Harlan was still adding sums. "Derek, where are you getting the rent for the school loft?"

"Ah. When we built the barracks, some dope put in an item for landscaping. It seemed sort of a pity to let it go to waste. And we've put some potted plants in the school room. Didn't spend any money on them-the moms just cobbled together some pots from scrap wood, filled them with dirt, and dug up a few bushes. I'm hoping it's enough to get us in under the wire if auditors show up."

"Are we ready to certify the results?"

"Yes," Fred Pence said. "First, in regard to the question of incorporation into the State of Thuringia."

The statistics were tedious, but the question passed.

Eleven of the territories of imperial knights voted to join both the State of Thuringia and the new consolidated subordinate administrative polity (aka SAP, which made Arnold Bellamy very unhappy).

Seven voted to join the State of Thuringia but be subordinate administrative polities of their own and keep calling themselvesReichsritterschaften . Schlitz voted "the hell with it and a pox on you and both your political parties." Each of the seven separateReichsritterschaften only had a few hundred residents apiece, but that was the will of the people.

Even the dissenting vote in Schlitz was technically the will of the people, though Fred Pence suspected that Karl von Schlitz's two oldest sons had made it fairly plain to the people what their will had better be.

That pair would have done well in Chicago under Capone, except that the Mafia probably didn't take Lutherans.

The citizens of the new consolidated SAP voted to distinguish their secular government from that of the Abbey of Fulda. The name of the new polity would be Buchenland (Latin version Buchonia). This gesture on the part of the majority, residents of the formerStift , to the minority, residents of Buchen Quarter, was widely recognized as generous.

In a subsidiary question, the citizens of the new polity voted to establish anAusschuss orConventus whose duty would be to design an emblem and coat of arms for the new county.

Applause followed the formal certification.

So did a petition from several imperial knights of the Buchen Quarter, led by Friedrich von der Tann, who alleged that the soldiers of the Fulda Barracks Regiment had, in the course of carrying out their electoral duties, committed attacks, plundering, unjustified arrests, libels and slanders upon the honor of citizens, persecutions, demeaning statements, alienation of assets, and a variety of other crimes and delicts.

Wes told him to give it to the lawyers.

The following day, Derek Utt broke the news that he would now be conducting military musters throughout Buchenland, to establish a county-wide militia.

The imperial knights whoseRitterschaften had voted themselves into it discovered that they would no longer have their own private militias.

The rest of the imperial knights said, "I told you so. Don't say that I didn't warn you. Big government.

Mediatization."

Captain Wiegand said that the Fulda city militia would be happy to provide training to the new local units.

Von Buchenau refused to allow the muster on his estates, saying that the ballot had not contained any provisions about military musters. Derek, with Wes' backing, arrested him. His lawyer sent a petition to parliament and the emperor of the United States of Europe, pointing out that he had been paying a tax of thirteenThaler per month to support the Protestant cause, contingent upon the agreement of the envoys of the king of Sweden that they would recognize the immediacy of his territory. He protested that one aspect of being independent was that a ruler could have his own army.

The effort that the von Buchenau militia made to spring him out of jail made it pretty clear that the knightly troops really could use the training that Captain Wiegand had offered, not to mention demonstrating that their equipment was more than a little obsolete.

Wes let the von Buchenau militia out on parole, since they were, when not being militia, the farmers who leased land from the knight and spring planting season was coming up.

After von Buchenau agreed to sign anUrfehde , Wes let him out on parole, too.

Schweinsberg told him that this was a really bad idea, and would be interpreted as a sign of weakness rather than as a sign of a generous spirit.

Wes said that the guy was just a nuisance.

Clara Bachmeierin agreed with the abbot.

Salmuenster, Buchenland, March 1634 Joel Matowski looked at the residents of Salmuenster. Thirty-four families. According to the duplicate records that the local administrator had kept, there had been a couple of hundred houses in the town before the war started. He was here to take their oaths of allegiance to the new constitution and run a military muster while he was about it. Salmuenster was about as far from Fulda as you could get and still be a part of theStift- well, part of Buchenland.

The man raising all the objections was named Hans von Hutten.

He was, he said, an imperial knight.

