1632

As he watched the ensuing slaughter, the king of Sweden was not sure which disturbed him the most. Seeing the casual ease with which a young American girl from the future struck down men at a third of a mile-or the casual ease with which her Scots fiancй of the time assisted her in the task. The first introduced a very bizarre and rather frightening new world. The latter opened the entire book.

Crack!

"Left fifty paces! By the tree! Red feathered hat!"

Crack!

Like steel pages turning.

As evening fell, the Fi

Tilly ordered his guns to begin a desperate attempt to destroy the new bastion. Desperate, because after hours under Torstensson's counterbattery fire, there was not much left of the Catholic artillery.

"Damn those Swedish guns!" he roared. "They're even worse than they were at Breitenfeld!"

Through the night, under cover of darkness, smoke and Torstensson's batteries, the king led his army across the bridge onto the spit.

From there, through the course of the day-April 16-the Swedes used their numbers to establish a solid position along the entire bank. Gustav Adolf had successfully forced the river. There remained only two choices for Tilly: retreat, again-or launch a final assault.

He chose the latter, and led it himself. Late in the afternoon, atop his white charger, Tilly thundered down the slope. Thousands of cavalrymen and infantry came in his wake.

The struggle which followed, for all its brevity, was no mean affair. Gustav led his own cavalry in a countercharge and the Swedish infantry, at many points along the line, clashed head-on with their Bavarian counterparts. Had the battle been restricted to those forces, Tilly might still have won.

But, it wasn't. Throughout, from their position on the opposite bank, Torstensson's guns kept up their deadly fire. Now exposed on open ground, Tilly's men were being butchered.

"Damn those Swedish guns!" snarled Tilly again. And so, too, came a bitter self-reproach: I should have listened to Wallenstein.

It was the old general's last thought. One of Torstensson's ca

As Tilly's men carried him to the rear, Aldringer took command. But Aldringer fell within minutes, wounded in the head. By now, the imperial forces had suffered four thousand casualties, and the men lost heart. Night was falling, and they took advantage of the darkness to retreat back into their fortified camp near the Danube. The next day, under the command of the elector himself, Tilly's army retreated to Ingolstadt. Maximillian of Bavaria had had enough of Gustav II Adolf.

"Let Wallenstein try to handle him," he snarled. "Let bastard Bohemian deal with bastard Swede!"

When Gustav heard the news of Tilly, he sent his own body-surgeon into the enemy camp. "Do what you can for the old man," he commanded.

"Won't be much," grumbled the surgeon. "Not from the description of the wound." But he obeyed.

Torstensson was not entirely pleased. "Let the butcher of Magdeburg bleed to death," he growled. The savage expressions on the faces of the other Swedish officers surrounding Gustav made clear their agreement.

The king said simply: "Last of a line. A great line, for all its sins." Then, as if struck by a thought, he turned to the young girl standing a few feet away.

"And what do you think?" he demanded. The girl responded with a shy smile.

"I think you're a nice man," came her reply.

Gustav II Adolf was quite taken aback. "Nice man," he muttered, as he walked away. He shook his head. "Nice man. What kind of thing is that to say-to a king?"

Part Six

When the stars threw down their spears,

And water'd heaven with their tears

Chapter 49

Cardinal Richelieu set the letter down on the bench in his garden. For several minutes, sitting next to it, he stared down at the detested thing.

Since he had been appointed head of the Royal Council on August 13, 1624, the cardinal had pursued a consistent policy in foreign affairs. Officially, of course, he had expressed his full support for the Counter-Reformation and the assault on Protestantism. Such was necessary, if nothing else, to retain the allegiance of the Catholic fanatics led by the Capucin Father Joseph and those organized in the secret society called the Company of the Holy Sacrament. But, underlying that pious surface, was Richelieu's true aim: strengthen France. And that meant, first and foremost, humble the Habsburgs-especially the Spanish branch of the family, who ruled the greatest military power in Europe.

All in ruins…

Without lifting his head, he asked the man standing nearby: "It is true, Etie

Etie

"Witchcraft?"

Servien shrugged. "My opinion? No. Not, at least, in minor things. I spoke to many of the German residents, and none of them believed the American arts were more than those of superb mechanics. Several of the ones I spoke to have begun learning those arts themselves, in fact. As to the thing in large? Who knows? They call it the Ring of Fire, but no one seems to understand what it was. Divine intervention is the accepted explanation."

The cardinal's eyes moved to a bed of flowers. Beautiful things. For a moment, he pondered the Lord's handiwork.

But not for long. Richelieu believed in few things, beyond France and its glory. Establishing French supremacy was his lifelong ambition, and his beliefs were yoked to that purpose. Absolute monarchy, of course, was necessary to that end; as was religious conformity. Beyond that The Lord's handiwork is what I say it is.

"Witchcraft," he stated. "Sorcery, pure and simple. Satan's hand clutches Thuringia today."