"Everyone else thought that he was a dreamer," the smith said. "Everyone else said that no one would invest the capital that it would take to bring mines to the valley during these decades of war. Certainly not the exiled margrave, who has served the king of Sweden for more than a decade now. Probably not his son in Basel, either. He has no money; it takes money to open mines."
At Hausen, they left Susanna with a cousin of the smith's first wife and went up into the hills. After the noon meal, the Bavarian captain came into the village from the south, asking questions.
The people of Hausen, Susanna found, were tellers of truth, very like those in Todtnau. The only strange young man any of them had seen, they said earnestly, had come this morning with the smith from another village to see about some iron. In any case, they continued, they did not have time to worry about strange young men, because they had received notice that Duke Bernhard's soldiers were moving through the land not far to the south. That would mean that villages would be burned, the terraces for the grape vines destroyed, the fields trampled. And disease, certainly disease. Disease followed a soldier as if it were his twin brother.
The Bavarian captain raised his quirt.
"You can hit me," the woman who was speaking to him said. "But you cannot make it otherwise."
Shortly after that, Marc and the smith returned. The smith went back toward Todtnau; Marc and Susanna started walking south again.
"Do you really like iron?" Susanna asked with real curiosity.
Marc looked at her. "Yes. Yes, I do," he answered. There was some surprise in his voice. "I didn't, particularly, when I started apprenticing with Jakob Durre, but I do now. It's really interesting. And challenging. Just look." He motioned toward the Wiese with its shallow, rocky, channel. "To bring iron out of here in any quantity, either this stream would have to be fitted with a series of locks and dams like the ones I saw on the Naab in the Upper Palatinate last spring, or else a canal would have to be dug parallel to it. That might be best, because with a deeper draft, the water could power the wheels and the mills."
He turned around and pointed back toward Hausen. "Did you notice, while we were there, that the villagers have already cut a partial channel, a short one, to run their sawmill and the grist mill? To make the most of these shallow mountain creeks, you really have to harness them. Have you ever seen the Pegnitz at Nürnberg?"
"No, I've never been to Nürnberg," Susanna answered. She listened carefully. If Marc really liked iron, then there must be something more to the matter than she had ever thought. She would find out what it was if she listened. Even if she didn't ever like iron, she liked having Marc talk to her. The better she listened, the more he would talk to her.
* * * *
Between Hausen and Todtnau, Raudegen pulled his horse into the shelter of a small thicket, gesturing for his man to do the same. "We will wait here," he said, "and see what may be learned from the two men who are supposedly interested in iron."
He was quite interested to see that only one man was walking north toward Todtnau.
The smith from Todtnau resisted Raudegen's questioning for quite some time. By the end, however, the captain had the information he needed. Although he did not yet quite comprehend just how a young man with an apparently profound and sincere interest in iron ore had come to be involved with Archduchess Maria Anna's servant.
He did not bother to kill the smith. If the man managed to drag his way back to Todtnau, he might even heal, in time. It was not likely, though, that his hands would ever again swing a hammer.
Raudegen was mildly annoyed. He didn't enjoy this sort of thing, the way some men did. It would be easier if civilians would just provide soldiers with the information they needed, straightforwardly and without evasions. He wished he had time to make an example of the lying women in Todtnau and Hausen, but he could not afford the time right now. He turned south again. The pair who might lead him to the archduchess could not be far ahead of him.
* * * *
Just above Schopfheim, Marc and Susanna took to the trees. Soldiers. A good-sized detachment, riding north. Foragers, probably. Marc thought that they were Duke Bernhard's men. They waited for them to pass, then started running.
Schopfheim, when they got there, was nearly burned out. Susanna stared. The smith had told them that this town had walls and gates; they had planned to spend the night. The walls and gates themselves were smoldering, where they had not been broken down. The party of soldiers they had passed on the road farther north was not large enough to have destroyed this town, which meant that there must be others, many more, quite near.
There was nothing they could do. There were no survivors here, outside. Inside, the embers were still far too hot for people to go in. They hurried around it as fast as they could, trying to ignore the smell. If Schopfheim was burned, there was no reason to expect that the smaller places the smith had mentioned, Steinen and Brombach, would still be standing. It would be ten more miles to Lörrach, where the Todtnau smith had trained. They started running, occasionally slowing to a walk to catch their breaths; then running again, as fast as they could for as long as they could.
Then Lörrach came into sight. "Oh," Susanna said. "Oh, no."
* * * *
Raudegen recognized the lieutenant commanding the foraging party with some relief. If Harsch were here, that meant that Duke Bernhard was somewhere fairly close.
"Yes," the lieutenant said. "The main force of the army is not much more than ten miles to the south. The duke has taken headquarters in Lörrach while the rest of the army catches up the vanguard."
* * * *
"So that is as far as I got, Your Grace," Raudegen said. "The two men I sent on may have found information about where the four left the convoy, but I took the risk of following the girl once I realized that she was in the archduchess' household. I assume full responsibility for the decision."
