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The Red Flag of Henneberg

Written by Virginia DeMarce

 

Grantville, Spring 1635

“What are they?” Hedy Beasley asked her husband.

“Bed sheets. King size. Fucking worn out bed sheets that won’t even fit our mattress. Just like everything I get to bring home from the laundry is so worn out that the person who brought it in doesn’t want it any more. Damn, but I hate hand-me-downs. Always did, even when I was a kid. Never fit right. Always a couple of years behind what everyone else in your class has.”

Hedy frowned. “They aren’t worn out. This one just has a hole in the middle and the ‘elastic’ has died. If I cut it down the center, cut off the elastic, sew the side edges together, trim the new outsides until they are even and hem them, then . . .”

“It’s worn out, Hedy.” Jarvis didn’t have much patience with the domestic arts. He finished his current task and looked down at what baby Viana had just accomplished. “Cut it up and use the edge parts for diapers. The way she’s going, we could sure use more.”

Hedy looked doubtful. “Dark red diapers?”

“Camouflage.” Jarvis handed Viana over to her mother and sat down to drink his beer.

****

Hedy turned both of the dark red pillow cases into baby dresses. Viana needed them, she was growing so fast, and it was hardly any work, since they were already hemmed and had side seams.

She salvaged what she could from the “bottom sheet” with the hole. Since Jarvis had complained, she thought he might notice if she sewed the two sections together into a new sheet and put it on the bed, but he would never notice new curtains. She was very proud of her new kitchen curtains. She had a “valance” and “tie backs” and “ruffles,” with narrow ruffles edging the wide ruffles. It was as close as she could make to what she remembered she had seen when she was cleaning Frau Donna Bates’ house, before Frau Brandy made everything there so stinking plain.

Plain was for people who couldn’t afford fancy, in Hedy’s humble opinion. Not that anyone would ask her.

She laid the “top sheet” away in a drawer. It was a truly magnificent amount of fabric. The center was worn thin, but didn’t actually have a hole. She could cut around the thin spot. Perhaps she could make herself a whole dress, suitable for wearing to a fair. She would love to go to the Badenburg fair wearing a red dress. Before Jarvis, her clothes had been either sort of tan or sort of olive green or sort of drab blue. She had never aspired to red.

She would love to go to the Badenburg fair with Jarvis. If, that was, she was ever again allowed to leave the confines of West Virginia County to go to a real kirmess. The “fair” in Grantville was more of an industrial exhibition now, full of mechanical gadgets and competition for investors and funding. It wasn’t really fun.

Grantville, Summer 1635

The emperor invaded Saxony.

Hedy thought over what Judge Tito had told her the previous spring and made a call at the West Virginia County Courthouse to ask him whether or not it was safe for her to go to a fair, now that John George and his Saxon officials and his Saxon laws probably had other things to worry about than whether she was a bigamist.

She received informal judicial advice that it was better to be safe than sorry.

At that point, she called on the Freedom Arches.

She received informal political advice that until the Saxon-administered districts in Henneberg got themselves sufficiently together to throw the rascals out and make it stick, it was better to be safe than sorry.

On the way out, she stopped to look at the CoC bulletin board.

The advice “To be sung to the tune of ‘O Tannenbaum’ from Suhl County” headed one sheet of paper.

Not that this was unusual. It seemed to her that half of the anthems rendered by CoC members in their more expansive and liquid moments were sung to that tune. It seemed to be everywhere.

There were English words in the first column. Hedy passed over those. She couldn’t read English yet, but presumably the strange letters that said The Red Flag meant the same thing as the sensible Fraktur letters that everyone knew how to read and which said Die Rote Fahne.

The people's flag is deepest red,

It shrouded oft our martyr'd dead

And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,

Their hearts' blood dyed its ev'ry fold.

Dark red. Blood.

Dunkelrot. Blut.

Refrain:

Then raise the scarlet standard high,

Within its shade we'll live and die,

Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,

We'll keep the red flag flying here.

