Eric Flint's Blog, page 189

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 68

This book should be available now so this is the last snippet.

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 68

Mostly, though, Murad had ordered the executions because he was determined to use this campaign to break the resistance of the janissaries and bend them to his will. The janissaries were still a formidable military force, but in the long years since they’d been created by Murad I two and a half centuries earlier the elite corps had grown increasingly fractious and independent. They and the sipahis, the traditional Ottoman cavalry corps, had become too independent of the sultan’s control.

But if Murad’s plans worked, Vienna was going to fall like no great city had fallen in centuries. Not at the end of a protracted siege, but in a few short days — possibly just one day. Murad was an enormously powerful man, physically, and in battle his favored weapon was a mace so large and heavy that few other men could have wielded it. He would break Vienna’s resistance by using his army like that same mace — with one great blow.

The new weapons and the new military units would be the key to that victory. None of them were janissaries, and none were sipahis. Many of them were Christians and Jews, who owed their new status entirely to the sultan.

A slight cough drew Murad’s attention. Turning, he saw that Halil Pasha had arrived in response to his summons.

“Begin the sapping operations,” he ordered. Then, watched carefully to see if the former governor of Egypt seemed hesitant to obey. The man was extraordinarily capable but given to pointless tenderness.

That trait had made him very popular in Egypt. Indeed, after Murad summoned Halil Pasha back to Istanbul three years earlier, the shopkeepers in Cairo had been impertinent enough to close their businesses for a week in mourning. Murad had responded by stripping Halil Pasha of his possessions and exiling him on Cyprus.

Only briefly, though, and just to make a point. The man was too capable not to use him.

But there seemed to be no reluctance on Halil Pasha’s part to do as Murad bade him. He simply bowed and left to carry out the command. Halil was one of the few men who were privy to Murad’s plans in their entirety. He knew, therefore, that sending out sappers was sending men into great danger from which many would not return — and for no purpose other than subterfuge. Murad was going to overwhelm Vienna’s resistance by sheer force and violence, not undermine its walls by the slow underground warfare of sappers against counter-sappers.

But the Austrians would be expecting sappers. Indeed, they would already have begun their own counter-sapping operations. If they encountered no Ottoman troops they would become suspicious.

Their suspicions might not lead to anything. Probably wouldn’t, in fact. With a few exceptions, Austrian commanders were not imaginative. But there was no reason to take the risk, simply to save the lives of a few dozen sappers.

Kasim Bey was waiting for him also. Murad motioned him to come forward.

“How soon?” he asked.

 

Kasim Bey shook his head. “It is hard to be sure, My Sultan. The big problem is the armored wagons. If we could dispense with those…”

“No.” Murad’s answer was quick and firm. “I do not expect them to be very useful if they actually have to fight. No more than you do, Kasim Bey. But they will strike terror in the hearts of the Austrians. For that alone, I want them here.”

“That may cost us as much as an extra week, My Sultan.”

“I understand. We have to wait another week anyway, for the katyushas and the main airship fleet to arrive. An additional week will not matter. We will still only be in August. You are dismissed.”

With another hand gesture, Murad summoned the Şeyh-ül-Islâm’s acolyte. He’d forgotten the man’s name.

“The ruling?”

“My Sultan, my master is even now writing the fatwa. Given that the infidels have already been seen to use fire weapons in war, the flamethrowers and incendiary bombs may be used, provided that they are employed in a lawful manner.”

Murad was irritated that Zekeriyyâ-zâde Yahyâ Efendi had chosen to remain in his tent and send an assistant rather than present the ruling himself. The Şeyh-ül-Islâm was the empire’s greatest scholar and normally remained in Istanbul. But Murad had required him to accompany the expedition to Baghdad as well as this one. Partly that was to improve morale; partly to keep an eye on the man.

But the matter was not important enough to force the scholar to appear before him. Both Murad and the Şeyh-ül-Islâm had known what the ruling would be for the last several months. The purpose of this little exercise was simply to have it stated in public, in front of the officers and officials assembled in Murad’s headquarters. For that purpose, the acolyte would do as well as the Şeyh-ül-Islâm himself.

“And how may they be employed lawfully?”

Some of Murad’s irritation must have been evident in his tone, for the assistant seemed to twitch for a moment. That was hardly surprising, given that Murad had executed the current Şeyh-ül-Islâm’s predecessor. The man had been notoriously conservative and Murad needed a ruling that would allow him to use the new weapons his artisans had developed from their study of the American texts.

“First, the flames may only be used against fortifications,” said the acolyte hurriedly, “for Allah alone may use flames against people. But if the flames endanger infidels who fail to flee, then their deaths are on their own heads.”

That was the critical part of the ruling. For all practical purposes, it made the use of the new fire weapons legal under any circumstances likely to arise. The incendiary bombs were less useful than explosives on a battlefield and the flamethrowers were too unreliable. Their principal function was against fortifications.

But there was another matter of importance, which Murad wanted to have stated in public also.

“And what else?” he asked.

“The Şeyh-ül-Islâm also recommends that the weapons be wielded by zimmis so that Muslims are not tempted into error by the innovations in the heat of battle.”

Murad nodded solemnly — as if he had not already put that provision into place. The zimmis — Jewish and Christian citizens of the empire — who manned his armored wagons and airships and provided much of the katyusha force were completely dependent on his goodwill. Unlike the janissaries and the sipahis, they had no other anchor in the empire.

And now he had the imprimatur of Şeyh-ül-Islâm Zekeriyyâ-zâde Yahyâ Efendi on his decision to have the new weapons operated by zimmis. The janissary and sipahi officers in the headquarters had all heard the acolyte say so — and explain that the ruling was to protect the souls of his Muslim soldiers. A good and just sultan could have no higher responsibility.

“You are dismissed,” he said to the acolyte.

After he was gone, Murad climbed the stairs to the second floor of the factory. There was a large window that provided a good view of Vienna.

He spent a few minutes looking at the city. Not planning anything, just gazing and pondering a question whose answer had not yet come to him.

What would he rename Vienna, after he’d taken it?

 

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 67

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 67

On the positive side, that meant that any light being generated inside the cellars by lamps or candles wouldn’t leak out, either. On the negative side, that also meant that the ventilation was wretched. Air passages had been built into the design, but no provision had been made for circulating the air. On the really negative side, that meant —

Minnie emerged out of the gloom. “I pried open the lid and looked into it. That oubliette in the corner of the next room hasn’t been used in maybe a hundred years. So it’s not stinky. On the other hand, if we ever do have to use it…”

She made a face. “This would get really foul down here.”

Judy looked around, again holding her lamp up. “Are these barrels all full of wine?”

“Yes,” said Cecilia Renata. “They get changed every decade or so.”

Judy pounced. “By who? They’ll know about the cellars.”

“By one of the officials who left with the emperor for Linz.”

The archduchess seemed to believe it, too. Amazing. Did anyone really think a court official hauled heavy casks of wine in and out of a hidden cellar all by his lonesome?

Royalty. They’d just have to hope whoever did the actual work would keep their mouths shut — if they ever wound up having to use these cellars at all, which everyone kept assuring Judy they wouldn’t.

She found that kind of amazing too. You’d think people who’d been born and raised in a century where all cities had huge fortifications surrounding them wouldn’t be so blasted optimistic about everything.

