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  Designed to Fail

  Virginia DeMarce

  Designed to Fail Copyright © 2020 by Virginia DeMarce. All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  1632, Inc. & Eric Flint's Ring of Fire Press handle Digital Rights Management simply: we trust the honor of our readers.

  Cover designed by Laura Givens

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Virginia DeMarce

  Visit my PoFP page at https://ringoffirepress.com/authors/demarce-virginia/

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing: Aug 2020

  1632, Inc.

  eBook ISBN-13 978-1-953034-39-7

  Trade Paperback ISBN-13 978-1-953034-40-3

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Section I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Section II

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Section III

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Section IV

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Section V

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  SECTION VI

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  AFTERWORD

  Dedication

  To the sixteenth and seventeenth century inventors and practitioners of the episodic picaresque novel,

  especially

  Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (1621-1676)

  author of

  The Adventurous Simplicius Simplicissimus:

  The account of the life of an odd vagrant named Melchior Sternfels von Fuchshaim:

  namely where and in what manner he came into this world, what he saw, learned,

  experienced, and endured therein; also why he again left it of his own free will.

  Acknowledgments

  The major acknowledgment, of course, is to Eric Flint for writing 1632, which spawned this fictional universe, and for inviting me to be a part of it.

  Thanks to the numerous denizens of the 1632 Tech forum on Baen’s Bar who, during the spring of 2019, participated in lively discussions concerning the status of the city of Bremen and the economic problems that would face the Province of Westphalia.

  Thanks to Eric Flint for giving me permission to use the material in the Prologue, which saved a lot of explanation later on.

  The proverb says that the making of laws and sausages should not be observed. The same is true of books. Thanks to my late husband’s cousin, who is also my genealogical friend Gail Von Bargen, for the use of her surname; to my cousin Mark Thames for an apt sentence; to Tim Walsh, the vicar at Grace Lutheran Church this year, for a discussion of imprecatory psalms; to my son Karl for a bit of New Testament Greek and some notes on Luke 16:1-13 from his isagogics course, to Laura Runkle and Michael Miller for a timely reminder in regard to Doctor Strangelove, and to Jim DeMarce himself, to whom I was happily married for forty-seven years, for the use of one of his favorite aphorisms, slightly modified.

  In May 2020, during the Covid-19 shut-down, a young bear decided to wander the streets of Falls Church, Virginia. I owe a subplot to his efforts to stake out a territory.

  As always, I am profoundly grateful to all the historians and researchers who spend time in early modern European archives and publish their results. Please see the Afterword for a discussion of some of their products.

  For this book specifically, I am grateful to all the world’s music teachers at all levels who enable children to sing and play instruments well and with joy. My five now-adult grandchildren would like to thank Twila Anderson, Lori Fulk, Eric Martins, Kevin Carr, Levi Nagel, Leigh Redfield, Kari Hurley, Linda Moeller, James Kieselhorst, Naomi Fritz, "and a whole stack from college, too." They also have kind words for the teachers at Fox’s Music in Falls Church, Virginia, and the Levine School of Music in Arlington, Virginia.

  From Baen’s Bar, for assistance with the Battle of Bornhöved, Anette Pedersen for a useful article and especially for the maps of the 1813 Napoleonic Era conflict, Bjorn Hasseler, Robert E. Waters, and George Haberberger.

  Many thanks to Walt Boyes, the editor in chief of the Ring of Fire Press, for struggling with my manuscripts, and to Gorg Huff for turning them into something that is e-book friendly.

  Prologue

  June 1634

  Copenhagen, Denmark

  "Into the new USE province of Westphalia," Axel Oxenstierna droned on, "we propose to include the following: Münster, Osnabrück, Schaumburg, Verden, Lippe, Lingen, Bremen, Hoya, Diepholz, and—"

  He paused for a moment, here, and Mike Stearns was sure the Swedish chancellor had to force himself not to give King Christian a sharp glance.

  "—Holstein."

  But, except for a scowl that seemed more ritualistic than heartfelt, Christian IV made no objection. Seated almost across the huge table from Oxenstierna and right next to Gustav Adolf, he simply consoled himself with a royal quaff from his goblet of wine. Which, for its part, was royal-sized.

