Eric Flint's Blog, page 271

His Father’s Eyes – Snippet 01

His Father’s Eyes – Snippet 01

His Father’s Eyes

By David B. Coe

Chapter 1

It burns and burns and burns, a pain he can’t salve, a fire he can’t extinguish. White, yellow, red, orange. Shades of pale blue sometimes, but then white again. Always white. White hot. Pure white. White for wedding gowns and babies’ diapers and clean sheets on a crib. White. Like blank paper. And then it burns. Brown giving way to black, which comes from the yellow and orange and red and pale blue; flame creeping like spilled blood, spreading like a stain.

The land rolls downward from his chair, baked and dry, empty. But also full, if only one knows how to look at it. The rising swirls of red dirt. Red-tailed hawks wheeling on splayed wings. Jack rabbits and coyotes, watchful and tense, death and survival hanging between them.

The sky is too clear — not a cloud, nothing to break the monotony of blue so bright it makes his eyes tear. Except low, to the east, where the blue mingles with brown, like dirty, worn jeans.

That’s how he is. Muddied. Clouded. Enveloped in a haze. He feels the hot wind moving over his skin, and he waits for it to clear the air around him. But it never does; instead, dust stings his eyes, and grit crunches between his teeth like slivers of glass. He wants a cup of water, but his legs feel leaden and the trailer seems so far. So he sits, shielding his eyes with a shaking hand, listening to the flapping of the tarp over his head.

She winks into view before him, wearing a simple dress. One of his favorites. Cornflower blue, as soft as the sky is hard. She flashes that familiar crooked grin, cocking her head to the side, honey brown hair dancing around her face. The boy is there, too. Suddenly. Dropped into the scene as if by sleight of hand. Shorts and an ASU t-shirt, his hair the same color as hers, but wild with curls and the wind, so young, so oblivious to it all: the phasings that await him, the dark sadness that lurks behind his mother’s smile, the betrayal masked in those gorgeous blue eyes. He’s wept for her until the tears run dry, like a desert river in late summer. But he can still cry for the boy; the boy who has become a man so much like his father that it breaks the old man’s heart.

Ghosts. Both of them, though only the one is dead. He shifts his gaze, follows the flight of a plane as it carves across the sky, leaving a stark white scar. He refuses to blink, until his eyes ache with the effort. When at last he checks again, the woman and child are gone.

But if he closes his eyes they’re back, the images seared onto his mind, like blotches of light after he has stared too long at the sun. They were never here, of course. Not on this land. He knows that. The trailer, the tarp, the chair — all are new.

New. The boy would laugh at that. None of it is new. But she never saw any of it.

He opens his eyes again, shakes his head, sits up straighter. One of those days. The haze. The confusion. The hallucinations. He’s had it all before. The secret is not giving in to it, fighting the pull. But when it gets this bad it’s like climbing a mountain of sand; with every step up, he feels himself sliding backwards. Sometimes it’s the visions. Violent, bloody, horrible images, so vivid, so familiar. They might be echoes of old phasings or they could be things he really saw and did. He can’t remember anymore. Other times it’s no more or less than the relic of younger emotions — love, jealousy, rage, grief — as vague as the scent of sage riding the desert wind, as sharp as a razor. And on some days, like today, it’s all of those, and it’s none of them. It defies description or understanding, and he’s left to stumble alone, as though lost within that muddy cloud draped over the Phoenix skyline.

There are pills. He’s supposed to take them if it gets too bad. The boy has left them out on the counter, where he’ll see them. But they don’t help; not enough. They bring clarity of a sort. They wake him up, like a dousing with ice water. It’s not him, though; it’s not anyone he recognizes. He’s spent hours staring at that grizzled, slack face in the mirror, peering into those eyes, pale gray, like his own, but flat and dead and nothing like the eyes he remembers from his youth, or those he sees now in the boy. That’s the drugs. As opposed to the Drug, the one the doctor won’t talk about in front of him.

He laughs at the distinction, startling himself with the sound.

They give him these drugs — their drugs — to fight off the damage he did by refusing to take the other, by clinging to his magic and subjecting himself to the cruel moon. They whisper about it to the boy, not wanting him to hear, fearing that it will awaken the old visions, or send him into a fit of rage, like in old movies. As if their whispers can guard him from the memory, as if he doesn’t curse his magic every goddamned day of his life, as if it isn’t already too late for him.

No, he might be screwed up, but he’s not that screwed up. He’s not completely beyond reality. Even on those days when he can’t put together a coherent thought, when the boy sits beside him, concern etched on his face, which is so like his mother’s that it makes the old man’s chest ache. Even when it seems that he’s too far gone to see or hear or understand anything, he knows who and what he’s become. That might be the worst part. If he was so far gone that he didn’t remember it all — if dementia carried with it the comforting numbness that everyone thinks they see in him — then they could whisper and conceal, and smile their false reassuring smiles, and he wouldn’t care. But he knows. He knows.

That’s the slow death. That’s the torment. That’s the price he pays for ancient sins. Better to have nothing left. But when did the moon ever care what was better for him?

He sees the boy wrestling with the same demons, and he prays for him. Yes, he prays. He hasn’t prayed for anything else in almost fifty years, not since he was a kid. Not even when he was on the job, going into Maryvale or the worst beats of South Mountain or Cactus Park with nothing more than an old service revolver in his hand and his partner watching his back; not even that time when a kid so jacked up on dust that he seemed to be doing everything with his eyes closed put four bullets in him; not even when he found her dead beside her lover, his pain an amalgam of humiliation and heartache and debilitating grief.

Even then he didn’t turn to God. The Great Unbeliever. A cop to the core. A man of reason and evidence and laws. Utterly earthbound.

But for his boy, he prays. Not that it’ll do a damn bit of good.

The moon is a goddess unto herself. She’s as merciless as time, as unforgiving as memory. She laughs at prayers. No, the boy has to fight this battle on his own. The old man can only hope that the kid has more of his mother’s strength than his father’s weakness.

He wonders if the boy will be coming today, until he remembers that he was here yesterday, or maybe the day before. It’s hard to keep track sometimes. The days all blend. Hot, sunny, slow. When things are good, and he keeps busy, he can follow the progression. But not in recent days. Or weeks. It’s hard to keep track of time.

It’s this burning. A new kind of invasion, an assault on his mind that even the phasings couldn’t match. The sorrow and remorse and shame and loss are melted together into some glowing alloy that flows in his veins, scalding him throughout. Everything hurts. The sunlight scorches his eyes. The wind stings his skin. Every breath is agony. Every movement makes him wince.

And he knows that this means something. He is a scrying glass. Shining, smooth — a blank surface on which others might glimpse the future. For years, the powers of the world have ignored him, seeing in him no more than is there: a disgraced former cop, an empty, burned-out old sorcerer. But now, for some reason, they’ve taken notice of him again. With all the crafting he used to do, scrying was the one type of magic he truly hated. There was too little certainty, too little control. But this is different. Others are doing the crafting now. He can’t see them. He doesn’t know who they are, or what they want of him. But they’re all around him. Setting him ablaze, flaying his body with their power, watching him for signs of what is to come.

If he sees her, if he sees the boy, do these others see them, too? Are his visions his own or someone else’s? Why would they care about her? The boy is one thing. He has power of his own now. He matters. But what is she, beyond a memory that warms him and plagues him and leaves him longing for something he no longer believes was real? Why should his torment interest these others?

