So… There was no way of knowing the outcome of a war between the USE and Poland. If was possible, in the event of a clearcut USE victory, that serfdom in eastern Europe would be destroyed. Not by Gustav Adolf and his armies, maybe. But one thing you could be sure of was that Gretchen Richter and her Committees of Correspondence would be coming into Poland on the heels of those armies. And they hated serfdom with a passion.
In fact, they were already there. Mike knew from his correspondence with Morris Roth in Prague that Red Sybolt and his radical cohorts were active in Poland. Possibly even in the Ukraine by now.
On balance, he thought a military approach to eradicating serfdom in eastern Europe had far more risks than benefits. Still, it was tempting. Military solutions had the great advantage of being clear and definite.
Appearing to be, at any rate. Often, though, that was just a mirage. Mike's friend Frank Jackson was a Vietnam veteran, and could expound for hours on the stupidity of politicians who thought a map was the territory.
He looked back down at the map in front of him and wondered if he was looking at another such mirage.
"Near Lutzen, then," said George. "Hopefully, this time there will be a better outcome."
In the universe Mike had come from, the Swedes had won the battle of Lutzen in 1632-but Gustav Adolf had also been killed there. So, a tactical victory had become a strategic defeat.
"I will not be leading a reckless cavalry charge," said Torstensson firmly.
But that didn't really matter, thought Mike. There were a thousand ways that tactical victories could turn into strategic defeats.
Part Two
July 1635
The round ocean and the living air
Chapter 8
Magdeburg
Had Gretchen seen the expression on Rebecca's face a month earlier, when Rebecca first inspected her new home in the capital, she would have recognized it. She was wearing much the same expression, after having completed an inspection of her own new home in the city.
Not quite, though. Gretchen had the same uncertain, dubious, apprehensive, wary, and skittish attitude. But, unlike Rebecca, she was making no attempt to avoid covetousness. The last few weeks of having to take care of a small horde of children again-she'd forgotten what it was like, during her long absence in France and Holland-made the prospect of settling them into a large apartment building very attractive.
In her days as a camp follower in a mercenary army, she wouldn't have thought of such things. Lack of privacy had been the least of her worries. But she was not immune to the common tendency of people to have their expectations and aspirations expand along with their blessings. The more you had, it sometimes seemed, the more you wanted. If you weren't careful, that could lead into a bottomless pit.
"And down you'll plunge," she muttered.
Jeff had lagged behind his wife, more interested than she was in the interior design of the building. He came into the vestibule just in time to hear her last remark.
"What was that, hon?" he asked.
Gretchen shook her head. "I was just contemplating the dangers of excessive greed."
Jeff looked around, smiling nostalgically. The structure had been designed by a down-time architect. Where an up-time apartment building was essentially a collection of individual homes all squished together, this "apartment building" reminded Jeff of a hotel more than anything else. Not a newfangled motel, either, but the sort of oldstyle hotels you often found in the downtown areas of small cities.
He'd had a great-aunt in Winchester who'd owned such a hotel. He'd spent a week there, once, when he was eight years old. His great-aunt's hotel had only a few transient customers. Most of the inhabitants of its many rooms had been elderly residents of the town, usually but not always male. There was a common kitchen, and his great-aunt always provided three meals a day in the hotel's dining room.
That was what this apartment building in Magdeburg reminded him of-except this building even came with a resident cook. Two of them, in fact. A middle-aged man and his wife; both, of course, members of the city's Committee of Correspondence.
"So much for those piker Joneses!" He said that with a melodramatic sneer, twirling a mustachio in the bargain. The seventeenth century had its drawbacks, but it also had its advantages. One of the greatest of those, in Jeff's opinion, was the ubiquitous facial hair sported by men. Jeff ran toward fat, and had been sensitive about it since childhood. He still was, even though he'd replaced of lot of fat with muscle since the Ring of Fire, and even though Gretchen insisted she didn't care. Nothing, in Jeff's opinion, improved a plump lip and jowls like a beard and mustache.
"Who are the Jones?" asked Gretchen.
"They're the next door neighbors that people are always trying to surpass in wealth and ostentatious displays."
"Ah." She nodded wisely. "Bait, dangled by the devil."
This was one of the seventeenth century's drawbacks, on the other hand-the tendency of its inhabitants to inflate all manner of human frailties. There was no peccadillo that someone wouldn't call a sin; no venal sin that couldn't be made into a mortal one; and no mortal sin where a dozen could be described in detail. Even a person as normally levelheaded as Gretchen was prone to the habit.
"Fortunately, we are not guilty," she continued. "I have decided that Gunther is right. We can use this otherwise-far-too-large building for good purposes. The basement, for instance, is perfect for an armory."
And another drawback. This one, the tendency of down-timers to look at everything bloody-mindedly. As his friend Eddie Cantrell had once put it: "These guys make the Hatfields and McCoys look like Phil Donahue and Oprah."
Of course, given the nature of the seventeenth century, it was hard to blame them. The Hatfields and McCoys would have been right at home here.
Veronica and Annalise came into the vestibule. "It will suit you, I think," said Gretchen's grandmother.
Jeff figured the "I think" part of the sentence was what the British philosopher Bertrand Russell had called a meaningless noise in a collection of essays he'd read once. Gretchen was devoted to her grandmother. Jeff would allow that the old biddy was tough as nails, and some of the time he even liked her. But he often found her view of the universe annoying. Veronica, so far as Jeff could tell, recognized no distinction between an hypothesis, a theorem, and a fact-not, at least, if she was the one expounding the certainty.
Being fair, Jeff himself thought the house would suit them. There was plenty of room for all the kids, even when you factored into the equation the small army of "security experts" that Gunther was determined to foist upon them.
Gunther Achterhof. A kindred spirit of Gretchen's grandmother, if you set aside politics. Achterhof was as radical as they came and Veronica was about as conservative as you could get and still (grudgingly) support Stearns' regime. So what? They both knew what they knew and if you didn't like it, so much the worse for you.
"Security experts." Yeah, sure. Back up-time, Jeff would have labeled them thugs without even thinking about it.
On the other hand, he reminded himself, he wasn't up-time any longer. And as many enemies as Gretchen piled up, it was probably just as well that they'd be sharing the apartment building with guys who'd scare motorcycle gangs if there were any such gangs in the here and now. Which there weren't, of course, unless you wanted to count Denise Beasley and Minnie Hugelmair as a two-girl motorcycle gang.
But that'd be silly; and besides, Denise and Minnie would get along fine with Achterhof's guys. Those two teenagers would scare Jeff himself, if he hadn't married a woman who was probably their role model when it came to unflinching pugnacity in the face of danger.