"The same's true for the people in Fulda," Ulfsparre said. "One of Wildenstein's points really is valid. What do we really know about how they plan to handle the Ram Rebellion? Almost nothing. Their president in Grantville is in regular contact with Magdeburg, sure. But what about here? Should we be setting up a closer liaison with them? So far, we've almost ignored them."
Stenbock grinned again. "Why not solve two problems at once? Send the three young, most unfortunately radicalized, Württemberg dukes up to Fulda to spend some time under the supervision of their military administrator. That will get them out of your hair for a couple of months, at least. Letting them cool their heels for a while after this last confrontation can't hurt. Perhaps you could send Pistor—the chaplain, not the student—with them, as a response to Wildenstein. Not that it will help, given that he's a rabid Counter-Remonstrant and was right in the middle of things in 1619 when the Dutch exiled the Arminians, but it will get him out of your hair for a couple of months, too, with luck. Assure Wildenstein that he'll be monitoring the situation very closely. We don't have to tell him that right now, the main situation that Pistor is interested in keeping an eye on is the one developing between his daughter and young Lieutenant Duke Friedrich. Do we?"
Brahe actually smiled. "Use the radio. Ask for an immediate response."
"What did this man Jenkins in Fulda say?" Brahe asked several meetings later.
Botvidsson picked up a sheet of paper. "It is possible that you are not the only administrator who has young men who are difficult to control on his staff."
"Yes?"
"Jenkins's military administrator, a man named Derek Utt, writes that he will be happy to send a couple of his people down to Mainz to, and I quote, 'meet-and-greet your youthful delinquents and judge as to whether Fulda is prepared to host them or not.' "
The morning and the evening of the third day
Their drummer rattled his sticks in a "make way, make way" rhythm.
"That's one more thing," Lieutenant Duke Friedrich said. "Why do soldiers take drummers when they're just out on ordinary errands? I can see why they use the drums when a whole unit is marching through a town, to warn carters to move their teams and wagons, and vendors to pull their carts to the side. Otherwise, there wouldn't be room on the streets for six men abreast, row after row. But we're just walking. Why should the people of Mainz have to move apart for us on this particular morning?"
"If you're asking why we do it," Corporal Hertling said, "it's because all the other units do it. Do you really want to trip over—"
The rest of his answer came in the form of the body of a sturdy, middle-aged woman hurtling through the door of a shop, followed by a male voice screaming, "impudent bitch!"
". . . bodies," Hertling finished. He had intended "dogs and small children," but this seemed to preempt the rest of what he had planned to say.
"That one's not going to be moving out of our way any time soon," Friedrich said, "drum or no drum."
Ensign Duke Ulrich ran ahead of the others. "It's Sybilla," he said, leaning down. "One of the old ladies who come to the CoC meetings."
"Why?" Corporal Hertling started to ask.
He was interrupted by scowling man who followed the body through the door. "Talk to me like that, will you? We're legally quartered in this district. We're legally quartered in this house. What matter is it to you that we've taken the good bedroom and the good bed? Aren't we in the service of His Majesty of Sweden? Aren't we protecting you Germans from the Catholics? Ah, forgot, didn't I. You are Catholic, off to a papist mass every Sunday. Why should I care if sleeping in an unheated attic is making your father's lungs worse? Why?"
"I know you," Hertling said. "Sybilla's complained about you before. You're Rohrbach."
Captain Duke Eberhard made a gesture that everyone present understood. Bauer, Kolb, Merckel, and Heisel moved.
"We'll need a surgeon," Ulrich said. "She's broken something."
"Her neck, it looks like," Merckel had seen worse, but this was bad enough. "Not much point in paying a surgeon for that."
"Arrest him," Eberhard said to Hertling.
"Arrest me!" Rohrbach made a quarter-turn and boxed Kolb's ears. "Why arrest me? She's the one who was talking rebellion. She's the one who was saying that she shouldn't have to put up with having soldiers in her house. She's the one who was talking about Boston and the constitution of the United States of America, and that in a just world, soldiers would not be quartered on the civilian population, eating their food and dirtying their sheets, making work. She's the one—"