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Nor the Moon By Night

Written by Virginia DeMarce

Fulda, March 1635

The sergeant knocked on the door of the Benedictine priory.

Not the door of the big Abbey of Fulda. The door of the little convent of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. A door upon which, he thought, he had knocked altogether too many times recently.

The lay sister who served as the gatekeeper flicked open the peephole.

"Sorry to bother, you, Sister," the sergeant said, "but I've got some more people for the prioress. One of our patrols picked them up on the road coming down from Vacha. Refugees, again."

"Thank you for bringing them to us."

"No problem, ma'am. And I'll tell Colonel Utt that you've got another batch."

****

"Of course, you are welcome," the prioress said to the four bedraggled women. "From Hersfeld, you say? If you do not mind rather cramped quarters, I will ask you to share rooms with the six nuns and three novices who came from the Eichsfeld a couple of weeks ago. Whatever we have, we will gladly share."

"At least," the apparent leader of the group said, "you have a place for us to rest our heads and something to share."

Salome von Pflaumern nodded. "Life here has become . . . strange, in some ways. Unaccustomed ways. I never expected, for example, during my twenty calm years in the convent in Kühbach bei Aichach, in the diocese of Augsburg, that I would ever become notorious as one of the subjects of a satirical pamphlet.

"But for the past two and a half years, almost—ever since the up-timers came—we have not been disturbed. Not, at least, plundered. We have a garden, which we can shortly plant, so fresh foods will be coming in. Until then, our rations will be sparse."

"The up-timers have deprived you of your income?"

The prioress shook her head. "We have some money assigned to us by the abbot, which we usually just don't receive. The abbey's provosts neglect to send it, in spite of the fact that a papal decree obliges them to because back before the Reformation, there were Benedictine convents within their regions that have ceased to exist."

"How can they refuse?"

"They can procrastinate." She smiled. "The up-time woman, Frau Hill, once mentioned to me that the problem also existed up-time, where it was known as 'reprogramming of appropriated revenues.' The former abbot assigned the income to the priory before I arrived. He, Johann Bernhard Schenk von Schweinsberg, founded our priory. He laid the cornerstone here in 1626. The papal nuncio agreed to the assignment of our incomes in 1627. Our theoretical incomes, since the convent has no estates of its own with farmers cultivating them on our behalf and the profits coming to us. That was before I was in charge—the founding nuns returned to Zella in 1630, which is when I and three of my fellow-sisters came to replace them.

"I have—repeatedly—written to the nuncio in Cologne that I would have far more authority in negotiating with them if I were an abbess rather than just a prioress—so far to no avail. We do earn some money through needlework to replace church vestments that have been destroyed during the war and the rebinding of liturgical books. The apothecaries in Fulda also pay us to prepare medicines from the herbs in our garden. So we do have money. Not much, but some. Which at least arrives regularly, with no . . . deductions by local officials along the way."

Her guests nodded. Then one of them asked, "Have you heard anything from the nuns in Zella? It is in the Eichsfeld, too, after all."

****

"Damn it, Harlan. I just don't know what to do."

Melvin Springer said that a lot, much to the frustration of his subordinates, who had gotten used to working with Wes Jenkins.

"Why in hell are they all ending up here?" He tapped his forefinger on the conference table.

Harlan Stull leaned forward. "It's gotten worse since Wettin won the election. A lot worse. Especially with Gustavus Adolphus focused on the fallout from March fourth and the upcoming campaign against Brandenburg and Saxony. It's like every little fuss and feud that Mike had been sitting on since he became prime minister is breaking out again. Even before the official transfer of power. I can't imagine what it's going to be like, come June, when Wettin's actually in office."

"So? Answer my question, will you. Why here?"

"Mostly, I think, because Fulda's the closest sort of . . . protected . . . Catholic place to where they're coming from. To the different places that they're coming from. Most of Thuringia's pretty solidly Lutheran. It's either head this way or try to make it all the distance to some of the old Mainz Catholic exclaves around Erfurt. Bamberg and Würzburg are even farther away. If they went west, they'd have the problem of trying to get across the Rhine, since Hesse's in control all the way to the river."

