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Prologue:
The Anaconda Project

November 1633

Prague, capital of Bohemia

“This is absurd,” said Morris Roth, as forcefully as he could. He had a bad feeling that wasn’t very forceful at all, given that he was wearing an absurd costume—he thought it was absurd, anyway, although it was just standard seventeenth-century courtier’s clothing. The entire situation was absurd.

A bit desperately, he repeated the statement. “This is absurd.” After a couple of seconds, he remembered to add: “Your Majesty.”

Fortunately, Wallenstein seemed to be in one of his whimsical moods, where the same possible slight that might have angered him at another time merely seemed to be a source of amusement. General Pappenheim—damn his black soul to whatever hideous afterlife there might be even if Morris didn’t actually believe in hell—was grinning outright.

“Ah, Morris. So modest!” Pappenheim’s scarred face was distorted still further as the grin widened. “How can you claim such a complete absence of heroic qualities? You! The Don at the Bridge!”

Morris glared at him. “It was just a job that needed doing, that’s all. So I did it. But what sort of lunat—ah…”

Calling the king of Bohemia a “lunatic” to his face was probably not wise. Morris was nimble-witted enough even under the circumstances to veer in midstream.

“…misadvised person would confuse me with a blasted general? Your Majesty, General Pappenheim, I am a jeweler.”

“What sort of person?” asked Wallenstein, chuckling softly. “A lunatic, perhaps. The same sort of lunatic who recently proclaimed himself King of Bohemia despite—yes, I will say it myself—a claim to the throne that is so threadbare it would shame a pauper. But who cares? Since I am also the same lunatic who won the second battle of the White Mountain.”

They were in the small salon in the palace that Wallenstein favored for intimate meetings. He planted his hands on the armrest of his rather modest chair and levered himself erect.

“Levered” was the correct term, too. Wallenstein’s health, always delicate, had been getting worse of late. Morris knew from private remarks by Wallenstein’s up-time nurse Edith Wild that she was increasingly worried about it. Some of the new king of Bohemia’s frailty was due to the rigors of his past military life. But most of it wasn’t. Wallenstein, unfortunately, was superstitious and still placed great faith in the advice of his new astrologers—including their advice on his diet. Morris had once heard Edith mutter that she was this close—a thumb and fingertip indicated perhaps an eighth of an inch—to getting her revolver and gunning down the astrologers.

It was not an inconceivable thought. Edith was quite ferocious, as she’d proved when she shot dead the assassination team sent to murder Wallenstein a few months earlier. The reason Wallenstein had new astrologers was because they’d replaced some of the old ones who’d been implicated in the plot.

“A jeweler,” Morris repeated. Even to his ears, the words sounded like a whine.

Pappenheim waved his hand airily. “And what of it? Every great general began his life as something else. Even a baker, perhaps.”

Morris glared at him again. “‘Began his life.’ I am in my fifties, for the love of God.”

“Don Morris, enough,” said Wallenstein firmly. “Your reluctance to assume the post of general in my army simply reinforces my conviction that I have made the right decision.”

“Why, Your Majesty?” demanded Morris, just as firmly. One of Wallenstein’s saving graces was that the man didn’t object to subordinates challenging him, up to a point, provided they were polite about it. “My military experience is limited to that of an enlisted soldier in the American army of another universe. What we called a ‘grunt’—with exactly the connotations you’d expect from the term. I wasn’t even in a combat unit. I was essentially a quartermaster’s clerk, that’s all, keeping military supply records.”

Smiling, Wallenstein looked at Pappenheim. For his part, Bohemia’s top general still had the same wolflike grin on his face.

“Limited to that? Oh, surely not, Don Morris,” said Pappenheim cheerily. “You forget the Battle of the Bridge. Which you led—not even you will deny that much—and which has since entered the legends of the Jews all across eastern Europe.”

Morris grit his teeth. “I said. It was just a job that needed to be done, and—”

“Enough, Morris,” repeated Wallenstein.

Morris fell silent. The fact that the king of Bohemia had dropped the honorific “Don”—which was an informal term, but significant nonetheless—made it clear that he considered the argument at an end. Whether Morris liked it or not, his new post as a general in the Bohemian army was a done deal.

“Follow me,” said Wallenstein, heading toward one of the doors in the small chamber. Even though Wallenstein was only fifty years old, he moved like a man twenty years older. It was rather painful to watch.

After following Wallenstein and Pappenheim through the door, Morris found himself in a chamber in the palace he’d never been in before. The chamber, also a small one, was completely dominated by a large table in the center of the room. The table itself was dominated by huge maps that covered its entire surface.

Once Morris was close enough to see the map on the very top of the pile, he had to restrain himself from hissing.

So. Here it was. He’d heard rumors of the thing, but never seen it.

The map had no legend, but the title of it was plain enough even if invisible. The Future Empire of Wallenstein the Great would do quite nicely.

Wallenstein and Pappenheim said nothing, for a while, giving Morris time to study the map.

His first impression never changed. The map could also have been titled How Little Bohemia Became an Anaconda.

Indeed, the “Bohemia” that the top map projected into the future did look like a constrictor, albeit a fat one. On the west, serving for the serpent’s head, lay Bohemia, Moravia and Upper Silesia. Then came a neck to the east, in the form of a new province that Wallenstein had labeled “Slovakia.” Presumably, he’d picked the name from one of the future history books he’d acquired. Which was all fine and dandy, except that in the here and now there was no country called “Slovakia.” What there was in its place was the northern part of the region of the Austrian empire known as Royal Hungary, the rump of Hungary that had been left to it by the Ottoman Turks after their victory over the kingdom of Hungary at the Battle of Mohács in 1526.

So. War with Austria. Check.

Of course, that was pretty much a given, with Wallenstein not only a rebel from Austria but allied to the USE. Hostilities between the USE and Austria had died down lately, since Gustav Adolf was preoccupied with his war against the League of Ostend. But nobody much doubted that they would flare up again, unless he lost the war against the alliance of France, Spain, England and Denmark. Assuming he won, everyone with any political knowledge and sense at all knew that Gustav Adolf would turn his attention to Saxony and Brandenburg, and the Austrians were likely to weigh in on the opposite side.

Still, rebelling against Austria and establishing an independent Bohemia was one thing. Continuing on to seize from the Austrians territory that had never been part of Bohemia was something else again.

It got worse. Or better, Morris supposed, depending on how you looked at it. He had to remind himself that, after all, this was the ultimate reason he’d come to Prague and decided to throw in with Wallenstein. The worst massacre that would ever fall upon Europe’s Jewish population prior to the Holocaust was “due to happen” in fifteen years, in the Chmielnicki Pogrom of 1648, unless something was done to upset the applecart.

Morris had finally decided that the best chance for upsetting that applecart—a very intractable applecart, given the social and economic factors involved—was to ally with Wallenstein and rely on him to be the battering ram.

He still thought that was the best alternative. What he hadn’t figured on was that Wallenstein would return him the favor and propose to make Morris the battering ram.

But he’d leave that aside, for the moment. He went back to studying the map.

East of “Slovakia,” the proposed new Greater Bohemia started getting fatter, like an anaconda that had just swallowed a pig. The big new belly of the new empire would consist of the southern part of the region that was often called Lesser Poland, a huge territory which comprised close to half of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the future history Morris came from, most of that would eventually become part of Ukraine.

War with Poland. Check.

Being honest, Morris knew that was pretty much a given also, if he was to have any hope of forestalling the Chmielnicki Pogrom. The noble magnates who dominated the political life of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth were bound to be hostile to any project which removed the corrosive social tensions in Lesser Poland. Much of their wealth and power came from those tensions.

From there, the map got rather vague. The northern boundary of Wallenstein’s proposed empire was not clearly defined, running somewhere south of Lviv and Kiev until it reached the Dnieper River, at which point it expanded southward to the Black Sea, gobbling up Moldova, Bessarabia and the city of Odessa. The exact boundary on the southeast was not distinct, either, being indicated by a shaded area rather than clear borders, although it generally seemed to follow the Dniester River. Morris suspected that Wallenstein wanted, if possible, to avoid any outright clashes with the Ottoman Empire. He’d take what he could, but stop short of challenging the Turks directly.

Marked in faint pencil lines further east was what amounted to a long tail that stretched into the southern regions of what Morris thought of as “Russia,” although in the seventeenth century the area—this was true of much of Lesser Poland, as well—was very much a borderland thinly inhabited by a wide mix of peoples.

So. War with Russia and the Cossacks. Check. Tatars too, most likely.

Morris let out a slow breath. Maybe war with the Muscovites and Tatars could be avoided. As for the Cossacks…

Mentally, he shrugged his shoulders. Morris had as much sympathy for the Cossacks as any late-twentieth-century Jew with a good knowledge of history.

Zilch.

Fuck ’em and the horses they rode in on. The same bastards who led the Chmielnicki Pogrom—and then served the Tsars as their iron fist in the pogroms at Kiev and Kishinev.

Wallenstein and Pappenheim still weren’t saying anything. Morris leaned back a little and started scrutinizing the map again, west to east.

The plan was…shrewd. Very shrewd, the more he studied the map.

Morris didn’t know exactly where the ethnic and religious lines lay in the here and now. Not everywhere, for sure and certain. But he knew enough to realize that what Wallenstein proposed to do was to gut the soft underbellies of every one of Bohemia’s neighbors.

Silesia, in this era, was not yet really part of Poland, as it would become in later centuries in the universe Morris had come from. Its population was an ethnic mix, drawn from many sources—most of whom, at least in the big towns and cities, were Protestants, not Catholics.

Despite the name, “Royal Hungary” in the seventeenth century was mostly a Slavic area, ruled by the Magyars but with no real attachment to Hungary. Morris wouldn’t be at all surprised if most of its inhabitants would view a Bohemian conquest as something in the way of a liberation. They certainly weren’t likely to rally to the side of their Austrian and Hungarian overlords.

Moving still further east, the same was true again. Parts of “Lesser Poland” had little in the way of a Polish population—and that often consisted mostly of Polish noblemen grinding their Ruthenian serfs under. As for the Ruthenians themselves, the name was not even one that they’d originated, but a Latin label that had been slapped onto them by western European scholars. In a future time, most of them would eventually become Ukrainians. But, in this day and age, they were a mix of mostly Slavic immigrants with a large minority of Jews living here and there among them.

Most of the Jews lived in the larger towns and were engaged in a wide range of mercantile and manufacturing activities. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth did not maintain in practice the same tight restrictions on Jewish activity that most realms in Europe did. Unfortunately, a number of them had also moved out into rural areas.

