Chapter 6
Welcome to Schloss Tratzberg
The Next Morning
Sybilla Fugger looked at the two men standing before her in her elegantly appointed chambers, and smiled. Sybilla understood people, far better than her peers. She understood relationships. Men? Pah! Those creatures, simple things that they are, she understood very well. She knew how to use that understanding to further her goals. Play them like a fine musical instrument. She smiled again, inwardly this time. She didn’t want to be perceived as being too smug. But still, she was clever. Sometimes a curse, but mostly a blessing, especially when things needed to be done. And today, things needed to be done. “I want her kept under lock and key until the count comes back from Innsbruck. She is obviously dangerous. Trying to kill my cousin, fighting soldiers in the trees, acting like a common criminal. Dangerous.” She flipped her long dark hair to the side and stood with her hand on her hip, emphasizing her point with a carefully crafted single raised eyebrow.
Friedrich Stadelmeier, the head of security for the family, and Jacob Hofer, the house manager, had been summoned to her. Stadelmeier, the soldier, simply looked stoic. Sybilla knew he would follow orders, if the orders were sufficiently framed. That’s what the man did. She turned her focus to Hofer. He was a little more complex. As the head of the servants in the household, he typically reported to the wife of the count, Anna Maria von Toerring. Countess Anna Maria was away with her husband in Innsbruck. Sybilla wasn’t technically in charge, but someone had to make a decision, and since nobody seemed to want to, or was capable of making one, she did. Someone had to. Lord knows the count’s brother couldn’t make a decision if his life depended on it, the fat idiot. And he lived down in the valley, in the town of Schwaz, not in the castle. No, Hofer would be the one to…
“Your Grace,” Hofer interrupted her thoughts. “Shouldn’t we send word to your Uncle Hieronymus, in the valley? It seems he would be the one, in his brother’s absence, to make these sorts of decisions?”
“Do you mean to tell me that you haven’t done so yet, Hofer? Why not?” Sybilla smiled her very well-known, “I’m starting to get angry, and you won’t like it when I’m angry,” smile at him.
“Your Grace, you asked me not to send a messenger last night.”
“I don’t recall that. You must be mistaken. Well then. By all means, send for him.” She continued to smile firmly, and thought, But by the time Hieronymus gets his lazy backside up the hill, it will be late this afternoon, most certainly.
“Yes, Your Grace. I will send a messenger right away.”
“There is no rush, Hofer.” She flashed her smile again, and watched his reactions. Hofer was good. He had been house manager here for as long as Sybilla could remember, and his instincts for political survival were highly attuned to the large and dynamic household that was Schloss Tratzberg. He responded by nodding discreetly, if a little reluctantly.
“As you wish.”
There was a knock on her door, and both men turned. Sybilla sighed. “Come in.” Regina Fugger opened the door. Sybilla sighed again, gritting her teeth into a smile. “Yes, Aunt Regina? What do you want?” Where Sybilla was a young and pretty woman—she had been told so on many occasions—Regina was a past middle-aged widow, who lived in the castle by the good grace of Sybilla’s uncle, the count. Regina had married outside the family, and her husband died before Sybilla had been born. She had never remarried, living in relative isolation in the castle ever since. Which Sybilla had always thought odd.
“I’m glad that you two are here.” Regina nodded to the two men. “I understand our new guest is being held in the cellar?” Sybilla watched as Regina gazed with concern at the two men, and then to Sybilla. “Is this what my brother the count would want, do you think?”
Both of the men looked at Sybilla, awaiting an answer. Sybilla simply stared at Stadelmeier, who after a moment, figured out what she wanted him to say. Sybilla judged him to be a bit dim. He cleared his throat and began to speak. “Madame Regina. We are doing what we feel is in the best interests of the safety of the family. This is a very unusual situation, one that we have no precedent for. We cannot simply let some wild woman, dressed like a barbarian, and waving a weapon around, have unfettered access to the castle.” Stadelmeier glanced at Sybilla, and she gave him a small approving look. He nodded in acknowledgement.
Sybilla looked at Hofer. He should be able to figure out what to say. She slightly raised an eyebrow in encouragement.
“It isn’t prudent,” added Hofer, turning to meet Regina’s gaze.
