“Two dozen, at least. That’s how many bodies we have in the granary. Possibly up to a hundred. We have trackers out.”
“Your casualties, here in Frankenwinheim?”
The old man cackled. “None to speak of. It helps a lot to shoot the enemy in the back.”
Willa did not agree that two babies dead of exposure counted as no casualties. The villagers appeared to take it in stride. Babies died every winter, Hatzfeld’s men or not. Innocent babies went to the Lord Jesus in heaven; their lot henceforth was better than that of the families they left behind on earth. Each mother had given God another bud in her nosegay of children. Each mother had another baby angel to pray for her soul. They were quite confident of this, in spite of the fact that for a century, Protestant clergymen had been telling them that they did not need baby angels to pray for their souls. There were just some things about which Mother Knew Best.
“Since we’re here anyway,” Maydene asked, “should we take your oaths? It’s not picnic weather, but we have beef jerky in the saddlebags.”
The old man looked at his wife Kaethe. The totally toothless old woman, who looked like she could as well be his mother as his wife, opened a hidden compartment under the manger of the stall that opened into the cottage. She dragged out a heavy chest and opened it. She pulled out a rams-head banner.
“Yes,” the old man said. “You will take our oaths under the banner. Not just the oaths of the villagers who pay their rents to your government in Wuerzburg. The oaths of all of us in Frankenwinheim, no matter who our lord may be.”
Maydene was not in a mood to argue the point. Whoever the old man’s lord might have been, he’d been really delinquent in the “protect and shield” department.
“Okay,” she said. “First of all, I hereby absolve everybody in this village from any oath he’s ever taken to anybody who didn’t send a troop of guards in to root Hatzfeld’s men out of Dingolshausen. Second, let’s get started. You first.”
They took oaths. They ate jerky. Somebody threw another log into the fireplace. The old folks started telling stories about what Grandpa did in the Bundschuh. Somebody rolled in a keg of beer. It turned into a long night in Frankenwinheim.
* * *
“That pretty well sums it up,” Scott said. “And, though I know you don’t want me to do it, Steve, I’m going to have to quarter some troops in Gerolzhofen. Some of the mercenaries that Mike and Gustavus are sending down to us. I’ve been stepping lightly, but that town is just too loyal to the Bishop of Wuerzburg. Just because he’s a bishop, no matter who the bishop may be at the moment. It’s a lot smaller than Bamberg, but it sure isn’t any more of a bastion of liberal enlightenment.”
“Where? I don’t want them quartered on private citizens.” Steve was definite.
“Put them in the Zehnthof.” That was Meyfarth. “Nobody, not even the most loyal Catholic, enjoys paying the tithes, so they won’t be all that protective about the tithe storage barn. There’s room for a bunch of soldiers there and the officers can keep better control over them than if they are scattered out in different quarters. It’s sort of off to one side and next to the walls. The inner walls. Quarter the officers in the residence that Bishop Echter built for his bailiffs. That’s right next to it.”
“Actually,” Scott said, “I’m sort of glad that we sent the gals on that run. The Gerolzhofen city council apparently thought that it could defy three women. Sort of exposed them to the point where I can deal with them.”
“We have had,” Meyfarth said, “excellent press coverage of the incident.”
“The ‘gals’ did exceed their authority.” Steve Salatto felt obliged to point that out. After Frankenwinheim, Maydene, Willa, and Estelle had cut quite a swath through their assigned section of Franconia. Accompanied by scores of villagers. Waving a ram’s head banner. They had taken an extra week to get back to Volkach. They were, as Maydene pointed out after they got back to Wuerzburg, all three of them, members of the Grantville League of Women Voters. She claimed that they therefore had a perfect right to use the symbol.
“Ah,” Meyfarth said. “For my part, I think it went well.”
Scott asked, “What about the sheep? Are we going to have farmers marching out under rams-head banners come spring? And, if so, what do we do about it?”
Johnnie F. said, “You’re going to have them marching, I’m pretty sure. Not just here, but in Bamberg and maybe Fulda, too. Stewart Hawker and Orville Beattie agree with me on that.” Stewart and Orville were headquartered in Wuerzburg, but Stewart spent most of his time in Bamberg; Orville was mostly in Fulda.
“People are already on the move,” Johnnie F. continued. “Some of the villages are squeezing people out-where the majority are subjects of some lord, folks who weren’t eligible to swear to us, the way the law is now. I don’t know if the landlords are doing the pushing, or if the other villagers are doing the pushing because they’re afraid of the landlords, but we’re seeing people on the roads. Heading north into Thuringia, a lot of them, though this isn’t the best time of the year to be crossing the Thuringian Forest, now that the snow is accumulating in earnest.”
“So they are pushing out the ones who swore allegiance to the constitution. Are the oath-takers pushing out the ones who didn’t?” Saunders Wendell asked.
