Everyone started to chatter at once.
"Diane," Maria Anna said. "I will write for you what I see here. It is very important. I will give you a copy. Tony, you must send radio for the whole window tonight, I think, without stopping. I will do this if you agree to send it to Amsterdam, that they give it to my cousin, to Don Fernando, and to the king of Sweden at the same time. Not first one and then the other. Together."
She turned to Margrave Friedrich almost fiercely.
"And both of them must have it before you send your envoy back to the duke and tell him what we have seen. Do you understand that??
The margrave nodded.
Maria Anna continued. "Whether he can hold it for long? That is hard to predict. There are so many things which might contribute, both for and against, and I am only starting to think. If my brother and Duke Maximilian combine against him, here in the south, they might be able to drive him out of the lands on the right bank of the Rhine, at least. But there is no way, any more, that they could coordinate with Spanish coming from Italy to create a victory such as Nordlingen was, up-time. Not until after he has been pushed back very far."
"You know about Nordlingen?" Mary Simpson asked.
"Oh, yes," Maria Anna said with some surprise. "Last winter, before all this began, at home in Vienna, I was thinking about what I had read about the Battle of Nordlingen in that other world of yours, and how proud Papa had been of Ferdinand. I think I have studied all the things that your encyclopedias said about this war. And some of the books. Father Lamormaini did not want me to have all of them, of course, because I am a woman. But I am also a Habsburg. The Jesuits could not refuse to obtain the things for my brothers and they shared them with me. And with Cecelia, of course. We have to be prepared for our responsibilities."
Mary nodded.
"And, of course, there are more problems. First, of course, the way the map is at the moment, General Horn is here." Maria Anna drew an oval with here forefinger. "That means that my brother and Duke Maximilian could not even reach Duke Bernhard without somehow going through, or around, General Horn's forces. Going around is not possible, politically." Her finger draw two quick arrows on the second version of the map. "Not through the Swiss Confederacy; not through the State of Thuringia-Franconia. Either would mean a major escalation of the war. Duke Maximilian cannot afford one, just now. My brother, I believe, although I have not been able to speak with him since last spring, will not want one."
"Even if he did," the archduchess flashed a smile, "somehow, I do not think that the king of Sweden will wish to withdraw General Horn so that others may pass here," she drew her finger along the northern border of the Swiss Confederacy, "to confront Duke Bernhard, do you? There would be too much of a possibility that they might change the direction of their campaign." She drew another arrow with her finger, this one curving north through Baden and Wurttemberg at Mainz and the Rhine Palatinate.
"No, I suspect-suspect only, you understand-that in the long run, the king of Sweden will find the opening of the gap in the French defenses at Mainz and the cutting of the Spanish Road to be sufficiently great gifts to him that he will swallow his pride and allow Duke Bernhard his independent principality. If he agrees to play nice in his corner of the kindergarten sandbox. Even if he pretends to agree to play nice."
Margrave Friedrich nodded. He was thinking, of course, about what this reconfiguration of the map might mean for Baden.
Maria Anna was looking at the others. "But I will not be his tool, you understand. I will not let that heretic use me against my family. I will not be a brood mare through whom he can strengthen his children's claims to the lands he has won."
Margrave Friedrich nodded.
The archduchess looked at him fiercely, but phrased her next statement diplomatically. "You will be so kind as to let Herr Wettstein know this, please, as he speaks with the city council. And, if possible for you, Herr Cavriani as well."
Freinsheim mumbled something.
"Don't mumble," Diane Jackson said sharply. "It is not polite."
Startled, Freinsheim said, "If Wettstein knows it, it's damned sure that Cavriani will, too."
The ambassadress smiled. "Much better. It is not polite to mumble. They teach that in kindergarten, too. I know. I had three sons about your age, before we came here. They were left up-time."
Freinsheim looked down at his notes, a little embarrassed.
Margrave Friedrich was more than a little startled. It had never occurred to him to inquire as to whether or not the up-time general and his exotic wife had children. As to whether the up-timers in general had families, or how they lived among themselves when they were not upsetting the political and confessional map of Europe.
General Horn's Headquarters, Swabia
"Overall," Gustav Horn said, "I preferred commanding Finnish troops in Livonia to commanding USE troops in Swabia. Of course, Christina was alive then. I preferred my life when Christina was part of it, even if it did mean that I had Axel Oxenstierna for a father-in-law."
"Perhaps," Burt Threlkeld said, "you ought to get married again. If you found a really nice wife, maybe she could help your daughter get over her nightmares about the way she was treated three years ago and how her little brother died. My wife Debbie could help match you up with someone, if you don't think your wife has to be a Swedish noblewoman. You know. A nice child psychologist or something. You're not like General Baner. You've been to the university and everything. It would probably work out fine."
General Horn glared at his up-time military adviser.
"It doesn't do you any good to ignore it," Burt persisted. "Shit happens when you're in the army. They taught us that back when I was in. You thought your wife was getting better, so you went back to the king's headquarters and then she died. You trusted a junior officer to take care of your kids, but he made off with the money you provided to him and left them to die in a wet cellar. Your son did; the girl was tough enough to live and tell about it. You're going to have to deal with it. That much, at least, I got out of all the counseling they made us sit through in reserves.
"But not this minute. The rest of the staff is coming, so you're facing a meeting and you've got to decide what to do."
He moved to his customary position behind Horn. Whatever he had expected he might end up doing when he was sent down from Grantville to be the general's liaison with Grantville, psychological counselor had not been in the job description. He prepared himself for another protracted, indecisive meeting.
The long and short of it was that General Horn did not like to fight battles. General Horn liked maneuvering around, keeping the other guy off balance. Especially when the other guy was Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, whom he just couldn't stand anyway. As far as Horn was concerned, having a large, powerful, army available was an important piece on the board, in and of itself. A battle would risk this; especially an all-out battle with Bernhard. Bernhard might smash his pieces, take them off the board. Bernhard really was a damned good general once he managed to close against the other guy in a battle.
What was more, by refusing to fight a battle, Horn infuriated Bernhard. He seemed to think that scored him points, somehow. So, for two years now, they had been marching and counter-marching, first in one place and then the other, all over the map of Swabia, Baden, Wurttemberg, leaving disease and destruction in their paths, but never coming to grips.
Burt gave Horn credit. For most of those two years, he had succeeded in keeping Duke Bernhard occupied. The Swabian front, the way Horn handled things, had never been an immediate dire threat to Gustav Adolf while he dealt with the League of Ostend and never a big drain on Sweden's resources. Since the king couldn't just wave his hand and make Duke Bernhard go away, that was probably a good thing.