He has no answers. Questions lay siege to his mind, assailing him from all sides. And he has nothing to offer in response. He sits, watches the sky, frowns at the brown haze, envies the grace of the hawk, waits for the coyote to make his move. The wind blows, an occasional cloud slides past, the sun tracks a slow circle above him, shadows grow longer, gold suffuses the light, the air cools a little.

He can feel their eyes upon him; he senses their impatience. They want portents, but he has nothing to offer. He is glass, or perhaps stone. Fate is reflected off his life. Or so they seem to believe. He doesn’t know if they’re right, or if they imagine in him more than is there. He just sits.

And still it burns and burns and burns.

 

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 22

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 22

Chapter 12

May 1636

Louvre Palace

Paris, France

It had been almost an afterthought: when the radio message came early in the morning, and was transcribed and placed into the cardinal’s hands, he put aside everything and prepared to depart. In his haste he had almost left the watch sitting on his desk in its prescribed place, a finely-crafted instrument ticking away the seconds beneath the exquisite sapphire glass.

Richelieu had often picked up the timepiece, a gift from a courtier who had obtained it in some way from some up-timer. It bore the name Cartier, the family surname of the prestigious watchmaker of a Paris that never would be — but it put Étienne Servien in mind of the great explorer who had uncovered the mysteries of the North American coast a century ago.

When he took it up, turning it this way and that to best catch the light, Richelieu seemed lost in its depths. It seemed to Servien that the minute workings cast a spell upon him, reminding him that time was fleeting (as the philosophers were eager to say).

The day of the message, however, permitted no time for reflection, no time to be ensorcelled by Grantvilleur wonders. Servien knew its contents at once, though it was passed to him sealed — the sender, a coded name, told the entire story. He entered his master’s study, finding him bent over his work table upon which was spread a great map of the Germanies.

“What is it?” he said, without looking up.

“A message, Eminence.” Servien proffered the sheet of paper, folded once and sealed. Richelieu glanced at his intendant, took the message, and upon noting the name on the outside quickly slit it apart and looked at it, his eyes darting down the sheet and then back at Servien.

“Who else knows of this?”

“Other than the radio operator and myself, no one.”

“You are sure.”

“I came directly to you, Eminence,” Servien said. “The call came in not ten minutes ago.”

“There is no time to lose. Present yourself to Monsieur de Saint-Simon, if you please, and inform him that I will wait on His Majesty presently.”

“As you wish.”

“And, Servien . . . I need not say that you are to speak of this to no other. We did not expect this for some time, but neither did our enemies.”

“If they know of it at all.”

“I do not doubt that they do, despite our best attempts to keep it secret.” Richelieu permitted himself a smile. “But if all is well, they will be unable to interfere. All that I have worked for, these past few years, will reach its fruition — and there will be nothing that Monsieur can do about it.”

****

Richelieu was admitted to the king’s presence without announcement or ceremony. At this early hour he was untroubled by the court, and often spent his time with one or another project that ill-befit a monarch. The cardinal was not about to gainsay his master and the use of his time — but it meant that he might be in the dairy, or the stable, or a carpenter’s or smith’s shop rather than the royal apartments.

“Ah,” the king said, without turning around from the bench at which he sat, working on some project. “Monsieur Saint-Simon, I trust you found –”

Richelieu cleared his throat. Louis turned suddenly, his face set in a mask of displeasure, as if annoyed that he might be disturbed by any but his first gentleman of the bedchamber, the young Saint-Simon — the latest favorite upon whom he had heaped honors and titles. Few would stand before the king when he was thus annoyed; Richelieu merely waited patiently.

“Ah. It’s you.”

“At your service, Sire,” the cardinal answered, bowing, then folding his hands in front of him. “We have a received a message.”

“A message?”

“The message,” he said. “The one we have been awaiting.”

“Really!” The king stood, losing all interest in the project that had been occupying him. “Really. We are — we are somewhat early, aren’t we?”

“Shorter than the customary term, my King. But I am informed that all is well in hand. I intend to depart at once and ask your leave to go.”

“At once? I –”

Monsieur de Rouvroy, Seigneur de Saint-Simon, swept into the room at just that moment from the other hallway. He held a basket filled with tools and bits of metal and leather and began talking at once. “I think I found everything you wanted, but it was a bit of work, so I beg your pardon for being late, but –”

He stopped suddenly, noticing the presence of Cardinal Richelieu.

“Oh.”

Richelieu looked at him, stony-faced, his anger visible in his eyes. The young man reddened.

“You have our leave to go,” Louis said without turning. “Go — go find yourself something to break your fast.”

“As Your Majesty wishes,” he said. He set the basket on the king’s work-table and backed slowly out of the room, never taking his eyes from Richelieu.

When he was gone, Louis rolled his eyes. “You have frightened the man, Eminence. He’s quite harmless, really.”

“He is Captain of St. Germain and Versailles. He should not frighten so easily. I should have expected a trifle more decorum.”

“Saint-Simon and I had set about a — a project. I do not think he expected anyone else to be here.”

“I shall not trouble Your Majesty for very long.”

“No indeed. And I am sure he will find something to — to amuse himself while I am gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yes. Of course. I will accompany you, Richelieu. I wish to see what has — come of our efforts.”

Richelieu paused. He had not expected this response. “My king, it had been my intention to leave at once. I do not think the proper guard could be assembled quickly to escort you. I intended to travel in haste –”

“I don’t think we need any of that, do we?” The king looked away from his minister, as if he was distracted by something on the escritoire. Richelieu could not see it clearly but knew what it was: a small cameo locket bearing the likeness of his queen. Now that matters regarding the heir had been arranged, the king seemed much more at ease with a display of affection toward Anne, even in something so trivial as a keepsake.

“I don’t think I take Your Majesty’s meaning.”

“I believe that we can dispense, dispense with an honor guard. I can be prepared to ride within the hour.”

“But . . . the safety of the royal person –”

“I shall take care to be armed and attired. I have ridden to war before, as you know. My lady the queen is more than — more than a month early in her labor, mon Cardinal, and even if my enemies suspected that she is with child, they do not expect her to give birth now. It is all a surprise. I shall ride as one of your gentlemen-at-arms.”

“I hardly think that is appropriate, Sire.”

“Oh, nonsense.” He furnished Richelieu with a royal wave and favored him with a smile. It was truly a wonder. Richelieu had seen Louis in every disposition, but in most cases he was distracted, suspicious or unhappy — his oncoming fatherhood had returned him to the lightheartedness of his youth. “I — I am sure that your guard-captain can find me an appropriate set of clothes. I will be just another member of your escort — at least until we reach the chateau.”

“I am sorry to disagree with Your Majesty, but I believe that this exposes you to unnecessary risk. There is a radio at Baronville. A message can reach you in due course and you can make your progress in state when the child is born. There is no need –”

“Need? You speak — speak of need?” Louis faced him directly. Richelieu immediately sensed a subtle change in his royal master’s mood. He was all too well versed in the way in which Louis could instantly shift from one affectation to another.

At this delicate stage, he thought to himself, I must tread very softly . . .

When Richelieu did not respond, the king continued, pointing a finger at him. “For a quarter of a century I have been king of France, and through all of it I have had to respond to needs. To my — to my mother and her interminable demands; to my sisters, and their requirements for proper marriages; to my feckless brother, who can no longer live in this realm, but to whom concession after concession was extended while he let his henchman go to the gallows or the block . . . to the Huguenots, to the Pope, to every foreign nation that placed demands on my realm.