He was, he said, a Franconian imperial knight proper and was not and had never been a member of the Buchen Quarter, so owed no obligation to any decisions that it might have taken.

"If you aren't," Joel asked, "then why are you here today?"

The answer, delivered by a lawyer carrying several boxes full of paper, involved a series of transactions by which the abbey of Fulda had pawned its outlying possessions in the Kinzig river valley to the von Hutten family, redeemed them, pawned them again, split them, redeemed them, and the like, for the past two and a half centuries.

Von Hutten's position was that he held a currently validPfandschaft arrangement with the Abbey of Fulda. If the New United States, and then the State of Thuringia-Franconia, had possession of the abbey's former estates, then by extension he held a currently validPfandschaft arrangement with it. The terms were that until such time as the governing entity, whoever it might be, paid him back the capital sum that his great-grandfather had advanced to the abbot and chapter of Fulda, these lands were damnedwell his and these people were damned well his and the administration in Fulda had no authority to have conducted an election here by which they illegally voted themselves into Buchenland.

Von Hutten added that he, personally, as a resident of the former prince-diocese of Wuerzburg, had voted against incorporation, and that even though the majority of the people in Wuerzburg voted in favor of it, he did not accept that a majority vote was binding upon him. In his view, nothing to which he personally did not agree was binding upon him, because if he accepted the decisions of others it would restrict his liberty.

"Look man," Joel protested, as he experienced a political epiphany vaguely related to his half-forgotten memories of Ms. Mailey's explanation of how representative government worked, "that's no way to run a railroad."

Von Hutten announced that he was appealing the election results to the emperor, to the imperial cameral court, to the other emperor, to the imperial supreme court, and to anyone else he could think of. He proposed to demand an imperial commission to investigate.

When Joel got back to Fulda, he reported that just because the election went well, this whole thing was not yet a done deal, by any means.

Andrea's lawyer pointed out that all those appeals would be very expensive, so that unless von Hutten had more money than he appeared to, or was calling on outside resources, his complaints would make haste very slowly.

The rest of the meeting was devoted to speculation on possible sources of outside funding.

Wes told Joel to write up a report. They would send it down to Steve Salatto. First to let Steve know that von Hutten was making a nuisance of himself, since he properly belonged to Wuerzburg. Second to ask for money to buy the pawned districts back from von Hutten, so they could go ahead and incorporate them into the administrative system they were setting up for Buchenland.

Not that Steve would be able to come up with that much money before the next fiscal year, at the earliest.

Who Will Rid Me?

Bonn, Archdiocese of Cologne, March 1634 Walter Butler was leaving it to his associates to work out the details. Overall, he thought, he was in a pretty good position for a Catholic Irishman and professional military enterpriser. Or, if one wished to be crude, a colonel of a mercenary regiment. At least, compared to the position he would have been in if Wallenstein had caught him, once the bastard found out that Butler had been one of the point men for Ferdinand II's generals in organizing his assassination in that other world.

Butler had left Austria a year before, high-tailing it through Tirol and the Habsburg lands in Swabia, bringing Dennis MacDonald, Robert Geraldin, and Walter Deveroux with him. While passing through that heavily Leaguist territory, with a decent subsidy that Maximilian of Bavaria had arranged, they had recruited. With four regiments of dragoons, staffed almost to paper strength and well equipped, they had managed to negotiate an advantageous arrangement with the archbishop of Cologne. Whose confessor was now sitting in the room with them. Along with Franz von Hatzfeldt, the bishop of Wuerzburg who had been driven from his lands by the Swedes. And von Hoheneck, one of the provosts of the abbey of Fulda. Both Wuerzburg and Fulda were now run by the "up-timers." That was, Butler presumed, why the others wanted to talk to them.

Since the others had initiated the contact, that meant that Butler and his colleagues had something they needed. Or, at least, that they wanted. Which meant that his negotiating position was good.

At the moment, Deveroux was telling the archbishop's confessor that he was out of his mind. Not a prudent thing to say, but true. Given the layout of the military map right now, there was no way they could take troops into Fulda. Not through Hesse. Not through Mainz and Frankfurt. Not through Wuerttemberg and Franconia. Not. It was too far inside the borders of the USE. Unless the coming summer's campaign changed the way that the Swede's troops were deployed, a raiding party could only figure on being chewed up. No profit. No plunder. Where was the gain in that?

