Chapter 7
Marseilles, Provence
“Now that is a view.”
Philippe de la Mothe-Houdancourt, governor of Bellegarde, leaned on the rampart of Florentine limestone that comprised the sea-facing wall of Notre-Dame de la Garde, basilica and fortress of Marseilles, and took a deep draught of sea air. From up here, a few hundred feet above the sprawl and stink of the city, the air was clear and the sky was deep blue. The sun sparkled on the Mediterranean Sea…and somewhere beyond to the west, over the horizon, was Spain.
“It is beautiful. When I think of my city, Philippe, I think of it this way.” Cosme de Valbelle, Seigneur de Brunelles, came up to stand by his young friend. “I’m surprised you’ve never been up here.”
“There are a great many places I have never been. This is quite a remarkable place: a fortress that is also a church.”
“The monks of Saint Victor didn’t want to give it up, but it’s a perfect place to build a fort. Our lord François thought so a century ago, and it’s been defending the city against all comers ever since—outsiders and insiders.”
“Do tell.”
“There have been plenty of intrigues in Marseilles over the years.”
“But none since it has become the firm possession of la Famille Valbelle, or so I understand.”
Valbelle smiled. “That’s more my great-uncle and father’s doing. Nowadays I merely offer good government and fair trade.” He made an adjustment to the lace on one cuff. “Everyone wins, even the Church.”
“I’m sure His Eminence is pleased.”
“You know very well that Cardinal Richelieu is a great friend to my family, and I am loyal to him and to King Louis. I have made certain that he knows that, and that our family is properly represented at court. But…you’re not here to question that, are you, Philippe?”
“No. Of course not. I am here on behalf of my lord Tour d’Auvergne, Marshal Turenne. Some of your vaunted commerce—” he waved a hand toward the port below—“provisions and equips our forces.”
“So you think there’ll be war?”
“My dear Cosme,” de la Mothe answered. “There is always war. In the best instance it is possible for men to bring it about on terms of their own choosing.”
“If it were up to me, the terms I would choose would be accommodation. War is bad for business, and we here in Marseilles gain nothing by fighting with Spain or Savoy or Naples or, honestly, anywhere else.” He sighed. “But if the cardinal wills it, then we must needs obey.”
De la Mothe looked back out across the city. Valbelle was a politician: a former conseil of the city, now merely a private citizen. But no one achieved any office in Marseilles without his help or consent. So it had been for decades. Cosme de Valbelle, the second of the name, had been elected for the first time in 1618 when he was in his early forties, and for a second, shorter term a few years ago. Now the first consulship was in the hands of the Sieur d’Aiglun, a bland nonentity. But no one—not de la Mothe, not Turenne, and certainly not the cardinal himself—had any illusions about who really ran the city.
Valbelle loved to perform the stately pavane, the game of bons mots, rather than get to the point. De la Mothe, for his part, had spent too much time in military service—fifteen years, man and boy—to be anything less than direct; but he knew that to achieve anything with Valbelle meant to play the game.
“Your note said that you had someone you wanted me to meet.”
“Yes. It’s part of the reason I invited you to la Garde. She’s up here receiving some sort of medical treatment from the priory’s hospitaller; she didn’t trust the quacks and frauds down in the city.”
“‘She’?”
“Yes, she. The lady is an up-timer, Philippe. And a very fierce example of that unusual race. I’m sure you’ll find her interesting.”
* * *
Interesting was hardly enough to describe how Philippe de la Mothe-Houdancourt found Sherrilyn Maddox when he first met her that soft early-autumn day in the fortress-priory above Marseilles. She truly was fierce.
When Valbelle led him into the priory, passing beneath the escutcheon of François I and the lamb of the Apostle John bearing the Christian banner, the first thing he heard was the sound of feet on stone. He was on his guard at once, and nearly drew his blade when someone came running along the vaulted gallery. The person was in loose-fitting clothing with a queue of hair neatly tied behind, and came to a halt a few paces away, bent over slightly with hands on thighs, panting as if the exercise had been difficult.