“And now at last I have what we most desire: an heir to the throne, an end to the intrigues of my lord of Orléans and all of his — his sycophants and co-conspirators — and the queen tied by the strongest apron-string of all to this realm instead of the realm of her birth, the realm — the realm of Spain. You would deny me the pleasure of being present when that happens?”

“Your Majesty, I –”

“Answer me, Monseigneur, if you please. You would deny me this?”

“No,” Richelieu said. “No, of course not. My hesitation derives not from selfishness but from care for your person and your safety. Of course you can take care of yourself as a gentleman and soldier.” He offered a deep bow. “If I have offended, I humbly beg forgiveness.”

While his head was still inclined, he could not see Louis’ face, but his posture altered and relaxed.

“No,” the king said at last. “No, my old friend.” A hand came out and took his, and Richelieu stood straight. The king was smiling again. “You have not offended,” Louis said. “Your concern is most — most understandable. But all is in order. I shall be perfectly safe in your company.”

 

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 21

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 21

“What was his response?”

“That he was gratified, but that friends and allies sought mutual objectives as a result of mutual assistance.”

“A quid pro quo. What does he want?”

“Oh, a great deal. A very great deal. Were you to ascend the throne, he would want you to publicly disavow Pope Urban; to make peace in Lorraine and remove the threat to Hapsburg troops in the Germanies; to permit free passage of Spanish troops through French territory — ”

“Indeed!”

“Yes, Sire. And, of course, eradication of heresy in His Most Christian Majesty’s domains — both here and abroad in the plantations. The other . . . requests . . . were merely conversational; but this last one seemed to be of particular moment. There I think he speaks not as the minister, but as the servant of his king.”

“Let me speculate,” Gaston said. “He wants France to be rid of the Huguenots.”

“Essentially.”

“You didn’t commit to anything.”

“Of course not. But neither did he. Olivares is canny, Uncle — very much like the cardinal. The Spanish face the past, by and large, but I think he stands apart from the rest of the court. He may even have a radio machine.”

“The Spanish have no radios. They consider them tools of the Devil, and the Ring of Fire a work of Hell. They may even be right in that estimation.”

The duc de Mercoeur paused for a moment to evaluate his uncle, trying to discern what was meant by the statement.

“That is their official policy,” he continued. “But the Count-Duke seemed altogether too well informed. I would not underestimate him. I did not see any up-timers at the court, or in Olivares’ household, but as we have seen, the skill required to operate the machine is modest. In Turin, the up-timer woman was training servants to do so.”

“All right.” Gaston ran a finger across his moustaches. “The Count-Duke de Olivares could be a very powerful ally, as I suspected. But we shall have to hold him close, or he could turn on us. My mother said as much.”

“And how does the queen mother?”

“She frets about everything, and chafes at being in Florence. She would rather be back in Paris, but knows that it is unlikely to happen, even in the case that a new royal heir is born. I can’t see her returning as long as the cardinal is alive. But even if she could, she would want to take back her old place.

“My brother the king would never permit it, and if I were king . . . I am not Louis, my Marguerite is much different from Anne, and enough years have passed by. We do agree on one thing: that the cardinal must go. I made no commitments to her other than that.”

“You know that our family supports you completely in that matter, Gaston.”

“The House of Vendôme has been made to suffer at his hands, Louis. I am sure your father will relish seeing him fall.”

“He would be glad to help in any way. So would my brother and I.”

“I know, my good nephew, and I prize your loyalty. If Richelieu were brought low, one way or another, I could even accept my exile and my brother Louis could reign in peace. I would be content, for France would be delivered from its tyranny. We will also be able to curtail the influence of up-timers — they are no good for France, and they will have to be swept away as well.”

“Up-timers.”

“Yes,” Gaston said. “They have stolen France’s glorious future and replaced it with one that does not belong to this world and this century. We can take that back. And we will.”

Louis de Vendôme did not reply, and kept his face impassive, but while Gaston seemed utterly sincere in his assertion that he would be satisfied, Louis could not help but believe otherwise. Disposing of Cardinal Richelieu was his white-hot ambition, but supplanting his brother as king of France was scarcely less so. As for the business of the up-timers — if that was the means of his desire, then so be it. Louis did not care one way or the other.

But the kingship . . . that was something else.

You will never surrender that ambition, my good uncle, Louis thought. My father will never be king, and will never try and seize the kingship. Though more capable than any of his brothers, his mother was Gabrielle d’Estreés . . . and thus he cannot be more than a légitimé. Now he is content. But you?

No, Louis concluded. Never. You will never surrender the notion that you are more capable than my namesake — that the throne and crown rightly belong to you. This is about Richelieu — but it is more about you.

It has always been about you.

“That is most generous of you,” Louis said at last. “I am sure the Fates will treat you kindly.”

****

Monsieur Gaston could barely contain his anger. He crumpled the sheet of paper in his hand and hurled it to the floor. The messenger flinched; but to his credit he stood his ground. He had ridden all the way from Paris by arrangement. Gaston had demanded that the Count of Soissons, his créature in Paris, send word of what he had learned by courier — in case anyone happened to be listening.

But the information Soissons had sent was no information at all.

“Questions,” he said. “Questions. They outnumber answers. Your master has been deficient. He would not permit this message to be . . . what is the word? Broadcast. Sent by radio. Yet it is without information.”

“I am sure he has told you whatever he knows –”

“He falls short,” Gaston interrupted. “What does he say? What does his message tell me? I am merely informed that Madame is still with child, and is still in seclusion. What is of consequence is that your master has still not deigned to tell me where she is. Where? Some palace, some convent, a roadside tavern, a fisherman’s shack on the coast of Gascony? I know she is not in the Louvre, and has not been since she became pregnant. But that is all I know. He caused you to ride all the way here to tell me that he has nothing to tell me.”

“I am sure,” the messenger said, “if Monsieur le Comte de Soissons knew this information he would certainly have conveyed it. And I am here,” he added, more forthrightly than many who would stand in Monsieur’s presence, “because Your Highness commanded my master to send me.”

“Hah.” Gaston lifted his chin and looked down the end of his Bourbon nose. “I assume your master commanded you to say that. My cousin of Soissons would like nothing better than to retain information that I want . . . but while he is devious, and while I am sure that he places his own goals above mine, I do not think he would keep this from me. Ultimately, he wants what I want. He does not know. But he must find out.”

“I am sure that he is straining his efforts, Your Highness.”

“Tell him . . . tell him that he must not rest until he learns where the queen has gone. My dear brother Louis’ dalliance has proved fruitful — and if this child defies the odds and lives to term, and if, God help us, the child is a son. . .”

The messenger bowed his head.

Gaston made a fist. He gestured at the man. “Tell my lord of Soissons that his prince expects nothing short of success. And when we find out where she is . . .”

He bit the sentence off and turned away from the messenger, gripping the ornate carved back of a chair tightly enough for his knuckles turned white.

“Your Highness?”

“That is all,” Gaston said, not turning. “You may go.”

Gaston noted with indifference when the door quietly closed, and he knew that he was alone. He walked slowly to his escritoire and sat down. He picked up his pen-knife and sharpened his quill, then drew a sheet of foolscap toward him, dipped the quill in ink and began to write.

le duc de Vendôme

My dear brother César:

I trust that you are well, and eager to pursue the work we have set before ourselves. The time we have awaited is nigh, for reasons of which we are both aware.