“Unfortunately,” from Morris’ viewpoint, because these Jews did not spread into the countryside as farmers. Instead, they spread as rent collectors and overseers of the large landed estates maintained by mostly absentee Polish and Lithuanian magnates. They were universally hated by the Ruthenian peasantry—who, in the nature of things, did not make any fine distinctions between the small class of Jews who exploited them and the great majority of the Jewish populations in the towns who were simply going about their business.

Wallenstein’s shrewdness was evident wherever Morris looked on the map. He did not propose to take Kraków, for instance. Looked at from one angle, that was a little silly. At the end of the year 1633, the population of Kraków was also mostly non-Polish. Wallenstein could even advance a threadbare claim to the city, since it had once been under the authority of the kingdom of Bohemia.

But the Poles had an emotional attachment to Kraków, since it had once served as their capital city—and still was, officially, although the real capital was now Warsaw. Kraków’s Jagiellonian University was still Poland’s most prestigious center of learning. So, Wallenstein would seize everything south of the Vistula but did not propose to cross the river and seize Kraków itself. Thereby, he’d avoid as best he could stirring up Polish nationalism, while establishing a defensible border.

Sum it all up and what you had was what amounted to Wallenstein’s preemptive strike at every existing realm in eastern Europe. He would seize all the territories that each of them claimed—but for which none of them had really established any mutual allegiance. The end result, if his plans worked, would be a Bohemian Empire that rivaled in territory and population any of the nations in Europe.

Morris scanned the map again, west to east. With Prague as the capital—it was already one of the great cities of Europe—the rest of Wallenstein’s empire would consist of mostly rural territory stitched together by a number of cities. Pressburg, and possibly Lviv, Lublin, Kiev—maybe even Pinsk, way to the north, in what would someday become Belarus.

Morris couldn’t help but chuckle. Pinsk, which already had a large Jewish population and would, by the end of the nineteenth century, have a population that was ninety percent Jewish.

There weren’t many Jews in Pressburg. But Lviv, Lublin and Kiev were heavily Jewish.

“You propose to use us as your cannon fodder,” he said. “Jews, I mean.”

“Yes, of course. It’s either that or serve the Cossacks as mincemeat fifteen years from now. Make your choice.”

Idly, Morris wondered where he’d gotten the term “mincemeat,” which Wallenstein had said in English. Probably from Edith Wild.

Make your choice.

Put that way, it was easy enough.

“I’ll need the Brethren,” Morris said.

“Yes, you will. Not a problem.” Wallenstein’s long finger came to rest on Lublin. “There is a very large concentration of the Brethren here, you know. And others, scattered throughout the region.”

Morris hadn’t known the Brethren had a presence in Lublin. The news caused him to relax a little. If the Brethren could also serve as what amounted to Wallenstein’s social garrisons in the major cities of his proposed empire, that would remove some of the tension on the Jews. They were themselves Christians, after all.

So…it might work—assuming Morris had any chance of translating his pitiful military experience into something worth a damn on the battlefield.

It was Pappenheim who crystallized the thought that Morris was groping toward.

“Stop thinking of being a ‘general’ in narrow terms,” said the man who was perhaps the current world’s best exemplar of a general in narrow terms. Pappenheim was a man of the battlefield, with little interest in anything else. “Think of it in broad terms. You simply have to organize the military effort, while you concentrate on political matters. Let others, better suited for the task, lead the troops on the field.”

He grinned again in that savage way he had. Then, jabbed a thumb at Wallenstein. “That’s what he does, mostly, you know.”

Morris stared at Wallenstein. The recently crowned king of Bohemia and proposed usurper of much of eastern Europe stared right back at him.

It was true, actually. Wallenstein hadn’t been so much a general as what you might call a military contractor. He put together armies—and then found men like Pappenheim to lead them into battle.

Put that way…

It didn’t sound quite so bad. Of course, Morris would still have to find his equivalent of Pappenheim, since he had no doubt that Pappenheim himself would be fully occupied in the next few years fighting Bohemia’s immediate enemies. That’d be the Austrians, mostly.

Morris looked back at the map, trying to estimate the territory Wallenstein expected him to seize and hold over the next few years. At a rough guess, somewhere around one hundred thousand square miles. About the size of Colorado or Wyoming, he thought. Just what a former army supply clerk-cum-jeweler had always expected he’d wind up doing.

“Piece of cake,” he said.

October 1634

Vienna, capital of Austria-Hungary

“So, what do you think?” asked Piccolomini. The Italian general from Florence who was now in Austrian service raised his cup.

The man sitting across from him at the round little table in the small but very crowded tavern frowned down at the cup in front of him. He’d only had a few sips of the dark liquid contained therein. He still didn’t know what he thought of the stuff—and he certainly would never have ordered it himself, as expensive as the concoction was.

His name was Franz von Mercy. He came from a noble family in Lorraine, not Italy, as did his table companion. But in other respects, they were quite similar. Like Piccolomini, von Mercy was a general and a professional soldier. They were long-acquainted, if not quite friends.

There was one critical difference between them, however, which explained part of von Mercy’s skepticism toward the black substance in his cup. Ottavio Piccolomini was gainfully employed by the Habsburg ruler of Austria and von Mercy was not.

In fact, he was not employed by anyone. Just a short time earlier, he’d been in the service of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria. But after the traitor Cratz von Scharffenstein surrendered the fortress of Ingolstadt to the Swedes, von Mercy had taken his cavalrymen and fled Bavaria. He’d known full well that, despite his own complete innocence in the affair, the murderous duke of Bavaria would blame him for the disaster and have him executed.

So, he’d come to Vienna, hoping to find employment with the Habsburgs. But he’d been turned down, with only this bizarre new hot drink offered by way of compensation.

He looked up from the cup to the window. He’d wondered, when they came into the restaurant, why the owners had defaced perfectly good windowpanes by painting a sign across them. And he’d also wondered why they chose to call their establishment a café instead of a tavern.

Now he knew the answer to both questions.

“God-damned Americans,” he muttered.

Piccolomini winced at the blasphemy, even though he was known to commit the sin himself. Perhaps he felt obliged to put on that public display of disapproval since he was now quite prominent in the Austrian ranks. They were, after all, right in the heart of Vienna—not more than a few minutes’ walk from either St. Stephen’s Cathedral or the emperor’s palace.

“Damned they may well be,” said Piccolomini. Again, he lifted his cup. “But I enjoy this new beverage of theirs.”

“Coffee,” said von Mercy, still muttering more than talking aloud. “We already had coffee, Octavio.”

His companion shrugged. “True. But it was the Americans who made it popular. As they have done with so many other things.”

He set the cup down. “And stop blaming them for your misfortunes. It’s silly and you know it. They had nothing to do with Scharffenstein’s treason—they certainly can’t be blamed for Maximilian’s madness!—and it’s not because of them that the emperor decided not to hire you. That, he did for the same sort of reasons of state that have led rulers to make similar decisions for centuries.” He paused while he picked up the cup and drained it. “I happen to love coffee, myself.”

He gave his fellow officer a look of sympathy and commiseration. “Tough on you, I know. Tougher still on your men. But look at it from Ferdinand’s perspective, Franz. He’s expecting a resumption of hostilities with the Swede and his Americans by next year. No matter how badly Maximilian has behaved and no matter how much the emperor detests him, do you honestly expect Ferdinand to take the risk of escalating the already-high tensions between Austria and Bavaria by hiring a general who—from Duke Maximilian’s peculiar point of view, I agree, but that’s the viewpoint at issue here—has so recently infuriated Bavaria?”

He shook his head and placed the cup back on the table. “It’s not going to happen, Franz. I’m sorry, I really am. Not simply because you’re something of a friend of mine, but—being honest—because you’re a good cavalry commander, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I have need of one before long.”

Glumly, von Mercy nodded. He realized, in retrospect, that he should have foreseen this when he left Bavaria. He knew enough of the continent’s strategic configurations, after all, being by now a man in his mid-forties and a very experienced and highly placed military commander.

He’d have done better to have accompanied his friend von Werth to seek employment with Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar. Bernhard would certainly not have cared about the attitude of the Bavarians, seeing as he was already infuriating Maximilian by threatening to seize some of his territory. Or so, at least, Maximilian was sure to interpret Bernhard’s actions—but, as Octavio said, it was the Bavarian duke’s viewpoint that mattered here.

Nothing for it, then. He’d have to head for the Rhine, after all, and see if Saxe-Weimar might still be in the market. Von Mercy could feel his jaws tightening at the prospect of leading a large cavalry force across—around—who knew?—a goodly stretch of Europe already inhabited by large and belligerent armies. Most of whom had no reason to welcome his arrival, and some of whom would actively oppose it.

Alternatively, he could head for Bohemia and see if Wallenstein might be interested in hiring him. But…

He managed to keep the wince from showing in his face. That would be certain to infuriate his Austrian hosts, who’d so far been very pleasant even if they’d declined to employ him and his men. He had even less desire to fight his way out of Austria than he did to fight his way to the Rhine.

He heard Piccolomini chuckle, and glanced up. The Italian general was giving him a look that combined shrewdness with—again—sympathy and commiseration.

“I have another possible offer of work for you, Franz. And one that is rather close at hand.”

Von Mercy frowned. “The only possibility I can think of, close at hand, would be Wallenstein. And why would you or anyone in Austrian service be sending me to Wallenstein? Like as not, a year from now, you’d be facing me across a battlefield.”

A waiter appeared. Piccolomini must have summoned him, and Franz had been too preoccupied to notice.

“Another coffee for me,” the Italian general said. He cocked a quizzical eyebrow at von Mercy. “And you? What’s in your cup must already be cold.”

Franz couldn’t see what particular difference the temperature of the beverage would make. Hot or cold, it would still be extremely bitter. But…

Piccolomini was obviously in an expansive mood, and under the circumstances Franz felt it prudent to encourage him. “Yes, certainly. And thank you.”

After the waiter was gone, Piccolomini leaned across the table and spoke softly.

“Not Wallenstein directly. In fact, part of the agreement would be that you’d have to be willing to give me your oath that—under no circumstances—would you allow yourself or your soldiers to be used directly against Austria. But…yes, in a way you’d be working for Wallenstein. He wouldn’t be the one paying you, though, which—”

He gave von Mercy a vulpine grin. “—is always the critical issue for we mercenaries, isn’t it? Or ‘professional soldiers,’ if you prefer the circumlocution.”

Franz felt his shoulders stiffen, and forced himself to relax. He did prefer the circumlocution, in point of fact. If that’s what it was at all, which he didn’t believe for a moment. The difference between a mercenary and a professional soldier might be thin, but it was still real. A mercenary cared only for money. A professional soldier always placed honor first.

