"That's good, Your Grace, sir," Merckel said. "That's obscenely good. This is your first time in the field. Up till now, you've just been learning drill and theory. When you're out on a campaign, a day when all you do is walk is a good day. A day you spend trying to unstick carts that are stuck in the mud is a worse day. A day that someone else starts shooting at you is the pits."
Ulrich shrugged and went back to unsaddling his horse.
Friedrich pulled a hand-drawn map out of the inner pocket of his leather doublet. "If my map is even close to right, we're making pretty good progress."
"That's because it's not raining, Your Grace, sir," Merckel said. "A couple of days of rain and we'll mire right down. The glop underfoot will suck horseshoes off. The farriers won't be able to get a decent fire going to heat up the metal because water will be dripping through their tent onto the forge. Just wait. You'll see. Before too long, you'll see."
"Thomas Jefferson, of course, considered the the yeoman farmer to be the basis of a healthy political community in a republican form of government."
Brahe nodded. "One presumes that was based upon the Roman model of the Gracchi."
"Probably. He had a pretty good classical education. Better than Washington's, but probably not as good as either George Mason or George Wythe."
Turning his head around, he grinned at Garand, Matowski, and the three Württemberg dukes. "Which may just go to demonstrate that a really good classical education will not necessarily lead to a man's being elected as president of the United States. Washington and Jefferson are in every American history textbook ever printed, but Wythe and Mason only made it into the required fourth-grade course in state history in Virginia."
"I don't understand Jefferson's logic," Brahe said. "Remember Montaigne's critique of the Parians who were sent to reform the Milesians. The Parians visited the island, surveyed it, observed which farms and estates were best managed and governed. Then they appointed the owners of those to be the new magistrates and council of Miletus, on the hypothesis that men who took good care of their own property would take good care of public affairs. However, I personally judge that a man may manage his own lands well because he is essentially selfish, and have very little sense of the civic duty that would lead him to be equally concerned about others."
"Sounds to me like the Parians were subscribing to the view that whatever was good for General Motors was good for the nation," Utt said.
This statement required quite a bit of explanation.
"Anyway, good for Montaigne. I'm glad the fellow didn't fall for that idea. That wasn't the basis for Jefferson's opinion, either. It was more that as many citizens of a country as possible should be stakeholders in it."
The discussion went on until the fire went out.
"Where to next?" Merckel asked the next morning.
"Landstuhl," Corporal Hertling answered. "Captain Ulfsparre told me so."
"Where's Landstuhl?" Jeffie asked.
"A few miles west of Kaiserslautern. See." Lieutenant Duke Friedrich dug into his pocket and pulled out his map.
Ulrich hefted the saddle onto his horse. "What's at Landstuhl? Why is it worth our while to capture whatever it is? I hate to be a nuisance, but nobody ever seems to explain anything on this campaign."
"We aren't supposed to understand. We're just supposed to do what they tell us."
Joel Matowski shook his head. "Ours not to reason why, Ours but to do or die struck me as a really bad idea back when they made us read it in high school."
"The villages belong to a branch of the Freiherren von Sickingen," Eberhard said.
"Any relation to Franz von Sickingen?" Joel asked. "The famous one?"
"Famous?" Ensign Duke Ulrich stuck out his tongue. "Do you have any idea what he did to our ancestor, the first Duke Ulrich, back in 1518?"
"It wasn't just him, brat," Friedrich said. "It was the whole Swabian League."
"He built a big fortress at Landstuhl, but it was destroyed by artillery. That wasn't much more than five years after he attacked our ancestor."
"Sounds like he lived in interesting times." Joel Matowski laughed.
"But the emperor restored his son, and the Sickingens built the fortress back," Friedrich said.
Hertling nodded.
"This is the Hohenburg sub-line of the Sickingens." That was the kind of information that any Swabian nobleman, Eberhard included, had received drilled into him by tutors from the time he could toddle. "Old Franz was a great leader of the imperial knights and a defender of the Reformation. This bunch, though, converted back to Catholicism in—hmm—I think it was 1627. About then. It was the year before our father died, wasn't it?" He looked at Friedrich.