I have made certain provisions, the details of which you already possess. When I have the requisite information, it will be promptly conveyed to you. When at last we meet we shall glory in the rebirth of the kingdom we both love . . .

 

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 20

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 20

Chapter 11

April, 1636

Sacra di San Michele, Savoy

At the ruined abbey of San Michele on the south side of Mount Pirchiriano, two soldiers stamped their feet and blew on their hands to try and keep warm. By the calendar, spring was three weeks old — but the snow on the ground and the icy wind put the lie to it.

“What did we ever do to Monsieur to get posted here, Jacques?” asked the younger soldier. He was tall and trim, and affected the same style of moustache and beard as his master.

The other man, shorter and older, turned aside and spat by way of answer. He had seen a considerably greater number of seasons, and didn’t bother much with fashion. He also didn’t ask questions anywhere near as much.

“Are you sure that he will be here?” Jacques continued.

“He told us he will come, Pierre, then he will come. I know better than to disobey him.” He gave his young companion a hard look as if to say, and if you have any sense, you’d best do the same.

“Why in this God-forsaken place?”

“Hah.” Jacques scratched his beard. It fit that description pretty well: it was a big stone structure with a tall tower and stone outbuildings, sprawling all over the side of the hill — but was also completely abandoned. “God-forsaken. You have the makings of a court fool, my young friend. There hasn’t been very much of a presence up here since some pope or other threw the monks out of here ten or fifteen years ago . . . though I don’t know how blessed it was when there were monks up here. But the answer to your question should be obvious even to a clown — it’s miles from everywhere, but commands a good view of the road that leads over the mountains from the west all the way to Turin. A perfect place for a secret meeting.”

“And we’re here . . .”

“To make sure it stays secret,” Pierre said. “The young bastard will be coming from that way –” he pointed west, toward the road that bent toward the little village of Bussoleno — “and Monsieur is traveling from Tuscany and should come up that way.” He pointed in the other direction. “Then, I would guess, we will journey together to Turin.”

“Seems like a lot of trouble to go to. But maybe he likes the view, Pierre.”

“Shut up.”

Before Jacques could respond, there was a high-pitched whistle. Jacques and Pierre drew their swords and stepped next to the tower, each looking in a different direction. After a few moments, two horsemen approached, climbing the hill in plain sight. Even from the distance, Jacques could pick out the livery of the house of Vendôme.

The two men put up their swords and approached.

Francois de Vendôme, Duke of Mercoeur, cut a fine figure. Tall and handsome, he was an excellent horseman and — Pierre and Jacques knew — a talented swordsman. During the last few years as he had accompanied Monsieur Gaston, there had been numerous occasions for him to demonstrate that skill in affairs of honor. The soldiers knew their place and stood respectfully as Francois dismounted. He was traveling light and fast, with two gentlemen in waiting and a valet, who dismounted and followed in turn. The servant caught the reins of the horses and led them carefully up the slope behind the others.

“Is he here?” Louis said.

“Not yet, Your Grace,” Pierre said. “We have been watching for him.”

The nobleman turned away, looking down the road and then up toward the towering, broken façade of the abbey.

“God-forsaken place,” he said.

Jacques smirked at Pierre, out of sight of the duke; Pierre scowled at him, then turned to the nobleman. “Yes, My Lord. But it is as His Highness commanded.”

“Yes, yes.” He kicked the base of the tower, loosening mud and snow from his boots. “We’re going to go inside. Keep careful watch and alert me when he approaches.”

“Of course, My Lord.”

He said nothing further, but beckoned to his two gentlemen companions. They began to walk up a narrow stone stair toward an arched portal that led to the interior.

The valet, holding the reins of the horses, looked at Pierre and Jacques, as if they might tell him where to stable them. When they didn’t respond, he led them slowly around the base of the abbey to a place out of the wind and out of sight of the road below.

****

When Monsieur Gaston arrived a short time later, Louis and his companions had had a chance to walk around the ruins, and had located a place that had probably served as a refectory for the monks. It had a number of broad tables and benches, weather-beaten but largely intact; when the monastery was closed down, the lower windows had been boarded up, keeping most of the weather out. There was evidence that some animals had made their lairs there, and someone not too long ago — probably during this winter — had built a fire in the hearth, but the place was otherwise deserted.

“Charming,” Gaston said as he came down the little stair into the refectory. Louis had been giving his attention to some of the carvings in the stonework while his gentlemen lounged on the benches, their feet up on the tables. They scrambled to their feet and offered a leg to the prince, earning a scowl from Louis; they were supposed to be attending him.

Louis was even more annoyed that the two ruffians set to keep watch hadn’t warned him of Gaston’s arrival. But he was determined to show none of this to the prince.

“Good day, Uncle. I trust you had a pleasant journey.”

Gaston drew off his riding gloves and slapped them on his thigh, then tucked them into his belt. “Oh, yes. Bracing. But this venue will afford us some privacy.”

Louis nodded. “That it will.” He gestured to his retinue. “Go make yourself useless elsewhere.”

They bowed and made their way out of the refectory, closing the heavy wooden doors behind them.

“It’s so hard to find good help,” Gaston said.

“Nearly impossible. But it’s all my father could spare. At least they both speak passable Spanish, so they were helpful eyes and ears in Madrid.”

Gaston gestured to a table, and the two men took seats opposite. “And how was Madrid?”

“Boring. His Majesty scarcely lets anyone see him directly; Olivares makes sure of that. It’s all . . . what is that up-timer expression? ‘Hurry up and wait.’ Even the Count-Duke took more than a week to give me an audience.”

“Cheek. But what you would expect from a Spaniard?”

“Just so.”

“What did he say?”

“It is as informative,” Louis answered, “to relate what he did not say. Señor Olivares commended you on your wisdom with regard to support for Cardinal Borja. He allowed that his master the king continued to be troubled by the apparent disrespect shown to his royal sister by your royal brother, and was fretful about the recent actions of some up-timers on Mallorca.”

“Interesting. Did he elaborate on that last?”

“Not in any detail. Apparently some prisoners taken during the — unrest in Rome, as he termed it — had escaped custody, and one of the king’s most trusted hidalgos had accompanied them.”

“Apparently he cannot find enough good help either,” Gaston said, chuckling at his own wit.

“As you say, My Lord. In any case, he is curious as to the effect a male heir might have on the political situation in France, and on your own situation with respect to our King.”

“He knows exactly what a male heir would do,” Gaston said. All trace of humor had left his face. “The Count-Duke de Olivares would be extremely unlikely to receive my envoy should my royal sister-in-law bring a healthy son into the world.”

“He noted that your brother — and the cardinal — are being extremely careful on that account. Indeed, he asked me if we knew anything of Queen Anne’s whereabouts. His master sought to correspond with her, and had been told by his envoy in Paris that such letters could be sent to the cardinal and they would be duly forwarded.”

“I assume King Philip was dissatisfied with that answer.”

“I assume,” Louis said, “that King Philip had not actually posed the question. In any case, Olivares assumes that we know no more about Anne’s location than he did. I demurred, and I hope that I conveyed the sentiment that if we did know, it was nothing we were prepared to share with him at this time.”

“Clever.”

