1632 (56 page)

    Through his binoculars, Mike studied the retreat of the Spanish army until he was satisfied that they were definitely making for the Wartburg. By the time he finally lowered the eyepieces, Greg Ferrara and the leaders of his special artillery unit were gathered around him on the redoubt.

 

    “We’re a go?” asked Ferrara.

 

    Mike nodded. “They should be forted up by nightfall. We’ll start the special effects at midnight. Come dawn, we’ll start lobbing the bombs.”

 

    That announcement produced instant frowns on the three young faces peering at him. Larry Wild, Jimmy Andersen and Eddie Cantrell, plain to see, were not pleased.

 

    
Hell hath no fury like a wargamer scorned.

 

    “No,” Mike said. “I am
not
starting the bombardment until daybreak.”

 

    “We should take advantage of darkness,” complained Jimmy. “Create more confusion.”

 

    Mike forced down his scowl. But he couldn’t restrain the sigh.
Is there anything in the world as bloodthirsty as a kid?

 

    “That’s exactly what I’m trying to
avoid
, Jimmy,” he said forcefully. He pointed to the retreating Spanish army with the hand still holding the binoculars. “Those men may just be so many toy soldiers to you, but they’re not to me. They’re
people
, dammit!”

 

    The three youngsters flinched from the genuine anger in Mike’s voice. Mike drove home his point. “It’s going to be bad enough as it is. At the very least, I want to make sure that men trying to surrender can do it. Not get destroyed simply because they couldn’t find their way out of a castle in pitch darkness. Do you understand?”

 

    There was no response, beyond sulkiness. Chagrin, mixed with frustration.

 

    “Get going, boys,” commanded Ferrara. The three youngsters scampered off the redoubt with great eagerness.

 

    Mike muttered something. Ferrara cocked at eye at him. “What did you say?”

 

    Mike shook his head. “Never mind.”

 

    Ferrara left, then. Mike stared at the Wartburg. The grim castle seemed to return his gaze with its own baleful glare.

 

    “Hidalgos true and pure,” he muttered again. “There has
got
to be a better way.”
Chapter 53

    “Are you
sure?
” squeaked Julie. “I mean, like—
positive?
” Her next words came in a rush. “I thought I just had a flu or something. It’s been going around, you know. Bad one. Sick to my stomach, that’s all. I woulda gone to Eisenach except Alex insisted I see you and Mike backed him up. Wouldn’t let me go.” She glared at the doctor, as if to say:
This is all your fault!
    James Nichols managed to keep a completely straight face. It was not easy. The face of the young woman perched on the chair in the examining room was a study in contradictions. Anxiety, chagrin, apprehensiveness—all of these warred with outrage and indignation.
    “Those things are supposed to
work
,” she snarled.
    James opened his mouth. Julie drove right over him. “They are!”
    Again he tried to speak. Julie drove right over him.
    “Alex is going to
kill
me,” she moaned. “I promised him we had nothing to worry about!” She pressed her hand over her mouth. Mumbled: “What am I gonna do?”
    James thought he could get a word in edgewise, now. “Julie, you’re supposed to use a diaphragm with contraceptive—”
    “The stores ran out!” she protested. Imperious demand: “What was I supposed to do?”
    
