Back | Next
Contents

Chapter 29

Besançon

April 1637


The repercussions of Hamilton’s disappearance seriously ate into the time Rohan had available to focus on the deeper meaning of the works of Dr. Seuss. “I do sort of wonder who those young men were and what they’ve done with Hamilton,” Carey said, as she worked her way through the latest completed section of Les Futuriens. The duke’s reflections on Green Eggs and Ham included notes on xenophobia when it came to foodstuffs, tied to reflections on the experiences of young gentlemen on the Grand Tour.

“I doubt he’s come to any harm,” he answered. “As we continued to investigate, we found that one of them introduced himself to Madame Lund with his full given name as Constantine. And they were Dutch. We know that the Cavrianis are closely allied with the Huygens family, so the name may indicate that these two young men are in some way related to Constantijn Huygens. The grand duke’s intelligence analysts have therefore concluded that the whole matter had something to do with English politics, since Hamilton’s abductors also spoke English well and the Huygens have not only mercantile but also diplomatic ties in London.”

* * *

Gerry Stone, who for once had managed to get in two fairly uninterrupted semesters of study at Jena, wandered into town late in the month to once more try doing his familial duty by representing the “face of Lothlorien” during Grand Duke Bernhard’s deeply desired smallpox vaccination campaign—this time along with Sophia’s brother, the teenaged Danish not-a-prince, Waldemar. He also brought frisbees or, to be accurate, one up-time plastic frisbee imprinted with an advertising slogan for the grand duke’s museum and numerous new down-time made frisbees, shaped of boiled leather and then covered with lacquer to keep damp from seeping in and changing the shape, for his friends to play with. His popularity soared.

* * *

The single longest portion of Les Futuriens focused on Dr. Seuss’ two most serious philosophical works, which were obviously Horton Hatches the Egg (“at least it’s obvious according to the duke,” Carey said to Kamala over lunch one day) and Horton Hears a Who, which brought, at least from Rohan’s perspective, a much matured and more sophisticated expression of the thoughts that Seuss had first presented in the much earlier The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. The egg required extensive consideration, not only of the importance of keeping one’s word faithfully, as spoken by the elephant, and irresponsible parenthood as demonstrated by Mayzie, but also of the sequence of Roman “good emperors” from Nerva through Marcus Aurelius and the concept of adoption as a means for monarchical systems to ensure competent successors. Rohan deliberated for some time about the tactfulness of bringing it up, but did finally add a paragraph in regard to the selection by Gustavus Adolphus of Prince Ulrik of Denmark as, for all practical purposes, his adoptive successor as well as prospective son-in-law.

Carey listened and nodded her head.

Shae and Dominique finished reading the semi-final draft of the Futuriens treatise. “What do you think?” Kamala asked. “Since both of you are both veterans of ‘Dr. Seuss childhoods’?”

“Honestly?” Shae answered. “None of this would have ever occurred to me.”

“Often,” Carey commented, “an outside perspective can be useful. Maybe it should have occurred to us what we were really teaching you when we read these books out loud.”

“I think,” Dominique said, “that we should keep on reading Dr. Seuss to the little guys.”


Laubach, Solms-Laubach

April 1637


Käthe had never before considered the possibility that there might be some merit to the Catholic practice of confession. Even Lutherans went to confession, for that matter. Whatever the theology of the matter, confession at least meant that if you desperately wanted to talk about something, there was somebody who had to listen to you. A confessor was a captive audience, so to speak. Someone to whom you could speak; to whom, even, you were supposed to speak. Someone who wasn’t allowed to tell anyone else what you said.

Someone she didn’t have. The minister at the church was not a man who invited confidences. She certainly couldn’t say anything to Albert Otto’s sisters or aunts. Her companion and ladies-in-waiting were all from lesser noble families of the region, dependent upon one or another of the branches of the Solms family, and certainly could not be depended upon not to spread gossip. She wasn’t the type to make a confidante of her maid or dressmaker.

The seal of the confessional that made it impossible, or at least contrary to the rules, for the confessor to gossip about what he heard had been a truly brilliant idea upon someone’s part.

She could talk to one of her sisters, she supposed, if one of them were here. Charlotte Louise might even listen. What she would probably get from Amalie Elisabeth would be something along the lines of, “Pull yourself together and don’t be so morbid.”

In any case, they weren’t here, no letter was safe from being opened and read in the ordinary postal system, and if she asked for a secure courier, the children’s guardians, all of them brothers-in-law of Albert Otto, would want to know why. She would have to justify the expense. They would tell their wives and then all of her sisters-in-law, to whom she certainly couldn’t talk about it, would also want to know.

What should she have done? Was it her fault? Should she have tried harder, that horrible morning in February, to persuade him not to ride out? Had she, in her heart, stopped urging him because she was sure he would become more defiant? Or had she stopped urging him because she was so tired, tired, tired of eternally, everlastingly, trying to coax him into doing the sensible thing, whatever the sensible thing might be on a given day or in a given set of circumstances? Had she been derelict in her duty as a wife?

Was it her fault?

There was no one she could ask.


Back | Next
Framed