She forced her mind back to the issue at hand. “We couldn’t possibly drink all this wine. Not even if we were holding nonstop parties down here. So if the time ever comes, we can just pour one of the casks down into the shit pit. That ought to cut down the smell and help sterilize the crap.”

Cecilia Renata shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. And we don’t need to find out because” — she pointed to a small stack of casks off to one side — “those have lime in them. That’s what you use to keep the smell down.”

That would probably also reduce the danger of infection, Judy reflected.

“Bah!” she suddenly exclaimed. “We’re getting carried away here, ladies! If it ever looks like the Turks are going to break into Vienna, I vote we just evacuate the city like anybody else with half a brain.”

Cecilia Renata nodded. “I agree. There is already a provision for that, too. Leopold told me — in fact, he’s in charge of it. Him and a Captain Adolf Brevermann. If the Turks breach the walls we will evacuate everyone on barges in the Donaukanal.”

Judy was skeptical how well that would work. It was true that the Ottomans had so far made no attempt to cross over to the north bank of the Danube or even onto the strip of land between the river and the canal that formed the northern limit of Vienna. That might be on account of the steam barges the Austrians had, which had originally been built to ferry people to and from Race Track City. The Austrians had armed two of them with small cannons. But Judy had her doubts. She was no soldier, but she suspected that if Sultan Murad IV could get one hundred thousand men from Belgrade to Vienna, he could sure as hell get across a river, steam barges or no steam barges.

Most of the city’s civilians had already been evacuated, except for eight thousand volunteers — almost all of them men — who had stayed behind to support the garrison, which was now a little over fifteen thousand strong. The defenders were heavily outnumbered, but they had the great advantage of fighting behind some of Europe’s strongest fortifications.

What everyone was hoping, of course, was that the USE and perhaps Bohemia would send troops to relieve the siege. But no one yet knew if that might happen, although rumors were flying everywhere.

“Your brother is in charge of that?” asked Minnie. Her expression was a little pinched. “With a captain. Let me guess. The captain will lead the evacuation while Leopold will lead the delaying action.”

“That’s what he told me,” said Cecilia Renata.

“That’s stupid!” Minnie protested. “He’s playing at being a general! He has no military experience. He’s supposed to be a bishop, for Christ’s sake.” Minnie, from her long and close association with Denise, had picked up American habits when it came to blasphemy.

“Which is exactly what I told him,” agreed the young archduchess. “But you know what he’s like, Minnie. Well, maybe you don’t yet. Whenever he thinks his honor is involved, he becomes as stubborn as a mule and his — what do you call it? That thing that measures how smart you are?”

“IQ,” Judy provided. “Stands for ‘intelligence quotient.'”

“Yes, that thing. Leopold’s IQ drops below that of a mule, at such times. Sometimes, below that of a beetle. He says if it comes to an evacuation under fire that military skill won’t be as important as simply keeping morale steady. Which he claims he can do better than anyone — certainly a mere captain — because he’s a member of the royal family. All he has to do is not panic, he says.”

Minnie’s face got really pinched, then. After a short silence, she said: “He’s probably right, you know. The fucking idiot.”

“He’s an idiot for being right?” Judy tried to follow the logic.

“No. He’s an idiot for listening to himself being right.”

Race Track City

Four miles east of Vienna

The corpses were beginning to smell, which was all to the good so far as Murad was concerned. The Ottoman sultan had ordered the three officers in command of the janissaries who’d seized Race Track City and set fire to it to be hanged for disobeying his direct order that no captured persons or buildings were to be harmed except by his command.

He’d given that order, in part, because he wanted the buildings for his own use. He’d planned to use Race Track City to quarter a large number of his soldiers. Now, they’d all have to make do with tents, since the only edifice which had survived — a factory of some sort, making what looked like buttons — had been turned into his military headquarters.

In part, he’d also ordered strict discipline to be maintained because he had hopes of winning over a portion of the conquered population. There probably wouldn’t be many, of course. These Austrians were Catholic Christians, not Orthodox ones like the many subjects of the Ottoman Empire who provided the sultan with most of the troops handling the new weapons. But if Murad could gain the allegiance of even a few, that would be helpful. The chances of doing so would be greatly diminished if they or their families had been abused.

 

Caine’s Mutiny – Snippet 01

Caine’s Mutiny – Snippet 01

Caine’s Mutiny

By Charles E. Gannon

Note, please see Snippet 00 for a link to the first 18 chapters.

Chapter Nineteen

Iarzut’thruk, BD+56 2966 Two (“Turkh’saar”)

Silent Voice gestured Yaargraukh forward into the circle, who kept his head bowed as he complied, thereby signifying that he was not putting his words up to the proof of a Challenge, but was responding to the request of the convenor of the Council to make a report to all its members.

Yaargraukh began without the customary salutations and preamble. “Half a year ago, just months after our hibernaculae were returned from Earth, strange reports began filtering in from Turkh’saar’s far northeastern Fringelands. Several rovers disappeared without trace in the same week a dencote was found abandoned and rifled. The reports were brought here to the Clanhall. The events were deemed to be related. It was conjectured that a few of the missing rovers had gone rogue, possibly after killing the others in a dispute, and had resorted to living Out-Law and raiding. Your son Jrekhalkar took the prudent step of recruiting several Warders from among the ranks of the local families, who were sent to investigate the matter and attempt to locate the missing rovers.

“They did not find any Hkh’Rkh living Out-Law, nor did they discover any trace of the rovers. However, they did hear rotary wing vehicles in the far distance on several occasions. Since none remained in the colony after the Slaasriithi raids targeted all our aerial vehicles from orbit, it was supposed that last year’s shift-carrier from Rkh’yaa had landed some troops and vertibirds covertly.”

O’akhdruh may have glanced briefly at Jrekhalkar. “And why would forces from our home world not announce themselves to the colonial authorities, Yaargraukh?”

“It was conjectured that they might be under orders to remain unannounced, if their mission was to surreptitiously monitor and guard the Site.”

“And did you agree with this explanation?”

“I did not disagree with it. There seemed no alternative explanation at the time. But I was at pains to point out that, even if unannounced Warriors from our homeworld had eliminated the Out-Law rovers, the other matter of the stripped dencote remained a mystery.”

“And what reply was given to this exception?”

“That while anomalous, it was still explicable. Perhaps the Out-Law rovers had stripped it before they were found and dispatched by the Warriors.”

“But you felt this unlikely?”

“I felt it wanting of further investigation.”

“Why?”

“Firstly, if the Warriors were ordered to both guard the Site and to remain unnoticed, they would not have been conducting unnecessary security missions more than one-hundred and fifty kilometers north of their areas of operations. Secondly, it made no sense that the dencote was stripped so clean by rogue rovers. They would not have burdened themselves with every unattached object they found in the warren. Those who live Out-Law must live and travel as lightly as possible, or they will be caught.”

Neither O’akhdruh’s voice nor posture suggested that he considered these conclusions dubious. “And did you point out these peculiarities to the leadership here in Iarzut’thruk?”

“I did.”

O’akhdruh did not look at his sole surviving son, but his pause suggested that he had to gather himself again before continuing. “And no action was taken?”

“None.”

“And did you not press your concerns?”

“My observations were not always welcome. Besides, in defense of those who heard them, there was no logical path of subsequent inquiry. We were confronted with peculiar disappearances and circumstantial evidence, but it did not point at any other hypothesis. And I had none of my own to offer.”

