Eric Flint - 1634 - The Ram Rebellion

Castle Bimbach, near Bayreuth, late April, 1634

Looking up at Schloss Bimbach as she and Eddie Junker approached it, Noelle didn’t think it looked anything like what she imagined a “castle” ought to look like.

Well, okay. It was on top of a hill. It was big.

“ Schloss,” my ass. Just a huge ugly stone barn, is what it is. A whitewashed stone barn.

She’d discovered, since she’d arrived in the seventeenth century in the Ring of Fire, that most German “castles” of the period fell between two stools. As far as her aesthetic sense was concerned, anyway.

Truly medieval castles-or at least ones with a major medieval element-could be pretty impressive, in their own way. She’d visited the Wartburg, after the reconstruction had begun repairing the damage caused by the napalm Mike Stearns had used on it to force the surrender of the Spanish army that had tried to use the castle for a refuge. Even with as much damage as it had sustained, she’d had no trouble understanding why so many Germans considered the Wartburg the archetypical castle of the Germanies.

Granted, the toilet facilities were a joke. But they were still a joke in castles built long after the Wartburg-and at least the Wartburg still had a certain primitive majesty to it.

On the flip side, although she’d never visited it, Noelle had seen plenty of photographs of Versailles, the enormous palace that the French “sun king” Louis XIV had built half a century in the “future.” That was impressive in a completely different way, even though she was pretty sure that the toilet facilities hadn’t improved much. If any .

But German castles in Thuringia and Franconia were generally what people considered “Renaissance”-using the term incredibly loosely. So far as Noelle was concerned, that meant they had been built after the farmers burned down some genuinely medieval castle a century earlier and combined Baroque with the grandiosity of a would-be miniature Versailles with all the stonepile ugliness of medieval construction.

She had no doubt an architect could explain how wrong she was. She also had no doubt that she didn’t care.

“Great ugly stone barn,” she muttered. “Not a turret or a moat in sight. All the architectural charm of a state office building.”

Walking next to her, Eddie grinned. “Please! You are offending my culture. I believe that is grossly-what is the term that Frau Carstairs explained to me?-ah, yes. ‘Politically incorrect’.”

Noelle sniffed. “We’re West Virginians, Eddie. Not much given to political correctness.”

The grin didn’t fade at all. “Indeed. So Frau Carstairs explained to me. In a manner I suspect was deeply incorrect.”

“And it’s still a great ugly stone barn.”

* * *

She was a little mollified once they reached the top of the hill and passed by the front entrance of the Schloss. That, at least, was fairly impressive.

In a great ugly sort of way. The door was immense, double-doored, and made out of some sort of heavy wood that had been painted dead black. Two black columns flanked it on either side, with some sort of semi-circular white stone carvings along the semi-circular top of the doors. She couldn’t remember what that was called. A “frieze,” maybe.

It looked as if it would take a team of mules to pull it open. Fortunately, they wouldn’t have to find out. The front entrance of a Schloss was not for the likes of them.

They continued past it, walking along the white stone walls toward the rear entrances used by servants and tradesmen. The stables were back there, too, judging from the smell. Far above their heads, she could see grilled windows. Nothing close to ground level, though-which meant there wasn’t much chance of any officious persons spotting them.

Even if they did, it probably wouldn’t matter. A Schloss like this was the center of local government, as much as it was a personal residence. Von Bimbach would have private apartments in one wing of the castle, but much of the edifice would be devoted to administration and record-keeping. Clerks, bureaucrats, tradesmen, cooks, servants-not to mention people just visiting for some sort of business-would come and go from the Schloss all hours of the day. Noelle and Eddie were dressed inconspicuously and were walking along in broad daylight as if they had every right to be there. As long as they didn’t presume to use the front entrance or enter the Freiherr ’s private rooms, they would remain beneath notice.

To any except the Schloss’ staff, of course. But, for that, the Ram had already made arrangements.

She hoped, at least. So the letter she’d gotten from him had claimed.

* * *

The letter was accurate. Getting into the Schloss and situated in a small room set aside for them in the servants’ quarters went as smoothly as she could have asked for.

“Now what do we do?” asked Eddie, after the maid who had led them to the room departed.

The small, narrow chamber had only two pieces of furniture, a rickety-looking wooden chair and a solidly made if unattractive bed with a straw mattress. Two thick wool blankets were folded on the bed. There were no pillows of any kind.

Noelle sat down on the bed. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “It’s already late afternoon, though. So I think the smartest thing to do is just wait until nightfall, and see if the Ram’s people here approach us. If not… we’ll decide tomorrow.”

Eddie nodded. Then, none too cheerfully, examined the rough-hewn wood floor.

“Oh, relax,” said Noelle. “We can share the bed.”

He got a solemn look on his face and placed his hand over his heart. “I vow that I have no intentions on your virtue.”

Noelle chuckled. “I wasn’t actually worried about it.”

She wasn’t, in fact. In the time since they’d started working together, her relationship with Eddie Junker had settled into something quite comfortable for her. For Eddie too, she thought. Something of a cross between friends and older sister/younger brother.

There was certainly nothing romantic about it. That might seem odd to someone observing them, since she and Eddie were both reasonably attractive, intelligent, and were almost the same age. But, for whatever reasons these things happened-or didn’t-there had simply never been any “chemistry” between them.

True, some of that might be due to Noelle’s still-official I’m thinking about becoming a nun position. But, she didn’t think so. She just wasn’t Eddie’s “type,” whatever type that might be. And he certainly wasn’t hers, insofar as she could figure out if there was any type of man who might appeal to her that way. She hadn’t met one yet, leaving aside a couple of casual boyfriends in high school and junior college. Those relationships hadn’t lasted long, however-and she was the only virgin her age she knew.

“So I feared,” groaned Eddie. Noelle chuckled again.

Franconia, late April, 1634

With Margrave Christian’s declaration of neutrality on behalf of himself and his nephews, the Franconian Protestant knights and lords took arms against the USE/SoTF administration, under the leadership of Freiherr Fuchs von Bimbach.

Which, of course, made the newspapers. Banner headlines, in fact.

Steve Salatto was very unhappy.

* * *

Arnold Bellamy was even unhappier, mainly because he had no additional resources whatsoever with which to assist the SoTF administration in Franconia. Nor was the SoTF congress meeting. He spoke urgently with Ed Piazza about the need for a special session.

Mike Stearns was more than profoundly annoyed. Not with Steve Salatto or the Franconian farmers, however, but with Wilhelm Wettin-who was viewing the situation in Franconia with alarm. Great alarm. Quite frequently. Wilhelm thought that something should be done.