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Chapter 36

Besançon

July 1637


When the grand ducal delegation straggled back from Lorraine, Rohan put the marriage project to the Chosen One.

“I am not,” August von Bismarck protested, “of the Hochadel. I am not only of the lower nobility; I’m minor even among the echelons of the lower nobility. No way am I qualified.”

“You’re as qualified as the man she married in that other world, as far as rank is concerned,” Rohan answered, “with the advantage of being Protestant. You will be more reliable than any possible French Huguenot candidate I can think of at the moment. In light of the abduction attempt that Hamilton made last winter, in the light of Gaston’s intriguing for a Catholic match, in light of Marguerite’s correspondence with that Chabot, however carefully Madame Calagna and I have supervised it, and with the current . . . activities . . . of my sister and brother, I very much doubt the wisdom of delaying her marriage any longer.”

Bismarck took an involuntary step backwards.

Rohan waved the other man in the room forward. “Ruvigny, tell him to just do it.”

Ruvigny swallowed. “I am sorry my lord duke, but no. I will not tell him that. My family are your clients, but his are not. His oath is to Grand Duke Bernhard and he should not consent without the grand duke’s approval, nor should he enter into such an agreement without notifying and consulting with his older brother and his mother. If it is to be done, it should be done properly. Not in a fit of pique.”

“Not to mention,” Bismarck added, “that you maybe might want to check whether or not your inspiration is all right with Marguerite.”

Bernhard approved. More accurately, in his capacity as the prospective groom’s military superior, he granted his permission. He wasn’t enamored with the idea, but he allowed Bismarck, an officer in his employ, to enter into the match, presuming that all other interested parties gave their approval. Shaking his head all the way.

By way of an elaborate, step-by-small-step, radio relay from Burgundy to somewhere north of Magdeburg, Bismarck’s mother and brothers also approved. More accurately, they agreed. It wasn’t as if Brandenburg, in its current state of affairs with the elector’s having decamped to Poland two years earlier, or the family estates, in their current condition, would offer August any better option.

La petite Marguerite approved.

“Or at least,” Carey said to Kamala over lunch, “she took it with a sentiment best described as deep relief. I sure wouldn’t call it wild enthusiasm.”

“You can’t blame her for that,” Kamala answered. “He’s not a great match the way down-timers look at it, but at least she knows him. And likes him well enough. Plus, he’s turned out to be a pretty competent guy. She could have done a lot worse, if you ask me. Which nobody did.”

“Relief,” Carey said again. “Compounded with mild regret that she will have to end her amusing correspondence with Chabot.”

Bernhard gifted Rohan with his best public relations man, Johann Michael Moscherosch, to put a desirable spin on the transaction. It came out as, “If the Iron Chancellor famed among the up-timers could do that for Germany, what can this man, his ancestor, be expected to do for Huguenot France?”

“I’m not at all sure,” August protested, “that he was my descendant. I have several brothers. Not to mention distant cousins and the like.”

“Never let details get in the way of a good narrative,” Moscherosch retorted.

Bernhard tugged a bit on a couple of favors two prominent European men owed him.

This resulted in the groom’s transformation into a baron in the king of Denmark’s Duchy of Holstein. Minor baron. Baron of a successful dairy farm with a well-built house that any prosperous peasant farmer would be proud to own. But titled.

Also into a minor landholder in Frederik Hendrik’s Dutch province of Overijssel. Minor, but he would hold the land in his own name rather than as one shareholder in a family corporation, which was the case with the Brandenburg estates.

Traill oversaw his rapid conversion to la foi prétendue réformée. At that news, the Calvinist electress of Brandenburg, in the name of her minor son and omitting any reference to her absent spouse, lifting high the banner of her own credentials as a sister of the late Winter King and granddaughter of William the Silent, tossed a celebratory and substantial bank draft into the pot.

Nicely substantial from the perspective of the new groom, who, being disinclined to go into debt, had been wondering just how he was going to acquire anything as basic as an appropriate suit for the wedding out of his captain’s pay. Not substantial enough (the electress hoped) to cause anyone in the USE administration to wonder just where, given the situation in Brandenburg, she got the money.

Claudia de’ Medici gave her husband a nudge and Bernhard promoted the groom to colonel (at large, for the time being, to fill a role similar to Raudegen’s, since Bernhard didn’t happen to have a spare regiment, but with a promise that if and when the next one became available, the young man could have it—as long as he promised to pay attention to subordinates with actual field command experience).

“Glorified aide-de-camp,” Bismarck commented to Ruvigny, “but it’s more than I ever expected to achieve. Plus, the pay is higher.”

Ruvigny shrugged. “It’s what you’ve been doing already.”

The groom was now a trifle more eligible than one Henri de Chabot had been in another world.

Not to mention Protestant.

Bismarck reflected a little wistfully on the calm, plump, blue eyed, fair haired, God-fearing, dream bride who had occasionally floated through his head since he reached puberty. He dismissed her into the aethers and focused on what he would be called upon to do to defend the French interests of a far more real, tiny, fierce, constantly chattering, ballet-mad, brunette with a head of unruly curls.

It was likely that life as Rohan’s son-in-law would involve not only army service, but more. He started a mental list of everything that St. Paul had included as among the necessary parts of the armor of righteousness according to Ephesians 6:11. His duty was clear. “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.”


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