“So you did not suspect a human invasion at this point?”

“No one did, Revered O’akhdruh. There was no reason to. However, that changed approximately a week after our upland Warders returned. A significant attack was made upon the westernmost clancote, Gad’aglahkh. Its Voice reported the attack by radio, including mention of rotary wing vehicles before his transmission ended abruptly. Those of us with military or militia experience moved quickly to reach the site, but it was still a three day drive.

“As we feared, there were no survivors. Like the dencote, the settlement had been completely stripped of removable objects. However, the most striking after-action discovery was the massive use of unprecedentedly small bore weapons. Both our Warriors and Unhonored were riddled with such wounds.” Yaargraukh paused, remembering. “The others in our team were perplexed. But I had seen these gunshot wounds before.”

“On Earth,” O’akhdruh murmured. It was not a guess; he had been there, too.

“Yes. It was also evident that a wide variety of such weapons had been used, ultimately confirmed by post-mortem removal and examination of several bullets.”

O’akhdruh started. “Why was that necessary? Were there no shell casings?”

“Almost none. The few we found had slipped through cracks or fallen into herpeculture ditches. The attackers had collected the spent casings.”

O’akhdruh’s eyes half-disappeared into leathery folds of consternation. “To conceal their identity.”

“Perhaps. Or to facilitate reloading.”

“You suspect they were short on ammunition?”

“In a manner of speaking. Frankly, I am surprised they had any ammunition at all, considering some of the calibers we discovered.”

“I do not understand the significance of your comment.”

“Revered O’akhdruh, you were on Earth. You saw the weapons that the insurgents used in the last hours: tens of thousands of the assault rifle that the human history books designate the ‘AK-47.'”

“I recall. You found those cartridge casings at this site?”

“Those, and others even more peculiar. A British round called a .303. A German round that is designated the 7.98 millimeter Mauser.”

O’akhdruh’s eyefolds puckered even more profoundly. “I have never heard of these.”

“Nor would I have, had I not made the study of human military affairs my specialty. That was the primary reason I was selected as Advocate: so that I might also serve as an advisor regarding Earth’s military doctrines and technologies.”

“And so, this ammunition: are they specialized rounds of some kind? Hunting or sniper calibers, perhaps?”

“No, they are relics. Museum objects, originally developed for early machine guns and bolt-action rifles almost 250 years ago.”

O’akhdruh leaned back slightly, then glanced at his son, none too pleased. Evidently, Jrekhalkar had not had the time, or heart, to fully explain these inconsistencies to his sire, who had now been put in the compromising position of appearing surprised. “Although the weapons whereby the humans perpetrate their atrocities against Turkh’saar are immaterial to their guilt and our response, I perceive why you feel it prudent to make note of these…oddities. Did you conduct further research into them?”

“We did, and unfortunately, we did not want for opportunities. Within the week, the human attacks mounted in scope and savagery. They utterly despoiled the clancote of Sysh’khmar and then twice attacked the town of Haakh’haln. My team arrived four hours after the second strike, which was the most anomalous of all their attacks to date, and marked a change in the character of their operations.”

“How so?”

“It is easier to show you the answer than explain it. Please flip down the monocular playback lens of your dioptiscopes, scions. I will share scenes retrieved from our casualties’ helmet cams.”

As O’akhdruh pawed feebly at his dioptiscope, he pony-nodded. “It was fortunate, indeed, that our slain Warriors were equipped to record the events.”

When Yaargraukh didn’t say anything, Raakhshaan of the moiety of Ukhvurashn, one of his few friends in the Clanhall and a fellow Fringelander, hastened to “help” him. “It was not good fortune, Revered O’akhdruh, but good planning. Yaargraukh sent word to all the eastern communities that their Warriors should wear video-capable dioptiscopes whenever they were on duty, with the feed relayed to a central recorder. That way –”

 

Caine’s Mutiny – Snippet 00

On Monday January 2nd, I will be starting the snippets of Caine’s Mutiny by Charles E. Gannon.

Since this is a February release and we’re getting started on snippets very late, we’ll be starting with Chapter 19 of the book.

Please visit http://www.baen.com/caine-s-mutiny.html and click on Sample Chapters to see the first eighteen Chapters.

 

 

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 66

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 66

Chapter 31

Outside Munich, capital of Bavaria

“How did Admiral Simpson tear down the walls of Hamburg in a few hours,” Mike Stearns wondered, “when the same guns don’t seem to be making much of a dent in the walls of Munich?”

The captain in charge of the battery got the long-suffering look common to artillery officers when called upon to explain that cannon are not, in fact, magic wands.

“First of all, sir,” he replied, “the walls of Hamburg that Simpson fired upon weren’t torn down because he wasn’t trying to breach the walls. He was sailing through Hamburg on his way to the North Sea. He just damaged them in the process of doing what he was really after, which was silencing the batteries Hamburg had on the river.”

He took a deep breath. “Second, the walls he faced on the river weren’t the full-scale star fort walls that he would have been firing on if he’d been investing Hamburg from landside” — here a forefinger waved about — “like we are. Third –”

“Never mind,” Mike grumbled. “I’ll take your word that there’s a logic to it. Even if it does seem weird.”

Christopher Long chimed in. “General, there’s a reason every big city in Europe spends a fortune — not a small one, either — surrounding themselves with star forts. The fact is that this style of fortifications works well against the kind of big guns generally available to us.” He nodded toward the nearest of the two ten-inch naval rifles, positioned in a berm about fifty yards away. “These are much better than most and eventually the explosive shells they fire will produce a big enough breach for us to launch an assault. But we only have two of the guns available so far because of the problems Major Simpson has been having salvaging the other two.”

Mike had the grace to tighten his lips and keep his mouth shut. He didn’t blush, though, which by rights he should have. Tom, following Mike’s orders, had managed to get the two remaining naval rifles out of the Danube. His men had drilled out the spikes and cleaned them up, and then shipped the guns down the Danube to the confluence with the Isar.

Where, alas — the details remained unclear, but war is well known to be hell — the barge had capsized and spilled both guns back into the river.

Mike had had the good sense, however, not to cite Clausewitz in the brief message reporting on the mishap to Gustav Adolf. Everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult…

Would not have been well received.

There was no point in Mike grumbling at his artillery officers, anyway. He was just restless. He didn’t really want a big breach opened up in the walls of Munich. He just wanted to keep the pressure on Duke Maximilian while he hoped Rebecca — someone, anyone — could finally persuade Gustav Adolf to accept a political settlement with Bavaria.

“Keep up the good work, captain,” he said, and left to make a nuisance of himself somewhere else.

Sieges were frustrating, aggravating, and most of all — boring.

Vienna, capital of Austria-Hungary

“Wow,” said Judy Wendell, raising the lamp in order to get a better view. “I’ve heard of safe rooms, but this is…” She smiled wryly. “A royal palace version of it, I guess.”

Cecilia Renata rose from the crouch she’d assumed to inspect one of the casks. “That wine is still good, I think. What is a ‘safe room’?”

After Judy explained, both Cecilia Renata and Minnie Hugelmair shook their heads.

