1632 (57 page)

 

    “What, husband? You are worrying again? It happens, you know.” She snuggled closer. “I will be fine, and the baby also. And look at it this way—at least there will be no scandal.
Our
baby will not be born at a questionable time.”

 

    She chuckled. “Unlike some others, I suspect.”

 

    Captain Gars drove his men well beyond sundown. Only when the last glimmer of dusk faded, and the forest was black with the night, did he relent.

 

    “Make camp,” he growled, climbing down from his horse. His movements were stiff and heavy. The past two days had been brutal, as hard as the captain had kept up the pursuit. And if his men thought the notion of four hundred cavalrymen pursuing two thousand was bizarre, they kept their thoughts to themselves. Captain Gars was not one to listen to reason.

 

    “No fires,” he commanded. “Not following Croats. Eat the food cold.”

 

    None of his soldiers complained. Captain Gars was not one to listen to complaints, either. And besides, he was sharing the same cold food and sleeping on the same naked ground.

 

    When the men were settled down, Anders Jönsson approached him. The captain was sitting on his bedroll, staring at nothing.

 

    “And tomorrow, Captain? What then?”

 

    Captain Gars lifted his head. “Tomorrow we will rise before sunup. There is no time to lose. The Croats will reach Grantville by mid-morning at the latest.”

 

    He paused, thinking. “I am certain, now, of their plan. Everything makes sense. The Spaniards that Saxe-Weimar let through, the seemingly pointless attack on Suhl. Diversions to draw off the American army. The Croats are the thing. They will strike a town filled with women and children. Their purpose is pure slaughter and destruction.”

 

    Jönsson frowned. “To what end?”

 

    The captain shrugged. “Ask someone else. That is the way men like Wallenstein and Richelieu think. I am skeptical of such reasoning, myself.” He smiled faintly. “But then—what do you expect? I am a madman. It is well known.”
Chapter 54

    The witching hour started at midnight. From loudspeakers positioned at five places surrounding the Wartburg, music suddenly blared forth. A wooded hill in seventeenth-century Thuringia was blessed with the popular tastes of a much later era.
    Harry Lefferts’ tastes, anyway. Somehow—Mike never was clear on the exact chain of command involved—Harry had gotten himself appointed DJ for the occasion.
    He began, naturally, with the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil,”
then, followed with “Satisfaction” and “Street Fighting Man.”
    So far, so good. The arguments started thereafter. To the disgust of the teenage American soldiers in the army, Harry, despite his own relative youth, turned out to be a Classic Rock enthusiast. He followed the Stones’ openers with various selections from Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Doors.
    Then—
    “I can’t believe this antique shit,” hissed Larry Wild. The young “artillery specialist” was making the final adjustments to one of the catapults, working in the light thrown out by an electric hang lamp. Greg Ferrara was directing the work. The crew which would actually fire the contraption was standing nearby, next to the portable generator.
    Larry’s voice was bitter, aggrieved—betrayed.
“Bob Dylan?”
    The strains of “Positively Fourth Street”
finally ended. Larry heaved a thankful sigh, as did Eddie Cantrell. But the third member of the “special artillery unit” did not share their relief.
    “It’s gonna get worse,” predicted Jimmy Andersen gloomily.
    Sure enough. Southwest Thuringia, at that very moment, was rocked with—
    Larry and Eddie shrieked in unison.
“Elvis Presley? You gotta be kidding!”
    Alas, Harry turned out to be a devotee of the King, so the torment of the special artillery unit was protracted. By the time the first catapult was assembled and ready, they were trembling with outrage.
    Then, torment became torture. Over the loudspeakers, Harry announced he was taking requests. Instantly—despite all of Greg Ferrara’s squawks about military discipline—the trio scurried through the woods, bound and determined to bring reason and sanity back into the world.
    Not a chance. By the time they reached Harry’s impromptu “music HQ,” the small clearing was thronged with soldiers eagerly calling out their requests. The noncommissioned ranks of the U.S. army were still primarily composed of middle-aged UMWA members, and Harry cheerfully bowed to their veteran wisdom.
    Larry and Eddie groaned. Jimmy staggered and reeled.
    