As Piccolomini knew perfectly well, damn the crude Italian bastard—or he wouldn’t have made this offer in the first place. He’d take Franz von Mercy’s oath not to allow himself to be used against Austria as good coin, because it was and he knew it. He’d certainly not do the same for a mere mercenary.

“Who, then?” he asked.

Piccolomini seemed to hesitate. Then, abruptly: “How do you feel about Jews?”

Von Mercy stared at him. His mind was…

Blank.

Piccolomini might as well have asked him how he felt about the natives in the antipodes—or, for that matter, the ones that speculation placed on the moon but which Franz had heard the Americans said was impossible.

What did Jews have to do with military affairs? They were the least martial people of Europe. For any number of obvious reasons, starting with the fact that most realms in the continent forbade them from owning firearms. About the only contact professional soldiers ever had with them involved finances, and that was usually only an indirect connection.

Belatedly, Franz remembered that he’d also heard some rumors concerning recent developments among the Jewry of Prague. They’d played a prominent role in repulsing the attack of General Holk on the city, apparently. That had allowed Wallenstein to keep most of his army in the field and defeat the Austrians the previous year at the second battle of the White Mountain.

They were even supposed to have produced a prince of their own, out of the business. An American Jew, if he recalled correctly.

Throughout the long pause, Piccolomini had been watching von Mercy. Now, he added: “Yes, that’s right. Your employer would be a Jew. An American Jew, to be precise, who is now highly placed in Wallenstein’s service.”

Franz rummaged through his memory, trying to find the name. He knew he’d heard it, at least once. But, like most such items of information that didn’t seem to have any relevance to him, he’d made no special effort to commit the name to memory.

Piccolomini provided it. “His name is Roth. Morris Roth.” He smiled, a bit crookedly. “Or Don Morris, as the Jews like to call him. They fancy their own aristocracy, you know. At least, the Sephardim always have, and it seems the Ashkenazim as well.”

Franz noted—to his surprise; but then, he didn’t really know the man that well—that Octavio knew that much about the inner workings of Jewry. So did Franz himself, from a now long-past friendship with a Jewish shoemaker. But most Christians didn’t, certainly not most soldiers.

He realized, then, the purpose of Piccolomini’s probing questions. And, again, was a bit surprised. He wouldn’t have thought the outwardly bluff Italian soldier would have cared about such things.

“I have no particular animus against Jews, if that’s what you’re wondering.” He smiled crookedly himself. “I admit, I’ve never once contemplated the possibility that one of them might wish to hire me. For what? In the nature of things, Jews don’t have much need for professional soldiers.”

“Or a need so great that it is too great to be met,” said Piccolomini. “But, yes, in times past you’d have been quite correct. But the times we live in today are ones in which the nature of things is changing. Quite rapidly, sometimes.”

The waiter returned, bringing two hot cups of coffee. Piccolomini waited until he was gone, and then picked up his cup and leaned back in his chair. Still speaking rather softly, he said: “Well, then. Let’s savor our coffees, and then I’ll take you to meet someone.”

“Roth?”

Piccolomini shook his head. “No, Roth himself is in Prague, so far as I know. The man I’ll be taking you to is one of his agents. Uriel Abrabanel, of the famous clan by that name.” The Italian blew on his coffee. “Famous among Sephardim, anyway.”

Quite famous, in fact. The Jewish shoemaker whom Franz had known in his youth had once told him, very proudly, that he himself was—admittedly, rather distantly—related to the Abrabanels.

“Famous to many people, nowadays,” said Franz, “seeing as how the wife of the prime minister of the United States of Europe is an Abrabanel. And has become rather famous herself—or notorious, depending on how you look at it.”

Piccolomini nodded, and took an appreciative sip of his coffee. “She has, indeed. The redoubtable Rebecca Abrabanel. I’ve been told that Cardinal Richelieu himself remarked upon her shrewdness—which, coming from him, is quite a compliment.”

“Yes, it is. Although many people might liken it to one devil complimenting another on her horns and cloven hoofs.”

“Oh, surely not,” chuckled Piccolomini. “The woman is said to be extraordinarily comely, in fact. So I’m told, anyway.”

He chuckled again, more heavily. “What I know for certain, however, is that she’s the niece of the man you’ll be meeting very soon. So do be alert, Franz. Uriel Abrabanel would be described as ‘comely’ by no one I can think of, not even his now dead wife. But he’s certainly very shrewd.”

It was Franz’s turn to hesitate. Then, realizing he simply needed to know, he asked: “At the risk of being excessively blunt, Octavio, I must ask why you are doing me this favor?”

Again, the Florentine issued that distinctively heavy chuckle. “Good question. You’d really do better to ask Janos Drugeth. Know him? He’s one of the emperor’s closest advisers.”

Von Mercy shook his head. “The name’s familiar, of course. He’s reputed to be an accomplished cavalry commander and I try to keep track of such. But I’ve never met him and don’t really know much about him.”

“Well, Janos is also one of Ferdinand’s closest friends, and has been since they were boys. This was his idea, actually, not mine.” Piccolomini made something of a face. “For my taste, the reasoning behind it is a bit too convoluted. Quite a bit, being honest.”

Franz cocked an eyebrow. “And the reasoning is…Indulge me, if you would.”

“I suppose there’s no reason you shouldn’t know. Drugeth is not in favor of continuing the hostilities between Austria and Bohemia, and thinks we’d be wiser to let things stand as they are. Personally, I disagree—and so does the emperor, for that matter. But Ferdinand listens carefully to whatever Janos says, even when he’s not persuaded. And Janos suggested this ploy as a way of encouraging Wallenstein to look elsewhere than Austria for any territorial aggrandizement. We know that he’s appointed Morris Roth to expand his realm to the east. But how is Roth supposed to do that without a military force? So, Drugeth thinks we should help provide him with one.”

Von Mercy nodded. Up to a point, he could follow the reasoning. War had a grim and inexorable logic of its own. Once the Bohemians began a real effort to expand to the east, in all likelihood they would find themselves getting drawn deeper and deeper into the effort. The more they did so, the less of a threat they would pose to Austria to the south.

There came a point, however, at which the logic began to crumble. Granted, Franz was more familiar with the geography of western Europe than central Europe. Still, one thing was obvious.

“‘Expanding his realm to the east’ will take him directly into Royal Hungary, Octavio.”

Piccolomini grimaced. “So it will, indeed—and don’t think I didn’t point that out to the emperor and Janos both. I thought that would end the business, since the Drugeth family’s own major estates are in Royal Hungary. But Janos—he’s an odd one, if you ask me—didn’t seem to feel that was much of a problem. In the end, the emperor decided there was enough there to warrant making the connection between you and the Jew in Prague.”

He gave Franz a stern look. “But I stress that we will want your vow not to take the field against us.”

“Yes, certainly. But you understand, surely, that if I enter—indirectly or not, it doesn’t matter—the service of Wallenstein, that I will simply be freeing up some other general and his forces to come against you.”

The Italian shrugged. “True enough. But they’re not likely to have your skills, either. I think what finally convinced the emperor was Drugeth’s point that if we simply let you roam loose as a free agent, since we didn’t want to hire you ourselves, the end result was likely to be worse for us than having you leading Wallenstein”—he waved his hand toward the east—“somewhere out there into the marshes of the Polish and Lithuanian rivers.”

Once more, that heavy chuckle. “It was hard to dispute that point, at least.”

* * *

After they left the tavern—or “café,” rather—Piccolomini glanced up at the sky, which had grown leaden.

“Getting cold,” he said, reaching up and drawing his cloak around him more tightly.

Von Mercy followed suit. The temperature wasn’t too bad, but there was something of a wind that added considerably to the chill. “Where are we headed? Unterer Werd?”

Piccolomini shook his head. “No. The ghetto would be too far from the center of things for Abrabanel’s purposes. And he’s got plenty of money.” With his chin, he pointed straight ahead down the street. “Just up there a ways. Less than a five-minute walk.”

Franz was a bit surprised, but only a bit. Although Jews in Vienna usually lived in the ghetto located on the island formed by the Danube and one of its side branches, the city did not enforce the provision strictly if the Jew involved was wealthy enough.

As they walked, Franz noticed two other taverns sporting the new title of “café.”

“I swear, it’s a plague,” he muttered.

Glancing in the direction of von Mercy’s glower, Piccolomini smiled. “If you think it’s bad here, you should see what it’s like in Italy. My younger brother is the archbishop of Siena and he told me there was almost a public riot there a few months ago, because of a dispute involving the rules in a game of soccer.”

“A game of…what?”

“Soccer. If you don’t know what it is, be thankful all you have to contend with is the occasional tavern with pretensions. And pray to God that you never have to deal with the intricacies of baseball.”

“Intricacies of…what?”

“Never mind. Stick to the cavalry, Franz.”

A few dozen yards further along, Piccolomini pointed with his chin again. This time, at a small shop they were nearing. There was a sign over the door, reading: SUGAR AND THINGS.

“There’s the real money,” said the Florentine general. “That shop’s owned by a partnership between two local merchants and one of the American mechanics whom the emperor hired recently to keep his two automobiles running. Sanderlin’s his name—although it’s really his wife who’s involved in the business.”

“They are sugar importers?”

“Yes—but mostly they process it into something called ‘confectioner’s sugar’ and sell it to the city’s wealthiest residents and most expensive restaurants.” He shook his head. “Sugar is already worth its weight in gold. What they do with it…”

He shook his head again. “But people are besotted with things American—especially anything they can find involving Vienna in those up-time tourist guides. So, they say Vienna needs its cafés with coffee and pastries—and the best pastries require confectioner’s sugar.”

“A plague, as I said.”

“May as well get used to it, Franz,” Piccolomini said heavily. “When Wallenstein’s Croats failed in their raid on Grantville, all of Europe was doomed to this lunacy. Even in Paris, I’m told.”

He stopped in front of a nondescript doorway. Just one of many along the street, marked in no particular way.

“And here we are.”

* * *

Uriel Abrabanel proved to be, just as Piccolomini had said, a man whom no one would think to call “comely.” He was saved from outright ugliness only by the fact that an animated and jovial spirit imparted a certain flair to his coarse and pox-marked features. It was hard to believe, though, that the man was closely related—uncle, no less—to Rebecca Abrabanel, reputed to be one of the great beauties of Europe.

But von Mercy was skeptical of that reputation, anyway. He didn’t doubt the woman was attractive, probably quite attractive. But he was sure that the near-Helenic reputation given to her appearance was mostly the product of the same glamorous aura that surrounded everything American by now, almost four years after the Ring of Fire. An aura that was just as strong—probably stronger, in fact—among the peoples who were the USE’s enemies than those who lived under Stearns’ rule directly or counted themselves as his allies. Unlike the Swedes or the Germans or the Dutch, who had had many occasions to encounter Americans or their Abrabanel associates directly, for most Austrians or French or Italians (outside of Venice)—to say nothing of Spaniards or Poles—they remained mostly a matter of legend and hearsay.