“No, not really,” said the archduchess. “The way you describe a safe room, its purpose is to prevent anyone from breaking into it until help can arrive.” She made a little circular motion with her finger, indicating their surroundings. “This is not safe at all, not that way. If an enemy can break into Vienna, they can certainly break into these cellars. This is just a hiding place, that’s all. You would only be safe so long as no one knew you were here.”

“Speaking of which,” said Minnie. “Who does know about these cellars? Besides you and us and Leopold.”

Cecilia Renata pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Everyone in the royal family, of course. A few officials — but all of them left with the emperor. I don’t think there’s anyone in Vienna except the three of us and Leopold who knows they exist.”

“That can’t be true,” said Judy, trying to keep the exasperation out of her voice. Royalty, I swear! It seemed almost impossible for people raised the way they’d been to remember that servants were real live actual all-the-way-around people just like they were. And so were workmen.

“You didn’t build these cellars yourselves,” she continued. “It must have taken dozens of men to do it. Hundreds, probably. I mean — look at it.” She raised the lantern again and swung it back and forth, shedding light into various corners.

It wasn’t possible to see all of the area, or even most of it. These were cellars — cellars, plural, not one cellar — and there were at least four separate rooms. Quite possibly more, since there were dark areas Judy hadn’t explored yet.

“Oh, them.” Renata Cecilia shook her head. “They all made solemn oaths to remain silent. But it doesn’t matter because none of them could still be alive, Judy. This wing of the palace was originally built in the middle of the last century as a home for Maximilian II before he became the Holy Roman Emperor. These cellars would have been put in at the same time. And he died…”

She frowned. “In the year 1576, I think. That was sixty years ago — and he was fifty years old when he died. Or forty-nine, I don’t remember.”

“Doesn’t matter, either way,” said Judy. “Everyone who worked on the cellars has to be long gone by now.”

Which didn’t mean they hadn’t told friends or members of their families about the cellars, solemn oaths or not. But they probably wouldn’t have told very many people, and those people would have been sworn to silence also. Those vows no doubt got broken, too. But by the time a century went by, the well-known telephone game effect would have distorted the passed-on memories beyond recognition, and there’d be several different versions of them.

Mentally, she shrugged. The world wasn’t a perfectly safe place; never had been, never would be. But as hidey-holes went in a city under siege by a mighty and malevolent enemy, this was pretty damn good.

There were some drawbacks, of course. The lighting sucked. More precisely, there was no lighting at all except that provided by four very narrow slots in the tower near the entrance — and that light didn’t penetrate into the cellars because the disguised door that provided the entrance to the cellars two floors below those slots was kept tightly shut. Not only shut but bolted and wedged from the inside. Even if someone suspected there might be an entrance and poked and pried, they wouldn’t be able to budge that door. In fact, they wouldn’t even be able to determine that it was a door in the first place.

 

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 65

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 65

“About one hundred and fifty miles. Not even that.”

Bonnie pursed her lips. “That’d be well out of range for a hot air dirigible but not for a hydrogen one. Are there are other lakes, Heinz?”

He nodded. “There are a number of other lakes in the USE that would be big enough for an airship hangar — a number of hangars, in fact. The closest one to Munich in our territory that I can think of is the Hopfensee near Füssen. Not much farther away, there is also a lake near Immenstadt. But those are not big towns, so I don’t think they’d have the skills and resources we’d need. There are some other lakes that I think are even closer to Munich but they are in Bavaria and currently under Duke Maximilian’s control. Outside of Bavaria, other than the Bodensee…”

Heinz fell silent for a moment while he searched his memory. “There’s the Steinhuder Meer in Brunswick. It’s very shallow, though — I think it averages no more than three or four feet deep. That might be a problem. And in any case it’s farther away from Munich than the Bodensee. The same’s true for the Lake District in Mecklenburg and Mummelsee and the Schluchsee in the Black Forest. None of them are closer than the Bodensee and most of them are much farther away.”

“The Bodensee it is, then,” said Rita. “Are there any big towns right on it, where a hangar could be assembled?”

“I think the best site would probably be Bregenz. It’s in our territory, now that Tyrol joined us. It’s on the side of the lake closest to Munich and I think it’s a big town. But I’ve never visited the area so I’m not sure.”

“Why we’ve got a radio. If the deal goes through, we’ll have our people back home start to work on it.” Rita started walking toward the nearby buildings near the shore where the headquarters of the consortium were located. “Speaking of which, it’s time to negotiate. Hear me roar. Okay, I’ll probably be sweet-talking most of the time. Figure of speech.”

****

Bonnie and Heinz actually did most of the talking, since they knew a lot more about airship construction than Rita did.

“…engine we finally bought is a Chrysler 3.8 which can produce a little over 200 horsepower.” The Dutch engineer rattled off the specs as if he were native born to the late twentieth century. “Of course, we have to use a 2.5 to 1 gear reduction…”

Rita ignored the rest of it. She’d never been much interested in automobile engines even up-time, and most of the discussion between her two companions and the Dutch airship builders might just as well have been in Greek. She was pretty sure the term “3.8” referred to the size of the engine in… liters? Something like that. And she knew that when car engines were used for aeronautical purposes the RPM usually had to be reduced using one or another type of gearing system. Beyond that, she was lost.

But the details weren’t her job. Her job was to keep her mouth shut so she didn’t goof up anywhere, look solemn and parsimonious, and — most of all; essential! — look like she was the sister of one Michael Stearns, former prime minister of the USE and now one of its leading generals and often known by the informal title of the Prince of Germany.

That was the hardest part, actually. Memories kept coming to her of her brother As Only A Sister Knew Him. Mike at… what had he been? Fifteen years old, if she remembered right. Coming home from school with a black eye and a split lip and badly skinned knuckles.

Their mother had given Mike a proper chewing out, with their father glowering at him. Then, after she left, Jack Stearns had leaned over and whispered to his son — but she’d heard! — “Next time, Mike, don’t swing for the bastard’s head with your fist. You’ll just cut yourself up. The way to do it –”

He’d spotted six-year-old Rita listening with interest and had shooed her off.

Then there was the time Mike came home —

“Rita?”

Belatedly, she realized Bonnie had now called her name twice. “Ah… Yeah. Yes. What… Ah, yes?”

“We need a decision here. Do we want a crew of between twelve and fifteen people — that would be optimum — or do we want to cut back on the crew in order to expand the fuel tanks? We could go as low as a crew of six if we really needed to, although they think going below eight starts being problematic.”

Rita would have been delighted to fob off on this question too, but it fell within the parameters of “operational issues.” Technically, that was her bailiwick.

She spent some time pondering the matter. Partly that was to enhance the image of Big Shot’s Sister, thinking deep thoughts. Mostly, though, it was because she actually had to think about it.

“What’s the range the way it is?” she asked. “Let’s assume a full crew of fifteen.”

The Dutch engineer who’d been doing most of the talking — Maarten Kortenaer was his name — waggled his head. “It can vary quite a bit, you understand, depending on the wind and other factors. You would also need to specify the speed and the fuel load. But figure that your range will be somewhere between six hundred and nine hundred miles.”

She went back to pondering. She was tempted to go for the full crew option, because a range of six hundred miles between refueling was already far better than the hot air dirigibles could manage. A round trip distance of three hundred miles — no, make it two hundred and fifty to allow sufficient loiter time over the target…

She tried to visualize a map of central Europe. Assuming for the moment that the home base of the dirigible was on the Bodensee, they could possibly even reach Vienna. Come close, for sure — and cover all of Bavaria. Then, once Mike squashed Maximilian, they could shift the base to one of the lakes in Bavaria and they’d easily be in range to cover Vienna itself and its surroundings.