Here? Grantville didn’t need a red flag, even if someone got above himself and called it a scarlet standard. But Henneberg. Henneberg could use a dark red banner. Judge Tito and the CoC leaders agreed. She couldn’t go to a fair until Schleusingen threw out the Saxons. That would, possibly, require, red and blood. Maybe even martyrs. As Jarvis often said, “shit happens.”

Red, she could provide. The rest would be up to her fellow Hennebergers.

Look round, the Frenchman loves its blaze,

The sturdy German chants its praise,

In Moscow's vaults its hymns are sung,

Chicago swells the surging throng.

Moscow. She thought that Frau Brandy’s husband Vladimir came from Moscow. In fact, she was sure of it. He was a prince, though, so why would he want to sing a revolutionary hymn? But that was his problem and not hers. Henneberg was certainly German.

It waved above our infant might

When all around seemed dark as night;

It witnessed many a deed and vow,

We must not change its colour now.

There was one thing to be said for the up-time dyes. They rarely faded. If she made a red flag, it was unlikely to change its color.

It well recalls the triumphs past;

It gives the hope of peace at last:

The banner bright, the symbol plain,

Of human right and human gain.

Ahrensbök. Gustavus Adolphus’ new victories this summer. Triumphs. The Council of Copenhagen. Peace, but it hadn’t lasted. Maybe next time. Surely attending the Badenburg fair qualified as a human right, even if she had to go in her old tan skirts.

It suits today the meek and base,

Whose minds are fixed on pelf and place,

To cringe before the rich man's frown

And haul the sacred emblem down.

She frowned. The meek and base must be the Hennebergers who did what the Saxon administrators told them to because they wanted to be rich. Because they wanted to be appointed to this or that position, wear gold chains of office around their necks, and march toward the front of town parades.

Dark red.

Revolution.

Henneberg.

The Badenburg fair.

Without hesitation, Hedy sacrificed her dreams of a red dress to a higher purpose.

****

The “king size” top sheet would make a really big banner.

The center was very thin, so Hedy reinforced it, on both sides, with pieces of white sheet, about four feet by five feet, whipped onto the stronger cloth at the edges.

Then she started to make appliqués through all three thicknesses. She appliquéd every revolutionary symbol that anyone in the Grantville CoC had ever mentioned to her. There were adders on all four corners with the motto that said, “Don’t tread on me.” She embroidered portraits of Brillo and Ewegenia and placed them next. There was a hammer and sickle toward the bottom center.

That was just one side.

The other side started with a Bundschuh in the center and went from there.

By the time she finished, the white fabric was practically quilted and stood out stiffly with the flimsier wide red edges fluttering around it. She thought it would be very nice for being carried as an ensign on a long, long, pole.

She folded it up. She stopped at the Freedom Arches and painstakingly copied out Die Rote Fahne. She put that on top, wrapped the package carefully in oiled cloth, stopped at the post office, and mailed it to “Head of the Committee of Correspondence, Schleusingen, Henneberg (Saxony).”

She did not include a return address. The revolution might succeed. But then, again, it might not. Nobody can say that Hedwig Altschulerin has ever been anybody’s fool, she thought with satisfaction.

Schleusingen, Henneberg, August 1635

Wolfgang Heilman—almost always called Wolf, whether by exasperated parents and teachers when he was a boy or friends and enemies in the present—looked at the contents of the package he had just opened.

No, there was nothing else. Just the banner and the poem.

He knew “O Tannenbaum,” of course. Everybody in the Henneberg CoC knew the tune. As chairman, he was expected to lead a lot of the singing.

With heads uncovered swear we all

To bear it onward till we fall.

Come dungeon dark or gallows grim,

This song shall be our parting hymn.

According to the newspapers—if a man could trust them—the emperor’s campaign in Saxony was going well. John George would soon be on the run. He’d better call a meeting of the committee.

That evening, he looked at the people gathered around his mother’s kitchen table. Four women, including his formidable mother Hildegard, were crowded onto the high-backed bench. Albrecht Mack’s wife Anna Gerlichin, too pregnant to sit comfortably, was standing up. The men made do with three-legged stools. All of them were staring at the banner with fascination. Clearly, this was A Message From On High.