“Thank you, Uncle. I don’t know if I convinced him, but I might have planted a seed of doubt. In any case, I made it clear that regardless of the outcome of this . . . diversion . . . you were not prepared to fade into obscurity, and further, you considered the Count-Duke a friend and ally.”

 

Libertycon filling up fast

Minicon Update:

Latest report from Uncle Timmy: they already have over 550 people preregistered and the Banquet is almost sold out.

Remember that Libertycon has a hard cap of 700 registrations.

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 19

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 19

Terrye Jo had an idea what Christina wanted to say, but didn’t know what they called it in the seventeenth century.

“Sensitive,” the duchess finally decided.

Sensitive, Terrye Jo thought. That’s a good word.

“Sure. But maybe this time it’s different.”

“I doubt it. In fact, if there is issue, I would have to be convinced that Louis is the father. Some women are defective; some men are defective as well.”

“So . . . Monsieur Gaston –”

Christina held up her hand. “My dear Teresa. I shall give you a piece of advice, and I trust you will take it. It would be far better if you simply did the work that our duke or my royal brother has set you to do without question or concern, and let it go at that. Gaston will return this spring, I am sure of it, and things will take their course. It would be best for you not to oppose my brother . . . or my husband.”

“I never intended to oppose anyone.”

The duchess gave her a long, hard, appraising look, but it wasn’t any more fierce than a middling-scary drill sergeant.

“I shall take your word, Teresa. We will speak no more of this.”

****

Up-time, when she was little, Terrye Jo would journey far from Grantville in her mind with the help of the radio. Her dad had told her the usual stories about listening to Pirates games late at night with his little transistor — but this was the 1980s, and she had better equipment: a boom box that her uncle had bought her for Christmas. It could pick up Pittsburgh, and Wheeling, and even Detroit if the weather was right. Hearing the words The Great Voice of the Great Lakes coming out of the tubby little box late at night made her realize how big the world was and how small Grantville was.

It was still small, and in a way this world was even bigger — no airplanes, no superhighways, only a few coal-powered trains. Things were farther apart, and the radio spectrum was far more sparse. But it wasn’t empty: especially in the last year there had been more and more broadcasts of one sort or another — the messages were almost all in the clear, and mostly in German or Amideutsch, with some French and Italian mixed in. During her shifts in the radio room she found herself returning to her former diversion. She would start at the bottom of the dial and slowly move up, listening for some operator’s signal out in the dark, most often sending dots and dashes in short, fitful bursts with lots of errors and QSMs requesting a re-send.

It was boring stuff. Weather reports, gossip, sometimes the death of a nobleman or the birth of his child . . . no baseball games, no world news reports, no entertainment, just the steady and unsteady signals of Morse code sent out into the night. Here I am, the signals said. Here we are.

One cold spring night in late March she had gotten about a third of the way up the dial when she heard a clear, firm signal — a fist she hadn’t heard before, an operator who knew what he was doing. The other guy wasn’t too bad, but the first one was a real pro. She assumed it was an up-timer at first, someone who had learned to send before the Ring of Fire. But she realized that there was no reason to think that — anyone who spent a few months working at it could become proficient. Henri could already send and transcribe almost as fast as Terrye Jo, and most of the other operators weren’t far behind.

The messages were in French. They used expressions and phrases that she didn’t completely understand, but after listening for a half an hour she was able to start making sense of it. One of the senders was speaking for someone he called Le Maréchal; the other referred to Le Cardinal.

It was high-level stuff, and it was coming in the clear.

The idea that she was listening in on something that should have required a security clearance was a bit scary. She certainly knew who Le Cardinal must be — that had to be Richelieu, so that end of the conversation was in Paris. Le Maréchal was in Lyon, over the mountains; there was some sort of army there, a couple of hundred miles from Turin.

Were they getting ready to invade Savoy? She knew very well what Monsieur Gaston thought of Richelieu, and Gaston was on very friendly terms with the duke . . .

But Victor Amadeus would know if there was an army on his border, ready to invade, she thought. Of course, Lyon isn’t exactly on the border with Savoy.

Why were they there? France’s main war theater was Lorraine, and if anything they’d want troops in the field facing the Low Countries or the USE. What was the point of having an army hundreds of miles to the south?

In any case Le Maréchal, whoever he was, had a damn good telegraph operator working for him.

She noted the transmission frequency on her pad, intending to check in on it again the next night, and was about to sign off when she heard a snippet that made her sit up. The operator for Le Maréchal commented that the entraînement spécial — ‘special training’, whatever that was — had been going very well . . . and that Colonel Maddox had been an excellent investment.

Maddox, Terrye Jo thought to herself. There was no way to be sure, but . . . it couldn’t be Ms. Maddox — Sherrilyn Maddox, her old nemesis and P. E. teacher? It might almost make sense, though. Maddox had joined Harry Lefferts’ Wrecking Crew, so she was out there somewhere; why not with a French army? Did that mean that Harry and his posse were all there too, teaching Le Maréchal their own particular methods for raising hell?

She didn’t know what it meant, and wasn’t sure if it was relevant, and even if it was if she should tell Amadeus, or Monsieur Gaston, or someone in Magdeburg.

After moving the dial away from that frequency, she broke one of her own firm rules for the radio room. She took the top sheet from the note pad, and the two sheets underneath that might have an impression from her pencil, and tucked them away in an inner pocket. If she’d learned anything from history at Grantville High — or in the few years since the Ring of Fire — it was that wars sometimes got started by accident. One piece of information, overheard by someone or interpreted the wrong way, could lead to the worst kind of consequences.

When Sylvie came in at midnight to take her shift, Terrye Jo said nothing about it. The other did not seem to notice the missing pages . . . but as she made her way up to her quarters they felt like a leaden weight.

 

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 18

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 18

Chapter 10

March, 1636

Turin

Just after Twelfth Night, Monsieur Gaston and his entourage had departed the Castello del Valentino. The duke and duchess were relieved — at least in private — and life returned to normal.

In the workshop, Baldaccio paid more attention to Terrye Jo than ever, trying to bring her his own peculiar brand of seventeenth-century science. The long winter nights turned his attention to the stars: a new telescope, with hand-ground lenses from a new glass factory in Magdeburg, had arrived during the second week in January, and the Dottore had arranged to have it mounted on the top of one of the corner towers. He would go up late at night wrapped in a ridiculous fur coat and peer through it, taking crabbed notes that he would transcribe onto astrological charts. There was a tussle when he pulled down a portion of the latticework supporting the antenna; whatever his professorial chops, his researches didn’t trump Terrye Jo’s radio. By the next evening it was up again. He had a personal interview with His Grace to clarify the matter and it was never repeated.

Undeterred, Baldaccio had shown her the horoscope he’d cast for her, explaining that the “imbalance in her humours” (or some other damn thing) resulted from having Venus in Scorpio or Jupiter in retrograde, and that she’d have to stop pining for Monsieur Gaston and find a proper man to bed with if she wanted to get everything back in balance.

She held back from strangling Baldaccio or dropping a heavy weight on his head. Meanwhile, Artemisio offered to slit his nose and ears.

“No one will know who did it, Donna,” he said. “And I shall console you in your misery.”

“Everyone will know you did it,” she answered. “And I won’t need consoling.”

He gave her a sad expression that he must have practiced. She was unmoved.