Abstain
, came the whimsical thought. But James squelched it. The likelihood of someone as vigorous as Julie Sims abstaining from sex with her fiancé ranked somewhere below the proverbial snowball in hell. And James was hardly in a position to criticize. Leaving aside his own reprobate youth, his relationship with Melissa was neither platonic nor blessed by the sanctity of matrimony.
    On the other hand, he thought wryly, Melissa was fifty-seven years old. For them, contraception was a moot point.
    “Oh, Jesus, he’s gonna
kill
me,” Julie whimpered anew. Now she pressed both hands over her mouth. Gargling sounds emerged.
    James managed a paternal frown. “Why?”
Hrmph, hmrph.
“I should think Alex is the one to be worrying. Your father—not to mention Frank!—aren’t exactly going to be—”
    Julie gargled protest through her hands.
    “I didn’t quite catch that.”
    She took the hands off her lips and opened them wide, cupping them around her mouth as if to impart a secret.
    “It was my idea,” she hissed. Seeing the expression on the doctor’s face, Julie laughed. The sound was perhaps a tad hysterical. Well, semihysterical.
    “You think it was
Alex
?
Ha! That proper fellow? Oh, God!” The laughter swelled. Yes, definitely semihysterical. “It took me
weeks
to wear him down!”
    For a moment, her eyes grew dreamy. “He’s such a sweet guy,” she whispered. “It was a nice change, not having to fend off the sweaty mitts.”
    Julie slumped in her chair. “He’s gonna kill me.” The words carried all the gloomy surety of a Cassandra.
    James cleared his throat. “You do have a couple of options. The first is an abortion.” Hastily: “I don’t do abortions myself, but Doctor Adams can handle that. So can Doctor Abrabanel, for that matter. At your stage of pregnancy, it’s not a difficult procedure.”
    Julie gave him a sharp glance. “If it’s so easy, why can’t you do it?” Then, seeing the stiff look on his face, she giggled. “Don’t tell me!” Giggle, giggle. “Boy, I bet that was a donnybrook. When you told Melissa, I mean.”
    James shrugged. “Wasn’t a donnybrook at all. She has her principles, I got mine.” His own eyes got a bit dreamy. “We get along pretty well, all things considered.”
    Abruptly, Julie shook her head. “Abortion’s out anyway. I don’t approve of it myself. So what’s the other option?”
    “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Get married.”
    Julie was back to wailing. “He’s gonna
kill
me!” Her hands went back over her mouth. Gargle, gargle.
    James scratched his head. “I don’t get it. The way I heard it, he’s been
trying
to get you to set a date.”
    Again, the hands popped open. “He has!” she hissed. The hands closed. Gargle.
    “So what’s the problem?”
    Julie took a deep breath, sucking the air through her fingers. Then, slowly, eased it out. She removed the hands, dropped them into her lap, slumped her shoulders, and heaved a sigh worthy of Cassandra. Unheeded, again.
    “You don’t get it. It’s the principle of the thing. By the time—” Her eyes narrowed, as she did some quick calculations. “By the time we got married—couldn’t be sooner than next month, at the earliest—maybe not till September ’cause he’s gotta go right away to see the king of Sweden as soon as he and Mike get done whipping those Spanish clowns—”
    Calculate, calculate. James was struggling to keep a straight face again. He wasn’t sure which amused him more—Julie’s insouciant assumption that the Spaniards would be trounced, or her blithe reference to her fiancé’s familiarity with royalty.
    “Yeah,” she concluded. “That’s what I thought. We couldn’t get married until sometime in September.” She puffed out her cheeks and cupped her hands a foot away from her belly, in a parody of a pregnant woman.
    “For Christ’s sake, Julie! You can’t possibly be serious. That early in the second trimester? Nothing would show at all.”
    “It would six months later!” she snapped. “Big time!”
    James shrugged. “By then you’d be married. So who cares? Wouldn’t be the first time—”
    “That’s the whole point!” Wailing: “You
know
how sensitive Alex is on account of he’s illegitimate! You know! He’s told me once, he’s told me a thousand times: ’No child of mine will ever be bastard born.’ ” Even in her despair, she managed quite a good rendition of Mackay’s Scottish accent.
    Julie’s logic had completely eluded James, by now. “I don’t get it,” he muttered. “If you’re married when the child is born, then he—or she—isn’t—”
    “It’s the
principle
of the thing!” she wailed. “Don’t you understand? And nobody can get hung up on principles like a damn Scottish Calvinist!”
    She was no longer even slumped in her chair. Just puddled in it, like a quivering blob of anxiety.
    “He’s gonna kill me,” she squeaked. “I’m
dead
.”
    James’ struggle for dignity collapsed, finally. He just couldn’t resist. “Make sure you tell him at five hundred yards, then.”
    Julie’s ensuing words were not uttered in a squeak. Rather the opposite. James consoled himself with the thought that he had, as was a doctor’s duty, elevated his patient’s spirits. In a manner of speaking.

    Shortly thereafter, he ushered Rebecca into the same examination room.

 

    “Julie seems out of sorts,” she commented. “Is something wrong?”

 

    James’ lips twitched. “Nothing serious.” He helped her into the chair.

 

    “Oof!” said Rebecca. She gave the doctor a quick smile. “Thank you. I feel so awkward.”

 

    She gazed down at her belly. “Philosophically, I do not approve of this,” she pronounced. “It seems such a foolish way to go about the matter. By the time a woman can get accustomed to her condition, it is gone.” Her dark eyes grew very warm. “Soon.”