Hildegard touched the top edge. “It’s genuine up-time fabric,” she said with awe. “So expensive. So rare. I’m amazed that they consider us worthy of it.”

Thomas Jehn turned it over so they could look at the other side.

“I thought we were going to use a Ram banner when the time came,” Albrecht complained. He could always find something to whine about.

“There’s a Brillo on this.” Barbara Wermann stabbed a finger at the image.

“Only on one side.” Albrecht could be relied upon to focus on the cloud that surrounded every silver lining. Maybe it was because he was a tanner and spent his days among vats of curing leather in a constant fog of urine and ammonia.

Wolf decided to let them talk themselves out. That was the easiest procedure—consensus by exhaustion and hoarse voices. He motioned to his mother not to refill the beer pitcher. Thirst was also a powerful motivator when it came to getting a meeting to come to some kind of a conclusion.

Paulus Weigel cleared his throat. “It was mailed from the post office in Grantville itself. That is significant.”

“But who sent it?” Barbara’s brother Bartholomäus had a tendency to ask uncomfortable questions, often along the lines of, “Just who is paying for this?”

“Someone delegated by the central authority.” Weigel’s voice oozed confidence. “That is clear. Possibly it is from Spartacus. Perhaps from die Richterin herself. But certainly, it is a message. They don’t want us to play nice any longer.”

Dorothea Kästel nodded.

“It’s obvious what it means,” Catharina Sommer added. “Get a move on. It’s time to throw the rascals out! Things like that.”

This time, Hans Leibner nodded. So did Wolfgang’s brother Philipp—generally known as Lips.

When Albrecht opened his mouth again, his brother Dieter rapped him on the top of his head and his wife gave him that look.

“Will the Suhl CoC take an interest?” That was Bartholomäus.

“Take an interest and probably take us over,” Albrecht grumped.

Wolf frowned. That last was uncomfortably close to the most likely outcome. Since the Ring of Fire, the balance of power on the south slopes of the Thüringerwald had tilted in favor of Suhl.

“Who’ll be our major problems here?” That was Bartholomäus again.

Paulus pursed his lips. “Matthis Wilde is still the first Burgermeister and there’s never been anyone more pigheaded.”

“He’s not really in charge,” Bartholomäus pointed out. “How will Herrengossenstädt react?”

“John George’s overseer?” Wolf pulled at his mustache. Owing to his position as second to the militia captain responsible for defense of the southern walls, he had seen more of the Saxon administrator than any of the others. “Ludwig Ernst Marschalck von Herrengossenstädt is brave enough, even if he did take his family and dash off to Nürnberg in 1631—what else could he do, under the circumstances? Plus, he’s taken an oath to Saxony and when he gives his word, he takes it seriously. It’s unfortunate—unfortunate that he’s brave, I mean. If the town was about to be raided by Croats, I’d be delighted to have him in charge of the Schloss. In a situation where we’re the guys on the outside who are trying to get in, I can only wish that he was someplace else. He’s sure not likely to join us, considering that he named his son Johann Georg. Make a list, Barto. You and Paulus.”

“Anna, too,” Paulus said. “She worked for the apothecary’s wife for years before she married Albrecht and now old Amthor is the second Burgermeister in place of Johann Scheuner.”

Anna nodded. “I heard a lot. Overheard.”

“Eavesdropped, more likely,” her husband corrected. “I’ve never met a nosier woman.”

“Stop complaining. Right now, that’s a good thing.” Bartholomäus threw a piece of chalk at him.

Anna smirked. “Amthor might be reasonable. Schott, the new city council clerk, now he might be one of your problems. Stubborn as an old goat and worked in the Leipzig chancery office until they sent him over here. Don’t expect any real support from Ittig, even if he does say sympathetic things. Funk at the tax office will dig his heels in. And . . .”

“Take it to the other room. You three, the slate, and the chalk.” Wolf waved toward the door. “Come back when you have the list.”

Anna looked back at him from the door. “Do you want the ones who might work with us, too? Like Hans Gratias at customs? He didn’t move here from Arnstadt until a couple of years after the Ring of Fire, so he knows people in Grantville, and his wife’s a sister of the new mayor in Badenburg who married an up-time woman.”