"So we're just a handy pit stop. Damn it, Andrea. That's not what I wanted to hear."

"Send Andrea over to talk to the prioress again, I guess," Derek Utt said. "That might be the best thing to do, Melvin. This time last year, there were fifteen nuns in that building. Now, with the refugees, she must have twice as many crammed into it. She's going to need help feeding them. Cloistered nuns just don't have very many ways to make money. Send somebody over to talk to Hoheneck, too, I guess. He's the abbot now. See if he can squeeze a little more blood out of the turnips who are his provosts. Maybe . . ."

"Maybe what?"

"Send Urban von Boyneburg up to Hersfeld to talk to von Wildenstein. He's been working with us long enough now that he should have a decent idea about what we mean when we say the words 'freedom of religion.' I'd be willing to go with him. Because I'm not absolutely sure . . ."

"Of what?" Harlan Stull asked.

"That the landgrave of Hesse-Kassel and Wettin himself are fully up to speed about some of the things that their local administrators are doing in their name in places like Hersfeld and the Eichsfeld. Because it's not universal. That is, it's not happening across the board. A lot of these religious-based expulsions are pretty spotty. Localized. But I hate to tell you . . ." Derek Utt ran a hand through his rusty red hair, leaving the curls standing on end.

"What now?"

"Just before I came in, Hartke told me that a patrol out under Jeffie Garand and Joel Matowski yesterday collected another batch of nuns on the road. They found them rooms in Vacha so they could get some rest overnight and are going to bring them in today. From a convent at Zella, in the Eichsfeld. Nearly twenty, this time. Hell if I know where Ms. von Pflaumern, the prioress, that is, is going to put them."

"In that building?" Andrea Hill said. "She's not going to put them anywhere unless she stacks them up like cordwood. You'll have to talk to von Hoheneck and see about leasing the convent some extra space. And I think—with your approval, of course, Melvin—that I'll write to the landgravine. Amalie Elisabeth has more sense than this. For one thing, they can't believe that it has the emperor's backing. Back before we came to Fulda, in the winter of 1631, when the queen of Sweden was in Germany with her husband, she stopped here in Fulda, met with Salome von Pflaumern, and gave the convent thirty ducats."

Andrea stood up, sticking a pencil into her hair. "Maybe I could write to Wettin's wife, too, and remind her of that. After all, he's just invited the English Ladies to set up their girls' school in Weimar rather than Grantville. Why would he be inviting nuns into one city—what amounts to his own old home town—and throwing them out of another region that's under his administration? It just doesn't make sense."

Springer nodded. "It can't hurt, I suppose."

****

The liturgy completed and the others dispersed to their daily tasks, Salome von Pflaumern rose, mentally girding herself, like Paul, putting on the armor of God to do battle one more time. With the fishmonger, who was making noises about making no more deliveries until he got paid.

Easter would not be until April eighth. They were on Lenten rations. The garden was producing almost nothing, this early—only what they had planted in the hothouse against the brick wall that got the afternoon sun.

Thus . . . today, the battle of the fish. Not as impressive as a military battle with banners flying, perhaps, but just as necessary.

Hersfeld, April 1635

"Six groups," Boyneburg said. "Within the last three months, six different groups of Catholic refugees have come into Fulda from Hersfeld. Herr Springer, the administrator, is very upset."

Georg Wulf von Wildenstein was not prepared to compromise. "An eye for an eye," he said. "I am not enforcing more than that. The Catholics in Hersfeld are only now reaping what they previously sowed."

Boyneburg looked at Wilhelm of Hesse-Kassel's administrator in Hersfeld. He would be more inclined to believe the man if he didn't know his previous history so well. Before the landgrave gave him this appointment, he'd been field commander of Muffel's Brandenburg-Kulmbach regiment on Gustavus Adolphus' behalf when it went through Franconia as part of Horn's troops. When Horn took Bamberg in February 1632, he'd named Wildenstein to command the garrison holding the city. Whereupon, almost at once, Wildenstein had ordered the stripping of "idols" from the Jesuit church in order to hold Calvinist worship services there.