But…

The problem wasn’t the fuel itself so much as the hydrogen. By now the USE had a lot of facilities that were able to handle gasoline and kerosene. Producing large quantities of hydrogen, though, was a new challenge.

“How much hydrogen leaks out?” she asked. “Let’s say, over a one-week period.”

The answer was long-winded and convoluted, with lots of qualifications and variables, but the gist of it seemed to be we don’t really know yet.

“All right,” she said, finally. “Let’s split the difference. We’ll figure on a crew of ten which can be expanded if need be. I’m assuming most of the weight of the fuel is the actual fuel weight, not the weight of the fuel containers.”

“Oh, yes,” said Kortenaer. “The weight of the containers is about fifteen percent of the weight of the fuel itself.”

Rita nodded. “And they don’t take up a lot of space — certainly measured against what’s available.”

That was one of the big differences between hydrogen and hot air dirigibles. Hydrogen was comparatively stable and you didn’t have to keep heating it up. That meant that you could locate the vessel’s cargo space, engine compartments, crew quarters, fuel tanks, radio station — almost everything — on the keel, inside the envelope, instead of having to place it on an external gondola. You still wanted a control car hanging down from the envelope, but that was just for the sake of greater visibility. All you needed there was room for one or two pilots, a navigator, and some navigation equipment.

Rita had been astonished when she got inside the airship being built in Hoorn and was given a tour of the interior. The area available for people, equipment and cargo was huge. It was more like being on a cruise ship than an aircraft.

Of course, space was one thing; lifting capacity, another. Still, the rigid airship being built in Hoorn was far superior to anything the USE military currently had in service.

“How soon will the ship be ready?” she asked.

They’d already negotiated the terms of the lease — and lease it would be, not a sale. The Dutch weren’t admitting anything openly, but it was by now obvious to Rita and her two companions that the real power behind the consortium was the King in the Netherlands, Fernando. He wanted the airship to stay in his possession in case he needed against…

Whichever enemy might show up. The most likely one would be his older brother, King Philip IV of Spain. The airship would make a splendid bombing platform that could throttle the English Channel if another Spanish Armada should happen to show up.

Fernando was willing to lease it to the USE for the time being, though. First, because there really didn’t seem to be any immediate threat to the Netherlands coming from any quarter. Both the Spanish and the French had other and more pressing problems on their hands and the USE was on reasonably friendly terms — which stood to get even friendlier because of the airship arrangement.

And, second, because leasing the airship to the USE would give the vessel and its crew what amounted to a baptism by fire. They could learn what the ship could and couldn’t do in a real war without having to actually declare war on anybody.

“We could have the ship operational in…” The Dutch engineers spent a couple of minutes in quiet consultation. Then Maarten Kortenaer looked up and said: “Two months. At the beginning of September.”

Rita nodded. “That should do.”

Amsterdam, the Netherlands

There was a radio message from Mike Stearns waiting for them when they got back to their hotel rooms.

Ottoman army has reached Vienna. They have airships. At least three. We need that Dutch ship ASAP.

“Big brothers are such a pain in the ass,” said Rita.

 

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 64

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 64

PART IV

July, 1636

They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died

Chapter 30

Vienna, capital of Austria-Hungary

Judy Wendell summed up the sentiments of the four young women standing on the wall of the city looking to the east. “Well, that sucks.”

“What would you be referring to, exactly?” asked Hayley Fortney. The youngest of the four pointed an accusing finger at the columns of smoke rising from Race Track City, four miles away. “The fact that they’re burning down everything we built over there, or the fact that there are about a million of them.”

“That’s a ridiculous exaggeration,” said Cecilia Renata. Her tone seemed a lot less confident than the words themselves, though. “My brother — Ferdinand, not Leopold — he’s the emperor — told me just yesterday that our spies mostly agree that Murad didn’t bring more than one hundred thousand men.

“Fewer,” she added stoutly, “than Suleiman brought the last time the Turkish pigs tried this.” Cecilia Renata shared none of her younger brother Leopold’s fine sense of the ethnic complexities of the Ottoman Empire. Like most Austrians, she figured Turks were Turks and that was all there was to it.

“It’s not the number of soldiers that matters,” said Minnie Hugelmair, “it’s what they might have with them.” Her own finger pointed to something further away than Race Track City. Further away — and further up. “Tell me I’m wrong because I’ve only got one eye even though that eye works quite well. That looks like a dirigible to me.”

“Three of them, actually,” said Judy. “My eyesight’s twenty-twenty.”

Hayley and Cecilia Renata were both squinting at the same objects. “They don’t look as big as ours, though,” said Hayley. “The Pelican, I mean. The Swordfish class. We’ve got three of them too, you know.”

Judy was never one given to false optimism. “Let’s be precise, here. Miro Estuban has three of them, only one of which is currently leased to the USE army — and it’s stationed in Munich. The Albatross and the Petrel are… wherever. Not here. We don’t have any airships. No planes, either. Not even a Belle, much less a Gustav or a Dauntless. They’re all up in Poland, doing absolutely no good flying around Poznań.”

Minnie, from her work for Don Francisco, had a much better grasp of military realities than Judy did. “Doesn’t really matter, though. None of the planes are able to shoot down airships, and they’re too small to carry much in the way of bombs, either. They’re mostly valuable for reconnaissance to find where the enemy is and” — she used her chin to point to the huge army moving up on Vienna — “that’s hardly at issue now. They’re right over there.”

She turned to Hayley. “You really ought to get out of Vienna, like you said you were going to.”

Hayley was glaring at the distant Ottoman army. Perhaps more than anyone in the world, she’d been the driving force behind creating Race Track City. Now, from the looks of it, the whole place was being destroyed by the Turks. Even the race track — the stands, anyway — looked to be burning.

“You’d think they want to keep it intact,” she growled. “Stupid bastards.”

“Why?” said Judy. “You’ve spent the last two weeks stripping everything out of there and moving it into Vienna.”

“Well, yeah, sure. The emperor made it crystal clear a while ago he wasn’t going to defend Race Track City and I sure as hell wasn’t going to leave anything useful or valuable to the fucking Turks.”

“So, they’re now burning the scraps you left. What do you care?” Judy could be awfully unsentimental some times. Most times.

A man’s voice came from below them. “Hayley, we should go now!”

Turning and looking down from the wide ledge they were standing on, they saw Hayley’s betrothed, Amadeus von Eisenberg. He was standing in the middle of the bastion, next to a pile of cannonballs. The expression on his face combined exasperation with anxiety. “The barge is already loaded! Almost, anyway. Everyone is waiting for you!”

“Off you go, girl,” said Judy.

Hayley looked uncertain. “I should maybe stay with you guys, what do you think?”

“That’s stupid,” said Judy. “Cecilia Renata’s staying here out of duty and I’m staying because she asked me to stay with her and I’ve got nothing else to do. Besides, it’s a good idea for one of us Barbies to hold down the fort, so to speak. But one is all we need for that” — here, she grinned — “and I don’t have a boyfriend fussing at me.”

Hayley still looked dubious. “What about you?” she asked Minnie.

