Theobald shook his head. "I don't think that Montaigne thought it up all by himself. He probably swiped it from the Greeks or Romans."
A revolutionary's lot in Mainz was not a happy one. Maybe he could trade the Horn of Plenty for an inn in Magdeburg.
Bonn, Archdiocese of Cologne, March 1634
"We simply can't do what you want us to," Walter Deveroux said. "You're out of your fucking mind."
This wasn't the most prudent thing to say to the personal confessor of the archbishop-elector of Cologne, said archbishop-elector, Ferdinand of Bavaria, brother of Duke Maximilian, being at the moment the man who was paying them. Walter Butler sighed. It was true, though. The idea that they should take their dragoons on a razzia through Hesse, or if that route would not work, past Mainz and Frankfurt-am-Main, up the Kinzig valley to Fulda, was ridiculous. Absurd. A recipe for disaster.
Now the Capuchin was suggesting that just the colonels go in. Some of the Buchenland imperial knights were far from being happy at being placed under the administration of the up-timers. Upstarts, it was more accurate to say. They could provide a couple hundred men. Ferdinand's confessor got up. "You're the professionals. The archbishop wants to damage the prestige of the USE administration in Fulda. Figure something out and let me know what you decide."
"The Irish colonels, after consulting with Franz von Hatzfeldt, have accepted his suggestion in regard to kidnapping the abbot of Fulda," the Capuchin said. "It will be attention-getting, the sort of thing that will bring a lot of bad publicity down on the up-timers, but still not wasteful of manpower if Your Eminence should need for their regiments to take the field any time this coming summer. They believe they can coordinate it fairly easily with the imperial knights in Buchenland, and manage the matter with only local, on the ground, assistance. It should be a fast 'in and out.' They'll pick up as many of the up-time administrators as they can, take Felix Gruyard along to question them, but only bring the abbot out—maximum disruption for minimum cost."
Ferdinand of Bavaria frowned. "What about Wamboldt von Umstadt? Fulda is really under the jurisdiction of the archbishop-elector of Mainz. He may have something to say about this plan."
The Capuchin shook his head. "He is a refugee in Cologne. Under those circumstances, I feel sure that he will allow himself to be guided by your wisdom, Your Eminence."
Johann Adolf von Hoheneck cleared his throat. "I am not so sure of that. Archbishop Anselm Casimir is close to the Jesuits. Closer than he is to you Capuchins. He's particularly close to Friedrich von Spee, who has been in Grantville. Even if he has taken refuge from the Swedes—even though he has been in Bonn since the winter of 1631—I'm afraid that his sympathies might not . . . Well. Additionally, as provost of St. Petersburg, on behalf of the Abbey of Fulda, I really must stipulate that whatever you do in the matter of the current abbot should not be construed as adversely affecting the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of the abbey itself."
"Your concern for your fellow Benedictines is admirable, I am sure," the Capuchin said. "It would be more so if you did not have hopes of becoming Schweinsberg's successor as abbot."
Ferdinand of Bavaria waved a hand. "Make it happen. But I want the questioning to be effective and efficient. It's all very well to say that since the Irish colonels speak English, they will be in a better position than any of my other subordinates to question the up-timers, but make sure that they take Felix Gruyard along."
"Father Taaffe and Father Carew are setting up for mass." Dislav stuck his head into the room. "Dislav" was the nickname of Ladislas Dusek, a servant who had been with Walter Butler's wife since her father assigned him as the footman to serve her nursery on the day she was born.
"Coming, coming." Butler stood up. "Thick-headed, impertinent Czech," he grumbled to Robert Geraldin. "I'd never let any other servant get away with being that rude. Once Dislav found out that I started as a common soldier, he got it in his head that I'm utterly unworthy of a noble Bohemian lady. He seems to think that I'm a wicked uncle and that he has to protect Anna Marie from me."
"You do have a temper," Deveroux pointed out. "And you did start out as a grunt, even if the commander of the Irish Legion was vaguely your relative. Besides, he thinks that you shouldn't have brought her with you on this drag all the way across southern and western Germany. Either one of her married sisters would have been happy to have her stay with them."
"How the hell am I supposed to get her pregnant if I'm in Bonn and she's in Vienna?"