The morning and the evening of the fourth day
"I could scarcely have humiliated von Glasenapp front of a group of junior officers," Brahe said. "He would lose all of his authority and he doesn't command very much respect as it is. Most of his men despise him."
"True. But . . ." Botvidsson shook his head.
"I humiliated him in front of his fellow colonels. Sufficiently, I believe, that there's not likely to be an equivalent occurrence among the soldiers under him in the future. Or among the soldiers under the others, for that matter."
"I'm afraid that's not going to be enough."
"It isn't, but it has to be. Sometimes one finds oneself in such a situation."
"I wasn't about to have Rohrbach flogged publicly," von Glasenapp muttered. "Not when those infernal Württembergers and Donner were howling that I had to."
"Might have been better if you had," von Zitzewitz said. "I have to deal with them—Captain Duke Eberhard and his brothers. They're on my staff. Probably as retribution for my sins."
"I had him flogged privately. Hard. Not that Brahe left me any option. Don't tell those boys, though. I'm not willing to give the impression that I'm a man who caves in to public pressure. If I see an article in the newspaper even hinting that I had Rohrbach flogged, I'll be looking for the leak until the day I die and the leaker will be sorry."
"Might be better if I did tell them. Quietly, of course."
"I mean it, Zitzewitz. Don't tell them. Let junior officers think that they can influence you and that's the end of military discipline. That goes double and triple for junior officers who have a higher rank in the nobility and their own ways of getting the ear of General Brahe."
"What are you doing, Reichard?" Justina looked at the market order her husband had just drafted. "We won't need a lot of food for Sybilla's wake. She didn't have many friends. She was a whiny, unpleasant woman, even if she was a loyal daughter to old Hans and a CoC member."
Ursula Widder nodded. "She was only fourteen when her mother died. She took over keeping the house and assisting in the shop. Most of her parents' friends are dead. Her younger brothers and sisters are dead or gone. Married or not, she never had any children. Old Hans can't afford to hire mourners. There won't be many people."
Donner shook his head. "It will be a big funeral. Simrock and Theo are getting other students to come. Boys that age eat a lot."
"Reichard," Justina said direfully. "Reichard, what are you up to?"
"Recruiting, my darling treasure. Recruiting."
The newspaper came out early that morning, well before the funeral was due to begin.
Somehow, the lead story featured the brutal death of a native daughter of the city, an honorable and faithful daughter of the city, also the hard-working only caretaker of her aging, invalid father.
Yes, the brutal death of a native daughter of the city at the hands of an equally brutal soldier quartered upon its civilians. A brutal soldier from Mecklenburg, a province which was far distant from the Rhineland, not to mention full of brutal Lutheran heretics.
In passing, the reporter mentioned, just in case his reading public had forgotten, the Swedes were all Lutheran heretics, too—Lutheran heretics who had confiscated the historical Johanniskirche to use as their own.
"Damn you, Simrock," Reichard Donner exploded.
"I said I'd get a story in the paper for you," Simrock protested. "A story that would get the people aroused. Mainzers by and large just don't get very aroused by Spartacus's theories. Sorry about that. My cousin wrote what he thought would work. My uncle was delighted to publish it. You want a crowd, you get a crowd."
"Simrock, you have no common sense at all. The last thing we need is a religious riot. The Committees of Correspondence advocate religious toleration, remember. Repeat after me, twenty times, toleration. Have you gotten that word into your head?"
Simrock shrugged. "My uncle's not exactly a fan of the CoC. Sometimes you have to take what you can get."
". . . sorry we weren't here when you arrived." Reichard Donner distributed another round of beers. "We were all at the funeral." He waved toward Kunigunde and Ursula, who were sobbing at a corner table as they made quick work of the contents of their mugs.
"The riot," Eberhard added.
"Paying our respects to the dead and debating Montaigne," Theo added.
"Dodging flying rocks." Justina glared at the boys. "Evading the city watch. Running for our lives."
"You've read Montaigne, of course," Simrock said to their guests from Fulda.
Jeffie Garand's response was, "Errr . . ."