Judy provided the answer for that, too. “She’s scheming. And since Cecilia Renata’s aiding and abetting her schemes, she figures it’d be stupid to leave. Screw the Turks.”

Minnie nodded. “It’s not every day a girl like me — especially with just one eye left — gets to hang out with royalty.”

Hayley’s dubious look got a little cross. “That’s pretty gross, if you ask me.” She gave the young Austrian archduchess a look from beneath lowered brows. “And why are you a party to this? Your own brother!”

Cecilia Renata sniffed. “My little brother. A sweet enough boy, but he needs to be seasoned. Far better he should get seasoned by Minnie than by one of the airheads” — the Austrian archduchess was quite taken with American slang — “who loiter about my brother’s court. Minnie will be good for him.”

Hayley stared at her for a moment. Then, shook her head. “There are times I don’t think I’ll ever adjust to the seventeenth century. Especially seventeenth century royalty.”

Cecilia Renata gave her a pitying look in return. “I’ve known since I was five or six years old that I’d eventually get married to someone purely for reasons of state. The same is true for my brother Leopold, most likely. There is not much room in there for the sort of sappy soap opera mush you Americans love to wallow in.”

Hayley’s sniff was almost as good as the archduchess’ had been. “‘Sappy’ and ‘soap opera’ and ‘mush’, is it? You’re never seen any of the three of them. Well, the first two anyway. There might be some Austrian version of mush, but you wouldn’t make it with cornmeal.”

“I have great powers of imagination, as befits a many-times-great-grand-daughter of the Swiss count Radbot of Klettgau, who imagined his line becoming a great dynasty named Habsburg.” She smiled cheerily and spread her arms. “And look, here we are.’

“Besieged by the Turks,” said Hayley.

“That was unkind.”

“Hayley!” shouted Amadeus. “We have to go! Now!”

“All right, all right!” she shouted down. She gave each of the three other women on the rampart a quick hug and hurried down the stairs — or started to hurry, rather. The staircase was so steep that it was more like descending a ladder. After she’d taken two steps, Hayley stopped, turned around, and went the rest of the way facing backward.

Thirty seconds later, she was out of sight.

“So it’s just us now,” said Minnie. “What should be call ourselves? We need a name. Neither Cecilia Renata nor I could possibly be a ‘Barbie.’ The whole idea’s ridiculous.”

“The Sopranos,” Judy immediately proposed.

“What’s a soprano?” Cecilia Renata asked.

Hoorn, province of Holland

The Netherlands

“That is just so cool,” said Bonnie Weaver admiringly. “It’s an ingenious idea, too.”

Staring at the huge object moored just offshore — pair of objects, rather — Rita had to agree with her. It was both cool and ingenious.

One of the big problems with airships was where to keep the enormous things when they were on the ground. You could tether them with ropes in a large enough open area, but that only worked if there wasn’t much wind. What you really needed was a hangar, and the problem that posed was twofold. First, in order for even a small airship to fit inside, the building had to be gigantic — and it couldn’t have any internal support structure or the whole purpose of the edifice would be negated because the airship wouldn’t fit inside.

At a bare minimum, the interior dimensions of the hangar had to be five hundred feet long, sixty feet wide and sixty feet high — and it would be much safer to have the width and height be around eighty feet to a hundred feet instead. That meant, given the resources available in Europe in the 1630s, erecting a seven or eight story wooden building with no internal supports and only such bracing as could be kept out of the way of the airship.

Hard, though certainly not impossible. But you still faced the problem that getting the airship in and out of the hangar could only be done if the wind was very weak. Any sort of wind — even a gentle breeze — would make the project difficult and dangerous.

The Dutch consortium that was building the airship they’d come to the Netherlands to buy or lease had found a solution to the problem. Their hangar floated on the water… The base of the hangar rested on what amounted to big barges, with access to the airship when it was inside the hangar being provided by gangplanks.

The hangar was moored by anchors set down by the barges. But whenever it was time to bring an airship in or out of the hangar, the anchors could be lifted and the hangar’s orientation changed so that the long axis was directly aligned with the wind.

“Is there any place we could build a floating hangar like that in the USE?” Bonnie wondered.

“Certainly. The Bodensee,” said Heinz. “It’s formed by the Rhine, in Swabia.”

Bonnie frowned. “I never heard of it.”

“Yeah, you have,” said Rita. “It’s usually called Lake Constance in English. It’s on the border between Switzerland and the USE.” Her voice began to rise a little with excitement. “Heinz is right, too. It’d be perfect! It’s not that far from Munich, either. Maybe… I don’t know…”

 

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 63

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 63

He stopped and glowered down at the Austrian envoy. “Is that I am expected to serve as the guarantor of all these agreements. If I agree to this, then I will be enjoined to come to the aid of whichever party has been wronged by the other’s failure to live up to its agreement.”

A bit daringly, Noelle interjected: “But only in your person as the emperor of the United States of Europe. No commitment is implied on the part of either Sweden or the Union of Kalmar.”

She settled back in her seat, bracing herself for an imperial explosion at her impertinence in saying anything at all. Noelle had no official status at this meeting. But the very fact that she’d been invited suggested that the intricacies of seventeenth century political affairs were at play. Much of what was done in the here and now was based on personal ties, not formal positions. She was betrothed to Janos Drugeth, one of Austria-Hungary’s most powerful noblemen, a close confidant of Ferdinand III, and his personal envoy to the USE. Plus — you could never rule out this factor, although its exact importance was always hard to calculate — she was an American. Plus — this was a bit easier to calculate — someone who had in the past served as one of Ed Piazza’s informal agents and Piazza was likely to be the next prime minister and thus someone the emperor was going to be dealing with constantly.

So…

As it turned out, she’d parsed the matter accurately. Gustav Adolf transferred the glower onto her, but only for a moment. Then, he chuckled. “Europe will just have to hope that you and the Reichsgraf don’t produce too many children, lest the rest of us be overwhelmed with little Machiavellis.”

He resumed his pacing. “What both Austria and Bohemia want from the United States of Europe in return, in addition to our serving as the guarantor of the terms of their own treaties, is for us to support them — with military force, mind you — in their struggles with the Poles and the Ottomans.”

Again, he waved his hand. “The Polish issue is moot, since we are already at war with the swine Wladyslaw and his minions. But we are not — as of yet — at war with the Ottoman Empire. Agreeing to this treaty — set of treaties, rather — would commit me to undertake a war on two fronts, against what is quite possibly the most powerful realm in the world.

“But what do I get in return?” he demanded. He stopped his pacing and went back to hands-on-hips-stooping-over-and-glowering mode. “Very little, it would seem!”

Before anyone could interject he added: “Yes, yes, trade agreements, that sort of thing. The merchants and moneylenders will be happy. But that seems like precious little, nonetheless.”

Noelle was tempted to speak again but refrained. There were limits to how far she could put herself forward.

It proved to be unnecessary anyway, because Rebecca spoke up. “Your Majesty, you are pretending to reduce this to a matter of arithmetic when it is actually an algebraic calculation.”

Gustav Adolf puffed out his cheeks indignantly. “Pretending! Pretending!”

But Noelle noticed that his complexion hadn’t changed any. The emperor was, in this regard, very much a Swede — his skin was pale, except when he’d been campaigning in the field for days. Even then, she’d been told, he just got sunburned, not tanned.