Reba McEntire?!
    Desperately, as “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter”
echoed across war-ravaged central Europe and added to that poor land’s agony, Larry and his friends tried to rally support among the soldiers who now formed the bulk of the U.S. military.
    No use. Many of those soldiers, of course, were youngsters like themselves. But, by August of 1632, the ranks of the U.S. army were primarily filled with Germans, who, as it developed—especially the younger ones—had become something in the way of country-western fans. They liked Reba McEntire just fine, thank you.
    Ferrara finally managed to drive his underlings back to work. Feverishly—anything to keep their minds off the pain—they worked their way around the hill, readying the other two catapults. But then, done with that immediate task, the youngsters could bear it no longer. Despite all of Ferrara’s protests about the “chain of command,” they marched in a body to the army’s central HQ, determined to bring their complaints to the very top.
    And, again, met the stone wall of officialdom.
    “Sorry, guys,” said Mike. “Can’t help you.” He glanced at his watch, turning his wrist to bring the dial into the light thrown by the gas lantern hanging at the entrance to the field tent. “Yeah, what I thought. It’s two o’clock in the morning. The preliminaries are over. Time for the main program.”
    He grinned down at the three aggrieved youngsters. “All that other stuff,” he waved, “was just the warm-up. Now we’ll get to the
real
psychological warfare.”
    They stared up him, uncomprehending. Mike’s grin widened.
    “Becky put it together,” he explained.
    At that moment, the sounds of a very different music erupted over the hillside. The three boys standing in front of him flinched.
    “Jesus,” whined Jimmy. “What is
that?
”
    A few feet away, Frank Jackson laughed. “And you thought your stuff was ’out there’!” Frank shook his head. “Forget it, boys. Becky’s about ten times smarter than you, and she’s got all those centuries to pick from.”
    He cocked his head, listening. “Horrible stuff, ain’t it?”
    Mike pursed his lips. “It’s pretty good, actually. If you listen to it in the right frame of mind.”
    Frank chuckled. “That’s just the accommodating husband speaking, Mike. Like me pretending
nuoc mam
don’t taste like rotten fish.”
    Jackson twitched his head. “I hope there ain’t much of
this
selection. Gross violation of the rules of war, what it is.”
    Mike smiled. “Just a few minutes. Even Becky’ll admit that a little of Berg’s
Wozzeck
goes a long way.”

    To the Spanish soldiers in the Wartburg, the eerie cacophony of
Wozzeck
seemed to last a very long time. The soldiers crammed into the castle were filled with anxiety. For two hours, now, they had been subjected to that incredible aural bombardment. For the soldiers standing on the ramparts, it had been even worse. The blinding glare of the spotlights which Ferrara and his teenage “tech warriors” had jury-rigged, sweeping endlessly back and forth across the castle, added visual assault as well.

 

    As always with Spanish armies, the troops were accompanied by officials of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Ten priests, now standing on the ramparts alongside the soldiers, hissed their fury.

 

    Fury—and fear. The Spanish branch of the Inquisition, which answered only to the crown of Spain, was an order of magnitude more vicious and unrestrained than the Papal Inquisition. But they were by no means mindless thugs. The Spanish Inquisition had developed secret police techniques to a level of sophistication which would not be surpassed until the Tsarist
Okhrana
of the late nineteenth century. By the standards of the seventeenth century, they were considered the unrivaled practitioners of what a later age would call “psychological warfare.”

 

    They had just met their master. Their mistress, rather. It was a pity, perhaps, that they did not understand the historical irony involved. A young woman from the cursed race which the Inquisition had hounded for two centuries was about to pay them back in full measure. Her own intelligence, coupled to the entire musical tradition of a later Western world, would complete the task which rock and roll and country-western had begun.

 

    The selection from
Wozzeck
ended. As the next piece began blaring in the night, the Inquisitors heaved a small sigh of relief. At least this music—whatever it was—had some logic.

 

    Their relief lasted not more than a minute. There is a logic to Mussorgsky’s
Night on Bald Mountain
, true enough. But it was not a logic which appealed to them. Neither did the grinding, ominous strains of the same composer’s “Bydlo” from
Pictures at an Exhibition.

 

    Rebecca built from there. Grieg’s short, sharp, thunderous “In the Hall of the Mountain King” came next. As the popularity of that portion of
Peer Gynt
grew, over the years after its composition, Grieg himself had come to detest the thing. “The worst kind of Norwegian bombast,” he once called it. But on that night, the savage Nordic triumphalism of the piece served Rebecca’s purpose well enough.

