"Why not de la Valette, then?" asked another of Torstensson's lieutenants, who'd spent some time in the French colors. "His mother was a Montmorency, his wife a royal bastard, and now that she's dead the rumor is that he's courting one of Richelieu's nieces."
Thorpe barked a sarcastic little laugh. "Better for us if he had! But I don't think d'Angouleme is downright stupid."
As it happened, Bernard de Nogaret de la Valette had accompanied Angouleme's cavalry force, although no one had actually invited him to do so. He knew perfectly well that the so-called "flanking maneuver" was the best-probably the only-way to get out of the trap the French army was in. There'd be hell to pay when they got back to France, but de la Valette would deal with that when the time came. He was considerably more proficient in that field of battle than he was in this much cruder one.
By the time they reached the Trave near Reinfeld, however, scouts reported that lead elements of a new army were advancing from Luebeck. As the duke of Angouleme had guessed, Gustav Adolf was already leading out the city's garrison. There was no time to waste!
Somewhere between Reinfeld and the town of Oldesloe, any pretense that the two thousand cavalrymen were engaged in a wide flanking maneuver crumbled. This was a simple retreat-and, as panic began spreading, it rapidly took on the features of a rout. With d'Angouleme himself setting the pace, the cavalrymen began running their mounts much faster than they should have been, given the great distance they still had to go before they'd reach the Elbe. Or even the headwaters of the Stor, for that matter.
De la Valette was relieved at first. That half-buried part of him that was an experienced horseman knew perfectly well that they couldn't maintain this pace for very long without winding the animals. But all he cared about at the moment was putting distance between himself and those two armies of the damned Swede.
Soon enough, though, his relief gave way to apprehension, and then fear. Let two thousand horsemen on a narrow country road lose control of themselves, and the sure result is what amounts to equestrian turbulence. It was like riding rapids on horseback instead of a boat.
About two miles past Oldesloe, another horseman jostled de la Valette's mount and forced the beast off the road. One of its hooves caught in something, the horse went down, breaking its own leg and one of de la Valette's in the bargain. Then, as it continued to thrash about hysterically with its rider unable to move away, broke the French nobleman's collarbone, cracked several of his ribs, and left lacerations and bruises over half his body. It only ended when a frantic de la Valette managed to extract one of his wheel-lock pistols and shoot the animal in the head.
At that point, he collapsed unconscious. When he came back to his senses, the sun was setting-and four very ruffianly-looking soldiers were grinning down at him. One of them had a dagger held to his throat.
The relief was immense. First, because he was alive, even if in great pain. Second, because his injuries along with his capture would help a great deal to alleviate suspicion once he got back to Paris. The awkward matter of the precise location where these unfortunate events occurred could probably be elided over.
Finally, he was relieved that he'd been captured by soldiers. Just two miles from Oldesloe, he could have easily been found by villagers instead. In which case, the knife now being held to his throat to ensure his cooperation would already have slit it. And then moved on to his evisceration and probable emasculation-except most likely not in that sequence.
De la Valette knew the magic phrase also, of course. "Je suis Bernard de Nogaret de la Valette, duc d' Epernon," he croaked. "There is a good ransom."
He said that last in German. Which, as it happened, not one of the soldiers understood, being Swedish country boys. But it didn't matter. They weren't such rural bumpkins that they didn't know that all four of them had just gotten rich, if they kept this fine fellow alive. Swedish troops, naturally, had no truck with that CoC foolishness about creating a common pool for widows and orphans-if they'd heard of it at all, which these new arrivals from Sweden hadn't. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, since they were soldiers of the king of Sweden, not the emperor of the United States of Europe.
"Fire!" shouted Colonel Straley. Lying in what amounted to an open ambush across the road alongside the Trave and in the edges of the woods beyond, the volley gun batteries could hear the colonel's voice perfectly well. They were already starting to fire when the bugles blew.
With dozens of volley guns concentrating their fire on such a narrow frontage, the first ranks of the French cavalry force were simply shredded. To make things worse, the piled up bodies of the horses made it impossible for them to advance further-and the panicked cavalrymen from the rear were still pressing forward, making it impossible to retreat. They were like animals trapped in a cage.
The batteries fired four more volleys before one of the French officers managed to jury-rig a flag of surrender. By then, they'd suffered casualties that were every bit as bad as those being suffered by the main army still fighting on the field.
On that field, a considerably more courageous young French commander had finally had enough. "Send a surrender signal," gasped Charles de la Porte. He was so exhausted he didn't even notice the minor wound he'd taken to the hip. "This is hopeless."
Torstensson had been waiting for the signal, since the outcome of the battle had been obvious from the moment the only French units who managed to reach the USE infantry had been driven back in less than a minute. Since then, this had just been carnage.
"Cease fire!" he commanded. As the buglers blew the signal, Torstensson turned to Colonel Bryan Thorpe with a cheerful smile. "Well, I admit I misgauged the time. But it's still as good as Breitenfeld. Better!-if we catch that bastard d'Angouleme. At Breitenfeld, Tilly got away from us."
One of the French officers in the trap along the Trave tried to escape on his own, racing his horse toward the woods. He might even have made it-at least two hundred did-except that he passed too close to Engler's batteries. Thorsten spotted him, and since he was still on horseback went in pursuit.
He probably wasn't as good a horseman as the fleeing French officer, who was almost certainly a nobleman who'd been riding since he was a boy. But Engler was good enough, given that his mount was fresh and that of his prey was badly winded.
He caught up with him in less than half a mile. The fleeing officer's horse had finally stumbled from exhaustion. By then, fortunately, the horse had been moving so slowly that its fall was more in the way of a slow roll than a sudden spill. So its rider had the time to get out of the saddle before the huge beast fell on top of him and crushed him.
He was still badly bruised, of course. Horsefalls are always a dangerous experience and never a pleasant one. But he didn't even have his wind knocked out, so when Thorsten brought his horse alongside and aimed his wheel-lock pistol at the man, he was able to speak.
"Je suis Charles de Valois, duc d'Angouleme. There is an excellent ransom."
As Colonel Nils Ekstrom worked his way through the various reports sent to Luebeck from Torstensson's adjutants, he spotted an oddity.
Coincidence, perhaps. Or a simple error.
Still, it was intriguing. He sent a courier to inquire.
The following day, the courier returned. No coincidence of names, and no error. The humble sergeant in Torstensson's volley gun units who had captured both the French cavalry commander Guebriant as well as the enemy's commander-in-chief d'Angouleme were, indeed, one and the same man. And, yes, he was the Thorsten Engler who was betrothed to an American woman in Magdeburg.
"Oh, splendid!" exclaimed Ekstrom. "That's one problem solved, at least."
Well… not quite. Imperial counts-at least, if they followed the Austrian model-didn't carry place names. And the princess was likely to be stubborn.