And if much of the hearsay and many of the legends involved their wicked ways and nefarious schemes, there was no reason those couldn’t be combined with other qualities. So, if Mike Stearns was a relentless savage bent upon destroying all that was fine and sensible about Europe’s social and political arrangements, he was also surely the most cunning and astute barbarian who had stalked the earth since Attila raged out of the east. So also, if his Jewish spymaster Nasi was evil incarnate he was also intellect incarnate—just as Stearns’ Jewish wife combined the appearance of a goddess with a spirit fouled by the demons of the Pit.

For, indeed, the same aura extended to those closely associated with the Americans, even if they were not American themselves. That was especially true of the Jews, especially the Sephardim of the widely flung and prominent Abrabanel clan.

Franz believed none of it. He’d read some of the philosophical and theological speculations concerning the nature and cause of the Ring of Fire. But, in the end, he’d come to the same conclusions that, by all accounts, the Americans had come to themselves. Namely, that they had no idea what had caused the miraculous phenomenon, and they were certainly not miraculous themselves. Just people, that’s all. Granted, people from a distant future possessed of incredible mechanical skills and knowledge. But no more exotic, for all that, than visitors from Cathay.

Less exotic, in most ways. They spoke a well-known European language, and most of them were Christians. And all of them except a small number of African and Chinese extraction were of European origin. Solid and sturdy origin, at that: English, German, and Italian, for the most part.

As von Mercy had been ruminating over these matters, Abrabanel had spent his time studying Franz himself. Eventually, he seemed to be satisfied with something he saw, if Franz interpreted his expression correctly.

“Not a bigot, then,” Abrabanel said softly. “Octavio told me as much”—here he gave the Florentine general a sly glance—“and I was inclined to believe him, even though he is an Italian and thus of duplicitous stock. So unlike we simple and straightforward Hebrews and even simpler and more straightforward Lorrainers.”

Franz couldn’t help but laugh. Partly, at the jest itself; partly, at the truth lurking within it. For, in point of simple fact, the seemingly bluff Piccolomini was a consummately political general, as you’d expect of a man from a prominent family in the Florentine aristocracy. He’d spent a good portion of his years as a military officer serving more in the capacity of a diplomat or even—in truth if not in name—as what amounted to a spy.

Duplicitous, as such, he might not be. But Franz didn’t doubt for a moment that lies could issue from Octavio Piccolomini’s lips as smoothly and evenly as a gentle tide sweeps over a beach.

He recalled himself to the matter at hand. “No, I am not a bigot. I claim no particular fondness for Jews, mind you. But I bear no hostility against you, either. What I don’t understand, is what any of that has to do with your purpose in asking me here.” He nodded toward Piccolomini. “Nor why you needed to use him as your conduit.”

“In answer to the second question, I am not actually using Octavio as my conduit to you. It would be more accurate to say that I am using him as my conduit—say better, my liaison-at-a-comfortable-distance—with Emperor Ferdinand.”

The logic was clear enough, once Franz thought about it. “Ah. You feel that if you employed me directly, the Austrians might fret themselves over the purpose of the employment. And then, out of anxiety—”

“Oh, that’s far too strong a term, Franz!” protested Piccolomini. “Don’t give yourself airs! We would—at most—be motivated by reasonable caution.”

He bestowed a fulsome grin upon von Mercy and Abrabanel both.

Franz returned the grin with a thin smile. “Out of reasonable caution, then”—he looked back at Uriel—“they would take steps that you might find annoying.”

“Oh, ridiculous!” boomed Piccolomini. “That he might find disastrous to his plans! Utterly destructive to his schemes. Might lay waste his entire project for years to come.” The grin returned. “That sort of thing. Much the better way to put it.”

“Indeed,” said Uriel, smiling also. “This way, at every stage, the Austrians are kept—to use a handy little American expression—‘in the loop.’ I think that will serve everyone nicely.”

Piccolomini brought a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat noisily. “Except…well, Wallenstein, perhaps. If he finds out that I’m involved in any way. I assume he’s still holding a grudge?”

“Well, yes. Of course he is, Octavio. His name is Albrecht von Wallenstein and you did, after all, plot and carry out his murder.”

Piccolomini waved a meaty hand. “In another world! In this one, it never happened! And that, only according to a detestable play by a German of very dubious reputation. Why, the man hasn’t even been born yet. How can anyone believe a word he says?”

All three men laughed, now. Friedrich Schiller’s drama Wallenstein was now one of the best-known plays in central Europe and very widely published and performed—despite the fact that it wouldn’t have been written until the year 1800 and only one copy of it had existed in Grantville. Partly, because the subject was still alive and now king of Bohemia, a position he’d never achieved in Schiller’s universe. And partly—such was the universally held suspicion—because Wallenstein secretly financed the play’s publication and many of its performances. Although Wallenstein had its criticisms of the man who gave the play its title, the portrait of him was by and large quite favorable.

When the laughter died away, Uriel shook his head. “But I saw no reason—and see none now—for Wallenstein to know anything of your role in this business. All he will know, if all goes well, is that I met a fortunately unemployed cavalry commander of excellent reputation in Vienna and hired him on behalf of Don Morris.”

Piccolomini rubbed his jaw for a moment, and then nodded. “Well. You’re probably right.”

Uriel turned to von Mercy. “My proposition is simple enough, General. As you may or may not know—and I suspect you do, at least the gist of it—the king of Bohemia has entrusted Don Morris Roth to see to Bohemia’s interests to the east. Among those interests—this is at the center of Don Morris’ own concerns, as well as mine—is included a reasonable and just resolution of the Jewish issues involved.”

Franz managed not to wince. He could think of several possible resolutions to what Abrabanel was very delicately calling “the Jewish issues involved” in the politics of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the sprawling lands and peoples of Ruthenia. But neither “reasonable” nor “just” was likely to be part of them.

But all he said was, “Not so easily done. And if it can be done, it won’t be done by cavalry.”

Uriel now grinned. “And an honest man, too! No, General, it can’t be done by cavalry. In the end, in fact—such is Don Morris’ opinion, and I share it—the matter can’t be resolved by any sort of military force. But what cavalry can do, as we wrestle with the problem, is keep someone else from imposing their own very unreasonable and unjust solution.”

“Possibly. Although it will take more than one regiment of cavalry.”

“Quite a bit more, in fact.” Abrabanel leaned forward in his chair. “But here’s the thing, General. We can train—so we believe, at least—a powerful enough military force out of our own resources.”

Franz raised an eyebrow. “From Jews? Meaning no offense, but I find that unlikely.”

Abrabanel shrugged. “It was done in another universe. A very powerful military force, in fact. But it won’t simply be Jews, in any event. The Brethren are with us also, and—”

“Socinians.” That came from Piccolomini, who, for all his cosmopolitanism and sophistication, had more than a little in the way of straightforward Italian Catholic attitudes. The word was practically sneered. “Heretics who make Lutherans and Calvinists look sane. And I thought they were pacifists, which just proves how mad they are.”

“No, you have them confused with the Polish Brethren. The Brethren I speak of are the Bohemian Brethren, the ones descended from the Hussites. They’re quite Trinitarian, I assure you.” He made a little fluttering motion with both hands. “But whether they are heretics or not—and as a Jew, I would not presume to judge such Christian matters—I can assure you that they are quite capable of fighting, Octavio. They did very well against Holk’s forces last year.”

He turned back to von Mercy. “But here’s the thing—as you well know from your own experience. Without the traditions involved, there is no way we can forge a good cavalry force on our own.”

After a moment, Franz nodded. At least, this Don Morris and his Abrabanel agent were not so wildly impractical as to imagine they could conjure up good cavalry from the ranks of ghetto dwellers and rustics.

Infantry…yes. Perhaps even artillery, if not too much was demanded of it in the way of maneuvering. But cavalrymen, like archers, almost had to be born to it. At the very least, they had to have spent years learning all the necessary skills.

“So. And for that, you seek to hire me. Yes?”

“Exactly.”

“And the terms?”

Abrabanel’s description was short, clear and to the point. When he was done, von Mercy studied him for a few seconds.

“And all this is going to come from the purse of one man? Who is not even a duke, much less a king. Pardon me, but I find that hard to believe. I’m not a village peasant, who thinks a ‘rich Jew’ is some sort of devil-summoned creature with bottomless coffers.”

Uriel smiled. “You might be surprised, actually, at how rich some of these up-timers have gotten. The Roth fortune derives largely from cut jewelry, of which at the moment they have an effective monopoly and is a rage sweeping Europe. More than one monarch—and any number of dukes—are opening up their coffers to obtain the new gems. And, at that, Don Morris’ wealth is rather small compared to the fortune being amassed by the Stone family with their pharmaceutical and chemical works. Still—”

He waggled fingers in a gesture that simultaneously dismissed the problem and cautioned the need for discretion. “Not all of the funds, of course, will come from Don Morris himself. Probably not even most of them. I said that Wallenstein was not directly involved here. I did not say he was not involved at all.”

Von Mercy leaned back in his chair, and felt the tension caused by the Austrian emperor’s refusal to hire him begin to ease. It seemed he would be able to keep his regiment intact, after all. Some of those men had been with him for years and would have been very difficult to replace quickly if at all.

In fact, he had heard tales of the wealth of the man Roth in Prague. The intricately carved new jewelry he and his partners had introduced to Europe was, indeed, all the rage—at least, among those circles who could afford such gems at all. But there were a lot of noblemen in Europe, many of whom were very wealthy themselves—and it seemed as if each and every one of them was bound and determined to acquire one of the dazzling new “Prague jewels,” as they were now being called.

And if Wallenstein was also involved, even if only at the level of providing funds through the back door…

Yes. Roth could afford to employ an experienced general and a regiment of cavalry, even on the munificent terms he was offering.

“Done,” he said. “Where do you want me to take my troops? And by what date, and by what route?”

“As to where, Brno. Wallenstein—Roth is in charge of it—has launched an armaments industry there, so it seems a good place to station your regiment. Especially since Brno is in Moravia, not Bohemia, which should reassure Emperor Ferdinand that you are not a threat to Austria.”

“It’s not far from the Moravian Gate, either,” observed von Mercy.

“No, it isn’t,” said Uriel, smiling. The Moravian Gate was the great pass between the Carpathian and Sudetes mountains that allowed easy access into Poland and the lands beyond.

“As to when…” Uriel shrugged. “There is really no great hurry. Two months from now would be ideal, but three months would be acceptable if you need that much time.”