 

    
Tremble, lords of the dungeon! Trolls and Vikings are at your door!

 

    A Russian variation on the theme followed. The heroic choral strains of “Arise, ye Russian People” from Prokofiev’s
Alexander Nevsky
filled the air, succeeded immediately by the driving fury of “The Battle on the Ice.” On the ramparts of the castle above, the Spanish variation of the Teutonic Knights suffered, in their minds, the same disaster which had befallen the butchers of Pskov centuries earlier on the real ice of Lake Chud.

 

    The Inquisitors tried to dispel their own growing terror by driving their soldiers into action. Shrieking and bellowing, they forced shivering Spanish arquebusiers to the ramparts. Dragging them by the neck, in some cases, ordering them to fire at the Satanic music and spotlights.

 

    Given the inaccuracy of arquebuses, the command was foolish enough. Given the accuracy of the weapons in the hands of the devils in the darkness, it was sheer folly.

 

    “Take them out!” commanded Mike. He studied the ramparts through the binoculars. The spotlights were now focused on the priests and soldiers lined along the battlements, illuminating them clearly. “Aim for the inquisitors!”

 

    
Alexander Nevsky
ended, immediately replaced by the conclusion of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto no. 3
.
The wild exuberance of the music from the third movement served as a backdrop for the rambunctious enthusiasm of the U.S. snipers. Julie Sims was not among their number, true. But if Julie was the best sharpshooter in the U.S. army, there were many other very fine ones. Within two minutes, all of the Spanish soldiers had retreated from the battlements. They left behind twenty of their own dead—and seven inquisitors.

 

    “A daft breed,” grumbled Lennox. He and Mackay had tried to seek shelter from the auditory storm in the HQ tent. To no great avail, as loudly as Harry was playing the music. “A guid thing I slept earlier. Get nae sleep now.”

 

    Alex shrugged. “ ’Tis better than rap music.”

 

    Lennox snorted. “Anyt’in’ is better’n
tha’
crap!”

 

    Another piece blared over the loudspeakers. Lennox flinched.

 

    Mike, seeing the motion out of the corner of his eye, turned his head and grinned.

 

    “That’s from something called
The Rite of Spring
,” he explained. “Becky’s real fond of it.”

 

    “Glad she’s no my wife,” muttered Lennox under his breath. “Even if t’lass does look like Cleopatra.”

 

    Mackay smiled. He stepped forward, coming alongside Mike at the tent’s entrance.

 

    “I’m curious,” he said. “Rebecca’s been with you lunatics for not much more than a year.” Alex gestured into the darkness with his chin. “So how has she managed to learn so much of your music?”

 

    Mike shrugged. “Beats me. Her father helped, of course. Balthazar’s gotten to be a fanatic about classical music. Says he’s sick to death of stupid lutes.” He hesitated, torn between pride and a desire not to seem like a doting husband. But, since he was both proud of his wife—fiercely proud—
and
a doting husband, the struggle was brief.

 

    “I don’t know, Alex. How she managed that, along with all her reading, and everything else? I just don’t know.” His chest swelled. “The only thing I know for sure is that Becky’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. Or ever will, I imagine.”

 

    Mackay nodded. “True enough. Still—”

 

    He froze. “What is
that?
”

 

    Mike listened, for a moment, to the sound of Leontyne Price’s powerful soprano. Then, laughed. “Don’t you like it? It’s called the ’Liebestod.’
By a guy named Wagner.”

 

    Alex pursed his lips. “Incredible voice, I grant you.” He grimaced. “But it sounds as if the poor woman is dying.”

 

    “She is.” Mike turned his head, staring at the battlements above. Gaily: “And she takes her sweet time about it, let me tell you.”

 

    And so it went, through the night. The program which Rebecca had prepared followed the “Liebestod”
with a whole dose of Wagner. She detested the composer, as it happened—as much for the histrionics of his music as for his personal vileness and anti-Semitism. But she thought the music suited the occasion. So, striking their ears like lead mallets, the Spanish soldiers forted up in a German castle were assaulted by the ultimate in Teutonic bombast. “The Ride of the Valkyries”