Very much, Boyneburg thought, as the Calvinist chaplains of the Winter King had stripped the Catholic churches in Prague in 1618 for the same purpose. A less than popular move in Bohemia. Which led one to suspect that some people never learned.

Wildenstein had pushed the issue in Bamberg hard enough that even Horn's Lutheran chaplains had filed a protest. It took some doing to achieve that result.

Very much as, the refugees said, he had now, once again, ordered the "stripping of papist idols" from the city church in Hersfeld.

"It started with Tilly," the mayor said. "Tilly took Hersfeld in 1623. May, it was. The first Hessian city that the Catholics took. He had his headquarters here during the summer in 1625, but even before that, he ordered that Catholic masses were to be held every day in the old abbey church.

"Ferdinand II decided to reestablish the Imperial abbey. Now remember, this was well before he issued that so-called Edict of Restitution. He just decided on his own authority that during the Reformation, it had come into the possession of the landgraves of Hesse illegally." The man snorted. "Catholic Reformation, hah. Call it by its right name—Counter Reformation. Everything was to go back the way it had been. A commission from Mainz came in 1628 to take possession of the abbey in the name of the archbishop as administrator. The archbishop appointed a regent.

"Until 1629, at least, the Mainz commission recognized the protectorate of the landgrave over the rest of the city and let the Calvinists continue to worship in the city church. Then that year, after the Edict of Restitution, the archbishop named . . ." He paused. "Wambold von Umstadt appointed the up-timers' late friend and colleague, the former Fulda prince-abbot Johann Bernhard Schenk zu Schweinsberg, as vice-administrator. He set out to restore papistry in the whole city. Quite a big deal. Even though it was February, not the best time for public processions, he came into the city with all of his cavalry and a batch of monks. Jesuits. Benedictines—not his own, but borrowed from St. Gall. A batch of Franciscan friars. They arrived with pomp—eight coaches and three large travel wagons. There were Croats stationed here, to keep the city quiet. They received Schweinsberg outside the city and escorted him in. The Catholics rang all the bells in the abbey church. Armed citizens stood at attention in the streets.

"Schweinsburg ordered the mayor—that was me, by the way—all the members of the city council, the Calvinist minister, and the chaplain to come to the city church. He relieved us of our offices, in the polite term for firing us. He expelled the Calvinist congregation from the city church.

"And, then and there, one of the other Fulda officials he'd brought along, the provost of the Petersberg, the up-timers' current friend and colleague, the new abbot of Fulda—back then he was Schweinsberg's subordinates—Johann Adolf von Hoheneck, held a high mass in the city church and thereby took it again into possession as, quote-unquote, 'a Catholic house of God.' Through his chaplain, a guy they called Father Bartholomäus, he installed a Jesuit, a man named Jakob Liebst, as municipal priest."

"So, as you see," Wildenstein said, "we have done nothing to the Catholics that they had not done unto us. It's scarcely appropriate for you, as a Calvinist yourself, to complain."

Boyneburg cleared his throat. "I believe that a more accurate rendition of the words of Christ is not 'as others have already done unto you' but rather, 'as you would have others do unto you.'"

Fulda

"Franconian?" Melvin Springer asked.

"The family lineage was geographically Franconian in origin," Boyneburg answered. "But Georg Wulf von Wildenstein is a subject of the Palatinate. There's a history to it."

"Isn't there always?" Derek Utt grinned rather ruefully. "How many centuries this time?"

Boyneburg reflected a couple of minutes. "Not quite three, I would say. At least, that would cover the issues of most immediate concern."

"Then tell me," Springer said. "The short version, please."

"This branch of the von Wildenstein family has lands in several areas. One of the earliest was the Rothenburg, as castle not too far from Schnaittach. That's near Nürnberg, in the Pegnitz valley. One of them sold it to Emperor Charles IV in 1353; it came to the Palatinate some time after that, and in 1478, a coalition of imperial knights, fifty or so, bought it. Much to Nürnberg's annoyance, I have to say. When the Palatinate fell into Bavarian hands in 1623, in this war, the city council was even unhappier. Then in 1629, Duke Maximilian ...