He made a little grimace. “The tricky question is by what route, of course. Given the unfortunate state of hostilities between Austria and Bohemia.”

He glanced at Piccolomini.

“I’m afraid not,” said the Florentine officer. “To allow Franz and his troops to pass directly from Austria into Bohemia would be just that little too blatant and obvious. So I’m afraid he’ll have to take the longer route.”

“That’s time-consuming but not difficult,” said von Mercy. “Provided I’m given free passage through the USE. I’ll need to pass through the whole of the Oberpfalz and enter Bohemia at Cheb.”

Uriel’s good cheer was back in full force. “Not a problem.”

Piccolomini and von Mercy both gave him skeptical looks.

“Johan Banér’s in command of the USE Army in the Oberpfalz,” pointed out Piccolomini.

“And he is, by all accounts,” added Franz, “choleric to the point of lunacy.”

“Banér.” Abrabanel spoke the word much the way he might have named an insect. “Merely a general. Meaning no offense. Did I mention that my niece dotes upon me? And she, in turn, is doted upon by her husband?”

After a bit, his grin was met with two smiles.

“Well, then,” said Piccolomini. “All seems to be well.”

November 1634

Prague, capital of Bohemia

“You look tired, Melissa,” said Judith Roth. She gestured to a luxurious divan in the great salon of the Roth mansion. “Please, have a seat.”

Melissa Mailey went over to the divan, hobbling a little from the effects of the ten-day journey from Grantville, and plopped herself down. Her companion James Nichols remained standing, after giving the couch no more than a quick glance. Instead, his hands on his hips, he swiveled slowly and considered the entire room.

Then, whistled admiringly. “You’ve certainly come up in the world, folks.”

Judith smiled. Her husband Morris looked somewhat embarrassed. “Hey, look,” he said, “it wasn’t really my idea.”

“That’s it,” scoffed his wife. “Blame the woman.”

The defensive expression on Morris’ face deepened. “I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just…”

The gesture that accompanied the last two words was about as feeble as the words themselves.

“The situation,” he concluded lamely.

Nichols grinned at him. “Morris, relax. I understand the realities, what with your being not only one of the king of Bohemia’s closest advisers but also what amounts to the informal secular prince of Prague’s Jewry. Of at least half the Jews in eastern Europe, actually, from what Balthazar Abrabanel told us.”

Looking a bit less exhausted, Melissa finally took the time to appraise the room. And some more time, appraising Morris’ very fancy-looking seventeenth-century apparel.

Then, she whistled herself.

“Et tu, Brutus?” Morris grumbled.

“Quit complaining,” Melissa said. “You asked us to come here, remember? With ‘Urgent!’ and ‘Desp’rate Need!’ oozing from every line of your letter.”

“Asked you,” qualified Nichols. “Me, he just wanted to come here to give some advice to his fledgling medical faculty at his fancy new university. I’m just a country doctor.”

“From Chicago,” Melissa jeered. “South side, to boot—which has about as much open land as Manhattan.”

James grinned again. “You’d be surprised how much open land there is in Chicago’s south side. Vacant lots, I’ll grant you. Nary a crop to be seen anywhere except the stuff handed out by drug dealers, none of which was actually grown there. My point remains. I’m here in Prague as a modest medical adviser. I’m not the one who just landed a prestigious position at Jena University as their new—and only—‘professor of political science.’ I’m not the one Morris asked to come here to explain to him how to haul eastern Europe kicking and screaming into the modern world.”

Melissa made a face. “My knowledge of eastern European history is pretty general. But…I’d say your best bet is to hook up with whatever revolutionaries you can find. There’s got to be some. Poland produced almost as many radicals and revolutionaries over the centuries as it did grain and layabout noblemen. For that matter, the nobility itself produced a fair number of them. Remember Count Casimir Pulaski, in the American revolution?”

James looked startled. “Is that who Pulaski Boulevard in Chicago is named after?”

“Doctors,” scoffed Melissa. “Talk about a self-absorbed class of people. Yes, dear, that is who one of your hometown’s main streets is named after. But don’t get a swelled head about it. There must be a thousand Pulaski streets or avenues or boulevards in the United States, in just about as many towns.”

“How the hell am I supposed to find Polish revolutionaries?” demanded Morris. “I’m a jeweler. Fine, my family came from Kraków. That’s ancient history.”

“We’re in ancient history,” said Melissa. “Start with Red Sybolt. He’s an old friend of yours and he’s been a labor agitator for years. By now, if he hasn’t run across some wild-eyed Polish rebels, I’ll be surprised. Plant Red on a desert island in the middle of the Pacific, and he’d somehow manage to rouse a rabble.”

Morris chuckled. “Well, that’s true. Of course, first I’d have to track him down. He hasn’t been in Prague for months.”

“That’s a manageable problem. Somebody will know where he is. Moving right along, you need to get Uriel Abrabanel—remember him? he works for you already—to start investigating the chances of cutting a deal with the Austrians. Now that that bigoted bastard Ferdinand II died, we’re dealing with a new emperor in Vienna. He’s a lot more capable than his father, by all accounts.”

“Yes, we’ve heard that,” said Judith. “He’s not narrow-minded, the way his father was—and his sister Maria Anna just turned half of Europe upside down thinking for herself.”

Morris scratched his jaw. “‘More capable’ could be bad as well as good, y’know. Still, it’s worth looking into. In fact, if I know Uriel, he’s already started.” He eyed Melissa skeptically. “And how many more rabbits do you want me to pull out of a hat?”

“Well, here’s one,” said Melissa. “See if you can make an accommodation with the Cossacks. You’d have to find a suitable emissary, of course.”

Morris’ eyes widened. “Cossacks? For God’s sake, Melissa! They’re the same murderous bastards who led the Chmielnicki Pogrom—which is named after their leader—in the first place! Not to mention such minor accomplishments as the pogroms at Kiev and Kishinev.” His face grew hard. “Or the massacres carried out in the Ukraine during the Russian Civil War by the counter-revolutionary armies, half of which were made up of Cossacks or their hangers-on. The stinking swine murdered something like fifty thousand Jews before the Red Army put a stop to it. Fuck the Cossacks. Every one of them can rot in hell, as far as I’m concerned.”

“I’m with Morris,” said Nichols stoutly.

“Stick to doctoring,” sniffed Melissa. “See if you can come up with a cure for excess testosterone, while you’re at it.” To Morris she said: “You’re being childish, to be blunt. How is dealing with Cossacks in the here and now any different from what Mike Stearns has been doing with Germans? Compared to what they did to Jews in the Holocaust, the Cossacks are nothing.”

“Well, yeah, but…”

“But what? Since when did you start believing in racial destiny, Morris? Nazi Germany was the product of centuries of history. Change the history, like Mike is doing, and you eliminate them before they even appear. So why can’t you do the same with the Cossacks?”

“Because they’re nothing but a bunch of—”

“Mounted hooligans? Thugs? For Pete’s sake, Morris, in this day and age—early seventeenth century, remember?—the ‘Cossacks’ are barely even ‘Cossacks’ yet. They’re just getting started. A lot of them are former serfs, in fact, who ran away from their masters. We’re at least a century away from the time they started serving the Russian tsars as their mailed fist. This is the best time I can think of to stop that in its tracks, too.”

Morris looked mulish. Melissa looked exasperated. “Dammit, you asked. At my age, I’d hardly have come racing to Prague on horseback of my own volition.”

“You rode all the way?” asked Judith.

James grinned. “She rode on a horse for exactly one day. After that, she put her foot down and insisted we hire a carriage. One of those litter-type carriages, of course, not a wheeled one. Going over the mountains on a wheeled vehicle is best left to mad dogs and Englishmen.”

It was Melissa’s turn to look defensive. “I spent my youth waving a placard at demonstrations. I did not attend the kind of ladies’ finishing school where Mary Simpson learned to ride.”

“How’s she doing, by the way?” asked Morris.

“Given her recent hair-raising adventures, quite well. It helped a lot, of course, that when she got back to Magdeburg her son was waiting for her along with her husband.”

Judith peered at her. “I thought you detested the Simpsons. Well, except Tom.”

“I did, sure, when John Simpson ran that godawful campaign against Mike three years ago.” Melissa waved her hand. “But three years is ancient history, as fast as things have been changing since the Ring of Fire. I think quite well of them, these days.”

She pointed an accusatory finger at Morris. “And there’s a lesson for you. If I can make friends with Mary Simpson, why can’t you do it with Cossacks?”

He threw up his hands. “They’re barbarians, for the love of God!”

“Again, so what? Yes, they’re not far removed from barbarism. What do you expect, from a society being forged out of runaway serfs and bandits on the borderlands? Nobody is simply one thing or another, Morris. It’s always more complicated. To go back to Mary Simpson, she’s still haughty as all hell—can be, anyway—and I don’t think she’ll ever really be able to see the world except through her own very upper-crust perspective. But that’s not all there is to the woman, not by a long shot. The trick is finding a way—which is exactly what Mike did—to match her and her husband properly to the right circumstances. Bring out their best, instead of their worst. So do the same with the Cossacks.”

“They don’t have a ‘best side,’ that I can see,” Morris groused.

“Oh, that’s silly,” said his wife. “Of course they do, even if it’s only courage. If they hadn’t been tough bastards, the tsars couldn’t have used them in the first place.”

A young servant entered the salon. “Dinner is ready, Lady Judith.”

Judith rose. “Thank you, Rifka. Come along, folks. You must be starving by now.”

* * *

Fortunately, they were hungry—or James might have spent half an hour instead of three minutes making wisecracks about Lord and Lady Roth and the way they bid fair to make pikers out of any European aristocrats barring maybe the odd emperor here and there. He didn’t even make one wisecrack about the food being kosher.

Of course, he might not have noticed anyway. But Melissa did, and after the meal was over she gave Morris a little smile.

“I see even you can bend a little. Smart move, if you ask me.”

Morris was back to being defensive. “I didn’t eat pork in the old days, even if I never had any use for most of those silly kashrut rules. Here…”

His wife gave him a mildly exasperated look. “To start with,” she said, “we didn’t really have any choice. Things are changing in Prague, but there’s still no chance of Jews, even very rich ones, hiring Christian servants. And even if you could, you couldn’t trust them not to be spies working for somebody else. So all the servants in the house, including the cooks, are Jewish—and the only way they know how to cook is kosher.”