He removed his hand from the hilt of his sword and looked at Valbelle, perplexed.
“Give it a moment,” the older man said quietly.
De la Mothe said nothing and waited. At last the other person stood up straight. Though dressed in a long-sleeved blouse and some sort of pantaloons, he could see at once that it was a woman. Not unattractive, but she had clearly made no particular effort to enhance her appearance. Without saying a word—or asking leave of either Valbelle or himself—she walked somewhat gingerly to a stone bench that ran along the gallery and dropped to a seat.
“Sorry,” she managed. “Still trying to get back in shape.”
De la Mothe understood the words, but wasn’t sure of the meaning. “Allow me to present myself,” he said at last. “I am Philippe, Comte de la Mothe-Houdancourt, Governor of Bellegarde, General of France.” He made a leg.
“Sherrilyn Maddox,” she said. “Thuringian Rifles. Glad to meet you.” She extended her hand, and when he took it with the intent of offering his lips she grabbed his palm and shook it.
When this unusual introduction was over, she let her hand fall to her sides and looked him up and down. De la Mothe was dressed in proper attire that befit a count. He had left off his breastplate and other armor, retaining only his blade—and not the one he used when fighting with the cavalry. He had donned his best wig, and bore a decoration of the chevau-légers that he had earned at Saint Martin-de-Ré a decade before.
“I hope I’ve not offended you, Comte. Monsieur. I’m not sure what title I should use.”
“Do not trouble yourself, Madame—Mademoiselle—”
“Just call me Sherrilyn. My students at Grantville High had to call me ‘Ms. Maddox,’ but most people just stick to my first name.”
“Then you may call me Philippe.”
“Suits me fine,” she answered. “Would you sit down, Philippe? Monsieur Valbelle said you had something you wanted to talk to me about. I was just running a few laps—this knee” she slapped one of her legs—“has been giving me problems, and I’m not a damn bit of good to anyone if I don’t get back to form. No less than Harry Lefferts took me off the first team.”
“Ah,” de la Mothe said. “That is a name I know.” He looked at Valbelle, and then stepped over to the bench and sat near the up-timer. Lefferts was a well-known troublemaker, who had made the acquaintance of the cardinal and had been tied to all kinds of mischief since the Ring of Fire. From what he heard, there were even young bravos in the Italian cities who styled themselves after him—lefferti, they called themselves.
“Everyone knows Harry and his Wrecking Crew,” Sherrilyn said. “Well, that’s pretty much over. The band has broken up, and there’s no plan to get it back together. To be honest, Comte—Philippe—I’m a bit at loose ends right now.”
De la Mothe was struggling with the idiom and looked up at Valbelle—but the older man had walked away along the gallery, leaving him in the company of the up-timer. “I’m…not sure what you mean. But if you are presently without a position, I expect that I could find something for someone of your talents to do.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“You mentioned the Thuringian Rifles. And the, eh, ‘Wrecking Crew.’ I am certain that your weapons expertise would be invaluable to us.”
“And by ‘us,’ you mean…”
“Myself and my commander. Henri Tour d’Auvergne. General Turenne.”
“Turenne?” She frowned. “The guy who carried out the raid against our oil fields at Wietze? The guy whose troops killed Quentin Underwood?”
De la Mothe took a deep breath. “…Yes. He did command the raid on Wietze two years ago.”
“I’m not sure I’m fond of the idea of working for him. Of course, you’re not the enemy anymore, are you? Now we’re friends with the French. And Quentin Underwood was a dick who got caught up in our German vacation. Still, I’d have to consider the merits of the idea.”
“My lord of Turenne has no designs on your USE, Sherrilyn, nor on the armies of your allies. We know who the enemy is.”
“And who might that be?”
“Spain.”
“Huh. And where is Turenne now?”
“His army is encamped outside of Lyon. The—king—has ordered him south to keep watch on the Spanish. We believe that the Count-Duke de Olivares, the Spanish King’s minister, is preparing an invasion of France in cooperation with…certain elements.”
