1635_ The Eastern Front - Eric Flint [37]
So, they were rambunctious. On the other hand, Gretchen was Gretchen. It didn't take her more than half an hour to set them all about various household chores, obediently if not exactly happily.
The problems would come later, once the little devils figured out that the apartment building was as much in the way of a CoC headquarters—national headquarters, at that, with Gretchen in residence—as it was a private dwelling. They'd handle that knowledge each according to his or her own temperament. Otto and Maria Susanna, charmers both, would sweet-talk the various residents into taking on at least some of their tasks; Karl, the most independent, would be ingenious in evading his responsibilities; the very youngest, Christian Georg, would sulk long and mightily.
Gretchen would have none of it, though, sweet-talk and scheme and sulk though they might. She'd never heard the old saw "idle hands are the devil's workshop." That was an English saying that probably originated with Chaucer. Many Americans knew it, especially the more religious ones. But none of them happened to have used the expression in front of her.
Had she heard it, though, she would have agreed immediately and vigorously.
Which brought her to the next problem at hand. The children now dispatched for the moment, Gretchen turned and gazed upon that problem.
Who, for her part, gazed back at Gretchen from her seat on one of the benches scattered about the side walls of the vestibule. The young woman was modestly dressed—enough, even, to minimize a bosom almost as impressive as Gretchen's own—and had her hands clasped demurely in her lap. She was the very picture of an unassuming person. From the style of shoes she was wearing, a town-dweller rather than someone from rural parts. But clearly a commoner, nonetheless.
The last part was true. The girl, who went by the nickname of Tata, was indeed a town-dweller. Her father owned a tavern in Mainz.
Everything else was illusory. Or would be soon enough. Gretchen would see to it herself, if need be.
But she didn't think she'd need to do anything. Tata's story was already spreading through the ranks of the CoCs, all across the Germanies, even though the critical events involved had happened less than two months earlier.
Such is the power of a splendid legend. The CoCs had found their Esther.
A legend it was, too, if Tata herself was to be believed.
"Eberhard came up with the idea all by himself," she insisted. "Not that I didn't think it was a clever move for something so spur-of-the moment, when he told me. But there wasn't time for a lot of deep discussion. He was going to die. Not in minutes, but certainly within hours."
The "he" in question had been Duke Eberhard, the young ruler of Württemberg, who'd been killed in Schorndorf while driving out the Bavarian mercenaries who'd occupied the city.
That was the bare bones of the tale. It got quite a bit less heroic when you added the meat to the bones. The mercenaries had not been driven out in the course of a valiantly fought siege, but by pure luck. An accident in a cook shop had started a fire during high winds which soon spread the flames through the whole town. The duke had been mortally injured in the course of helping a stubborn pastor trying to save valuables from his burning church.
But none of those pedestrian details mattered, because of what had come next. Duke Eberhard's two brothers had already died in the war, so he'd been the sole heir—and, on his deathbed, he'd bequeathed the duchy to its entire population.
Noblemen had relinquished their titles before, to be sure. The new prime minister of the USE, Wilhelm Wettin, was one of them.