 

    James nodded. “Six to eight weeks. Can’t be sure with a first pregnancy.”

 

    Rebecca lifted her head, smiling. “We did not waste any time, did we, Michael and I?” She broke off, laughing softly. “It will be such a scandal! The baby will be born barely seven months after we were married.”

 

    The thought did not seem to disturb her. Not in the least. James grinned.

 

    “There seems to be a lot of that going around, these days.”

 

    It didn’t take Rebecca more than two seconds to make the connection. In a movement which bore an uncanny similarity to Julie’s, she clapped her hands over her mouth.

 

    She laughed softly. Gargled.

 

    “Poor Alex!” she mumbled through her fingers. She took the fingers away and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Julie will
kill
him,” she hissed.

 

    James threw up his hands. “Women! I can’t follow your logic at all!”

 

    He stalked over to his own chair and sat down in it heavily, then glared at Rebecca. “Explain
your
reasoning, if you would.”

 

    Rebecca dropped her hands into her lap. Her brow furrowed.

 

    “Is it not obvious? Julie will be convinced that Alex will be furious with her because I am quite certain—I know none of the details, mind you, but I
do
know Julie—that she convinced him pregnancy was not to be feared.”

 

    Rebecca ran fingers through her hair, thinking. “Yes, that would certainly be the way it would have happened. Alex is too much the gentleman to have urged the thing upon her. She would have been the seductress, not the seduced one.
Then—
”

 

    Thinking, thinking. “Of course, it is obvious. She will now tell Alex, convinced that he will lose his temper. You know how Julie is! By the time she tells him, she will have worked herself into a fury because she will be convinced that Alex will be furious with her. Like a firearm, primed and loaded. Alex, of course, will say something wrong. Under the circumstances, that is a certainty, since anything he says will be wrong as far as Julie is concerned.
Then—”

 

    She beamed. “The logic is impeccable. Julie will kill him. Hopefully, of course, she will only slay him with words. Since, I trust, she will not have given him the news at five hundred paces.”

 

    Seeing the expression on the doctor’s face, Rebecca frowned. “Is something wrong, James?”

 

    Nichols shook his head. “Nope. I’m just glad you’re on our side.” He snapped his fingers. “
That
for Richelieu!”

 

    Gretchen leaned over the bed and kissed Jeff on the forehead. She could feel the fever through her lips, but was not concerned. Not any longer.

 

    Jeff’s eyes opened. Smiling, Gretchen sat on the bed and bent her head down. Her lips began to part.

 

    Jeff twitched his head aside. “Don’t!” he protested. “You might catch—”

 

    “Nothing,” she whispered. She took his face in strong hands and turned it back to her own. The kiss which followed was gentle. But it was also lingering, and not platonic in the least.

 

    “Nothing,” she whispered. “Nothing but a fever. I just returned from seeing Dr. Nichols. He assured me that you have none of the symptoms of the plague.”

 

    “Even so—” Jeff tried to push her away. He was too weak to succeed in that task. His wife did not push easily. “The flu is bad enough, Gretchen! You don’t have my resistance to it!”

 

    She rose slowly and shrugged. Gretchen understood the medical logic behind her husband’s words. Dr. Nichols had explained to her at considerable length. People of her time did not have a built-up resistance to strains of disease carried by those born in the future.

 

    She began to disrobe. Gretchen understood the logic, but she did not agree with it. She had her own way of reasoning, which was more tough-minded.
Much
more.

 

    “Best I develop it, then,” she murmured. Now nude, she slid under the sheets and pressed herself against her husband. Her movements were gentle, not passionate. But they were no more platonic than her earlier kiss. Since Jeff had contracted influenza, two days earlier, she had been forced to sleep with the children. Her husband had insisted. Now, she practically wallowed in the sensation of his body against hers.

 

    Feebly, Jeff tried to protest again. Gretchen put her hand over his mouth. “Be quiet,” she whispered. “I will contract this disease sooner or later, anyway. So why not get on with it?”

 

    Jeff sighed and closed his eyes. His fears for his wife were warring with desire for her nearness. Desire won. He enfolded her in his arms and drew her closer still.

 

    “Oh, yes,” Gretchen murmured a few minutes later. “There’s something else. Dr. Nichols tells me I am definitely pregnant.”

 

    Jeff’s eyes popped open.