“We’re sort of trying to persuade them not to,” Johnnie F. answered. “At least, not if other people’s subjects are willing to live peacefully among our citizens, with the banner up. No use in creating grudges where none have to be. No use classifying people as enemies when maybe they’re not.”
“We might have a clearer idea of where the lines are going to fall out if they did,” Scott Blackwell remarked.
“They didn’t not take our oath because they love their landlords,” Johnnie F. pointed out. “They didn’t take it because they’ve already sworn a Huldigungseid to some other guy and we for sure didn’t have any authority to tick off lords who are, or might be, allies of Gustavus Adolphus by ripping off their peasants. We just ripped off the peasants of the lords who for sure are his enemies. Well, except for the gals.”
“What are my obligations if they do march?” That was Scott again. He was, after all, the military administrator.
Nobody else answered right away. Finally, Meyfarth said, “You can put the revolt down, as lords have always done before. It would contradict many of Herr Stearns’ words, but no one would be surprised, Herr Blackwell, if you gathered troops and did so. If that is the course upon which Herr Salatto and this council decide, that will be your obligation. And, as you have observed, Gustavus Adolphus is sending you a couple of regiments.”
Scott nodded.
“You could let it run, if that is the course upon which Herr Salatto and this council decide. That will unquestionably bring attacks on the houses and barns of landlords and overseers, the burning of castles, killings, with enough atrocity and ferocity that the margraves of Ansbach and Bayreuth, who are allies of Gustavus Adolphus, will come to fear that it will spill over into their lands. Until enough has happened that they can demand that he put it down. Until he might have to agree to their demands, which would drive a wedge between him and Herr Stearns.”
“Or?” Johnnie F. asked. There’s an ‘or’ in your voice.”
“Or, between now and then, you, all of you, here and in Bamberg and in Fulda, can try to harness it and direct it. Control it, as a cavalryman controls a war horse ten times his weight. Get it used to wearing reins. Try to ride a ram.”
* * *
Finally, Steve asked, “New business?”
Meyfarth pushed a sheet of paper across the table. “My resignation.”
They all looked at him, utterly shocked.
“I have done what I can for you. I will not be going back to Grantville or Thuringia. The University of Erfurt will have no lack of takers for its prestigious tenured professorships. Because of the death of Duke Johann Casimir, I am free of obligations to any lord.”
“So?” Saunders Wendell was deeply suspicious.
“Herr Wendell, for much of my life, I have been employed as an administrator or in diplomatic matters. But I am a pastor. That was my first oath. I assure you that I have prayed extensively in regard to this decision. I have also consulted with many others-with Dean Gerhard in Jena, with Professor Osiander from Tuebingen. Indeed, with your up-time colleague, Herr Lambert. I am going to Bamberg, where I am going to establish a Lutheran congregation in a Catholic city. Although much of the patriciate there was Protestant up into the 1620’s, the bishop’s campaign and the witch trials broke all organization among the Lutherans and took the property of the Lutheran churches and wealthy Lutherans such as Councilman Junius, whose daughter came into Grantville for refuge. Now, there are only a few who are openly Protestant, those who went into exile and have come back. Many who converted in order to stay are ashamed. We must begin again.”
The entire table buzzed with objections.
Meyfarth waited them out; then shook his head. “Herr Ellis was right, you know.”
Johnnie F. asked, “How?”
“When he said that what happened to you and Herr Thornton in Bamberg was because your special commissioners there did not take their assignment seriously enough. They paid it only lip service, and did a little around their regular jobs, when they had time. So the Bamberg authorities, such as Councilman Faerber, did not believe them when they said, “We mean it.’ They thought that it could be evaded.”
Johnnie F. nodded slowly.
“I know that many of you do not like Herr Ellis. You find him to be a harsh, prejudiced, abrasive man. You do not find him to be a colleague with whom you can work easily or well. But sometimes, harsh, prejudiced, unpleasant men are also right. It is my best judgment that in this matter, his opinion was correct. As I said already, I have prayed, a great deal, concerning this matter. So I am going to Bamberg. Without a prince and without a patron, with no consistory to pay me and no building in which any flock that I gather can meet. With no tithes to support me. With only my hope that you will continue to mean it when you say that there will be religious toleration in Franconia. And though I feel more like a lamb led to the slaughter than a belligerent ram, I shall nonetheless do this.”
Franconia, December, 1633
Willard Thornton stood at the unmarked crossroads. He was glad that his bicycle was in Bamberg; it would have been hard to push the thing over the hills in this snow. He wondered which of the two forks would lead him back to his bicycle.
A thin man, huddled into a black cloak, was coming up the road behind him, walking alone. Willard waited. Perhaps he knew which road went to Bamberg.
“Ah, Herr Thornton.”
“I’m, ah, afraid you have the advantage of me.”