She started to shake her head.
"In the Bible, Mom. About casting the first stone. I'm not going to cast it. I know I haven't been perfect. I let you get away with bossing us around a lot because it's easier and most of the time I don't give a damn either way. But not this time and if you can't see your way clear to accepting Ron and his family, you're going to be seeing a lot less of the rest of us.
"Sure, having china being handed down through the generations is nice. So is having a lot of family photographs. But it's not worth spit if you're a miserable human being. I don't care if Tom Stone doesn't have a plate or bowl older than a week. He's brought up three good sons, Mom, no matter else he's done. Three decent, honorable, boys. Even if only one of them was 'his' son, the way some people might see it. That was what Ron said to me. 'He's always been there for all of us when we needed him, and that's enough.' There's stuff in the Bible about pride going before a fall. Get over it."
Eleanor sat silently in her chair. Then she raised her head and in a calm, clear voice said, "You may as well get the quote right. It's from Proverbs. 'Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.' I'll drop my objections except for those I reserve mentally. Not that I can tell what Missy sees in the boy."
"That's it?"
"Yes. I want her to be happy. I'm far from sure that this is the best choice for her. But I guess she's old enough to know her own mind and make her own mistakes. Just like you thought you were old enough when you married a woman with a nine-year-old daughter when you were only twenty-three yourself. Not that I think Debbie was a mistake now," she added hastily. That was a battle that had already been fought. "Back then, your father overruled my objections. Which you seem to be doing this time."
"Wes likes him," Chad said. "For what it's worth, Wes likes Ron Stone a lot."
"He would scarcely have asked him to stand godfather for my littlest granddaughter if he didn't. As absurd as that was. For that matter, Wes would probably enjoy knowing Tom Stone. Wes remodeled himself quite a bit over the years in order to become the kind of man with whom Lena would be happy."
Eleanor relaxed a little. "The quirky, sardonic sense of humor that has been showing up this winter is more or less a reversion to normal. He never quite managed to stamp it out, but he controlled those tendencies pretty firmly for nearly thirty years. With Clara, he can be himself." She smiled wryly. "I do wonder what will become of him."
PART ELEVEN
June 1635
Each in his hierarchy, the orders bright
Chapter 67
Magdeburg, March 1635
"This is madness," hissed Amalie, the landgravine of Hesse-Kassel. Her hand on her husband's arm tightened. "What is Wilhelm Wettin thinking?"
Her husband, Landgrave William V, looked out over the huge crowd celebrating in the great hall of the new imperial palace in Magdeburg. "What difference does it make? Wilhelm can't control this. I doubt if anyone can."
He shook his head. The landgrave-some primitive part of him, at least-understood the riotous mood of the celebrants perfectly well. The last few years had been deeply unsettling to any member of Germany's elite classes, and sometimes terrifying. Now…
It was over! The troll is dead! Sanity has returned! We are back on top!
Unfortunately, the troll was not dead. Defeated, yes; dead, no-and perhaps the worst of it was that the troll had predicted the defeat himself. Predicted it, quite matter-of-factly, and gone about his business.
That was because he was not a troll in the first place. He was a man, and a particularly cunning and astute one, when it came to politics.
Far more astute, William suspected, than the leader of the Crown Loyalists, Wilhelm Wettin. The brutish troll, for instance, knew when his reach was beginning to exceed his grasp; knew the difference between real allies and fellow travelers of the moment; perhaps most of all, knew when he could safely compromise and when a bargain led into an abyss.
William sighed. There had been too many promises made. Too many unwise trades, for the sake of immediate gains. And now, all of the people with whom Wettin and his Crown Loyalists had bargained had come to Magdeburg to enjoy a raucous celebration of their victory-and to demand payment in full.
And Wettin would pay them. He had no choice.
Or try to pay them, at any rate. Whether he could succeed or not, remained to be seen. The landgrave was becoming increasingly dubious.
He came to his decision. "We shall leave, Amalie. We have no choice, I think. We must place Hesse-Kassel first."
"I agree," she said firmly.
On their way out, they were intercepted by Hieronymus von Egloffstein, who was one of the central figures in Wilhelm Wettin's personal staff. Egloffstein was not himself an elected or public official. His capacity was that of what the Americans called a "political operator."
"Surely you aren't going!" he protested. Grinning gleefully, he waved a goblet of wine at the crowd, spilling some of it on the floor. "The festivities are just starting."
William disliked the man. Amalie positively detested him.
"Surely we are," she said coldly. "Half the nation is in mourning over the murder of an old man and seething in anger-and you choose to rub salt into their wounds? Well, you may be idiots, but we are not."
The landgrave cleared his throat. "Tell Wilhelm we've returned to Hesse-Kassel. Where we will handle this situation quite differently."
They left, then, with Egloffstein gaping after them.
"It's starting already," William said an hour or so later, as their carriage neared Magdeburg's outskirts. He let the curtain fall back into place over the window and leaned back in his seat. "I can't see very much, of course, in the darkness. But it's obvious the city's Committee of Correspondence is mobilizing its forces. And I could see that many of them are armed. With flintlock rifles, too, not just hand weapons. They look like military issue. I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover they came from the army's own arsenals."
Amalie's hand went to her throat. "Oh, my God. Surely you don't think… William, he can't be that rash."
"Stearns?" Her husband shook his head. "It won't be anything as reckless as an assault upon the palace. No, certainly. Those imbeciles will be able to celebrate as long as they want, quite unmolested. If nothing else, Stearns won't want to risk bringing Torstensson and his regular army units into the city."
He barked a grim little laugh. "Assuming that Torstensson would even do so-given that no one really knows how the army would react in such a situation."
"Do you really think the CoCs take their orders from Stearns?"
The landgrave cocked his head, considering the question. "It's.. . not that simple. Take orders from him? No. He is not their commander, nor even part of the central leadership the way Gretchen Richter or Gunther Achterhof or Spartacus are. In some ways, in fact, I sense that there is considerable distrust on both sides. Stearns, that the CoCs will behave foolishly; the CoCs, that Stearns is too much the politician, too much the compromiser. But they listen to him, Amalie, you can be sure of that."
"Yes, I suppose." The hand at her throat began to massage it gently. Then, much more softly, she laughed herself. "And can you blame them? Whatever else, he's a canny bastard."
She leaned forward, drew aside the curtain on her side with a finger, and peered into the darkness. "What do you think he's told them?"
"I have no idea," replied her husband gloomily. "But, as you say, whatever it is, it will be canny."
When he wanted to be, Gunther Achterhof could be as ferocious as any man alive. No trace of his usual sardonic humor was in evidence here and now. The hard face that gazed upon the subordinate commanders gathered for their final instructions was that of the refugee who, years earlier, had fled from his destroyed town to Magdeburg across half of Germany-and left a trail of dead and mutilated mercenaries behind him. He'd come into the city holding a bag full of their severed noses, ears and genitals.