She shrugged. “So, I persuaded Morris that it just made sense to make a virtue out of the business. You know how Jews are, Melissa, even if”—she gave Nichols a skeptical glance—“James is probably awash in goofy notions. Most of Prague’s Jews, and certainly all of the rabbis, know that Morris’ theological opinions are radically different from theirs. But Jews don’t care much about theology, the way Christians do. They care a lot more about whether people maintain Jewish customs and traditions and rituals. And since we now do—”

“Not all of the customs,” said Morris, half-snarling. “I was born Reform, raised Reform, and I’ll damn well die Reform. No way I’ll ever—”

“Husband, quit it,” snapped Judith. “We follow most of them, and you know it perfectly well. And you also know that between that and the fact that all of Bohemia’s Jews depend on you to keep them in Wallenstein’s good graces, everybody is being friendly to us. Even the rabbis, most of them.”

She gave Morris an accusing glare. “And don’t pretend otherwise! You even like some of those rabbis.”

“Well…”

“Admit it!”

“Fine. Yes, I like Mordecai and Isaac. But they’re—they’re…”

He made a vague motion with his hand. “Not exactly just orthodox rabbis. It’s more complicated. More…”

“Many-sided?” asked Melissa. “Full of potential, not just limits?”

Seeing her triumphant look, he scowled. Then, transferred the scowl to the servant Rifka when she entered the dining room.

Timidly, seeing her employer’s expression, she drew back a pace.

“Oh, stop it, Morris!” snapped Judith. “He’s not glaring at you, Rifka. He’s just glaring the way he always does when one of his pet peeves develops legs and starts walking around on its own instead of obeying his orders.”

She added a winning smile to settle the young woman’s nerves. “What do you need?”

“Ah…nothing, Lady Judith. It’s just that some people have arrived and insist on speaking to you immediately.”

“And that’s another thing I miss,” muttered Morris. “Doorbells, so you’d know when somebody was at the blasted door.”

“House this size,” James muttered back, “you’d need a foghorn.”

Judith ignored both of them. “Please, show the visitors in. We’ve finished eating anyway.”

* * *

When the newcomers entered the room, Morris’ expression darkened still further. Melissa’s, on the other hand, was full of good cheer.

“Well, I do declare. Red Sybolt, in the flesh. We were just talking about you, as it happens. Or rather, I was. Morris was trying to evade the subject.”

“What subject?” asked Red. “But, first, some introductions.” He gestured to the four men who’d come in behind him.

“You know this big fellow, of course.” Pleasantly, the very large man standing just behind him nodded at the people at the table. That was Jan Billek, one of the central figures of the Unity of Brethren, the theologically radical church led by Bishop Comenius which, in another universe, would be driven into exile and eventually become the Moravian church in America.

Red’s hand indicated the two men standing to his left. One of them was blonde and large, if not as large as Billek. The other was of average height and more dark-complected. “And these are Krzysztof Opalinski and Jakub Zaborowsky. My kind of guys, even if they’re both Polish szlachta. Finally—”

He clasped the shoulder of the last man, a burly fellow wearing a rather exotic-looking costume, and pulled him forward. “And this here’s Dmytro Fedorovych.”

Sybolt grinned cheerfully. “He’s a Cossack, of all things. Well, sorta. They’re not exactly Cossacks yet, you know. He tracked me down while I was in Lublin with Jan here, doing nothing we need to discuss at the moment. He heard I was connected to the Prince of the Jews in Prague, and insisted I take him there and make the introductions. That’s you, Morris, if you didn’t know.”

Morris was practically ogling Fedorovych. The fact was, for all his belligerent talk on the subject, the Jewish jeweler had been born and raised in America. Melissa didn’t think he’d ever actually met a Cossack in his life.

“Oh, my,” said Judith. She indicated the many empty chairs surrounding the huge table in the dining room. “Please, gentlemen, have a seat.”

Morris kept staring at Fedorovych. Wondering, apparently, if the savage Cossack even knew what a chair was in the first place. Melissa almost laughed.

As it happened, despite the rather outlandish outfit—she thought it was probably derived from Tatar or Mongol apparel—Fedorovych took his seat quite gracefully.

“And to what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?” Melissa asked them.

“What do you think?” said Red. “Word’s out that Wallenstein appointed Morris to grab half of eastern Europe for him—”

“Already?” demanded Morris. “Dammit, who blabbed?”

“Could have been Wallenstein himself,” said Red. “It’s a tossup whether he’s shrewder than he is vainglorious. Relax, willya? When I said ‘the word was out,’ I only meant in selected circles. Mostly Jewish circles. The most likely culprit for the leak is you, actually. Or rather, the servants who overheard you talking about it. They’d have passed the word into the Prague ghetto and from there…”

He smiled. “In case you hadn’t figured it out already, what with you being the Prince of the Jews, all the Jewish settlements in the towns of eastern Europe are connected to each other. The point being, the word’s out, and these gents want to dicker with you.”

He turned toward the handsome young Pole named Krzysztof Opalinski. “You can start the dickering with these two. The reason they know about it is because I’d already gotten to know them while engaged in that business we don’t need to discuss, and I told them myself.”

“We don’t care about Wallenstein’s aims on the Ruthenian lands,” said Opalinski. He gestured to his partner. “Jakub even less than I do, being as he is from the area himself.”

Jakub Zaborowsky had a twisted smile on his face. “My family is szlachta like Krzysztof’s. But his family is prominent and well-off and we are dirt-poor, as Red would put it.” The term “dirt-poor” came in English, easily blended into the German they were all speaking. “I think we’d do better off back in Poland, if the situation was changed. The only ones who do well in Lesser Poland are the magnates, even if most of the szlachta there try to console themselves with the sure knowledge that they are of noble blood while they spend their days dealing with hogs and moneylenders like any peasant does.”

Opalinski spoke again. “So we will not contest that issue with you. Indeed, you will have our blessing, even to a degree our active support. Strip away their Ruthenian estates, and half the magnates who have Poland and Lithuania under their yoke will lose most of their wealth and influence.”

For the first time, he came into focus in Melissa’s mind. The easy and effortless way he said “under their yoke” was the tip-off. In Melissa’s experience—which had been quite extensive in her youth—the only people who could whip out phrases like that as naturally as most people talked of the weather were dyed-in-the-wool radicals.

“And who, exactly, is ‘you’?” she asked.

The blond young Pole sat erect, looking stiffly proud. “We are members of the newly formed Spartacus League of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.”

His partner Jakub, who seemed either less full of himself or simply blessed with a good sense of humor, smiled ironically. “We took the name from Rosa Luxemburg’s revolutionary organization. She was a Pole, you know, and a Jewess. Even if the history books mostly talk about her in Germany.”

James Nichols rubbed his face. “I swear, no virus or bacillus which ever lived is as contagious a vector as those fricking books in Grantville.”

Melissa smiled back at Zaborowsky. “Out of idle curiosity, which unlikely tomes did you find in Grantville that said anything about Rosa Luxemburg and the Spartacus League? I wouldn’t have thought the public library—much less the high school’s!—would have carried any such books.”

Both Poles looked at Red. For his part—very unusual, this was—the UMWA man looked almost embarrassed.

“Well…”

After a moment, Melissa’s jaw sagged. “You swiped them! From my library.”

“Oh, jeez, Melissa, I don’t think loaded terms like ‘swiped’ are called for here. What the hell, you were locked up in the Tower of London for a whole year. Not as if you’d miss them any, until I got them copied and put them back.”

Melissa glared at him. Then, glared at Nichols.

“Ease up, dear,” he said mildly. “I didn’t give him permission to come into our house and take the books. First I even knew about it.”

The gaze he gave Red was every bit as mild as his tone of voice. “Odd, though. I never imagined you had second-story burglar skills.”

“Me? Oh, hell no.” Red was back to his normal cheery self, the momentary embarrassment having vanished like the dew. “But I know some guys who do.”

To Melissa, he said: “And since you asked, the three books in question were a biography of Luxemburg, a collection of her writings, and a history of the German Social Democratic party.” He coughed into his fist. “Among others, of course. I gotta tell you, for someone like me, you got far and away the most useful library in Grantville. Anywhere in this here world.”

“You could have asked!”

“You were locked up in the Tower, like I said,” he replied reasonably. He gave James a glance. “And since I figured he was likely to get stubborn about it, you not being around to say yes or no for yourself, and since he wasn’t hardly ever in the house anyway what with spending every waking hour at the hospital, I figured it was just simpler all the way around to borrow them for a while until I could get copies made.”

Melissa didn’t know whether to swear at him or laugh. In the end, she did both. “You lousy fucking commie!” she exclaimed, gurgling a little.

He shrugged. “I prefer the term ‘revolutionary socialist,’ myself, although I certainly won’t squawk at ‘Bolshie.’ But fair’s fair. From now on, Melissa, you can borrow anything of mine without so much as a by-your-leave. What’s mine is yours, as they say.”

“You don’t own anything, Red,” said James, in that same mild tone of voice. “Except the clothes on your back, which wouldn’t fit Melissa anyway.”

“Well, of course not. What kind of agitator goes around hauling lots of trunks and suitcases with him? I got exactly what fits into a reasonable-sized valise. Still. The principle’s the same.”

Melissa had never found it possible to stay mad at Red Sybolt for more than a few seconds. First, because he was such an incorrigible sprite. Second, because she was something of a kindred spirit. She’d admit it was a little silly for her to be denouncing Sybolt as a commie, seeing as how she could remember the label being applied to her often enough.

“And what’s Mr. Fedorovych’s angle in all this?” she asked.

“Well, it’s complicated,” said Red. “And we’ll have to have Jakub do the translating for us. Dmytro’s German is lousy and my Ruthenian—which is actually about a jillion dialects—is even worse.”

Everyone looked at the Poles. Zaborowsky began speaking to Fedorovych. After a while, the Cossack started speaking.

The first sentences translated were:

“He says he thinks—so do many people he’s spoken to among the Zaporozhian Host—that they’d do better if they shifted their allegiance to Wallenstein. They’re fed up with the Lithuanian and Polish boyars, and they don’t trust the Russians at all. But first, he says, Mr. Roth has to agree to do something about the Jews.”

“I knew it,” hissed Morris. He scowled at the Cossack. “I suppose he expects me—God knows how I’d do it even if I were so inclined—to make all the Jews living in eastern Europe just somehow vanish. Stuff somewhere around a quarter of a million kikes into my kike pocket, I guess.”

Zaborowsky translated. Frowning—he seemed more puzzled than anything else, from what Melissa could tell—Fedorovych shook his head and spoke. The translation came back:

“He doesn’t understand why you think to move the Jews. It’s impossible anyway, because there are far too many of them. Besides, they do lots of useful things. But he says they have to stay in their towns, or, if they move into the countryside, they have to do it like any other farmer. No more working for the boyars.”

Morris stared at him. Then, glared at Melissa. “This is your fault.”

“Huh?”