As the winter wore on Terrye Jo spent some time getting to know GJBF. He — she supposed it was a ‘he': the sender communicated exclusively in French, so it probably wasn’t an up-timer — was slow at first and while he was accurate, he didn’t use most of the standard contractions and shortcuts all telegraphers knew. She worked with him and his speed and familiarity gradually improved.

The handle GJBF, it happened, stood for Gaston Jean-Baptiste de France — Monsieur Gaston himself had picked it out. GJBF called himself a créature, which Terrye Jo thought sounded very demeaning, as if he was the lowest kind of servant. But GJBF explained that it pointed at a particular kind of relationship, one in which responsibility went both ways: GJBF was completely loyal to his patron, and Monsieur Gaston owed his créature a certain kind of protective care when he “came into his inheritance.”

Terrye Jo came to realize more and more what that meant. Gaston’s “inheritance” was the throne of France. He had been exiled from his own country for conspiring against it, but instead of hanging him or beheading him or shooting him like a rabid dog, King Louis and Cardinal Richelieu had finally sent him into exile — four years ago, not long after the Ring of Fire. It didn’t make any sense to Terrye Jo. She asked GJBF why Monsieur Gaston was still alive and he seemed shocked that she’d even ask.

Gaston wasn’t her patron and his brother wasn’t her king. Duke Amadeus and Duchess Christina weren’t her duke and duchess either: the duke was her boss, no more and no less. But it still made her feel uneasy. This was political intrigue, maybe leading to treason, and it passed through her radio, SPAR to GJBF and back again. The queen of France was pregnant; she was hidden somewhere; and GJBF was trying frantically to find out where. If he found out he would tell her, and eventually that news would find its way back to Monsieur Gaston. . . and then something would happen.

She felt bad for the queen and told the duchess about it. Christina had given birth to a daughter in November. Amadeus had hoped for a son, of course, but was very happy that the duchess had made it through childbirth. Terrye Jo knew that a daughter meant that Christina would likely be pregnant again soon.

“Hm,” the duchess said to her when she expressed her concern about Queen Anne. “I don’t know why you’d feel that way. She’s been in danger from my brother Gaston for years.”

Terrye Jo had found her in the nursery. Most of the time the little princess — Margherita Violante — was in the care of nursemaids, but Christina was unusually affectionate for a seventeenth-century noblewoman. Terrye Jo wondered to herself if this was a result of the Ring of Fire, or whether she’d been this way with the other children. Whatever the case, the duchess was in the nursery quite often, not simply having the baby brought to her.

She had sent the nanny on an errand at once, as soon as Terrye Jo had mentioned the French queen’s name. Now she stood looking over the crib, where her infant daughter lay quietly sleeping.

“But now that she’s pregnant –”

“She’s been pregnant before. The poor thing has never carried to term. Why should this time be any different?”

Christina didn’t seem terribly worried or sympathetic. In a way she sounded like a mean girl from Grantville High.

“This is the first time since the Ring of Fire,” Terrye Jo said. “Maybe there’s an up-timer doctor.”

The duchess thought about this for a moment. “That’s possible, I suppose. Someone from your people might be able to help her — but again, some women simply can’t bring a child to term. It’s a defect in their bodies. There’s been so many problems, I wonder why Louis hasn’t just put her aside, sent her back to Spain.”

“I thought he couldn’t do that.”

“With God all things are possible,” she answered, crossing herself. “Without issue, the marriage could be considered unconsummated, and His Holiness could set it aside on petition. Lord knows he could have found a more suitable partner.”

“Suitable?”

“More . . . fertile. More able to draw him out. Though at the time we all thought . . .” she let the sentence hang.

“It seems pretty underhanded.”

“My dear.” Christina said. “You are so delightfully naïve. This sort of thing happens all the time. Anne has been unhappy in France; some is her own doing, some is Louis’ — he never understood how to treat his queen. Some of her unhappiness is due to our mother: she couldn’t stand the idea that anyone would come between her and her son. And then there’s the cardinal.” She frowned. “I’m sure he’d rather that my brother have an heir, and it’s a positive wonder that he hasn’t arranged it somehow. But Louis was always . . .”

“Always what?”

She didn’t answer for several moments, as if she was trying to find the right word. The little princess whimpered very quietly, and Christina reached out a hand to touch her daughter’s forehead.

 

More on the Hugos from a Dark, Dark Place

In light of the discussion that’s ensued here and elsewhere in response to my essay on the current situation with the Hugo awards (see below), I decided to make a few more comments.

There are two points I want to make, the first in the way of a clarification.

The following statement of mine in the initial essay has been somewhat misinterpreted, I think:

“What’s involved here is essentially a literary analog to genetic drift. Biologists have long known that the role played by pure chance in evolution is greater in a small population than a larger one. The same thing happens in the arts, especially those arts which have a huge mass audience. The attitudes of the much smaller group or groups of in-crowds who hand out awards or do critical reviews are mostly influenced by other members of their in-crowd, not by the tastes of the mass audience. Over time, just by happenstance if nothing else, their views start drifting apart from those of the mass audience.”

Some people have interpreted this as a sarcastic remark, in which they seem to think I am deriding the tastes of what I called the “much smaller group or groups of in-crowds.”

But that wasn’t my point. What I was trying to explain, perhaps not clearly enough, was that once science fiction and fantasy became the enormously popular genre of fiction that it is today, the critical attitudes of any group of fans or aficionados will inevitably diverge over time from those of the mass audience as a whole.

The problem, I think, lies in a misunderstanding of the term “popular” when it is used to refer to a “popular author.” What happens is that people start thinking that a “popular” author somehow represents or reflects the mass audience—as opposed to the oft-derided “literary author” who only appeals to a small subset of the mass audience.

But that’s nonsense. All authors only appeal to a small subset of the mass audience, once that mass audience becomes huge enough. The difference between a “popular” author and a “literary” author (or “niche author” or “cult author”—pick whatever term you choose) may loom large when you measure one directly against the other. But if you measure either one of them against the mass audience itself, you will suddenly realize that you are trying to parse the difference between “tiny” and “itty-bitty” and “teeny-weeny” and “miniscule.”

Let’s take me for an example. I’m using myself because I know my own situation well. I am without a doubt one of the popular authors in science fiction. In a career spanning eighteen years I have published 47 or 48 novels (I can’t remember exactly and it’s not worth the trouble to count them up again), all of which are still in print. I’ve been on the New York Times bestseller list six times, and I have an income as a writer that is roughly three times the median household income in the United States.

I’m not the most popular science fiction author in the U.S., by any means, but I’m probably in the top twenty.

I estimate that I have a solid fan base of around 50,000 people—i.e., people who look for my titles and will usually buy one or another edition of them. There are probably five times that many people—call it a quarter of a million—who will buy one of my books on occasion, and there are probably a total of (very roughly) half a million people who know who I am and have read something of mine.

Sounds splendid—until you measure it against the mass audience. The best estimate that you will usually encounter of how many people in the U.S. regularly read science fiction and fantasy is five million. There are probably three or four times that many who read F&SF occasionally, and there are certainly fifty or sixty million who enjoy science fiction and fantasy in the dramatic form of movies or television.

So. My solid fan base consists of about one percent—that’s right, ONE percent—of the solid mass audience for F&SF. It rises to perhaps two percent—yeah, that’s right, TWO percent—if we measure everyone who’s occasionally read something of mine against the occasional audience for science fiction and fantasy. And it falls back closer to one percent if we measure my name recognition against the entire audience (including movie-goers and TV-watchers) for our genre.

