1636： The Saxon Uprising ARC - By Eric Flint Page 0,49

He obviously knows Krzysztof.”

The short, muscular fellow still looked a bit dubious. “Yes, but he could have known him from something else. By his accent, he’s szlachta himself.”

“So is one Pole in ten,” said a fellow sitting in the very corner. He was thin, sharp-featured, and called himself Kazimierz. “Including two of us at this table. Means nothing.”

Jozef pursed his lips. “All right. The up-timer, Red Sybolt.”

Eight pair of eyes got a bit wider. “You know Sybolt?” asked the short one.

Jozef shook his head. “I wouldn’t say I ‘know’ him. We’ve met only twice. But that’s the business I’ve been engaged in and that’s all I’m going to say about it. The truth is, I don’t know myself where Red is right now. Or Krzysztof.”

He said that with relaxed confidence, since for the most part it was perfectly true. He had no idea where either Red Sybolt or Krzysztof Opalinski was located at the moment. Or last month, or last year. Somewhere in the Ruthenian lands—which covered an area larger than France or Spain.

He was fudging with the business of having met Sybolt twice. He’d never met him at all. But he had seen two photographs of the man; good enough ones that he could describe him fairly well if necessary.

God help him, of course, if either Sybolt or Krzysztof showed up in Dresden.

“Good enough,” said Waclaw, sitting back down. He glanced at Bogumil, who still looked angry, and slapped him playfully on the head. “Come on, you started it! Say hello to our new comrade.”

“Hello, comrade,” Bogumil said. “And fuck both of you.”

Szklenski laughed. “You’ll get used to him, Joe.”

Jozef managed not to sigh. He’d gotten through months living in Grantville without getting saddled with one of those asinine American nicknames. One week in Dresden and he was saddled with Joe. And from a fellow Pole, to boot!

Probably a punishment visited on him by the patron saint of spies for sleeping with two women in the same week who both worked in the same tavern.

Who was the patron saint for spies, anyway? He thought it was Joshua, but he wasn’t sure.

He couldn’t very well ask his tablemates, under the circumstances.

Chapter 14

“We are ready, then?” Gretchen looked at Tata.

Tata looked at Eric Krenz. “Our people are ready. He’ll have to answer for the soldiers.”

Eric had taken off his hat when he entered the conference room and hung it on a hook by the door. Now, he wished he were still wearing it. He could pull down the brim in order to avoid Gretchen’s gaze without having to look away from her entirely.

“He hates giving a straight answer to anything, Gretchen,” said Tata. “You know that.”

“Yes, and normally I accommodate him. But I can’t this time. We need to know. Now.” She turned her head to look at a man sitting at the far end of the long conference table. That was Wilhelm Kuefer, one of the Vogtlanders. Their leader Georg Kresse had appointed him to serve as liaison to Dresden’s Committee of Correspondence.

“Tell him, Wilhelm,” she said.

“Banér’s cavalrymen burned three more villages yesterday. The populations of two of them ran off in time, but the people in the third one got caught sleeping. There weren’t any survivors except for—we’re not sure about this, but we couldn’t find any such bodies—perhaps the young women.”

Gretchen turned back to face Eric, who was sitting across the table from her. “That makes nine villages so far—and these three were right out in the Saxon plain, not in the mountains. There is no way this is happening without Banér’s approval. Tacit approval, maybe, but he’s still responsible.”

She stopped and waited.

And waited.

Eric felt like screaming: I’m just a fucking lieutenant! How am I supposed to know if we can hold the bastards off?

But he knew what Tata’s response would be. She’d point to herself with a thumb—I’m just a tavern-keeper’s daughter—and then at Gretchen with a forefinger. And her father ran a print shop. So stop whining.

Gretchen was quite obviously prepared to wait all day for his answer. By mid-afternoon, though, Tata’s sarcasm would become unbearable.

“Yes,” he said, sighing. “I think. As best I can tell.”

“Not good enough, Lieutenant Krenz.” Gretchen’s voice was soft but her tone was iron. “I do not ask for guarantees. That would be silly. But I need a more firm response than that. If I order the gates closed and openly forbid Banér from coming into the city, that moment I make myself and every person in Dresden an outlaw. If