Surprisingly, the bishop of Wuerzburg was backing Deveroux up. "He's right, you know. It's not that easy to infiltrate any sizable group of men deep into Franconia. Dingolshausen was a disaster. Melchior's men got in, but not a dozen of the original two hundred got out again. Not to mention that it's caused a public relations problem."

Hoheneck interrupted. "They don't have to take men in."

What did he mean by that?

"If they go in themselves," Hoheneck waved in the direction of the four Irishmen, "there can be troops waiting for them. I have full assurances that not all of the imperial knights of the Buchen Quarter were satisfied with the outcome of last month's election. Particularly not now that they realize that although they have not lost their immediacy legally, every damned peasant on their estates has gained the same rights.

There hasn't been time for the up-timers to complete the reorganization. The four of them can go in. It's easy for four men. Get a couple of companies together from von Berlepsch, from von der Tann. Von Schlitz will do the organization. I know where he's gone into hiding. Note that he has maintained sufficient influence over his subjects that they voted not to join the State of Thuringia. He'll have them ready for you when you get there."

Butler had intended to keep quiet, but he couldn't.

"What happens to our regiments while he's gone?"

The Capuchin cleared his throat. "If you leave them here, under the command of your lieutenant colonels, the archbishop is willing to continue paying you at the current rate. Plus the additional compensation for the work in Fulda, of course."

"Is there any hope that the imperial knights might let you take their men with you on the way out? It would be really nice," Hatzfeldt said wistfully, "to wreak a little destruction on the Hessians."

"Not a bit. If they strip themselves, the SoTF will just come in with troops from Thuringia and wipe them out."

"Even if they keep their couple hundred troops, the SoTF will just come in with troops from Thuringia and wipe them out." "Not the same kind of situation as Jena or Badenburg or the Crapper. Not even the same as the Wartburg. A batch of different opponents, up in hilly country, who know the terrain. Even with just a couple of hundred men . . ."

"A couple of hundred men if they were decently equipped. But without . . ."

The archbishop's confessor got up from his chair. "Let me know what you decide." He left the room.

The professionals reverted to shop talk.

"The main objective, then, is to abduct the abbot." Archbishop Ferdinand's confessor nodded his head firmly.

"Yes," Hatzfeldt said. "That has to be the first goal. Get hold of Schweinsberg and get him to Bonn." He waved at the four Irishmen. "Any one of you can do that. We don't care which one. Decide it among yourselves."

"Why us? In particular?" Deveroux asked.

Butler had wondered about that, too.

"Because you speak English," Hatzfeldt said. "Schweinsberg is not the only target. We wish to interview the NUS administrators, which will better be done there. Take Felix Gruyard with you-he's good at what he does. Smuggling out one man is a different matter from smuggling out a half-dozen. These up-timers have learned German, of course. The administrators in Fulda, I mean. But still, it is not their first language. If we want to get the maximum amount of information from them, in a short period of time, it will be much better to have interrogators who can question them in their own language. So split up. One of you to each of the targets. Then, while you are doing that, we hope very much that by holding them the imperial knights will disrupt the administrative system of all of Franconia. The others, in Wuerzburg and Bamberg, will send their forces toward Fulda. Then, if Melchoir-my brother-can send a force through Saxony and Bayreuth . . ."

"Will send their forces to Fulda?" Butler asked. "Or do you justhope that they will send them?"

"It's hard to understand the up-timers. But from all we can learn about them, they are very protective of their own people. It's a calculated risk, of course. But, then, life is a calculated risk."

"Meanwhile, what will you be doing with the abbot?"

"Once he is here, the archbishop and I can persuade him to stop cooperating with these abominable up-timers. Persuade him to stop collaborating with the Protestant Swede. Or, if it comes to that, depose him. The emperor and pope would have to agree to that to make it permanent, but if we keep him in prison here while the haggling is going on, it will have the same effect. The archbishop can appoint me as interim administrator."

Hoheneck cleared his throat.

"You were thinking of some other candidate for administrator?" the archbishop's confessor asked. "I was just going to point out that any administrator should be appointed by the archbishop of Mainz rather than the archbishop of Cologne," Hoheneck said.

