hoheneck was glad for the bustle of the breaking camp. Saddling his horse, he moved out. He wasn't going with the army. Neuhoff was still in Cologne. He would try to protect the archives and treasury from plunderers. He had to go to Mainz, himself. Get a salva guardia. Then to Fulda. To take care of the abbey. He assessed himself without illusions. He might not be much of a monk, he might be an ambitious noble, an unwilling and ungrateful Benedictine, but insofar as God had chosen to make him a monk, he was a monk of Fulda and he would defend its interests. As prince and abbot.