Mike frowned.
"Not everyone is 'into' this maddening American preference for exogamy," Francisco said mildly.
"Do you really think that Gustav will let those boys go back and rule Bavaria?" Ed asked.
"The hereditary principle is still very strong. It's the best solution-once they've been given a reasonable education and character formation on the USE model."
"What about Wallenstein's girl?"
Don Francisco raised his eyebrows above the top rim of his glasses.
Ed looked at him. "Well, now that his wife is pregnant again-if the child is a boy and survives, his daughter becomes not the heiress of Bohemia but just an incredibly wealthy and influential bride-to-be. And Catholic. Why wouldn't she make a decent wife for one of the Bavarian boys?"
"She could. She might. It would depend on how firmly Wallenstein keeps control. We should factor her in as a variable, though. Maybe one of the Bavarian boys with an Austrian wife; the other with a Bohemian. That would leave the Austrians with Claudia de' Medici's youngest girl still to put into play…"
"Will Tyrol fall in with Vienna's plans, or go its own way? Given the actions of Duchess Claudia in connection with Kronach-and now she's sent those three doctors of hers off to Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar."
Nasi steepled his fingers. "There just aren't that many different eligible Catholic possibilities." He thought a minute. "It's my guess that Ferdinand III will pull his brother out of the church and marry him off. I've heard rumors that the up-time history books have put an end to the proposed Polish match for Archduchess Cecelia Renata. They'll still want to maintain the dynastic ties with Poland, though, so it would be only logical to marry Leopold Wilhelm to Wladyslaw's half-sister."
"Konstanzia Vasa? I'm always a little disconcerted, still, when I have to think of Polish Catholic Vasas. I've gotten the notion of Swedish Lutheran Vasas so firmly in my head. Not to mention that I have to deal with the Swedish Lutheran ones on a daily basis." Mike grinned. "Even though the emperor's ambition is basically limitless, I have a problem with 'Gustavus Adolphus, King of Poland and Defender of the Catholic Faith.' It just doesn't ring right. Not that Gustav would draw the line at swallowing up the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, if he could manage it."
"If Wladyslaw manages to hang on, it's not likely to happen. Rest your mind," Nasi advised. "But I do think that Vienna is going to want a Polish marriage, and that's the only one on the drawing boards at the moment. Which leaves Anna de' Medici for Wladyslaw."
"And still leaves Ferdinand III with his second sister to dispose of-advantageously."
"Well, there is Don Carlos."
"Don Carlos is dead." Ed frowned. "I was in a play about it, once, in college. Schiller. In an English translation, of course. I played the evil Philip II. Our drama professor, who was directing it, said that the history in the play was really lousy. The real Don Carlos was a nut rather than a hero and the real Philip II did his country a favor by offing him before he could turn into a real-life mad king."
"Different Don Carlos," Nasi said. "This one is Philip IV's next younger brother, between him and Don Fernando-not his oldest uncle."
"Never heard of him."
"Philip III didn't put him into the church, the way he did Don Fernando. Kept him as the spare to the heir. He's the Grand Admiral of Spain. That's just a title, of course. I doubt that he's ever been to sea."
Piazza grinned. "Even if he is the 'ruler of the king's na-vee.'"
Nasi's eyebrows went up again.
"Gilbert and Sullivan. Next time you're in Grantville, I'll have Annabelle put some on the stereo. It's nineteenth century English, though, so you'll probably miss a lot of the patter that makes the lyrics funny. Even most twentieth-century Americans couldn't follow it. People who put the plays on had to put explanations in the programs. But, anyway. To repeat myself. Never heard of him."
"That's probably because he's eminently forgettable. Or he was, in your world, since he would have died a couple of years ago without having done anything much. He's in his mid-twenties, now. Said to be pleasant. Amiable. Inoffensive. But there may be more to him than that, given how hostile Olivares is to his influence on his brother. Olivares keeps maneuvering to separate the two of them. Since he isn't dead, the king is bound to start maneuvering to marry him off."
Ed leaned back. "Why are you only suggesting Catholic marriages for the Austrians? And Wallenstein's girl?"
Nasi sputtered. "Well… um… because… champions of Catholicism and all that."
"The first time I met Cavriani, he told me that Lutherans are half-Catholic. So's the Church of England in a way, I suppose. They have bishops and all that, which is why the Puritans are so irritable most of the time. So-look at it this way. The grand dukes of Tuscany wouldn't have any interest in the Upper Palatinate, really. But given the geography, wouldn't Wallenstein be just as happy to see his little girl married to Karl Ludwig and safely installed next door in an Upper Palatinate that offers freedom of religion to Catholics? As happy as he would be to see her married to a second son in Bavaria, I mean. Maybe even happier to have her married to the heir rather than the spare, given how Mechthilde of Leuchtenberg ended up this summer. It might upset the Calvinists, but the Catholics there would be glad enough to see her coming, I should think."
Mike shook his head. "Rebecca doesn't foresee any developments along those lines, any more than Francisco does. Maybe Wallenstein might consider it-he was born a Protestant, of course. But not the Austrians."
"The Winter King had thirteen children. Ten of them are still alive. Throw them into the equation and everything changes." Ed smiled. "Give copies of a children's biography of Rupert of the Rhine to some little princesses and watch them start to sigh. They're about the right ages to marry Claudia de' Medici's children, too, without stretching it to the ridiculous age differences that some royal matches have had."
"What about Duchess Claudia herself? And her sister?" Mike asked.
"The sister's dead, according to the latest despatches from Tuscany. Which everyone more or less expected-she's been an invalid for years. Everybody expected her to croak when she got sick last December." Nasi was clearly proud of his mastery of that idiom. "Claudia, though…" He paused.
"Thirty years old. Redhead. Good looking. Six children from two marriages, and five of them alive and healthy. That's pretty much what you could call a proven track record in this day and age. Odd that Don Fernando didn't snap her up when he had a chance." Mike looked thoughtful.
"Someone will. You can bank on that."
"If she were willing to marry a Protestant… What would be her bottom line?" Ed asked.
"Duchess Claudia's bottom line is the bottom line in Bozen's account books. She's a descendant of the grand dukes of Tuscany, but never forget that the Medici were bankers long before they were princes."
"Who's available? Fredrik of Denmark, but he's definitely second-string now that Ulrik is betrothed to Princess Kristina. Charles I in England, since Henrietta Maria's death. Umm… Wladyslaw, if he doesn't go for her niece Anna?"
"Duke Bernhard."
All three of them laughed.
"At least we don't have to worry about Lorraine," Mike inserted. "What a bunch of flakes. Chaos-creators. What's it called? Forces for entropy? But unless someone's spouse dies, they're like the French. Out of the running until they produce a new generation."
"And in this world, Monsieur Gaston hasn't waited for permission from his big brother and Richelieu to start sleeping with his Lorrainer wife. The newspapers say that she's pregnant. Ye gods, it's a damned epidemic." Ed looked at Mike. "How's Becky feeling, by the way?"
Madrid
"King in the Low Countries," Philip IV of Spain said, his voice tight with anger. "Just what does he mean by "king in the Low Countries."