"It wasn't all that bad," Duke Bernhard said, leaning back in his chair. "You have, of course, been back in the hills for quite some time." He tossed a copy of the Basel newspaper across the table.
"You are clearly correct," Raudegen answered after a moment. "I am seriously behind the times, according to the Basel Daily Times. My apologies, Your Grace."
"No apologies necessary. I am impressed, in fact, that you came so close to the truth. Your alertness ensured that I remained in the vicinity of the Swiss border. I am, in fact, currently on the way there in hopes of making the archduchess' personal acquaintance. Peacefully, if possible; martially, if necessary. The Basel city council having been so kind as to immobilize her, I propose to reap the fruits of their misguided efforts. 'Swiss independence.' What an absurdly inadequate use for a presumably fertile imperial daughter. I am just as much in need of a wife as the prince formerly known as the Cardinal-Infante."
Duke Bernhard stood up. Raudegen took a step a back.
"Take a dozen men, captain. Continue your pursuit. If this girl, whoever she is, was a part of the archduchess' household, as you say, she may yet be of considerable value to me if you can catch up with her. A bargaining chit, perhaps, if the archduchess is inclined not to cooperate with my plans."
"Yes, Your Grace."
"Hear me, though. Right now, I do not want any incidents with Basel. We are in the midst of some rather critical negotiations. If you can take them this side of the border, use whatever means necessary. If not, it would be more loss than gain to me, right now, to have a diplomatic incident."
"Yes, Your Grace."
"If they should try to double back, though, into Austrian lands, . . ."
"Yes, Your Grace?"
"Pursue them. I no longer recognize Innsbruck's lordship over the Habsburgs' Swabian territories. Over the former Habsburg territories in Swabia, I should say. I quite anticipate having some interesting discussions with the duchess-regent of Tyrol on the topic in the not-too-distant future."
"Yes, Your Grace."
"Ah. Don't kill the girl. Don't even risk it. S
he would do me no good under those circumstances and it might well irritate the archduchess if she ever found out. Some women become attached to their servants."
"Yes, Your Grace."
"Very good. I am delighted to have staff who clearly understand my instructions. Colonel Raudegen."
* * * *
"You know," Marc whispered. "After these past few hours, I don't think that I'll ever take a fun vacation in Lörrach. I think that was what the stories call 'being in dire peril.'"
"That," Susanna answered, "is a really sensible decision. Never again in Lörrach. But at least we are through it now. It can't be much farther down to Riehen. Not more than three miles." She poured the pail of water she had been carrying into a leather bucket.
"Not," Marc said, "more than several thousand more soldiers to sneak past once we get out of this corral. Since Riehen is the Basel border and all that. Though I have to say that your idea of grabbing a couple of halters that were already on remount horses and sticking ourselves into a long line of other guys who were leading remount horses by halters wasn't a bad one."
"At least none of the soldiers between here and there will know us. Maybe we could find somebody's armor and put it on," she said a little hopefully. "Disguise ourselves, you know. I've designed lots of costumes for masques and pantomimes. That's part of what a seamstress does, you know."
"You can think about costumes now? Here?" Marc was sloshing two buckets of water for every one that Susanna managed.
"I can think about costumes anywhere. Anytime. That's what I do. Sort of like you thinking about iron ore."
"Oh." Marc was going to have to think about that when he got a chance. "Well. We might find some armor that fits me. But not you."
"Maybe I could disguise myself as a stableboy or something. Since we're in the place they pen up the cavalry horses."
"You are disguised as a boy. You have been for weeks, now. Stableboys aren't any different from the rest of them, really."
"Oh. Yes, that's right. I'm getting used to it, I suppose. Being a boy. So I keep forgetting that I am one, a lot of the time. Did you ever give me a boy's name? I don't think so." Susanna looked around. "But I was wrong, I think."
"About what?"
"When I said that at least none of the soldiers between here and Riehen would know us. Look there, by the tent. It's the Bavarian captain and he definitely seems to be looking for someone. Us, maybe"
"Us," Marc said. "Ten to one, us. A hundred to one, us. Run."
"Don't run," Susanna said. "Steal a horse." She looked at him. "You can ride, can't you."
"I can ride, but . . ." Marc was going to say that he didn't think that this was the best option, but it was too late. Susanna was mounted. So he stole a horse, too.
At least, the captain was on foot. He would have to find a horse. They would have a head start. Maybe this hadn't been such a bad idea.
* * * *
The Riehen militia was patrolling the marked boundary stones. So far, none of Duke Bernhard's troops had violated the line. The news was that the duke was negotiating with the city council; that he had promised that if they turned the Austrian woman over to him without incident, he would not invade the city's territory.
"Riders," one of them called.
Two riders. Behind them, not more than the width of the market square in Basel behind them, came a dozen more. Not shooting, though one of them was speeding up, trying to cut the boy off.
The Riehen militia stood silently, motionless, until the riders passed the boundary stones. Both riders reined up, or tried to. The man stopped and dismounted. "Get off!" he yelled at the boy, who was having more trouble reining in. He finally slowed the horse, turned it, came back, and jumped off.