"Casimir Wambold von Umstaedt is a refugee in Cologne also," the Capuchin answered. "He will allow himself to be guided by Archbishop Ferdinand's wisdom, I am sure."

Hoheneck was not so sure of that. After all, the archbishop of Mainz was close to Friedrich von Spee, who had been in Grantville and was now in Magdeburg. Overall, the archbishop of Mainz was closer to the Jesuits than to the Capuchins.

As, in fact, were the abbots of Fulda.

While it appeared that Hatzfeldt might have quite a lot in common with Echter. If the bishop of Wuerzburg was going to try to use this to pull Fulda under his authority and come out of it, once the imperials eventually won this war, with an expanded sphere of influence and Fulda nothing more than one mediatized monastery . . . what would be the point in becoming abbot of Fulda?

Privately, he was quite certain that Hatzfeldt was the wrong candidate for administrator.

Fulda, Buchenland, April 1634 "The 'Ram Rebellion" or 'Brillo Movement' does not appear to have spread significantly from Wuerzburg into Buchenland."

Wes finished up his monthly report.

He was profoundly glad that he had been able to write that last sentence.

Maybe there were some advantages to being in a spot that was such an economic backwater and political boondocks that nobody else cared about it. Not even revolutionaries.

Fulda, Buchenland, May 1634 "It's the surveyors," Orville Beattie said.

Roy Copenhaver turned a page in his notebook. "What surveyors?"

"The ones planning for pushing the railroad network out farther. It's a long way off, considering what a struggle it was to find supplies just for Halle-Stassfurt-Magdeburg. Iron by itself . . . But they're doing more surveys this summer. Gustavus Adolphus wants to see a line head out from Erfurt-Eisenach to Frankfurt am Main and Mainz. Tie his administration together. So they're laying out a route along the Fulda Gap. The landgrave of Hesse-Kassel signed onto the project and approved having it come through his lands way last fall. Howard Carstairs had some old topo maps he had squirreled away-he served with Third Armored-so they're making pretty good time, in spite of the changes." "Why does this lead to a peasant revolt?" Wes Jenkins frowned. Surveyors in the north didn't seem to connect with the stuff he had been getting from Steve Salatto to the south.

"The landgrave doesn't seem to have explained it all very well," Orville said. "Not surprising, since he's been out in the field managing armies for Gustavus Adolphus, his wife has been in Magdeburg politicking, he got his brother appointed Secretary of State so he's in Magdeburg too, and they seem to have left a vacuum into which the rumors could come flying. The district administrators can't explain anything to the farmers and village councils because they don't know anything much themselves."

"Anything specific about the rumors?" Roy asked.

Orville wrinkled his nose. "This is what I've gotten from the granges. The leaseholders, the people who actually farm the land, have gotten the impression that they're going to be thrown off with no compensation. Apparently a few of the surveyors made some rather loose statements about using the power of eminent domain to take the right-of-way if owners didn't sell voluntarily. 'Owners' brought to mind landlords. The farmers got the impression that any payments that come out of this will be going to businessmen, or charitable institutions, or nobles, who hold theLehen . Not to the guys on the spot, who will be left holding the short end of the stick and trying to get the value of the broken leases back from the owners. Who most likely won't be interested in making payouts."

"So?" Andrea pulled her pencil out of her hair and started twirling it around with her fingers, like a cheerleader's baton.

"So they're having a peasant revolt. Meetings, gatherings, marches, protests, broadsides, poems, pamphlets, guns pointed at local administrators." Orville put a bright and cheerful expression on his face.

"All the regular amenities, as I understand how these things go."

"Brillo?" Wes asked with some trepidation.

"Not in Hesse. His fame does not yet seem to have reached such exciting spots on the map as Friedlos and Schrecksbach. I sort of hate to tell you, though . . ."

"What, Orville?"

"We're seeing more and more of the ram stuff here in Fulda. In Buchenland, that is. Especially to the south where it borders on Wuerzburg. The 'Hearts and Minds' people are circulating through the whole area, trying to talk things down. The best argument we have right now is that the railroad isn't coming through Fulda anyway."