The Tangled Web(90)

"Where did you get three dozen rotten eggs, anyway?" Friedrich was honestly curious. He had no idea how to go about procuring such an item.

"I have my methods."

"Where, my delightful little doe?"

"Don't call me that. I hate it. That's what Theo calls me."

"Where did you get the eggs?"

"It's spring, Fritzi."

"What does spring have to do with it?"

"Kunigunde's hens in the back courtyard of the Horn of Plenty have been setting, but she doesn't have a rooster and since she keeps them in coops no neighbor's rooster can get to them, so the eggs they lay are sterile. They're a nasty bunch of peckers." She held out her arm, demonstrating several small wounds. "She's left them alone, because they won't lay any more while they're broody, anyway. The eggs are nice and ripe."

She pulled the ticking back from the mattress very carefully. It wouldn't do to have feathers flying loose all over the room. Even a clod like Rohrbach might notice that. She situated the eggs among the feathers and replaced the ticking even more carefully.

"Hah."

"That's it?"

"No, of course not." She scowled at him. "Now we go up to the garret and pack up Sybilla's clothing. Everyone in the neighborhood will know that she would have wanted Kunigunde and Ursula to share it between them. We will carry it out. We will stop and talk to a few people in the street who will see us carrying it. We won't mention that we are carrying it, because they might wonder why we are talking about something so obvious, but we will answer if anyone asks how old man Binder is."

"We do? We will?"

"Of course we do. Don't they teach you anything practical in 'how to be a noble school'?"

The morning and the evening of the sixth day

Fulda, April 1634

"And the news from Mainz is?" Derek Utt contemplated his delegation.

"We spent quite a bit of time with them," Joel said.

Derek Utt raised one eyebrow. "Doing what?"

"Hanging out, sort of," Jeffie Garand said cheerfully. "Actually, they're a lot like us when we were their age, if our parents had been rich when we were born and sent us to fancy prep schools, that is. Not outstandingly smart or dumb. Not unusually ugly or handsome. Just regular guys. If they don't watch what they eat and keep up an exercise program, all three of them are going to be buying their clothes in the corner of the men's shop that has a sign hanging over it that says 'Portly Short' by the time they're thirty. By the time they're forty for sure."

"What we were doing was trying to find out what Wes wanted to know." Joel Matowski seriously tried to look helpful and conscientious. "Eberhard's nineteen. Friedrich's eighteen. Ulrich will be sixteen next month. The reason all three of them are on Nils Brahe's staff in Mainz is that they're supposed to be learning their trade in the army, so to speak. Eberhard thinks that Ulrich should still be under a tutor's guidance, but he wouldn't go to Strassburg with their sisters—he made a big fuss about it, apparently—so the older boys brought him along where they can keep an eye on him."

"Why Mainz, given all the problems in Swabia? And given that in theory they're dukes of a good chunk of the general geographical spot that's Swabia. Why not with Horn?"

"Well, if he sent them to Horn, it might make problems with the margraves of Baden. That's Swabia, too. Or remind the Württembergers that they do have their own dukes when other European countries aren't using their home turf as a battleground. I doubt that Gustav wants a self-determination movement on the Ram Rebellion model down in the southeast right about now."

Utt grimaced. "Damn, but I hate politics."

"They're all over the place," Joel said earnestly. "Politics, I mean. If it wasn't for the problems in the Netherlands, these kids would probably be with Frederik Hendrik. They can't very well be with Gustavus up north, given that they're first cousins to Christian IV of Denmark's sons—their moms were sisters. I gathered from Eberhard that it would be sort of touchy. Plus, on their mom's side, too, they're also some kind of cousins of George William over in Brandenburg, who's probably next on Gustav's tick-off list, once he deals with the Danes. So our illustrious emperor was sort of short on options about where to put them, I guess. Didn't want to offend them to the point that they would swing over to the other side. Didn't want to put them in the way of temptation, either. Actually, they haven't taken offense too bad. Eberhard's pretty realistic about the whole thing and the other two are following his lead."

"Is that the whole family?" Wes Jenkins asked.

"They've got three sisters hiding out from Horn and Bernhard in Strassburg." Jeffie grinned. "According to Eberhard, all three of them swear that they're going to grow up to be old maids. Antonia's older than the boys. According to their description, she was born to give Ms. Mailey a run for her money in the 'terrifying bluestocking' sweepstakes. For the time being, though, she's got the two little sisters on her hands, to finish bringing up in her image."