Regina’s face soured, ever so slightly, in her very polite manner. She continued with controlled and exaggerated patience. “I understand our welcoming committee ran her down with cavalry, and then brought her here at gunpoint. This girl is to be our guest, not a prisoner. I spoke with my brother several times about bringing her to the schloss, and this is not sending—”
“—I don’t care what kind of message is sent, Regina,” said Sybilla, interrupting her. “She is a threat. Everything about her is a threat. She is an up-timer, which many in our faith profess to be a demon. We know demons walk the earth, don’t we Regina?” Sybilla quickly crossed herself. “These up-timers, with their dammed Swede, are everything we hate. I don’t even know why she is here, why Uncle even agreed to bring her. You know as well as I do the rest of the family in Augsburg didn’t want her, didn’t want to bring this up-timer to our home.”
Regina held up her hand, and sighed a small sigh. “Sybilla. We are not here to debate. The decision to bring her here has been made. She is here. She arrived early, and we failed her. Failed to meet her at the flying machine. Which I would have liked to have seen. We failed her when we hunted her down like a wild dog.” Regina gave a slightly accusatory look at Stadelmeier. “Failed her, because we locked her up last night.”
“What would you have us do, Regina? Let her run about? Give her full access to the castle and grounds? Don’t you think that’s foolish?” Sybilla looked at Stadelmeier and Hofer expecting reinforcement. Both men took an interest in staring at the ceiling. “Really.” Sybilla placed her hands on her hips and glared at the room in general.
“Have we sent word to Hieronymus?” Regina looked at Hofer, then at Sybilla.
“Hofer will send someone right away. I was just telling him he should have sent someone last night.” Sybilla glared at Hofer, and he looked appropriately chastised. Good man.
Hofer nodded slightly. “If I may be dismissed?” Hofer looked at Sybilla and then to Regina.
“Yes, of course. Please see to it.” Sybilla waved her hand, not bothering to see if she was obeyed. Both men bowed and left the room, gently closing the door behind them. Sybilla and Regina looked at each other for a moment…
“Regina—”
“Sybilla—”
Both of them smiled. Why can’t that woman just mind her own business? thought Sybilla, underneath her smile.
“You know this should be Hieronymus’ decision, with the count in Innsbruck, don’t you Sybilla? It’s not your place.”
“Leave that to me, Regina.” She made a dismissive gesture. “He is at least three hours away, assuming he would even get up on a horse; you know he is rather large.” Sybilla allowed herself a moment of pleasure imagining her rotund artist uncle climbing on a horse.
Regina folded her hands in the way she always did, in front of her, and it irritated Sybilla. It meant a lecture was coming. Not that Regina lectured the younger girls often, but it was to be a lecture none the less. She started in her calm voice. “You misunderstand me, Sybilla. It is not your place to treat her harshly. I do not want you in trouble with the count—he won’t take kindly to this sort of a treatment of the up-timer.”
“She isn’t the up-timer; she is my up-timer, or rather our up-timer, I suppose. She’s the family’s up-timer. She belongs to all of us. So why shouldn’t I do what I see fit? Nobody else was making a decision.”
“I don’t think you gave anyone time to do anything else, Sybilla.”
“Well, I’m decisive. We didn’t want to be standing around all night, now did we?” She raised her eyebrow in a challenge.
“This isn’t getting us anywhere. Sybilla, please, think of what your uncle, the count, will say if you are rude to our guest. She’s had a rather difficult time of it…”
“Enough Regina. I’ve had a difficult time too!” Sybilla felt her control slipping, more then she desired. She did not like to lose control, and this was getting close. “All because of them, because of those… those devil people. As has my father, and the rest of this family. They are evil, Regina. I’ve no use for these up-timers who kill Catholics with the Vasa monster. They should not be here!”
Regina looked at her, shocked. “Sybilla, this girl—”
“This girl who acts like a man?”
“Sybilla, there is nothing we can do about the past.”
“No, but I can do something about the present, Regina. And I intend to.” She gave Regina her best icy stare.
Regina sighed, but blinked first. “Your brother Johann feels rather badly about hurting her in the woods yesterday.”
“Then he is an idiot.”
“Enough, Sybilla!” Sybilla felt the surprise on her face. She couldn’t remember Regina ever raising her voice. Sybilla waited, a bit taken aback, while Regina gathered herself. “I am protecting you from yourself. Give her my room if needed, I will watch over her, in case she tries to slip out and murder us all in our sleep with some sort of magic from the future. Or maybe she will try to cast us back into the past with a demon’s spell?” Regina was clearly frustrated, her remarks sarcastic. Sybilla reflexively crossed herself. Regina changed her tone. “But it’s much too late to argue about it now. She is here. It has been decided, by the family and by the count, and there is nothing you can do to change it.”