His wife looked exasperated. “Morris, that’s absolutely childish!”

He slumped back in his chair. “Yeah, I know it is. It’s still her fault. I can remember her causing trouble since practically the first day she showed up in Grantville, way back almost forty years ago.”

Melissa sniffed. “That is why I came here, after all. At your insistence.”

“Don’t remind me.” Morris wiped his face. “I feel like I got somehow dropped into the set of Lord of the Rings right at the point when Tolkien conjured up an alliance with dwarves and elves.” Gloomily: “And what’s worse, some idiot cast me as Gandalf.”

Krzysztof Opalinski was obviously puzzled by Morris’ reference to himself as Gandalf. But, to Melissa’s surprise, his companion Jakub Zaborowsky grinned.

“Not exactly, Herr Roth—at least, not from our viewpoint. You are more in the way of our Elrond. Perhaps Galadriel.”

Morris gaped at him. Jakub made a modest wagging gesture with his hand. “I like to read. Although I must say that while I enjoyed The Lord of the Rings, the premises are preposterous. In that story, everybody loves the king except the forces of evil—and there are no rapacious great noblemen to be found anywhere. A fantasy, indeed.”

Morris was still gaping at him.

“Close your mouth, dear,” murmured Judith. She gave Zaborowsky a smile. “I’ll admit the image of my husband as an elf is delightful, but…I don’t really understand what you mean by it.”

Jakub shrugged. “It is not complicated, really. Gandalf was the leader of the active struggle against Sauron. In Poland and Lithuania, at least—and certainly in the lands controlled by the Cossacks—Herr Roth cannot possibly play that role. The Poles are a fractious people, and the Lithuanians even more so. If Wallenstein makes the mistake of trying to encroach upon their territory, they will unite against him. And they will have Hetman Koniecpolski leading their armies. He is not a general any sane person takes lightly.”

Morris had closed his mouth, by now. “Well. No, he isn’t.”

“As for the Cossacks,” Zaborowsky continued, giving his companion Fedorovych a little nod that seemed half-amused and half-respectful, “I am afraid you cannot take Dmytro here as a valid sample of the lot. He has no animus against Jews at all, so far as I can tell. Not so, for the average Cossack. Even Jewish traders are at some risk in Cossack territory.”

Naturally, that set Morris back to glaring. At the wall, however, since he couldn’t very well glare at the only Cossack actually present.

Seeing the nod in his direction, Fedorovych asked for a translation. Once he got it, he grunted. Then, jabbered something that had to be translated back.

“What he says,” explained Zaborowsky, “is that I am exaggerating some. Most Cossacks have no contact with the Jews in the towns and their villages. All they see are the Jewish rent collectors and estate managers who exploit the Ruthenian peasants. So they take those as representative of the lot, when in fact they are a small portion. Dmytro’s been in the towns, and he knows that most Jews are just as poor as most peasants.”

Having finished, he shrugged again. “What he says is true enough. But Dmytro is such a good Christian under the Cossack bandit exterior—you understand, I am being very generous with the term ‘Christian’—that I think he underestimates the force of sheer bigotry. Especially when it is reinforced weekly, sometimes daily, by priests of the Greek faith.”

Melissa couldn’t help but make a face. “The Greek faith” referred to Orthodox Christianity, which, in this day and age, was lagging centuries behind both the Catholics and the Protestants. Where the Roman church and any one of the major Protestant denominations could boast many accomplished and sophisticated theologians, the Orthodox church could count none. The highest Orthodox prelates were usually under the thumb of either Istanbul or Moscow.

So, it was a church that relied almost entirely on ritual and custom. Good enough, perhaps, for the illiterate or semiliterate peasants of eastern Europe, and the Cossacks. But it had lost the allegiance of the native ruling classes of the vast Ruthenian lands. For all practical purposes, they had been Polonized. Ethnically still Ruthenian, they spoke Polish and practiced Catholicism or, in some cases, Protestantism. Very few of them even dwelt any longer on their Ruthenian estates. They left those to be managed by overseers—often Jewish—while they moved to Warsaw and lived in city mansions. The last of the great Ruthenian magnates still of Orthodox faith, Prince Władysław Zasławski—one of the richest lords in the entire Commonwealth—had converted to Catholicism in the summer of 1632.

The end result was a “Commonwealth of Both Nations” that was actually a commonwealth of three nations—but the third nation, the Ruthenians, had no voice or say in the affairs of state.

Nor did the Poles and Lithuanians bother to be polite about the matter. Just two years earlier, a Cossack delegation had shown up at the electoral convention which chose Władysław IV as the successor to the Polish–Lithuanian throne, following the death of his father Zygmunt III. They claimed the right to participate in the convention, pointing to their frequent and valiant role in Poland’s battles with the Turks and Tatars as their credentials.

The response had been blunt, and as rude as you could ask for. It was explained to the Ruthenian roughnecks that, yes, they were indeed part of the Commonwealth’s body—just as nails are part of the human body, and need to be trimmed from time to time. And they were not welcome in the convention.

Leaving aside the arrogance and bigotry involved, it was hard for Melissa to imagine anything more stupid on the part of Poland and Lithuania’s rulers. Bad enough, that they treated their Ruthenian serfs like animals. But to do so when those serfs had living among them a large and ferocious warrior caste like the Cossacks…

They were practically begging for a social explosion, and, sure enough, it was on the horizon. In the universe she’d come from, the situation had finally erupted in the great Cossack Revolt of 1648, led by the Cossack ataman Bohdan Chmielnicki. The revolt had shaken the Commonwealth to its foundations, leaving it wide open to the foreign invasions that would devastate Poland and go down in its history as “The Deluge.” And, in the end, Poland would lose the Ukraine to Moscow. And with that loss, the power equation between the two great Slavic nations would shift drastically in favor of the Russians.

Morris was muttering something. She thought it was “I knew it.”

“Stop muttering, husband,” said Judith. “Say it out loud, if you have to say it.”

“I knew it,” he pronounced.

Krzysztof Opalinski frowned. “Knew what?”

Zaborowsky, whom Melissa had already pegged as the brighter of the two Polish radicals, gave him a sideways glance. “He means ‘I knew the Cossacks would be useless. Probably enemies.’”

Fedorovych demanded a translation. Jakub gave it to him, and from the brevity Melissa was sure he pulled no punches. But instead of matching Morris’ glare with one of his own, the Cossack just grinned.

He jabbered something. Jakub translated.

“He says he didn’t mean to suggest anything would be easy. With Cossacks, nothing is easy. He says you should watch them quarreling over the loot. Worse than Jews in a haggling fury.”

Morris looked to the ceiling. “Oh, swell.”

* * *

Later that night, after they retired to their chamber—chambers, rather—James Nichols gave their surroundings another admiring whistle. Then, eyed the bed a bit dubiously, and the canopy over it more dubiously still.

“You realize that if that comes down and buries us, we’ll smother to death. Damn thing must weigh a quarter of a ton.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” said Melissa. But her own gaze at the canopy was probably on the dubious side, also. The thing wasn’t really a “canopy” such as you might find over a bed in a fancy hotel. It bore a closer resemblance to the unicorn tapestries she’d once seen at The Cloisters museum in New York. It certainly didn’t weigh a quarter of a ton. That was just ridiculous. Still, it wouldn’t be a lot of fun to wriggle out from under if it did come down.

Not that that was likely to happen, of course. The four-corner posters holding it up didn’t bear much resemblance to anything you’d see in a fancy hotel either. They looked more like floor beams, except they were ornately carved.

There came a soft knock at the door. James turned and gave it a frown. The door was visible through the wide entryway connecting the salon with the bedchamber.

“Who…?”

Melissa was already moving through the entryway toward the door. “That’ll be Red, I imagine. At least, if I interpreted a look he gave me at the end of the meal correctly.”

“Why would…”

Melissa paused at the door. As thick as it was, she wasn’t worried about anyone standing outside hearing their conversation.

“Why? Because, knowing Red, I’m sure there are things he’s not prepared to ask or say in front of anybody. Especially not someone like the Roths, whom he likes personally but are for all practical purposes in Wallenstein’s camp.”

The frown on James’ forehead faded. “Ah.” Then he grinned. “You don’t seriously mean to suggest that a flaming commie like Red Sybolt isn’t entirely trustful of the intentions of Albrecht von Wallenstein, mercenary-captain-in-the-service-of-reaction-par-excellance and nowadays a crowned king in his own right?”

Melissa smiled. “Not hardly.”

She opened the door. Sure enough, Red Sybolt was standing there. To her surprise, though, he was accompanied by Jakub Zaborowsky. She’d expected him to come alone.

As she ushered them into the salon, Melissa pondered that for a moment. Why Zaborowsky and not Opalinski? She was quite sure there wasn’t any mistrust involved. Having spent a very long dinner in conversation, much of it with the two Poles, she felt confident she had the measure of Krzysztof Opalinski. Allowing for the inevitable cultural variations you’d expect from the gap in time and place, Krzysztof reminded her of any number of student radicals she’d known in the 1960s. Sincere; earnest; filled with a genuine desire to Do The Right Thing. Whatever faults such people had, treachery was rarely one of them.

On the other hand…

As a rule, they did have faults. The biggest of them—which Krzysztof Opalinski certainly shared, from what she’d seen—was a tendency toward certainties. And, still worse, simplicities. Revolution was not a complex and turbulent episode in human affairs, filled with contradictions and confusion. It was spelled with a capital R.

Such people could be trusted not to be treacherous, sure enough. But they could usually be trusted to screw up, too, sooner or later.

Red Sybolt was a different sort of person altogether. He had the same strength of convictions—probably even stronger, in fact. But he was a man in his mid-forties, born and raised in a working-class family, who’d developed his opinions and his political tactics dealing with his fellow coal miners in the gritty reality of working lives. Not from speeches spouted on college campuses, or late-night talk sessions. And he’d held those convictions for many years, solid as a rock, where most student radicals shaded into comfortable liberalism within a short time after leaving the ivory halls.

So. If she was right, that meant that Red thought there was a lot more substance to Zaborowsky than to his companion. Which wouldn’t surprise Melissa at all, since that was her assessment also.

Those calculations didn’t take more than a few seconds, by which time they were all seated in the comfortable chairs and divans in the salon.

All except James, that is. He was still standing in the entryway that connected the salon with the bedchamber.

Red flashed him a grin. “Hey, you’re welcome to join us, James.”

“Just a country doctor, remember?”

“Oh, cut it out.” Red jabbed a thumb at Melissa. “I know damn well she’ll tell you anything important, anyway. And leaving aside the ‘country’ bullshit, you’re a black doctor from one of Chicago’s ghettos, not some jerk MD who grew up in a gated community and thinks manicured lawns are a natural growth.”