Wolf blinked. He hadn’t thought of that. “Sure. For that matter, I can put together a list of the other militia officers who won’t go out of their way to interfere with us.”

Schleusingen, Henneberg, September 1635

Albrecht Mack looked at the pole. “Do we have anyone strong enough to carry this thing? To bear it onward till we fall takes on a whole different meaning with a banner this size. It’s as heavy as I am. Heavier, probably.” Albrecht was on the scrawny side.

“Maybe we don’t,” Barbara said, “but that blacksmith who came over from Suhl with Jorg Hennel has enough heft to weight it down at the bottom.”

“Do we want an outsider at the head of our column?” Anna asked. “This ought to be a movement of Hennebergers for their own freedom.”

Thomas Jehn sucked on his teeth. “Until the last count died, which was before I was born but my dad remembers it, Suhl used to be part of Henneberg, just like Schmalkalden.”

“Schleusingen Hennebergers,” Barbara specified.

Her brother ignored her and answered Jehn. “Not just like Schmalkalden. That belongs to Hesse-Kassel now. At least, Hesse-Kassel is administering it, which is why there are some Calvinists down here.” Bartholomäus’ day job was as a clerk in the canon law section of the Lutheran church’s superintendent’s office. He had his doubts about the wisdom of tolerating Calvinists, but had resigned himself to it as one of the CoC’s articles of faith that sometimes coexisted rather uneasily with his prior beliefs and convictions. “Suhl’s a county in the SoTF because it went to the other Wettins, the ones in Saxe-Weimar. That damned Crown Loyalist now-I’m-a-commoner-so-I-can-be-a-prime minister. Sneaky as hell. You’d think that the least that nobles could do is stick to their born-to-be-better-than-thou principles.”

“So we can count the blacksmith as one of us?” Dieter Mack asked.

Paulus Weigel grinned. “If he’s willing to volunteer to be martyred. The flag has to be right in front.”

****

“Hell, yes. I’ll carry it.” Tönnies Kummer laughed. “Can’t carry a gun at the same time, though.” Tönnies face reflected his dissatisfaction. “Not and manage this thing, even with the socket and neck strap that your tanner cobbled together for me to use. Too bad. I’d love to get rid of a couple of Saxon oppressors. Hang a few and shoot the rest, I always say.”

Jorg Hennel sighed under his breath. Gretchen Richter may have reamed out Tönnies and Lorenz Schmuck for shooting into Ruben Blumroder’s manufactory a couple of years earlier, but she hadn’t managed to change their personalities. They were still hotheads, both of them.

Moreover, they were his hotheads. He was the one who would get blamed if they did anything stupid this time.

“Why not just throw a scare into them and let them run?” Barbara asked. “It would be sort of satisfactory to watch them flee in cowardly terror. That’s what you did in Suhl last spring after the Dreeson assassination. You guys killed Pastor Abesser, the old witch finder Zehner’s son-in-law, during the Kristalnacht, but you let his wife and kids run off.”

Hennel shook his head. During the first six months of 1633, he had learned quite a bit from the organizers that Gretchen had left behind in Suhl to assist the CoC there and he’d been trying to put it into practice in the two years since then. “Most of the Saxon officials in Schleusingen won’t flee. Where can they go? Think about it. Henneberg’s entirely surrounded by the SoTF, and the SoTF, except on the east, is entirely surrounded by the USE. Margaretha Zehnerin ran off to Saxony, which isn’t exactly a peaceful place at the moment even though Gustavus Adolphus took it easily enough. Even if they’re Saxon dogs, corner a mutt and he’ll fight.”

“We could just arrest them and then wait until things calm down with the war and let the USE send in people to relieve them of their offices.” Bartholomäus tended to be considerably less militant than some other CoC members.

Jorg opened his mouth, but Paulus Weigel beat him to it. “Won’t work—not if we want influence in the town after the Saxons are gone. If we wait for the USE to move, now that Wettin is prime minister, they’ll just install some of the old guard who were willing to cooperate with them. Not us. Not CoC. Not Fourth of July Party. Unless you want to see old Amthor move ...