"Martin," Merga asked. "Why on earth did you bring this girl along?"
"Frau Hill said that she kept running away. She wanted to get to Emrich."
"Do you expect Crispin and me to keep her?"
"If you can't make her go back to Frau Hill. Here's her address in Fulda. The two of you can work something out with the girl's guardians, can't you?" Wackernagel gave his sister his most engaging, impudent, mischievous, "have I been a bad little boy" smile.
A smile of proven value.
Merga drew a deep breath. "I am coming very close to choking you. On the general theory that you . . . you audacious and unrepentant scoundrel . . . have once more gotten away with your misdeeds. Not only free and clear, but with rewards."
She stood there, her hands resting on her ever more ample hips.
"I would choke you, if Mutti weren't so happy."
He smiled again.
Window of Opportunity
Section One: In the beginning . . .
The morning and evening of the first day
Mainz, March 1634
Eberhard was asleep. Rather, he had been asleep until the drumming started. "What in hell?"
Tata stood up on the bed and poked her head through the tiny third-story window of the Horn of Plenty. "Just some soldiers."
"They're not for me. I'm not late. The world may be full of sunshine, but it's my day off and I don't even have a hangover." He reached up for her wrist and pulled her back down.
She plopped onto his stocky body, wriggled, and told him to quit it right now because he might have the day off, but she didn't.
Reichard Donner's wife Justina also heard the drum. She looked out the front window of the main floor, more than a little warily. Her husband wasn't famous for his attention to submitting paperwork in multiple copies or keeping track of the details, so she thought that her wariness was fully justified. The Horn of Plenty had a record of too many times that its proprietor hadn't, quite, complied with those abundant city regulations designed to ensure good order and civic peace.
"What events do we have scheduled for the coming week?" Anything that will cause problems with the Polizeiordnungen?
"Nothing unusual," Reichard answered from behind the bar. "The two wedding parties are the largest functions. I have the written authorization from the city council for both of those. Well, it's almost approved. Everything will be ready by Thursday, certainly. Since both the groom and the bride's fathers for the Koster-Backe reception are local artisans, the families are bringing in a lot of the food and drink themselves, which is making a bit of trouble with the pastry shops and our regular sausage vendors. Fifty guests approved. Up to thirty guests permitted for the Biel-Braun wedding. I have the extra military paperwork for that, since Jost Biel is a soldier and so is the bride's father. It's . . ."
Reichard scrabbled around in his piles of paper. "Well, I did have it, right here, somewhere . . ."
Justina nodded. Marcus Pistor, Brahe's Hessian chaplain for the Calvinists in his garrison, would perform the Biel-Braun ceremony here at the inn, in the public room, since Mainz had no Calvinist church or chapel and they were all, in this family, good Calvinists from the Palatinate, subjects of the unfortunate Winter King's heir. May Elector Karl Ludwig's soul be preserved from the influence of those Spanish Papists in the Netherlands who took him prisoner, she thought. Chaplain Pistor will have made sure that Reichard received the permissions. Now, if he hasn't misplaced them . . .
Reichard, who hadn't even glanced up, was still talking while he sorted more paper into various piles. "Here it is. Right here, under the receipts. Everything's in order. Why? Is there a problem?"
"Lift up your head and listen. There are soldiers headed our way. That's what the noise is. Hear the noise?" She turned around, waving her hands at him. "There are four or so of them, Colonel von Zitzewitz's men from the uniforms, with a drummer. Also with a corporal and probably they're not just looking for a drink at this hour. What regulation have we offended now? Well, at least the children are at school, so I don't have to worry about having them mouth off and cause trouble. Except for Tata, of course; she's home. Anyway, four soldiers aren't enough to do too much damage, usually."
Kunigunde Treidelin, Justina's widowed sister and the tavern's main cook, came out of the kitchen, complaining as usual about a world in which a woman could live for half a century and still not be permitted by the authorities to finish out her waning days in peace and tranquility. "It's your fault entirely, Reichard, for getting involved with those Committee of Correspondence people and letting them meet here. The Swedes and the city council both keep a sharper eye on the Horn of Plenty than they would otherwise, just because of that. You know that as well as I do."