Shortly after that, Marc and the smith returned. The smith went back toward Todtnau; Marc and Susanna started walking south again.
"Do you really like iron?" Susanna asked with real curiosity.
Marc looked at her. "Yes. Yes, I do," he answered. There was some surprise in his voice. "I didn't, particularly, when I started apprenticing with Jakob Durre, but I do now. It's really interesting. And challenging. Just look." He motioned toward the Wiese with its shallow, rocky, channel. "To bring iron out of here in any quantity, either this stream would have to be fitted with a series of locks and dams like the ones I saw on the Naab in the Upper Palatinate last spring, or else a canal would have to be dug parallel to it. That might be best, because with a deeper draft, the water could power the wheels and the mills."
He turned around and pointed back toward Hausen. "Did you notice, while we were there, that the villagers have already cut a partial channel, a short one, to run their sawmill and the grist mill? To make the most of these shallow mountain creeks, you really have to harness them. Have you ever seen the Pegnitz at Nurnberg?"
"No, I've never been to Nurnberg," Susanna answered. She listened carefully. If Marc really liked iron, then there must be something more to the matter than she had ever thought. She would find out what it was if she listened. Even if she didn't ever like iron, she liked having Marc talk to her. The better she listened, the more he would talk to her.
Between Hausen and Todtnau, Raudegen pulled his horse into the shelter of a small thicket, gesturing for his man to do the same. "We will wait here," he said, "and see what may be learned from the two men who are supposedly interested in iron."
He was quite interested to see that only one man was walking north toward Todtnau.
The smith from Todtnau resisted Raudegen's questioning for quite some time. By the end, however, the captain had the information he needed. Although he did not yet quite comprehend just how a young man with an apparently profound and sincere interest in iron ore had come to be involved with Archduchess Maria Anna's servant.
He did not bother to kill the smith. If the man managed to drag his way back to Todtnau, he might even heal, in time. It was not likely, though, that his hands would ever again swing a hammer.
Raudegen was mildly annoyed. He didn't enjoy this sort of thing, the way some men did. It would be easier if civilians would just provide soldiers with the information they needed, straightforwardly and without evasions. He wished he had time to make an example of the lying women in Todtnau and Hausen, but he could not afford the time right now. He turned south again. The pair who might lead him to the archduchess could not be far ahead of him.
Just above Schopfheim, Marc and Susanna took to the trees. Soldiers. A good-sized detachment, riding north. Foragers, probably. Marc thought that they were Duke Bernhard's men. They waited for them to pass, then started running.
Schopfheim, when they got there, was nearly burned out. Susanna stared. The smith had told them that this town had walls and gates; they had planned to spend the night. The walls and gates themselves were smoldering, where they had not been broken down. The party of soldiers they had passed on the road farther north was not large enough to have destroyed this town, which meant that there must be others, many more, quite near.
There was nothing they could do. There were no survivors here, outside. Inside, the embers were still far too hot for people to go in. They hurried around it as fast as they could, trying to ignore the smell. If Schopfheim was burned, there was no reason to expect that the smaller places the smith had mentioned, Steinen and Brombach, would still be standing. It would be ten more miles to Lorrach, where the Todtnau smith had trained. They started running, occasionally slowing to a walk to catch their breaths; then running again, as fast as they could for as long as they could.
Then Lorrach came into sight. "Oh," Susanna said. "Oh, no."
Raudegen recognized the lieutenant commanding the foraging party with some relief. If Harsch were here, that meant that Duke Bernhard was somewhere fairly close.
"Yes," the lieutenant said. "The main force of the army is not much more than ten miles to the south. The duke has taken headquarters in Lorrach while the rest of the army catches up the vanguard."
"So that is as far as I got, Your Grace," Raudegen said. "The two men I sent on may have found information about where the four left the convoy, but I took the risk of following the girl once I realized that she was in the archduchess' household. I assume full responsibility for the decision."
"It wasn't all that bad," Duke Bernhard said, leaning back in his chair. "You have, of course, been back in the hills for quite some time." He tossed a copy of the Basel newspaper across the table.
"You are clearly correct," Raudegen answered after a moment. "I am seriously behind the times, according to the Basel Daily Times. My apologies, Your Grace."
"No apologies necessary. I am impressed, in fact, that you came so close to the truth. Your alertness ensured that I remained in the vicinity of the Swiss border. I am, in fact, currently on the way there in hopes of making the archduchess' personal acquaintance. Peacefully, if possible; martially, if necessary. The Basel city council having been so kind as to immobilize her, I propose to reap the fruits of their misguided efforts. 'Swiss independence.' What an absurdly inadequate use for a presumably fertile imperial daughter. I am just as much in need of a wife as the prince formerly known as the Cardinal-Infante."
Duke Bernhard stood up. Raudegen took a step a back.
"Take a dozen men, captain. Continue your pursuit. If this girl, whoever she is, was a part of the archduchess' household, as you say, she may yet be of considerable value to me if you can catch up with her. A bargaining chit, perhaps, if the archduchess is inclined not to cooperate with my plans."
"Yes, Your Grace."
"Hear me, though. Right now, I do not want any incidents with Basel. We are in the midst of some rather critical negotiations. If you can take them this side of the border, use whatever means necessary. If not, it would be more loss than gain to me, right now, to have a diplomatic incident."
"Yes, Your Grace."
"If they should try to double back, though, into Austrian lands,. .."
"Yes, Your Grace?"
"Pursue them. I no longer recognize Innsbruck's lordship over the Habsburgs' Swabian territories. Over the former Habsburg territories in Swabia, I should say. I quite anticipate having some interesting discussions with the duchess-regent of Tyrol on the topic in the not-too-distant future."
"Yes, Your Grace."
"Ah. Don't kill the girl. Don't even risk it. She would do me no good under those circumstances and it might well irritate the archduchess if she ever found out. Some women become attached to their servants."
"Yes, Your Grace."
"Very good. I am delighted to have staff who clearly understand my instructions. Colonel Raudegen."
"You know," Marc whispered. "After these past few hours, I don't think that I'll ever take a fun vacation in Lorrach. I think that was what the stories call 'being in dire peril.'"
"That," Susanna answered, "is a really sensible decision. Never again in Lorrach. But at least we are through it now. It can't be much farther down to Riehen. Not more than three miles." She poured the pail of water she had been carrying into a leather bucket.
"Not," Marc said, "more than several thousand more soldiers to sneak past once we get out of this corral. Since Riehen is the Basel border and all that. Though I have to say that your idea of grabbing a couple of halters that were already on remount horses and sticking ourselves into a long line of other guys who were leading remount horses by halters wasn't a bad one."