"Honestly?" Baner asked. "I think that the 'ruling high nobility' of all of these crappy bits and pieces of the Palatinate would be a lot improved if someone did to them what the kings of Sweden did to their own nobility two generations ago. Namely, chop off their shitting heads. And keep chopping until the ones left alive become useful servants of the crown instead of hopped-up would-be-independent rulers. The Danes started that bloodbath method, I'll admit, the fucking bastards. They had all four of my great-grandfathers killed for being Swedish patriots. If I have anything to say about the peace settlement after the war, I'd be sending plenty of Danes to the chopping block, believe you me."
The general was in full tirade mode, now. Obviously recognizing the signs, Duke Ernst just settled back in his chair. There'd be no way to interrupt him at this point, until the choleric fellow got it all out.
"But whether it was shithead Danes who came up with the idea or not, it's still a good idea. Our native Vasa dynasty-my kinsmen, mind you-later had all sorts of petty kinglets and would-be kinglets and the like nicely shortened. You herd a hundred or so of these miserable Palatine Freiherren to me and I'll do you the same favor. Turn this running asshole of a place into something that looks like a country instead of this little mini-state here and that little mini-state there."
"Oh," Duke Ernst said. His tone was carefully non-committal.
Bocler had been taking shorthand "a mile a minute" as the up-timers put it. After the, "Oh," there was a pause, during which his mind wandered. He wished he knew what Duke Ernst was thinking. Although the Wettin family were natives of Thuringia and Saxony rather than of the Palatinate, there was little doubt in Bocler's mind that it probably fell into Baner's category of should-be-choppees. Particularly Duke Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, of course, given that he was a traitor who had taken service with the French.
But the other Saxe-Weimar brothers were, more or less voluntarily, serving Gustavus II Adolphus because he appeared to offer the best option available to them as former Protestant rulers. Wilhelm had even abdicated his title as duke and become plain Wilhelm Wettin in order to run for the House of Commons in the USE's new Parliament. Even so, they were still nobles by up-bringing and temperament. This was always clear to Bocler, considering that he himself certainly was not.
While Wilhelm and Ernst had agreed rather gracefully when the up-timers "slid" Saxe-Weimar itself into the New United States, Wilhelm had been more than compensated-from the gritty standpoint of economics-by Gustav's giving him the Eichsfeld to administer. Ernst, through his long-standing betrothal to the little heiress of Saxe-Altenburg, had prospects for a prosperous future as well, presuming that she survived for a few more years and reached marriageable age. Plus, their brother Albrecht had stayed home to cultivate their remaining economic interests and private property in what had once been an independent Saxe-Weimar.
"Oh," the duke said again. Whatever he might have been thinking after Baner's diatribe, he introduced a change of subject-matter. "You asked for this special meeting," he said. "What is the topic?"
Bocler snapped to attention, pencil at the ready.
"I want to take Ingolstadt," Baner said baldly. "Letting the Bavarians keep a garrisoned fortress on the north bank of the Danube is a boil on our rump. And a danger to Horn's flank in Swabia. Which means that it's a threat to the king. I'm sick of it. And my men damned well need something more to do. I'm tired of having half my available men just sitting there, investing it. That bridge, the way the piers are built, is practically indestructible. Even when we manage to get rid of the planking temporarily-which, believe me, is not easy-we know perfectly well that it's being re-provisioned almost every night by those fleets of little boats that run through those multiple channels of the river to the south. And if you want us to keep the Bavarians off Wallenstein's back and make sure Maximilian is too busy to invade the Upper Palatinate this summer, a major campaign at Ingolstadt will give them something else to think about-actually pull Max's troops to the west, probably. A fair number of them, anyway."
"I am sure," Duke Ernst said judiciously, "that the fact that we hold Regensburg is just as much of an irritant to the Bavarians as their possession of Ingolstadt is to us."
Baner glared. He was not by temperament favorably inclined toward an even-handed, fair-minded assessment of the rights and wrongs of the military situation. From his standpoint, the ideal situation would be for Sweden to have every military stronghold in the Germanies firmly within its grasp.
"If you take all the rest of your regulars-or most of them-to Ingolstadt, what do I do about the rest of the borders?" asked the duke. "I'm still not so sure that we were smart to take that neck of hill and forest running down from Regensburg to Passau, just because it was north of the Danube and just because we could, right then, since the Bavarians were in full retreat after we took Regensburg. Admittedly, it's one of the few things that we've done that actually helps Wallenstein-giving him a fairly secure southwestern border against the USE rather than against the Bavarians as far down as Passau. But it's not an easy place to patrol. Plus the whole river, from Donauworth to Passau. That's two hundred fifty miles by itself. Not counting the twists and turns."
Duke Ernst assumed a righteous expression-one that came to him rather easily because of extensive practice.
Baner's countering expression was closer to "Gotcha!"
"Hill and forest, you say? Then use your oh-so-valuable hillbillies and foresters. River bank, you say? Then use your precious river rats and their barges. Don't look so sanctimoniously at me, Duke. I know what you've been doing, training whole squads of non-soldiers to patrol the regions they know best. And you've been doing it because you fucking well believe that the first chance I have, I'm going to pull out of this twice-damned, thrice-cursed, totally-abandoned-by-God place and get my men back to my king and his war in the Baltic, which is where I belong and where I might, just might, have a chance to get a fucking promotion. Which is what I am going to do. For a general, it is a thoroughly career-destroying move to be stuck in a backwater where nothing is going boom. Be grateful that I'm solving Ingolstadt for you first."
Baner drained his tankard and stood up without the regent's permission.
Duke Ernst was used to that.
The general slammed the door on his way out.
Duke Ernst was used to that, too.
As Bocler duly noted in the margin. Of course, the clean copies of the minutes that he submitted to the duke never included his marginal notes.
Chapter 8
Idea Boni Principis
Duke Ernst rested his forehead upon his hands. Being a Lutheran, he did not believe in purgatory. He did, however, suspect that purgatory would not have been a necessity for even a Catholic, presuming that said Catholic was upright and God-fearing otherwise than in the matter of being a Papist, who was assigned to work with Johan Baner. Baner provided purgatory on earth.
Nonetheless, he admonished himself, he could not let his distaste for the man impede him from performing his duties. He had a job to do. Clearly, with young Karl Ludwig being a minor, there had to be a regency. The USE had certainly not wanted to see Ferdinand II establish an imperial regency for the boy. Which he might have tried, if he could have persuaded Don Fernando to transfer custody when he first captured the Winter King's widow and children.
But, worse, Don Fernando might try some version what the Spanish had done to William the Silent's oldest son. They had abducted him to Spain when he was fourteen, converted him to Catholicism, and kept him, basically, as a hostage against his father and brothers for fifty years. Only the mercy of God had granted that his marriage had been sterile-Fredrik Hendrik did not, right now, need to contend with Spanish-sponsored claimants from a senior line of the House of Orange.