"The last time I tried to go in," Cavriani said, "the council's guards told me that I was not authorized, because I have no diplomatic credentials."
Johann Buxtorf fingered his beard. "I will see what I can manage."
Theodor Zwinger delivered Wettstein's final warning about the city council's intentions. Not even the guards posted by the council itself would turn back Basel's head pastor if he chose to call upon a foreign embassy.
The embassy staff already had armaments in place, even before the warning. The ambassadress herself was occupied; Frau Admiral Simpson received him. He gave her Wettstein's letter. She offered him a cup of the novel "coffee" beverage; he accepted. After his first sip, she mentioned that some people preferred it with cream and sugar. These were on the tray. He accepted again, although he noticed that she drank hers without them.
They discussed potatoes for some time. Zwinger's father had been one of the earliest European scientists to provide a thorough description of this new world plant and its medicinal properties, particularly in the prevention of scurvy. Zwinger had heard that in this "up-time" it had become a staple food, almost as much in use as grains?
The Frau Admiral introduced him to Frau Mayor Dreeson. They discussed the ecclesiastical policies of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria in the Upper Palatinate during the 1620s and found themselves to be of one accord, which was quite gratifying, although he found her frequent use of the phrase "damned Bavarians" somewhat distasteful in a woman.
Thus he stayed long enough to be polite. He did not see the Austrian archduchess, but then he had not expected to. The city council's guards closed their barricades behind him when he left.
Chapter 62
Benedictiones Multiplex
Donaueschingen
"Marc," Susanna whispered. "Marc, wake up." She shook his shoulder. "Marc!"
He turned his face in the other direction.
"Marc, wake up. Wake up now." She looked around the stable loft, spotted an ancient bridle hanging from a peg, and flicked his shoulders with it.
"Whaaaat?"
"Wake up. Now, Marc. Right now."
He sat up.
"Susanna, it's still too dark to start out. What on earth?"
"I had to go downstairs, Marc. To use the latrine, before any of the stablemen come around. Behind. There are more stalls than we saw last night, behind where the ladder comes up here. They have horses in them. One of them is the horse that Bavarian captain was riding when he passed us when we were on the way here, I think. I'm not sure. It was just a sort of ordinary horse."
Marc frowned. "A roan gelding. Very distinctive markings and a nice gait. Old scar on the left shoulder, but no sign of crippling. The way he moved I wouldn't mind riding him myself."
"Well, go and look, then. Maybe you will be surer than I am."
Marc climbed down the ladder sleepily and reluctantly. He climbed back up a lot faster.
"You're right."
"We had better get our stuff and get out of here," Susanna said anxiously.
"That's the last thing we want to do. Let him leave before we do."
Two hours after dawn, the roan horse was still in the stall. Reluctantly, Marc concluded that the captain had business in Donaueschingen. He and Susanna headed for the southern gate.
Raudegen was sitting on a bench that evening, catching his breath as he talked with the last of Donaueschingen's various innkeepers.
He had been asking about the two all day, the man with the curl of black hair falling on his forehead and the nondescript boy. People said that they had been making the rounds of the inns in Donaueschingen just the day before, asking about a man traveling with three women. Two older women and a tall, young, brunette.
Raudegen asked about the party of four also. The answers were still what they had been the first time he came through Donaueschingen. Nobody had seen them. That's what they had told the man and boy, also, everyone said.
The man and boy? No, they had not stayed at any of the inns the night before. It was not likely that they had left the city so close to dark, though, the host at the Silver Star said. It had been nearly dusk when he talked to them.
Raudegen went back to his own inn. Too late to make the rounds of the gates, tonight. He would talk to the guards at each of them tomorrow. Once he knew which way they had gone, he would have some idea. But if the archduchess and her party had not been here, how would they decide how to go?
At supper time, he was cursing himself. His man reported that last night the two had been sleeping in the stable loft behind this inn-the one where they were staying themselves. With the slightest luck, he could have caught them.
"This isn't going to be easy walking," Marc warned. "We'll have to cross the high hills of the Black Forest to get into the Wiesental. Then we can just follow the Wiese River down to Basel. They're not like the Alps that you had to climb when you went to Balzano and then to Vienna, but more than enough hills, and some of them steep. The guard I talked to at the gate yesterday told me how to get to Hufingen. He's worked there, he said. It's belonged to the count von Furstenberg since 1620 and there's an administrative district headquartered there. We'll be all right that far, and can ask someone there how to go on to Loffingen. Someone is bound to know. It has nearly five hundred people and it belongs to Furstenberg, too."
"Being anywhere that's in the jurisdiction of the count of Furstenberg," Susanna said, "does not make me feel better at all. Let's walk fast and try to get out of it."
"Yes," the guard said to Raudegen, "I talked to the man yesterday. He was asking about directions to Hufingen."
"We are," Susanna said, "completely and totally lost."
Marc looked around. "Not lost, exactly. Just on the wrong path. It's pretty. Look at all those layers of rock. But there is no way that anyone has ever managed to bridge that gorge in front of us. We'll just have to turn around and go back to the other road."
"How much time have we wasted?"
"Two or three hours coming, I think. So it will be that much again, going back. Most of a day."
The leaves were turning. He reached over, broke off a couple of small branches, put them on her head, and looked at the effect.
"You look good in autumn leaves. Some day, you ought to make yourself a dress that color. If you were a bride in golden yellow and orange-red, you would put all the rest of the girls to shame."
Susanna pulled the twigs out of her hair. There wasn't any point in keeping them. The leaves would turn brown before she could press them. She tossed them down, but first she looked at them carefully, memorizing. She almost never forgot a color. Matching colors, she knew, was one of her strengths as a designer. Even if she went to a store without a swatch, she would return with a length of fabric that perfectly complemented the one left behind at the palace.
"That has to be where we made the wrong turn." Susanna started to run. Marc put his hand on her shoulder to hold her back.
She frowned. "What is the matter?"
"I smell iron."
"Iron?"
"Ore. In the ground. Either there are mines, which I have never heard of in this place, or it is close to the surface."
"What difference does it make?"
"We must be coming into the Wiesental, now. That has to be the Feldberg, over there. I don't see how we missed seeing it this morning when we made the wrong turn that ended up next to the ravine. If there is iron here, I need to take notes. For Papa and for Jakob Durre, my master. Where there is a little iron, there may be more. If there is enough to make it worthwhile and if they can get options on the right to open mines… I wonder who this valley belongs to? Who has jurisdiction, that is. I'm sure we're out of the Furstenberg lands by now."