James smiled thinly. “True. But I spent no time at all meddling with black-power ghetto politics in my youth, neither. Went straight from honest crime into the military.” He waggled a finger at the three people sitting on the couch. “This sort of revolutionist caballing and cavorting is not my forte.”

“Yeah, sure. But you’re not given to blind trust in the good intentions of the high and mighty, either.”

Nichols’ smile grew even thinner. “True again. In those days, my opinion of Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara was unprintable. To say nothing of my opinion of Nixon and Kissinger after they took over.” His shrug was as minimal as his smile. “You could print them today, but only because I picked up an education afterward. So, these days, I know there are alternative terms for ‘lying motherfuckers.’”

After a pause, he said: “Well, okay. Why not?” And took a seat next to Melissa.

Red now looked at her. And then jabbed a thumb at Zaborowsky.

“I want to know if you agree with him. About the Ruthenians, I mean. We’ve been arguing about it. Well…maybe ‘arguing’ is too strong a word.”

Melissa looked at Jakub. He was giving her a look that was far more placid than anything that really belonged on such a young man’s face. “Placid,” not in the sense of uncaring, but in the sense that he was quite willing to entertain notions that he suspected were wrong, but wasn’t sure.

Impressive. Most political radicals that age were sure of everything.

“Well…”

She thought about the problem. It was quite a tricky one, actually.

“The thing is, Red, I think Jakub’s attitude is the right one to take.” She made a little face. “Although I’d recommend keeping the wisecracks about illiteracy and drunkenness to a minimum. The reason being, that any Polish revolutionary movement that isn’t prepared to let Ruthenia go if that’s what the Ruthenians want, won’t be worth a damn. Sooner or later it’ll most likely collapse. It’s like…”

Jakub spoke up, for the first time since entering the room. “Here is what they would do. The leadership of the Cossacks, except perhaps the Zaporozhian Host, is not at all interested in eliminating serfdom. Their grievance is simply that the Polish and Lithuanian szlachta won’t accept the Cossack starytsa as their social and political equals. But if they do so, the starytsa will be satisfied. And even stupid, stubborn Polish noblemen—even Lithuanians, who are more stupid and stubborn still—can face reality if their backs are against the wall.”

He shook his head. “Besides, they wouldn’t even have to carry it out. Those registered Cossack colonels and atamans are every bit as stupid. All the Poles and Lithuanians have to do is promise them they’ll give them equality. And then we’ll have thousands of Cossacks to deal with as well as the great magnates and their private armies. Whereas if we make clear from the beginning that we will let the Ruthenians decide their own fate, when we take the state power, we’ll gain the support of many Ruthenians and the Cossacks will most likely spend all their time quarreling.”

He jeered. “They’re very good at that.”

The sarcastic jeer bothered Melissa a little. There was a hard edge to Jakub Zaborowsky that she hadn’t detected in his companion Krzysztof. It was understandable, of course. Unlike Opalinski, who’d been born into wealth and privilege and had the relaxed cheeriness that often came with such a background, Jakub had been born into a hardscrabble szlachta family. There was no way he could have arrived at the conclusions he’d come to if, probably at a very early age, he hadn’t come to loathe and detest the bigotry and narrow-mindedness he saw around him.

In most ways, in fact, that hard edge would be necessary. In the years to come, if he survived, Jakub Zaborowsky would have to deal with Polish and Lithuanian magnates who were as savage and ruthless as any rulers in history. Their standard response to rebellion was a bloodbath. Treachery and double-dealing came as naturally to them as venom to a viper. No revolutionary leader who was soft and sweet could possibly defeat them.

Still, a revolution could turn very ugly, if the people leading it started crossing certain lines.

She shook her head, slightly. Such worries were very premature, after all. So far, from what she could see, the “Polish revolution” amounted to a small number of young szlachta radicals organized by an up-time labor agitator and allied only with a small sect of radical Christians and—maybe, down the road—with eastern Europe’s Jewry, or at least a part of it. They were hardly on the verge of having to deal with the problems and temptations of triumph.

Red cleared his throat. “To get back to the point. Leaving all that aside—yeah, sure, I agree nobody should try to force the Ruthenians to do anything—what do you think about the rest of it? What I mean is, do you think Ruthenians would be better off if they were part of Wallenstein’s empire in the making?”

Melissa hesitated. Partly, just to ponder the question. Mostly, though, because she was feeling a little guilty. Morris Roth had asked her to come here in order to help him figure out how to do precisely that—absorb the Ruthenian lands and peoples into Bohemia’s realm.

Which she would do, and do faithfully, because anything was better than the situation that existed. But…

“Well, no, actually,” she said. “Or, it’d be better to say, it depends. If the Poles straightened out their act, then I think the Ruthenians would probably be better off as part of the Commonwealth than as subjects of Wallenstein.”

Zaborowsky was peering at her intently. “Why?”

“Because…”

She tried to figure out how to explain it, in a way that would make sense to a young man who came from this era and didn’t have the benefit of being able to look back on it from her vantage point centuries later.

“Because the worst thing about Polish history is that it was such a tragedy, what happened. It could have turned out completely differently. The potential that was destroyed was incredible. In the Middle Ages, Poland was as advanced as any European country, at least in most respects. And much further advanced, in some. No other European country developed Poland’s traditions of religious toleration and multi-nationalism, for instance.”

Jakub grunted. “That was under the Jagiellonian dynasty. During the reign of Stefan Batory also. Those kings always favored the lower classes and the burghers, against the great lords. Just like the Vasas do in Sweden. But our branch of the Vasas, when they became Poland’s ruling dynasty, did the exact opposite. Since they really only care about regaining the Swedish crown which they think belongs to them, they allied with the great magnates. It is ruining our country. Everything is now subordinated to the grain trade. The conditions for the peasants get worse every year, and the towns are shrinking. Even the richest burghers have no favor at all, any more, and while most of the szlachta—stupid bastards—bask in their official status as the equals of the magnates, the fact is they are becoming nothing more than lowly vassals.”

That…was a pretty damn good summation of what had happened to the Commonwealth in the half century since the Poles and Lithuanians made the mistake of electing Zygmunt III Vasa to the crown.

The question was, could the situation still be turned around?

She returned Zaborowsky’s gaze with one that was every bit as intense. And reminded herself, not for the first time since the Ring of Fire, what a terrible mistake it could be to underestimate the people of the seventeenth century.

“Yes,” she murmured. “Hell, yes.”

* * *

The next morning, when Melissa and James came down to the dining hall for breakfast, they found Morris Roth standing at the window with a letter in his hand. He had a very peculiar expression on his face.

“What’s up, Morris?” asked James.

“Huh?” Roth looked at them, a bit startled. Then, looked down at the letter.

“I just got some news from Uriel. And I’m trying to sort out how I feel about it.”

His eyes went back to the window and his gaze seemed out of focus. “He’s one of the great arch-villains of Jewish history, you know. Not up there with Hitler and Himmler, of course. No one is. But he’s solidly in the second rank. So I’m wondering why I’m not dancing with glee.”

“What are you talking about?” Melissa asked, a bit exasperated.

Morris lifted the letter. “Bohdan Chmielnicki. Today, of course, still a relatively young man and just a minor officer among the registered Cossacks.”

“And…”

“He’s dead. He was assassinated two weeks ago, at his estate in Subotiv. Three men appear to have done it. None of them were apprehended, because he was just a minor officer and wasn’t surrounded by guards. The suspicion is that they were Polish, but no one really knows.”

He gave James a wry little smile. “What was it you said last night? ‘No virus or bacillus which ever lived is as contagious a vector as those fricking books in Grantville.’ You sure had the right of it. Someone must have read the future history and figured they’d take out the leader of the 1648 rebellion before he got any further.” He shook his head. “As if that’ll really change anything.”

Melissa took in a long, slow breath. “So. That means there’s already at least one conspiracy afoot.” She smiled wryly herself. “One other, I guess I should say.”

Morris nodded. “Yes. It’s starting.”

December 1634

Red Sybolt, the two Poles and the Cossack Fedorovych left a few days later. Their destination: the Zaporozhian Sich, the great Cossack fortress on an island in the Dnieper. It would take them weeks to get there, in mid-winter, but Red didn’t want to lose any time—and Dmytro Fedorovych was practically champing at the bit.

“You’re sure about this, Red?” Judith Roth asked.

“Oh, hell, yes. In politics just like in war, Nathan Bedford Forrest’s maxim applies, even if he was a stinking murderous racist bastard they shoulda hung after the Civil War. ‘Get there firstest with the mostest.’”

Judith looked at him, then at his companions. “I count four of you. As in, ‘fewer than the fingers of one hand.’”

Red grinned. “So we’ll make do. Get there firstest.’” He shrugged. “Look, the Cossacks will be boiling mad. By now, even the Cossacks—well, some of them, anyway, even if Chmielnicki himself seems to have been in the dark—will know the gist of that future history too. They’ll figure it just like we do. This was ordered by one of the Polish magnates. Or, most likely, a cabal of Polish magnates. And if they don’t know, by some odd chance…”

He bestowed the grin on Melissa, now. “I just so happen to have some copies of the relevant passages, from those books of yours I borrowed for a time.”

“Swiped for a time,” she growled.

“Whatever.”

Melissa was just as dubious about Red’s project as Judith was. “Fine, fine. But…”

She looked at Jakub and Krzysztof. “They’re Polish. And while nobody is ever going to confuse you with a nobleman, Red, you’re not exactly going to blend right in with Cossacks. Has it occurred to you they’re likely to chop first and ask questions later?”

“I figure Dmytro can run interference for us. If we even need it at all. Cossacks aren’t actually mindless, you know. They’re also not going to confuse any of us with great magnates, either. And there really isn’t that big an ethnic issue, in the first place. A hell of a lot of Cossacks are former Poles, and a good chunk of their officers are former szlachta.”

James’ eyebrows lifted. “Really?”

“Oh, yeah.” His grin seemed insuppressible this morning. Red always did love a fight. “It’s a complicated world, you know. Or hadn’t you noticed already?”

“Be off, then, Red,” Melissa said softly. “I’d add ‘Godspeed,’ but I’m an atheist. Still, the sentiment’s the same.”

* * *

After they left, Morris shook his head. “Do you think we’ll ever see the rascal again?”

Melissa had been wondering the same thing. After a pause, she said: “Yes, actually. Up-time American coal companies have—had, will have, whatever—the same mindset as great Polish magnates.”

“And…your point is?”

She nodded in the direction Red and his companions had gone. “They really hated that man, Morris. But he’s still here, isn’t he?” She burst into laughter. “Three and a half centuries earlier!”

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Framed