There was a sound in the distance. Leo turned still holding his knife. “Herr Fortney?”
“No. I couldn’t find him,” Amadeus shouted back and Leo turned back to the ticking device, knife in hand. “I brought Dr. Faust instead. He knows about electrics.”
“Please hurry, Herr Doctor. I don’t think there is much time for delay.”
Dr. Faust and Amadeus came running up, and Leo pointed with his knife. “I think that when the hour hand reaches the stud, something bad will happen.”
Panting, Dr. Faust looked at the device and after a moment nodded. Leo offered the the doctor the knife. “You can keep them separate with this.”
Dr. Faust looked at the knife and blanched. Then he reached down with his hand, grabbed one of the wires, and yanked it free.
“Was that all it took?” Leo asked, feeling disappointed. “From the books, they are supposed to take some sort of specially trained experts to disarm?”
“That’s because up-time they used antitampering devices. Lots of wires, and if you pulled the wrong one, the bomb went off. But, Your Grace, iron and steel are excellent conductors. Putting your knife blade in between the two wires would have been as bad as touching them together.”
Leo fainted then. He would forever after claim that it was from blood loss.
“Just something I thought you should know, in case something like this ever comes up again,” Dr. Faust said to the unconscious archduke.
* * *
Mike Stearns stood on one of the balconies that overlooked the milling crowd of colorfully dressed people. It was early afternoon and the electric lights glittered from the masses of jewels women wore, as well as the pommels of dress swords worn by the men.
He was standing on the mezzanine taking a breather from the dancing, wishing with all his might that Rebecca was here. Partly just so she could rescue him from what seemed like hordes of females who all wanted their chance to dance with the Prince of Germany.
He heard a soft step behind him and turned his head to see Ferdinand III, Emperor of Austria-Hungary, walk up to him. He was accompanied by his brother-in-law Fernando, the King in the Low Countries.
So. The heads of two of the three Habsburg houses. As often happened at royal weddings, business would be conducted. Mike was not surprised, of course. It was the main reason he’d come.
“Glittering crowd down there, Your Majesties.”
Ferdinand nodded. “Glittering, it certainly is, and your young ladies are providing a lot of the glitter.” He stepped nearer the rail and stared out over the crowd. Fernando joined him.
Mike followed the route Ferdinand’s eyes took. Sarah Wendell and Prince Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein were dancing through the concrete trees. A waltz, needless to say. An early version of the dance had already existed, but the Ring of Fire had made waltzes the rage of European courts in general-and the Austrian court in particular.
Judy Wendell and Millicent Anne Barnes were holding court nearby, surrounded by a bevy of soon-to-be-disappointed suitors. Gabrielle Ugolini seemed to be a bit at a loss, and waiting for her escort, Herr Doctor Faust.
By now, Mike had been briefed on the romances of the various Barbies. Moses Abrabanel was dancing with Susan Logsden, and Carla Barclay was dancing with some young count whose name Mike hadn’t caught. Trudi von Bachmerin was dancing with Jack Pfeifer. Mike didn’t see Hayley and wondered where Amadeus had gotten to.
The music was from a record player with electrical amplification. People of every station were chatting around the edges of the dance area.
* * *
Mike tried to hide a grin. “Four years ago, someone I knew said that there wasn’t a single thing that would do his soul more good than seeing a young woman in a wedding dress walk down the aisle. The man’s dead now, but he was right at the time and he’s still right. We’ve seen a lot of weddings these last four years.”
“And to think there are some who consider you barbarians.”
The dry tone of Ferdinand’s voice made Mike turn to look at him. He put a questioning look on his face.
Ferdinand smiled. “You have, after all, made quite a bit of headway. Using tactics well known to my family.”
“Oh, yes,” Mike agreed. “‘Let others wage wars. You, fortunate Austria, wage marriage.’”
“Close enough,” the emperor of Austria-Hungary agreed. He gestured toward a nearby door that Mike assumed led to a room where privacy was to be found. “Would you accompany us?”
“Of course.”
* * *
Sarah carried a traditional bouquet and was preparing for the traditional bouquet toss.
Judy did her best to stay well away from the toss, Millicent at her side.
The bouquet contained myrtle leaves, for good luck. Brides were traditionally considered lucky and some variation of the bouquet toss had been in custom for many years. At this point, the last thing Judy wanted was to catch a bouquet. Weddings seemed to be catching or something. Everywhere she turned, some young man was staring at her with puppydog eyes, practically begging for her attention.
“I’m looking forward to getting back to Magdeburg,” Millicent muttered.
“Same here,” Judy whispered. “Let’s get farther back. The last thing I want is these boys getting ideas. I’m getting enough proposals, without them thinking I’m next.”
They didn’t make it quite far enough away. Almost as soon as Judy and Millicent turned back to watch, Sarah launched her bouquet.
“Ah. . drat.”
Millicent sighed. “Can’t let it hit the floor, can you? It’s a rule. You know. Like the flag.”
Judy stared over the bouquet she’d had to catch. At the group of more-than-willing boys. “You wish,” she muttered at them, just as a bloody Archduke Leopold staggered onto the dance floor, accompanied by Amadeus and Herr Doctor Faust.
Epilogue
It took a short time for Emperor Ferdinand to realize that his little brother wasn’t just drunk and that Leopold was wounded.
After that, things got organized quickly. Troops were sent to collect Father Lamormaini. A scourge of the Spanish faction of the Austro-Hungarian court would follow over the next few weeks. But from that moment the support of the Austrian court-and that of the Netherlands-for Pope Urban was set in stone.
It wasn’t nearly so well documented that Gundaker had been involved. Yes, he had rented the storeroom, but he could have done it at the request of Lamormaini without knowing for what use was intended. At least, that was Karl’s less-than-convincing argument.
Maximilian von Liechtenstein was not happy. He and his wife had both been at the wedding. If the bomb had gone off, he would have been blown up with everyone else.
Troops were sent to Liechtenstein House, where they failed to find Prince Gundaker. They did find a set of books that, on close examination, suggested that Gundaker had gotten away with a lot of silver and more than a little gold.
“The only direction I think we can be sure he doesn’t run,” said Maximilian, “is toward his wife’s lands.”
A more serious question was was who else was involved. Hartmann von Liechtenstein, Gundaker’s son, was out of town on business for his father, but they didn’t know whether he was involved. It wouldn’t have been hard for Gundaker to send him off without telling him the reason. Gundaker’s daughters were in attendance, both of them with their husbands, which pretty much cleared them of any involvement.
But how many of the staff at Liechtenstein house were involved was an open question. Not everyone had been at the wedding.
* * *
Mike Stearns returned to Bohemia two days after the wedding. He needed to get back anyway, since the moment for his intervention in the siege of Dresden was approaching. But he wouldn’t have stayed much longer in any event.
Some diplomatic negotiations require weeks and months. Others are tentative affairs, more in the way of opening channels and establishing possibilities than coming to any decisions-or even advancing any definite proposals. But he was quite satisfied with the outcome. The friendly neutrality-reasonably friendly, anyway-of the Netherlands was further solidified, and the Austrian attitude had clearly been shifted in that direction.