In other words, the difference between Resplendent Popular Author Me and Pitiful Literary Auteur Whazzername is the difference between tiny (one percent) and miniscule (one-tenth of one percent).

Yes, that’s what all the ruckus is about. The Sad Puppies feel that they have been wronged because Their Tininess has been downtrodden by the minions of the miniscule.

Give me a break. No matter who gets selected for awards by the comparatively tiny crowd of a few thousand people who show up at Worldcons and nominate writers for Hugo awards, they will always—and inevitably—diverge from the broad preferences of the mass audience.

Let’s do a mental experiment. Suppose, for a moment, that the Hugo voters experienced a sudden change of heart/attitude/tastes and decide that the slate of the Sad Puppies is indeed the best F&SF has to offer and unanimously and enthusiastically votes for them to win the Hugos.

And does so the next year, and the next year, and the year after that.

At which point, the Disconsolate Puppies will rise up in indignation and outrage and denounce the Hugo crowd as a bunch of insular and incestuous fans bound up in esoteric literary fetishism and put forward their own slate, which advances the claims of that group of writers who are far more popular than such literary dabblers as Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen (and Eric Flint, for that matter), namely, the almost-entirely female authors who practice the sub-genre known as paranormal romance.

Sherrilyn Kenyon, for instance, outsells Larry Correia (and me) by a country mile. She’s placed dozens of novels on the NYT bestseller list, including many at the #1 position.

So why didn’t the Sad Puppies nominate her?

Or Laurell K. Hamilton, who has also had many novels on the NYT bestseller list?

Or Patricia Briggs, who’s done the same?

Or Nalini Singh? Or Kelley Armstrong? Or Kim Harrison?

Not one of these extraordinarily popular authors has ever been nominated for a Hugo award. Yet I don’t see the Sad Puppies expressing any indignation over that. In fact, I’m willing to bet they didn’t even consider them when they decided who they wanted to include in their slate.

Why? Because they don’t consider paranormal romance to be “part of the good stuff.”

Mind you, they have every right to feel that way and they are committing no injustice to anyone by failing to nominate any of major practitioner of that sub-genre for an award.

Just as . . .

Other voters for the Hugo award have every right not to consider the work produced by Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen—or me, for that matter—“part of the good stuff” either. Without being denounced by them as “Social Justice Warriors” engaged in a dark conspiracy to deny popular authors their just due.

Harrumph. Well, I hereby and herewith name Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen and their followers to be “Romance Irrelevance Warriors” and denounce them for engaging in a dark conspiracy to deny authors who are way more popular than they are of their just due.

J’Accuse! dammit.

All of this is just silly and reflects an inability to do simple arithmetic. Any awards given by a relatively small pool of voters will fail to properly track the mass audience—once a mass audience gets big enough. Instead of whining over that fact, authors who can make a living at it should be glad that the audience has grown big enough that dozens of us can now do so.

And if one of the inevitable side effects of that explosive growth is that some—even plenty—of good authors get overlooked for awards, so it goes. In the immortal words of Liberace, I console myself by crying all the way to the bank.

Okay, now I’ll make my second point, which is briefer. There is one way we could at least improve the situation, and that would be to have the awards track reality instead of trying to cram reality into the Procrustean bed of the existing awards structure. Having both of science fiction’s major awards, the Hugos and the Nebulas, devote three out of four literary awards to short fiction and lump everything else into the category of “novel” is simply ridiculous. Fifty years ago, it made sense. Today, it would be as if the Oscar Awards insisted on handing out 75% of their awards to silent black-and-white films less than twenty minutes long.

(Which is not a sneer at silent black-and-white films less than twenty minutes long, by the way. I am a devoted fan of Buster Keaton, who made many silent black-and-white films less than twenty minutes long that are way, way better than 95% of the comedy films made today.)

I don’t propose to eliminate any of the existing awards for short fiction. I have no objection to them, in and of themselves, and I have no desire to make those writers who concentrate on short fiction feel slighted in our genre. I simply think that the category of “novels” needs to be expanded into at least three and preferably four award categories. My own preference would be for awards given in these four categories:

Short novel (40,000 to either 80,000 or 90,000 words)

Novel

Complete multi-volume novels (often called trilogies, quartets, quintets—but which have a definite ending)

Series

I could live with combining multi-volume novels and series into one award category, but it would be a mistake. Inevitably, it would tend to elevate huge, sprawling—and sometimes wildly popular—series over the more compact works preferred by authors who like to work in trilogies or quartets. They really are two quite different literary forms—I know; I’ve worked in both—and should be treated separately. There is at least as much difference between them in terms of the skills involved as the difference between a novelette and a novella.

As far as the length of the short novel category is concerned, I think that should also be decided by tracking reality instead of using pre-determined criteria. This is the length of story preferred by young adult and indie authors, who otherwise tend to get lost in the shuffle when it comes to awards. We should find out what the usual upper limit is in terms of word count for such stories and use that to set the word count limits for this category of award.

And… enough. I’m off for a two-week trip to the eastern Mediterranean, partly because that’s where my wife wanted to vacation and partly so I could examine Dubrovnik and Athens for myself so I could figure out where and how I might want to destroy portions of them in a couple of upcoming novels. (The brain of an author can be a dark, dark place. Muahahaha . . .)

Discussion rules

I can see it’s time I need to establish some rules for the ongoing discussion/debate on my essay (see below) on the current ruckus over the Hugo Awards.

Rule One. Do not come into my web site and call me a liar or stupid or dishonest or any other derogatory term. You’re welcome to disagree with me, but do so in a civil manner. There is no warning for this rule violation, because it’s so obvious it shouldn’t need one.

So, whoever the jackass is who goes by the monicker of “rollory”—a pseudonym, naturally—you’re out of here. The technical term is banned, I believe. I’m willing to suffer fools up to a point, but I’m not willing to suffer assholes.

Rule Two. This is not your private soapbox. I don’t mind people posting their opinions here, even when I sharply disagree with them. But once or twice is enough. After a while, it becomes obvious that someone isn’t going to let go of a bone and they keep chewing on it.

Do so elsewhere. Specifically, I don’t have time to argue any longer over whether Theodore Beale—pseudonym “Vox Day”—is the vicious (not to mention stupid) racist and misogynist he so obviously is. You have the constitutional right to defend racism and misogyny. You do not, however, have the constitutional right to do it in my web site.

So take a hike, at least on that subject. I’m not removing any of the existing posts, not even the ones by the shithead who calls himself “rollory.” But if anyone puts up any more posts defending Beale and/or his opinions, the post will be removed and you will be henceforth banned from the site.

Eric

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 17

1636: The Cardinal Virtues – Snippet 17

PART II: THE VIRTUE OF FORTITUDE

A noble and steady purpose of mind

Chapter 9

March, 1636

Lyon, France

It had taken all winter to sort them out.

When Sherrilyn Maddox first arrived at Marshal Turenne’s headquarters, she expected to find an army camp — men in tents or barracks, with the marshal himself living rough with his troops. She had heard of his common touch . . . all the way from Marseilles, in fact: the men in her escort had made a great display of it.

But Turenne himself, and his staff, had engaged a very handsome villa outside of town where they were accommodated in quite comfortable style. It was fully staffed, and Sherrilyn was given her own room. It was a simple solution to a problem she had been concerned about: how to doss down with a few thousand men.

