And continued to suffer them, the next day. The crude fact, soon evident, was that Billek's inexperienced volunteers simply couldn't stand toe-to-toe with Holk's toughs in a pitched battle. They tried, the next morning, fighting in the open in the streets, but by noon Billek realized his mistake and ordered a retreat. Thereafter, in the days that followed, the Brethren went back to their tactics of harassment and fighting from well-fortified positions.
At that, they were extremely capable-just as their Hussite ancestors, from the shelters of their armored wagons, had been very good at breaking noble cavalry. They couldn't defeat Holk-couldn't even drive him off-but they could certainly bleed him. And, what was most important, bleed the morale of his army.
Morris, during those same days, lapsed frequently into profanity. Understandably enough, having driven off the charge across the bridge on the first day and being in no real danger thereafter, the Jews of the ghetto were reluctant to get involved in the fighting still taking place in the Mala Strana. That was a goyishe battle in a goyishe part of the city where few of them had ever gone, and fewer still had ever lived. All of Morris' attempts to plead and convince and cajole them-even curse them, which he did more than once-had little effect.
But Dunash and his young firebrands came into their own, during those same days. They did participate in the fighting. First, at irregular intervals, by racing onto the bridge-almost all the way across, on one occasion-and firing rocket volleys at Holk's encampment. Then, racing off before Holk's cannons could retaliate. (Holk had finally brought in his artillery, three days too late to do any good.)
Secondly, perhaps more importantly, every day after sundown at least some of Dunash's men made their way across the river in a few small boats that they'd kept safely hidden away. Once there, they joined the Brethren in their nightly harassment of Holk's forces. In purely military terms, they were not much of a factor. But the political effect was significant-and, by the fourth day, was starting to result in a steady trickle of recruits to Dunash's miniature army. In any population of fifteen thousand people, there are a fair number of bold youngsters who don't see things the way their sage elders do.
Most of the Mala Strana was in ruins, by the end, though civilian casualties were minimal. Fortunately, the inhabitants of that section of Prague had fled before Holk arrived. For that matter-much to the disgruntlement of Holk's troops-they'd taken their valuable belongings with them. The destruction wreaked by Holk's army during the week it spent in Prague was not so much due to looting, as such; it was simply the mindless destruction and arson visited upon a town by frustrated and angry troops. Who became even more frustrated, the more they wrecked and burned, because their own living quarters and rations got steadily worse as a result.
Holk would have tried to restrain them, had he not been Heinrich Holk. Being Holk, it never once occurred to him to do so.
Then, a week after the siege of Prague began, word came from the southwest. A second battle of the White Mountain had indeed been fought. Actually, the battle was fought a good twenty miles away from the White Mountain, but since victors get to name battles, "the Second Battle of the White Mountain" it was.
It seemed that Wallenstein thought it made a nice touch, to inaugurate the new kingdom of Bohemia and Moravia.
Oh, yes. He'd won. Pappenheim and his dreaded Black Cuirassiers had pursued the retreating Austrians for miles, slaughtering pitilessly.
"Practicing for Holk," Pappenheim was reported to have said afterward.
The news arrived in the morning. By late afternoon, Holk's army was out of Prague, racing for the north. Holk, it was said, had already opened negotiations with the Elector of Saxony, John George, looking for a new employer. And shelter from the coming storm.
7
But there was no storm on the day that Wallenstein and Pappenheim finally returned to Prague-other than a storm of applause from the residents of the city who greeted his victorious army, on both banks of the river. Whatever private reservations any of them had regarding the change of power, nobody was willing any longer to speak out in open opposition.
Not even the Catholics in the city. First, because the Jesuits dominated the Catholic church in Bohemia. Wallenstein had always been partial to the Jesuits, and had sent them a friendly private note assuring them that they would be able to remain in Prague unmolested-provided, of course, they agreed to cease and desist their activities against Protestants on behalf of the Austrian Habsburgs.
The Jesuits hadn't decided yet, how they would react to that last provision. But they didn't have to fear for their own lives in the immediate period.
The second reason they decided to stay, however, and abide by Wallenstein's conditions-at least for the moment-would have amazed Ellie Anderson. Whatever she thought of Len Tanner's behavior during the siege, the Jesuits had reacted otherwise. Quirky-even foolish-he might have been. But, as the days passed and the pudgy American kept returning to his self-assigned post of duty in the cathedral, always with that bizarre weapon in his hands, the Jesuits came to the conclusion that whatever Wallenstein might think, his new American allies had their own opinions. And, whatever else, were clearly stubborn about them.
That was an interesting datum, with interesting possibilities for the future. The Jesuits in Prague duly recorded their impressions in several letters they sent to their Father General in Rome, Mutio Vitelleschi. They did so, of course, in the full knowledge that Vitelleschi was close to the Pope and would pass along their letters. The gist of them, in any event. So, the Jesuits would be patient. They were trained, and accustomed, to thinking in the long run.
Most of the crowd gathered to cheer Wallenstein's army, however, were Protestants of one sort or another-counting the Brethren and the Utraquists in their number, although they predated Martin Luther-and the Jews. Those people were far less ambivalent about the situation. Granted, Wallenstein was still an enigmatic figure, and a somewhat unsettling one. But the Habsburgs weren't enigmatic at all. Most of Prague's residents had had more than enough of the royal bigot Ferdinand II, sitting on his throne in Vienna.
And, finally, there was this: Wallenstein did not return alone. He had Pappenheim, of course, but he also brought with him tangible proof that his new regime had secured at least one redoubtable ally: the United States in Thuringia, if not perhaps the entire Confederated Principalities of Europe.
The proof came in the form of two APCs that Mike Stearns sent to Bohemia the minute he got word from Morris Roth-yes, there had been a long-distance radio stashed in that great mansion's basement, along with so many other treasures-that the political crisis had finally erupted and it was time for the United States to forego all secrecy. The APCs had not arrived in time to play any role at the second battle of the White Mountain, but they did arrive in time to join Wallenstein's triumphal procession back into Prague.
The only unfortunate episode in the day's celebrations-and that, only mildly unfortunate-was that the biggest cheer of all was not reserved for Wallenstein himself. That cheer erupted, quite spontaneously, when the two APCs from Grantville rumbled onto the Stone Bridge from the Mala Strana side and were met halfway by the katyusha coming from the east bank. Now that they could see what a real APC looked like, almost dwarfing the katyusha drawn up before it, Prague's citizens were greatly heartened. Their own little one had driven off Holk, no? Who knew what the big ones could do?