1632

Greetings, and may God's blessing be upon you. By now, you will have heard the news of Breitenfeld. You will recall, I am certain, a conversation which we had once. I regret that I did not listen more carefully to your advice and warnings. It seems to me that there might now be a mutual advantage in working toward the end which you suggested at the time. I will say no more of that here. Surely you understand my purpose without further elaboration. If you are still of the same mind, send word to me by courier.

Richelieu.

***

While his enemies-open and hidden-plotted against him, the king of Sweden solidified his hold on central Germany. He left Leipzig to be recaptured by the chastened Saxons, while he himself followed Tilly's retreating army. He captured three thousand more of those men in a small battle outside Merseburg two days later. On September 21, four days after Breitenfeld, he occupied Halle and allowed his army to rest and refit.

The future was unclear, his ensuing course uncertain. Already the king was being urged in many different directions by his various allies and advisers.

No matter. Whichever course he decided upon, Gustav Adolf was certain of one thing. At Breitenfeld, the world had changed forever.

Breitenfeld. Always Breitenfeld.

Part Four

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare seize the fire?

Chapter 37

Word of Breitenfeld reached Grantville toward the end of September. The town erupted in celebration, which went on for two full days.

The fact that the Catholics-who now constituted well over half the population-participated fully in the festivities was a sign of just how little religious affiliation lay at the center of the war. Germany's commoners, by and large, tended to be indifferent to their neighbors' Christian denomination. It was the aristocracy and the princes-above all, the Habsburg dynasty-who had forced the issue upon the Holy Roman Empire. And while each one of those noblemen claimed to be acting out of nothing more than piety, it was really their own power and privileges which were at stake. The great mercenary armies which ravaged central Europe were willing enough to enlist Protestants or Catholics into their ranks, regardless of their official allegiance. Any number of the "Catholic" mercenaries defeated by the Americans and then incorporated into their new society proved, once the dust settled, to be Lutherans or Calvinists.

So, everyone celebrated. Even Simpson and his coterie, for once, refrained from their usual recriminations and protests. Not even an ox was dumb enough not to understand that the king of Sweden's great victory at Breitenfeld removed most of the immediate military pressure from Thuringia.

Most, but not all. There were no official imperial armies squeezing the province any longer. But Tilly's army, in shattering, had produced a number of splinters. One of them, under the "command" of a self-appointed "captain," had decided to seek refuge for the winter south of the Harz mountains.

That ragged army numbered perhaps a thousand men, accompanied by twice that many camp followers. They marched-in a manner of speaking-into southern Thuringia, desperately seeking food and shelter from the coming winter. They had heard that the region was still largely unravaged by the war. They believed those rumors.

They had also heard that a band of sorcerers lurked thereabouts. But that rumor they dismissed. Witchcraft was a thing of old women, casting malicious spells on their neighbors-not powerful sorcerers shattering entire armies.

They learned otherwise before they got within thirty miles of Grantville, at a small crossroads not far from Jena.

***

Jena was a university town, famed throughout Germany as a center of learning. Its Collegium Jenense had been founded in 1558 with the help of the Protestant reformer Melanchthon. Jena had a population numbering in the thousands but, unlike Badenburg, the town was unwalled and essentially unprotected. When word arrived of an approaching army of mercenaries, the townsfolk were thrown into panic.