True, Bernhard was Lutheran, while Claudia was Catholic. Still, as she pointed out, the Vienna Habsburgs could scarcely complain, considering that they had been approaching the point of offering Cecelia Renata as an option. Given the religious situation in the lands they would be governing-in a real sense, the disparity of cult might even be counted as an advantage. As for the children, they would simply follow the normal arrangement-the girls would be baptized in her faith and the boys in his. That made no problems for Tyrol-Claudia’s children by Leopold were the heirs there.
“Your Grace,” Matt Trelli said. “Marcie and I really think that it would be a good idea for you to leave us-well, me, at least-here in Swabia. From what Tony Adducci says, the main thrust of the plague will come here in the southwest, not in Tyrol. We just-well, after Kronach and everything, I just feel like I need to be part of the prevention team that the Swiss and Duke Bernhard are putting together.”
The regent looked at him. “You work for me and you will return in accordance with your employment contract. You signed it voluntarily.”
Matt backed out of the room.
De Melon hurried after him. “Don’t do anything rash. She intends to place you as the head organizer of the plague fighters in Tyrol. This is something I have heard. It is not unimportant there. Given the heavy, constant, overland commercial traffic, it will be a challenge to maintain the quarantine without damaging the economy.”
“Matt, listen to me,” Marcie said that evening. “Okay, I get it. She didn’t explain her reasons. That’s sort of how people who were born to run things work. They don’t know that they have to explain. Actually, they don’t have to explain. They might get more cooperation if they did, but-honestly, Matt. They’re just not up-timers. You can’t expect a down-time aristocrat to run her bailiwick the same way Steve Salatto managed things in Bamberg. Anyway-think of it as sort of like being in the army. You couldn’t have backed out of that, either, just because you didn’t like some order Cliff Priest gave you.”
Chapter Five
Besancon, late February 1635
The air was crisp. The sky was blue. The Doubs river wended its twisty way below the city. Bernhard looked down from the site of his future, still incomplete citadel. It was here, above the imperial city itself, which was now his capital city-his-not inside the medieval walls, that he would assume his new title. His residence was in the Palais Granvelle below. He had requisitioned it. It was a gorgeous palace, much better than anything the Wettins had owned in Weimar. The Granvelle family had gone bankrupt long since, in any case.
Most of his garrison officers were quartered across the river, in the Quartier Battant, below the Griffon bastion, in the Champagney mansion, which Nicholas Perrot de Granvelle had built for his widowed mother as her dower seat. Fleetingly, he thought about the latest projected cost estimates that Faulhaber had provided for his new citadel and wondered if constructing the luxurious mansions had contributed to the Granvelle bankruptcy.
Besancon was not just defensible. It was beautiful. Residing here would be a pleasure. There were worse reasons for choosing the site of a national capital.
Bernhard glanced around, thoroughly enjoying the pageantry. Even a general could take a day off, now and then.
“Grand Duke of the County of Burgundy?” Kanoffski said to Poyntz. “Now, that’s a truly gemlike combination of words.”
“Why not, if it makes him happy? I understand that he set a lot of genealogists to work. It appears that he is legitimately descended from someone named Jean de Nevers who was count of this region a couple of hundred years ago.”
“Ultimately,” Kanoffski answered, “we all descend from Adam. How many other people now alive descend from this Jean de Nevers?”
“Dozens, if not hundreds. What difference does it make? None of the rest of them have a garrison in Besancon.”
“None of them are marrying a Tuscan grand duchess, either. Grand Duchess and Regent of the County of Tyrol. What odds will you give me that he picked it because he wanted to bring a title at least equal to hers into this marriage?”
“I’m putting my money on saying he picked it because it’s more grandiose than his brothers’ titles. A thousand USE dollars, if we can find some actual written evidence of what went into his decision, one way or the other, of course.”
“The time has come,” Bernhard said that evening. “Considering that one of my brothers is now the prime-minister elect of the USE and another is still Gustavus’ regent in the Upper Palatinate, it seems a propitious moment to see if I can pry an apology out of the old goat and get him to recognize my title and my conquests.”
“Apology? From the emperor?”
“I hear rumors that he apologized to John Hepburn, nearly two years ago. Shrewd move. The encyclopedias say that in the other world, Hepburn was so insulted by what Gustavus said about his Catholic faith that he switched over to the French also. In this world, though, he’s garrisoning Ulm for the USE. If Hepburn can get an apology, then so can I.”
Kanoffski wrote “apology” on the list he was making.
“If I am to concentrate on the challenges coming at me here in the southwest for the time being, which I think that I must, I need a, a modus vivendi with the USE.” Bernhard raised a bushy, nearly black eyebrow. “Not that I intend to let Gustavus guess that I need it. The whole matter must be presented as if I were doing him a favor.”
Kanoffski nodded and wrote modus vivendi on his list.
“I want de Melon present when we’re working out our offer, since Claudia left him behind to work out the details of our own agreement. I want that finalized-signed, sealed, and delivered-before I show my hand to Magdeburg.
“Then, I think, we need to talk to Sattler again. See if you can get him down here.”
Schwarzach, March 1635
“I can’t see that the assassinations in Grantville will have any direct impact on our concerns,” Bernhard said. “The up-timers I hired were very upset about the deaths, though. They requested permission to hold a memorial service. The chancellor radioed me for approval. I told him to go ahead, and make it a good one. Claudia’s up-time hires are all Catholic-not just Trelli and Abruzzo, whom she brought to Schwarzach, but all the rest-so they did a requiem mass in Bolzen with Urban VIII’s dispensation, but none of mine are Catholics. Still, I have to say that the Papists know how to put on a good show, so I got her to radio to the ‘Cardinal Protector’ in Magdeburg and obtain permission for the chancellor to roust them out in Besancon. The city got into the spirit of things. They produced chants, a procession, cloth of gold vestments, and waving banners for those two old Presbyterians.”
Poyntz snorted.
Moscherosch nodded. “Excellent publicity.”
“Next.”
“Brahe, and the SoTF forces from Fulda, are chasing through the Province of Upper Rhine, in pursuit of Butler, Devereux, Geraldin, McDonnell, and their dragoons. Ferdinand of Bavaria, the archbishop of Cologne, ran out of funds to pay them. Duke Maximilian has hired them for Bavaria, to replace Werth and von Mercy. They have to get across Swabia to reach Bavaria.”
The bushy eyebrow went up higher than usual. “So?”
“Horn has suggested coordination. He doesn’t want to see them reach Max. Neither, I presume, do we.”
“We don’t. Send Raudegen to Horn, with powers of attorney to act on my behalf. Make sure that the powers-that-be in Magdeburg are aware that sweetness and light are overcoming the powers of darkness in this matter.”
Von Rosen smirked.
“Tyrol insists that the Vorarlberg and other Habsburg possessions of Vorderosterreich are not negotiable. Additionally, at Grand Duke Bernhard’s death, if he and Claudia de Medici do not leave mutual heirs of their bodies, male or female, the Sundgau and Breisgau, now in possession of the County of Burgundy, will revert to her sons by the late Leopold von Habsburg, archduke of Austria and count of Tyrol.”