The man slapped the rumps of both of the beasts, sending them back across the border. "Just borrowed!" he cried at the soldiers who had been in pursuit, and who had now come to a halt. Apparently, the soldiers did not intend to violate the boundary line. "No offense meant!"
The oldest militiaman looked at them. "What is this all about?" he asked.
* * * *
"I was supposed to be meeting my father," Marc said. "In Basel." That was safe enough to say. It was also true, which he found vaguely comforting. "We had a little trouble getting through Duke Bernhard's camp around Lörrach.
"Things are sort of upset, right now."
"Really. We hadn't noticed," Susanna piped up. At the look Marc gave her, she closed her mouth again.
"What do we do with this smart-mouthed kid, Matti?" a younger man asked
"They're the Landvogt's problem. Both of them. That's obvious. We can hold them for a few days. Maybe a boundary violation, maybe a customs violation, even though they sent the horses back. They don't have their baggage, so they probably don't have passports. If they have undeclared foreign money, it could be a currency violation. If they've been with the army over there, it could be a quarantine violation. The city council doesn't want plague being brought in."
"But Herr Wettstein is in Basel."
"They're still his problem. Take them down to the administration building and put them in a corner, somewhere. He won't have time to see them right away."
"If he's in Basel, why not send them across into the city to him?"
"Bridge closed. The council closed it at sunset. It's not going to reopen until they finish negotiating with Duke Bernhard."
"We haven't had time to declare any currency," Susanna protested. "You haven't even asked us to."
Marc was pulling a case out of the inside pocket of his doublet. "We do have passports," he said.
The oldest militiaman was still unmoved. "You're still Herr Wettstein's problem. Not ours. You'll just have to wait until all this is over."
Chapter 63
Potentiam Concupiscere
Lörrach
"I simply do not understand," Duke Bernhard said, "why all of them seem to be so surprised. I left the service of Gustav Adolf after his great insult to my honor, my reputation, after all. What caused them to expect that I would remain permanently in French service if a different course of action became, for some reason, more appropriate?"
Johann Freinsheim stood quietly, listening to the duke's meditations. He sincerely hoped that Duke Bernhard didn't ask for his opinion. He was not here to give his opinion. He was here to deliver a message from Margrave Friedrich V of Baden-Durlach.
On the one hand, Duke Bernhard's analysis seemed to be accurate. As far as Freinsheim could tell, "all of them" did appear to be surprised. "Most of them" at least. They also appeared to be disapproving. Certainly the French had been very surprised, not to say disapproving, when the duke had pulled his regiments away from their assigned position across from Mainz. He knew that definitely, having been working in the chancery when it happened.
Freinsheim realized that he was in no position to know Gustav Adolf's mind, but the king of Sweden's administrator in Mainz had certainly not hesitated to take advantage of the opportunity that Bernhard had offered to him, whether or not he was surprised by it; whether or not he approved of it.
Margrave Friedrich, certainly, was both surprised and disapproving. Freinsheim had come to the margrave at once, as soon as he succeeded in getting out of France. He felt obliged to him as well as to Professor Buxtorf for the timely warning he had received. Warnings, to be more precise—they had arrived by several ways. If he had stayed much longer—well, suspicion of collaboration with Duke Bernhard would have been almost certain to fall upon a German working in the translation division of the royal chancery. Under Cardinal Richelieu, it was common for suspicion to be followed by prompt action.
Whereas, Freinsheim thought righteously, he had not been collaborating with Duke Bernhard at all. Now But Duke Bernhard was looking at him impatiently. "Well?" he asked.
Apparently the duke did want his opinion. "Margrave Friedrich's father has been unswervingly loyal to the Protestant cause," he began a little uncertainly. "Perhaps this has led him to cultivate
a certain admiration for steadiness of purpose and for, ah..."
His voice trailed off. Keeping your word once you have given it... might not be the most appropriate thing for an emissary to say to the duke right now.
"Consistency in pursuit of one's goals," he finished.
"I have been quite consistent in the pursuit of my goals," Duke Bernhard said blandly. "From beginning to end. I would advise Margrave Friedrich to devote some consideration to what my goals are. If he is able to clarify that matter in his mind—which I doubt, if the letter you just delivered is a typical example of the way he thinks—then he may be moved to submit some slightly more acceptable proposal to me."
Duke Bernhard rose. "You may inform him that I do not regard his suggestions as an acceptable basis for beginning negotiations. If you care to wait, I will have my secretary draft a letter, so you may deliver a signed version, in writing."
Freinsheim inclined his head. "Thank you, Your Grace."
* * * *
Basel
"The USE embassy is not really under siege," Diane Jackson said. "That is not the right way to say it. I told Frank so, this morning. Even though Swiger and Gordon act like we are under siege. We are just as comfortable as we were before the city council's 'honor guard' showed up. They let the grocer and the butcher deliver food every day." She nodded her head. "Sometimes they even let visitors come. If they have diplomatic credentials. Like you."