Noelle had never seen Gustav Adolf in one of his famous furies, but she’d had them described to her. One of the invariable symptoms was that the emperor’s cheeks didn’t just swell out, his entire face became as white as a ghost’s.

But here, now… those puffed-out infuriated heavy jowls had their usual color. Pale, yes, but no more than they always were.

“Outrageous!” he went on.

Rebecca’s response was the serene smile for which she was quite well-known by now. “Please, Your Majesty. I am simply saying bluntly what everyone here — certainly yourself — understands to be true. Regardless of the details, the essence of this set of agreements — what I would call the algebraic equation — is not this or that specific item but the recognition that the United States of Europe has become the central — I do not say ‘dominant,’ simply central — power in the continent. Once these agreements are signed, we will have formed what amounts to a Triple Alliance at the very heart of Europe. And if we defeat the Turks, which I have every confidence we will, then our alliance becomes the rightful successor to the Holy Roman Empire.”

“She’s right, Your Majesty,” said Amelie Elisabeth, speaking for the first time since the meeting began. Next to her, Wilhelm Wettin nodded his head. Whatever differences might exist between the Fourth of July Party and what was left of the Crown Loyalists, on this point they were in full agreement — better the United States of Europe should be the pivot of European politics than any other realm. For centuries, the Germanies had been so many toys batted back and forth between Habsburgs — Spanish and Austrian both — and the Valois and Bourbon dynasties of France. That era was now at an end.

A bit worriedly, Noelle glanced at Janos. The Hungarian’s jaws were tight — he hadn’t enjoyed hearing that, not one bit — but he was obviously not going to argue the point, for the good and simple reason that he couldn’t. The price Austria-Hungary was going to have to pay to ensure its survival against the Ottoman onslaught was a tacit recognition that it was no longer the axis of power in central Europe.

Gustav Adolf glanced at Janos also. He understood perfectly well that Drugeth’s silence in response to Rebecca’s statement was in its own way the most emphatic acquiescence he could make.

The puffed-out cheeks resumed their normal form. He did not smile but he did nod his head.

“If we’re going to be a triple alliance of the sort you describe,” he said, “we should have a name. Even if it’s only an informal one.” He smiled slyly. “I would suggest ‘the Axis’ but the up-timers would probably never stop complaining.”

Piazza laughed. “That would… have awkward connotations. In another universe, granted, but our history books are everywhere now.”

He looked around. “Well, we could swipe from that other history a different way. Call it the Central European Treaty Organization.”

Noelle began rolling the acronym around, and did so out loud. In Amideutsch, since that’s what they’d all been speaking.

“Mitteleuropäischevertragsorganization. Mepo? No, I guess it would be ‘Mevo’.”

Everyone in the room mouthed the acronym.

“I like it!” said Gustav Adolf.

That pretty much settled the question, although Ed Piazza was heard to mutter, “I can hear it already. Beware the Mevonian menace. Beware of Mevonians bearing gifts. Beware…”

 

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 62

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 62

She shook her head but gave him a smile. There was a fine protocol involved here. If he hadn’t offered her the wine she’d have bridled that he was treating her as a child. But, so long as he did, she almost always declined. Denise wasn’t a teetotaler, exactly, certainly not as a matter of principle. But the truth was that she didn’t much like the taste of alcohol.

She never had. Whatever other concerns her mother and father had had about the possible consequences of Denise’s sometimes reckless behavior, they’d never worried she’d do something because she got drunk. Because she got pissed off, yes; rebellious, yes; just to prove to some jerk that he was in fact a jerk, yes. Drunk, no.

Having fulfilled his necessary part in the protocol, Eddie — who did like wine; and beer; and most spirits, thank you very much — settled down in another chair in the front room of the hotel suite.

For “suite” it was — and in one of the two finest hostelries in Prague.

“You’re shooting from the hip again, Denise,” said Eddie. “The weld shop and the rental storage facility? Pfft.” That last noise exuded insouciance. “Whoever bought the property from your mother probably auctioned off all the welding equipment and supplies and tore down the storage facilities.”

“Auctioned them off, actually,” corrected Christin. She smiled and shook her head. “Didn’t get a lot for them, of course. They were basically just sheds with delusions of grandeur. But Buster’s stuff sold well.”

“Mom! You sold Dad’s stuff?”

Christin’s expression was exasperated. “For fuck’s sake, Denise” — Christin George belonged to the Rita Simpson (née Stearns) school of Proper Appalachian Patois — “what was I supposed to do? Keep your father’s arc welders and oxy-acetylene cylinders at my bed side?”

“Well…” Denise couldn’t really contest the point, but she had a stubborn expression on her face. “Still. Even his stuff couldn’t have brought in that much.”

“Real estate,” said Eddie. “The real value would have been in the storage rental property — because of what it sat on. The buildings may have been sheds with delusions of grandeur but they were still buildings and they spread out over a lot of area.” He looked to Christin. “How much land did you own?”

“About half an acre.”

He turned back to face Denise. “You have any idea how much half an acre is worth these days inside the Ring of Fire?”

“No.” Denise’s expression got more stubborn. “Neither do you.”

He chuckled. “Not precisely, but it doesn’t matter. What I do know is that your mother walked away from the sale with enough to set herself up — in style, mind you — almost anywhere outside of the Ring of Fire.”

A look of sudden understanding came to his face. “That’s the other reason you’re here, isn’t it? This isn’t really a visit.”

Christin shook her head. “Don’t know for sure yet, but probably not. I do want to be closer to my daughter and” — her face became a little drawn — “Grantville’s just got too many memories of Buster. I don’t want to forget any of them but I don’t need to be reminded of them every day, either.”

She shook her head slightly, as if to clear those thoughts away. “I wrote to Judith Roth and she talked to Morris and they told me that if I came out here they’d help me get set up with… something. Don’t know what it might be yet. There are several possibilities we’re looking at.”

Once Denise set her mind to being stubborn, she had a lot of what might be called psychic inertia. “If the Roths are being so friendly to you,” she demanded, “why aren’t you staying with them instead of” — she looked around, clearly preferring to end the sentence with this dump except even when she was in full stubborn mode Denise didn’t lose her mind.

“This place,” she concluded.

Eddie and Christin exchanged a pitying glance. “She’s usually much brighter than this,” Eddie insisted.

“Yeah, I know, I raised her,” was Christin’s response. She placed her half-full glass of wine on a side table and leaned forward, looking at her daughter. “Denise, what happens if word gets out in Prague that I’m on cozy terms with Morris and Judith Roth? That is to say, the richest Jews in the city and probably among the half dozen or so richest people of any creed?”

Denise crossed her arms over her chest.

“Come on, sweetie,” Christin crooned, as if she were trying to coax a kitten out of hiding. “I know you can answer the question.”

“Everybody you deal with will try to double the price.”

“More like triple it,” grunted Eddie. His glass now being empty, he used it to wave around as a pointer. “This suite is plush, which signals to anybody that Christin’s not a piker. But you don’t need to be in Roth financial territory to be able to afford it, even for quite a few weeks.”

Denise was silent, for a moment. Then, she sighed and uncrossed her arms. “Okay. I really am glad to see you, Mom. And I’d like it if you moved here, I really would.”

Her eyes got moist. “I just miss Dad awful, sometimes. Really awful.”

Her mother’s eyes weren’t dry, either. “So do I, sweetheart. But life goes on, whether you want it to or not.”