“You are comfortable?” he asked the day she arrived. She was walking around her room, pacing it out, looking at the furnishings and wondering what might break if she sat or leaned on them. Turenne had just come in from a ride: he had mud on his boots and hadn’t taken the spurs off. He took his leather riding gloves off and tucked them in to his belt.

“More than comfortable, My Lord,” she said.

“Marshal is fine. Sherrilyn Maddox, isn’t it?” He gave the name a surprisingly American pronunciation. “Colonel Maddox from now, I think.”

“That’s quite a promotion.”

“It is what I had in mind.” He looked down at his boots, as if noticing them for the first time. “I am very pleased to have you here at last. I know that de la Mothe explained my interest in having you come here.”

“I admit to skepticism.”

He stepped into the room, avoiding the delicate carpet and settling himself onto an armchair. Sherrilyn came and sat nearby.

“That is quite understandable,” Turenne said. “I know de la Mothe told you that I needed someone to help train my troops — to teach them to fight like a modern army. But I realize, and I am sure you realize, that if each has a Cardinal rifle in his hands and knows how to shoot it, that is more than sufficient.”

“I’ve done the math. Three shots a minute — three thousand men or so, that’s nine thousand rounds a minute at a range of two to three hundred yards. Even if your men were lousy shots –”

“They’re not.”

“Even if they were, your average tercio would never reach the front ranks of your force. And a cavalry charge wouldn’t get there either. If they really can shoot, then you have everything you need. The Spanish have no idea what you can do, do they?”

“The Spanish do not think too deeply about anything,” Turenne answered. “I suspect that they would not expect much from a few thousand French troops against the mighty Tercio Español. With the proper cavalry support they would expect themselves to be unbeatable. If they come up against us –”

“Is that what’s going to happen, Marshal? Henri? The Spanish are going to invade France?”

“I don’t know. The cardinal clearly has some inkling that it might happen — otherwise why would we be deployed here? It’s a long way from Paris — or the Dutch frontier — or anywhere else but Spain or Savoy.” He made a gesture with his hand. “Really . . . it’s a long way from just about everywhere.”

“Keeps the boys out of trouble.”

“Oh, believe me, Mademoiselle, they make their own trouble. But it is a much smaller amount of trouble than they might make in sight of Notre-Dame de Paris.

“But to the point. The men can shoot; the rifles are accurate and deadly. My subcommanders have trained them well. I don’t need you to help with that.”

“Then . . .”

“When the Spaniard crosses the Pyrenees, as he surely will, it may not be with trumpets sounding and banners flying. We will need to know what he intends to do and where he intends to go. It will be this for which we will need your expertise. I believe the up-timer term is ‘small unit tactics’ — infiltration and precision attack at a distance. One rifle — one shot.”

“Snipers.”

“I have heard that term used, yes. I originally thought it meant a sort of hunting exercise, but I have come to understand it as something far more deadly and effective. My men can shoot, yes, but not all of them can perform this mission.” He pointed at Sherrilyn. “I want you to find the ones who can.”

****

And so she had. She had divided them into groups of twenty to see which ones met the minimum standard: decent eyesight, skill in the manual of arms, and careful use of their weapon. Once she could see which ones could see the broad side of a barn, she picked out the ones who looked like they had a chance of actually hitting that barn with reasonable skill. Those whose marksmanship — and poise — impressed her made it into a second, smaller group.

Turenne’s quartermaster went to the Marshal to complain on the first day regarding the extravagant waste of powder. Turenne thanked him and ignored him. He appeared each of the next two days, still hopping mad at Sherrilyn for squandering resources — and each time the Marshal heard him out and turned him away. The fourth time he appeared at the villa there was a short closed-door meeting from which he emerged chastened: that was the last time anything was said about it.

She taught her little group of thirty-five every trick that the Wrecking Crew had managed to use during its active career. The hardest lesson was convincing them to think for themselves (as opposed to simply thinking about themselves — which mostly involved thinking with what was in their breeches.) There were thirty-one left after that lesson.

By the spring there were only twenty-four, for various reasons — but it was worth all the powder and shot, all the sidelong looks, the snide remarks, and the two brawls.

To fill out her company — Maddox’s Rangers was what they decided to call themselves — there were sixteen regulars who could handle themselves well in a close-in fight. A winter’s worth of conversations with Turenne’s sergeants and NCOs helped pick those guys out.

It wasn’t exactly the varsity at Grantville High — but it was what Turenne wanted.

It was just a matter of putting it to use.

March 28, 1636

Lyon, France

Dear Ed:

Thanks for sending me the nice going-away gift when I decided to give up Marseilles for this place. It sure seemed like a good idea at the time, but I’d rather have some soft Mediterranean breezes than the wind off the Massif Central. One winter in this place would probably be enough. It’s colder than old Mr. Mulder’s classroom at the high school, when he’d leave all the windows open.

Mulder had never been a teacher at Grantville High. That was a keyword from the cipher book, telling them what page to use. Windows open meant that the army was in camp, and hadn’t been given orders to deploy anywhere.

Things have been pretty smooth here. The best part has to be the food. The boss treats us very well, nothing but the best. He’s even arranged for the best forks and knives to be put in all of the troopers’ hands, and they’ve all learned to eat with them. Some of them are still a little sloppy, but mostly they put the food in their mouths.

The connection between Mulder and the windows had been clever. This reference was a little less subtle — forks and knives meant weapons, and the best weapons had to refer to the Cardinal rifles. And they’d been given to all the men, and they all knew how to shoot.

The head cook comes up with amazing recipes. They told me that originally the food wasn’t fit to eat — it made people sick — but you know how it is with cafeterias. After a while, if you start with good ingredients, you can make a pretty good meal. I’m a believer, and so is he.

Recipes was a cipher-replacement for ammunition. The comment about making people sick was a reference she hoped he’d understand, going along with the word believer. Their engineering expert was Johann Glauber, a chemistry wizard who had found a way to replace the mercury fulminate in the percussion caps with something more effective and far safer.

Glauben, of course, was the German word for “believe”.

It’s a little harder than working for you, but I guess teaching is teaching. You get the students lined up, you blow the whistle and you watch them run. You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs, but at least I have a few cartons. Well, two cartons at least.

She was guessing that the average down-timer wouldn’t know that an egg carton held a dozen eggs, so that the key number here was twenty-four — the number of special troopers she was training.

There wasn’t any easy way to explain to Ed exactly what she was doing by using the cipher since most of the substitution terms weren’t useful in this context. It was probably going to take a few letters back and forth in order to get the hang of it — if someone didn’t figure out that she was sending in code.

I am not cut out for this, she thought, and nearly tossed the whole thing into the fire. What was the benefit? She could convey a few general things, and would be risking that Turenne, or someone else in the camp, would figure out that she was spying on them. That sort of thing could get you killed . . . after some very nasty things happened to you.

But I think you’d like these guys, she finally wrote. The boss has kept them busy digging, enough for twelve main drags, but that’s like running laps on the track.

The main drag, the principal road through Grantville, was Route 250; 12 x 250 was 3,000. Maybe he’d get that reference, maybe not. As for liking these guys, she was trying to tell Ed that they were probably not enemies of the USE.

If they were going to catch her spying, this letter would surely do it. She decided to close it out before she wrote something even more transparent.

I’ll look forward to your letter.

Best regards,

Sherrilyn Maddox

Gym Teacher to the Stars