1636： The Saxon Uprising ARC - By Eric Flint Page 0,72

assembly hall and made his way hurriedly to the nearest of the city’s gates. Fortunately, the sky was clear and there was still at least an hour of daylight left.

Nothing. The guards said no one of any significance had left the city within the past few days.

He then made his way to the southwestern gate, the Leipziger Thor.

Again, nothing. And the same at Cöpenicker Thor.

By now, evening had come. He was about to give up the project but decided to make one last effort at the southeastern gate, the Stralower Thor.

Finally, success. A result, at least. Whether it was significant or not was still to be determined.

“Yesterday, around this time,” the guard said, nodding firmly. “I remember them because they were unpleasant. Both of them.”

“Hard to pick between the two,” chimed in one of the other guards. “Baron Shithead and Ritter Asshole.”

Erik chuckled. “I know the type. But do you remember their actual names?”

“It’ll be in the record book,” said a third soldier, standing in the entrance to the guardhouse. “I’ll go check.”

He was back with the names in short order. Hand knew both of the men, although not particularly well. One of them was a baron, in point of fact, a Freiherr from the Province of the Main. His companion was not a nobleman at all, on the other hand. He was a guildmaster and one of the leaders of the Crown Loyalist party in Frankfurt.

The Freiherr had certainly not been close to Wettin. He’d been one of the prime minister’s more vociferous critics, in fact. Erik didn’t know about the guildmaster, but what he did know was that the Crown Loyalists of Frankfort were a particularly crusty bunch. That was probably a reaction to the city’s very influential and prominent Committee of Correspondence.

The point being that neither man was likely to have feared repercussions if Wettin was arrested—and they’d left the city a day earlier, in any event.

Was there any connection between these two men and the prime minister’s fall from power? Or was their departure simply a coincidence?

But if it was a coincidence, why did they leave Berlin now—literally, on the eve of their triumph? Hand would double-check with his many contacts and agents, but he was almost certain that both men had been members of the faction which had been most critical of Wettin.

Slowly, thinking as he walked, the colonel made his way back to the palace. While serving with Duke Ernst in the Oberpfalz, Erik had come to know an American officer named Jake Ebeling. The two had become something in the way of friends. When Ebeling learned that Hand could read English, he lent him a copy of what he said was one of his three favorite books. Alice in Wonderland, by a certain Lewis Carroll.

Colonel Hand had found the book quite charming and remembered a bit of it.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” he murmured. “Curiouser and curiouser.”

Chapter 20

Magdeburg

“And here comes the only concession,” Rebecca continued, reading from the sheet in her hand. “It is in the last two items, on matters of religion. ‘Point Eight. All provinces shall be required to designate a single established church, with the exception of the State of Thuringia-Franconia, which may designate several.”

“All of them province-wide?” interjected Constantin Ableidinger. “Or must each provincial district choose a single church?”

He held up a stiff, admonishing forefinger. “I warn you! We Lutherans will not tolerate sloppiness in such matters!”

Rebecca bestowed the smile upon him that she always bestowed on Ableidinger’s antics. The one that exuded long-suffering patience rather than serenity.

“Stop clowning around, Constantin,” grumbled Gunther Achterhof. “What difference does it make? We’re not going to abide by it anyway.”

The little exchange had given Rebecca time for further thought, during the course of which she realized that Ableidinger’s heavy-handed humor might actually contain a serious kernel—whether he realized it or not, which he probably didn’t.

“Maybe we will, Gunther,” she said. She raised her own forefinger in response to the look of outrage on his face. The gesture in this case was one that indicated a desire for forbearance rather than admonishment. “But let us not get ahead of ourselves. There is still one more provision in Point Eight and a final Point Nine in the Charter of Rights and Duties.”

The pitch of her voice shifted back to a slight singsong as she resumed quoting from the sheet. “The remaining provision in Point Eight is that: ‘These churches shall receive financial support from their respective provinces.’ Finally: ‘Point Nine. No church, whether established or not,