“He used to say that a lot.”

“Yeah, he did. He was a wise man, in his own way. I didn’t marry him because of the bikes and the tattoos, you know.”

She grinned, suddenly, and in that moment the resemblance between her and her daughter was almost startling. “I admit they helped. I was a rambunctious kid just like you were. You should have seen the look on my fucking parents’ face the first time they saw Buster! Straddling his bike in his cut-off leather jacket with me perched right behind him.”

Denise grinned also. “Welcome home, Mom.”

Magdeburg, capital of the United States of Europe

Gustav Adolf rose abruptly from his chair and began striding about the room in front of his assembled audience. Who numbered only six, but the emperor was clearly in a declamatory mood.

“I will summarize it as follows, then,” he said. “Wallenstein — do I need to start calling him King Albrecht?” — ignoring his own question, he went on — “and Ferdinand will make peace. Indeed, they will go further and form an alliance within certain limits.”

He stopped and peered down at Janos. “Correct me if I oversimplify, but the gist of it is that Wallenstein will come to Austria’s aid against the Turks — within limits, of course, he still has Poland to deal with — in exchange for which Ferdinand will back Bohemia against Poland.”

Janos nodded. “In essence, yes. The qualifications –”

Gustav Adolf waved his hand. “Yes, yes, they’re clear. Also obvious. Austria’s commitment does not extend to any actions on the part of Wallenstein — somehow it seems slightly ridiculous to call him Albrecht II — whose purpose is to increase his territory at the expense of Poland. Likewise, Bohemia is under no obligation to support Austria in the event the Ottoman invasion is driven back and Austria seeks to expand further into the Balkans. What is most important to me in all this, however –”

 

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 61

1636: The Ottoman Onslaught – Snippet 61

Chapter 29

Magdeburg, capital of the United States of Europe

When Noelle entered the small audience chamber in the royal palace with Janos Drugeth, she was surprised to see the other people already there: Rebecca Abrabanel, Ed Piazza, Wilhelm Wettin and the Landgravine of Hesse-Kassel, Amalie Elisabeth. The four of them were seated in a semi-circle facing Gustav Adolf. The two still-empty chairs in the center of that semi-circle made it clear where she and Janos were supposed to sit.

Glancing around, she saw that there were no servants in the room except the one who had ushered them into it — and he was already leaving, closing the door behind him. Clearly, as had Wallenstein, the emperor of the USE had taken to heart the up-time cautions on the subject of letting servants be within earshot whenever critical matters of state were being discussed. So far, Janos had had only partial success in persuading his own emperor to follow suit. Old habits die hard with anyone; harder still, with aristocracy; hardest of all, with royalty.

Gustav Adolf gestured toward the two empty chairs. “Please, sit down. Wilhelm and Amelie, I do not believe you have met Janos Drugeth before now. He is here as an Austrian Reichsgraf and Ferdinand III’s envoy.”

Reichsgraf, was it? Janos had enough titles he could attach to his name that you’d need a team of horses to drag them around. “Reichsgraf” — the term could be translated as “imperial count” — was a rank that went back into the Middle Ages, and originally denoted someone who held a county in fief directly from the Holy Roman Emperor himself, rather than from one of the emperor’s vassals. As time passed, the real content of the title shifted and became detached from land-holding. Some Reichsgrafen held land as such, others didn’t. Janos was one of the ones who didn’t, although he retained a great deal of land in Hungary deriving from his other positions and ranks in the empire.

The significance of the title as used in this context by Gustav Adolf was subtle but unmistakable. As Reichsgraf Drugeth, Janos was here as Emperor Ferdinand III’s direct emissary and was presumed to be empowered not only to speak on his behalf but to make treaties. That also explained the presence of the four central leaders of the two major parties — at least, those parties which were well-enough organized to seriously contest the current election. There were a lot of reactionaries in the USE, some of them with real power and influence. But they’d been so demoralized by the outcome of the Dresden Crisis that they spent most of their time and energy these days bickering among themselves. For the moment, they were a minor factor in the political equation.

With emperor of the USE and the four central political leaders present, Janos could not only make proposals but could expect them to be agreed to and signed.

Or not. But at least the possibility existed.

Prague, capital of Bohemia

To Denise’s surprise, when Eddie landed the plane at Prague’s airstrip, her mother, Christin George, was there to greet her. So far as Denise had been aware, her mother was still living in Grantville.

“Hi, Mom!” she said, rushing up to give her a hug. “When did you get to Prague? And what’s the reason for the visit? I hope you didn’t come all the way here just to see me. ‘Cause once I talk to Don Francisco so he can set Minnie and this doofus straight” — the thumb of accusation pointed over her shoulder at Eddie Junker, who was now getting out of the plane — “I’m heading straight back to Vienna. Where everything’s happening.”

****

Christin George took her time with returning the hug. Her daughter had reacted to her father’s murder during the Dreeson Incident the way Denise usually reacted to things — vigorously. She’d thrown herself into working for Francisco Nasi with the same energy that she’d thrown into becoming Eddie Junker’s girlfriend.

Christin approved of the boyfriend. Eddie was a solid guy and she thought he was a good influence on Denise. She wasn’t sure about the new boss, which was one of the reasons she’d come to Prague.

The main reason, though, was as simple as it got — she and Denise were the only close family each of them had left and Christin wanted them together again. As much as possible, at least. Having Denise for a daughter was a lot like herding a very big and hyperactive cat.

“I have talked to Don Francisco, Denise. That’s one of the reasons he told you to come back here. I asked him to.”

“Mom!”

****

By that evening, Denise had settled down a lot. First, because the meeting she’d had with her employer — she’d demanded it, of course, right off, and a bit to her surprise had gotten it — had not gone the way she wanted.

****

“No. You should spend time with your mother. Minnie is quite capable of taking care of herself — better than you are, being honest about it. I don’t need two of you in Vienna and I’ve got another assignment in mind for you.”

“Which is what? Uh, boss.”

“Spending time with your mother. So off you go. Now, Denise.”

****

But there were other reasons, too, for her more settled state of mind. First and foremost, just being back in her mother’s company after a separation of several months. Denise’s father Buster Beasley had generally encouraged her free spirits. Her mother hadn’t dampened them, exactly — women who marry bikers in the face of fierce family disapproval are not given to caution themselves — but she had provided Denise with a certain maternal circumference. Denise had always known that she was free to roam a lot, but there were limits, mostly set by her mother.

For a kid, that knowledge could be a comfort as well as, occasionally, a source of frustration. Right now, she was finding that maternal presence a great comfort.

Despite her own disapproval of her mother’s wayward recklessness.

“You sold the business? Sold it outright? Not leased it to somebody else to run it for you? What were you thinking, Mom? Yeah, sure, you can live on that for a while but what are you going to do when it runs out? In — what — maybe three or four months. How much did you get, anyway?”

Christin answered the last question first. Denise reacted pretty much the same way her mother had reacted in times past to Denise’s explanations of cause-and-effect issues such as why she hadn’t come home until three o’clock in the morning.

“Oh, bullshit! Nobody’s going to pay that much — that’s a fucking fortune — for a weld shop and a storage rental facility.”

Eddie came back into the hotel room carrying two glasses of wine just in time to hear Denise’s outburst. He handed one of the glasses to Christin and offered the other to Denise.