“But not the USE.”
“No. Certainly not. Olivares’ chief ally is—may be—the king’s brother. Monsieur Gaston. We do not know his whereabouts. He was most recently in Lorraine and the Franche-Comté, but he has relocated—possibly to Madrid, or even Rome. He has a peculiar skill at making trouble.”
“Sounds like Harry Lefferts.”
“I can see the comparison,” de la Mothe said. “But as versatile as your friend Lefferts might be, Monsieur Gaston is infinitely more devious. And he plays at intrigues with the crown of a kingdom at stake. Our task is to help stop that.”
“How do you expect me to help?”
“Over the past two and a half years, my lord of Turenne has been slowly retraining a body of troops to use the newer weapons that up-time technology has made possible. It has not been an easy task: skills and habits borne of a lifetime cannot be easily discarded.”
“You did well enough at Wietze,” she snapped. “Your General Turenne seemed to know exactly what the hell he was doing there, and he got what he wanted.”
“Yes, that is true, Mademoiselle. Sherrilyn. But a raid is not a military campaign, and a small, fast-moving force is not the same as an army. The Spanish are still exceptionally well-armed and numerous and muskets can kill a soldier just as dead as a Cardinal rifle. We learned a great deal from the Wietze raid, but many of those under arms were not a part of that action.
“We could use someone with your skill and expertise to help train them, to cure their bad habits and teach them good ones. And also to pick out…the best of them for particular duties.”
Sherrilyn laughed. “You want me to train down-timer soldiers. That’s rich. You expect a bunch of professional soldiers to listen to me tell them what to do?”
“Monsieur de Valbelle told me that before the Ring of Fire you had been a teacher. Surely there are some aspects of that experience that would be helpful.”
“I taught girls’ P.E. at Grantville High,” Sherrilyn said. “I blew a whistle and got a bunch of girls in line so they could do exercises and play basketball. I hardly think it’s the same.”
“Why?”
“Because…because they were teenage girls, Philippe, and they were afraid of me. These men aren’t likely to see me in the same way.”
“You might be surprised.”
Sherrilyn leaned her elbows on her thighs and shook her head so that her hair, tied back in its queue, swung back and forth. “Philippe, I was born in 1965. For the last four years I’ve been in the seventeenth century, and unless the same crazy thing that put me here comes along and puts me back, I’m going to spend the rest of my life here. I get surprised pretty much every day, usually in a bad way, but sometimes…”
She gave him an appraising look, from wig to boots. He wasn’t a bad looking man; he was a little younger than she was, and had obviously made an effort to look good for the day—maybe even for this meeting. He smelled less like the average seventeenth-century nobleman than she expected, and other than the Durante nose and a few pox pockmarks—universal, other than for those who had gotten vaccinated in the last few years—he was easy to look at.
“Sometimes,” she said, “the surprise is a good one.”
“So you will accept.”
“I didn’t say that. But I’ll think about it. How much time do I have to decide?”
“I leave Marseilles the day after tomorrow. We can have a spare horse…or two, if you require a lady’s maid to travel with you.”
“A lady’s maid? Are you serious?”
He looked serious. In fact, he looked embarrassed at her reaction. “It is a few days’ ride back to Lyon, Mademoiselle Sherrilyn, and you would be in the company of…the entourage would be all men, other than you.”
“So?”
“It is only that there is some…possible appearance of impropriety.”
“After the Wrecking Crew I don’t think there’s anything more improper that can happen to my appearance. I don’t have a ‘lady’s maid,’ Philippe, and don’t know what I’d do with one. And if you’re worried about someone of your troop making, what, an inappropriate advance…if they survive the experience, they’ll survive with two broken arms. Or legs. Whichever is more painful, especially on horseback. Maybe one of each.”
De la Mothe couldn’t help but smile. “I think you mean it.”
“Damn straight.”
“Very well.” He stood and sketched a bow. Valbelle, the perfect courtier, seemed to already realize that the interview was over, and was walking slowly back to meet him. “I shall await your reply.”