  A bit hurriedly, Oxenstierna went on. "Said province, as we have already agreed, to be administered on behalf of Emperor Gustav II Adolf by Prince Frederik of Denmark."

  Here he gave Christian's second oldest son in the line of succession a very friendly smile. The twenty-five-year old prince smiled back, in a semi-friendly manner.

  That didn't surprise Mike, however. He was pretty sure that Prince Frederik was still smarting at having been passed over in favor of his younger brother for the plum position, which was being the quite-likely eventual co-ruler of both the USE and the Union of Kalmar—and Sweden, for that matter, if it turned out that he and Kristina got along well enough. Instead, he was being offered the consolation prize of a newly formed USE province to administer. Yes, yes, it would be a big province, and unless Frederik was hopelessly stupid he'd easily be able to see to it that he was chosen as the permanent ruler once Westphalia was ready for full provincial status instead of being an administered territory. Still, it was very much a consolation prize, and very obviously so.

  Eric Flint, 1634: The Baltic War (Baen Books: 2007), Chapter 68, p. 696.

  Section I

  The Gate of Heaven

  July 1634-September 1635

  Chapter 1

  Bremen, July 1634

  Frederik, son of King Christian IV of Denmark, duke of Holstein, and still archbishop if no longer prince-archbishop of Bremen, drew up his horse as he approached the bridge that crossed the moat. His small retinue—extraordinar
ily small for a provincial governor appointed by the emperor of the United States of Europe—paused behind him.

  He looked toward the Ansgarii Tor. By the standards of a medieval Hanseatic city, Bremen was not heavily fortified. Not by the standards of a world in which a city’s walls were perceived as defining its honor. But, certainly, it was heavily enough fortified to present a significant obstacle if the city fathers decided not to let him in; those walls had kept quite a few armies out during the past fifteen years.

  He had been appointed governor of the new Province of Westphalia by Gustav Adolf less than a month ago.

  He had been the designated successor to the prince-archbishop of Bremen, thanks to the political maneuvering of his father, for considerably longer. Prince-archbishop of the Erzstift Bremen, by virtue of which he would have had a seat in the Reichstag of the Holy Roman Empire—if that entity still existed. Which it might or might not. The Habsburgs were unlikely to give up without a further fight, if one gave any thought to the tenacity with which they had been waging war since 1618.

  The city of Bremen was de facto not under the authority of the prince-archbishop. Things had been that way for a while—for about 450 years, if a person wanted to be picky about it. This meant that local politics were often more than a little bit touchy, since de jure it still was.

  Instead of smiling, he drew his rather thick lips inward, pinching them between his teeth. He had watched at the Congress of Copenhagen rather than talking. One of his conclusions was that the complexities and nuances of contemporary politics made Michael Stearns, the up-time leader so precipitously catapulted into the position of prime minister of the newly organized USE, restless. Restless, impatient, and more than a little contemptuous. He did not appear to be a man who would live with a legally ambivalent situation for four and a half centuries. Probably not for four and a half years. Quite possibly not for four and a half days.

  Still, whether Bremen was under the jurisdiction of the prince-archbishop or not, it was most certainly, by fiat of Gustav Adolf, king of Sweden, high king of the Union of Kalmar, emperor of the United States of Europe, and commander of the largest army around, under the jurisdiction of the governor of the Province of Westphalia.

  As such, he intended to enter through the Ansgar Quarter gate. St. Ansgarius, who had lived and died not too far short of a thousand years ago—well, probably nearer to eight hundred years ago—had been the first archbishop of Bremen. And—Frederik quirked one eyebrow slightly—of Hamburg.

  His horse shifted under him, restless.

  The slight creaks of leather and metal behind him, the occasional raising and clopping of a hoof on cobblestones, might mean that his retinue was restless. Or uneasy. If the city fathers of Bremen chose to refuse him admission at this first juncture of his new calling…

  But the gate opened. He proceeded slowly toward the market square, through crooked streets and between tall brick houses that were probably, given the small windows, drearily dark inside; past the new guildhall of the cloth merchants, doing everything decently and in order, giving the people lining the streets a chance to see him. Wishing that Gustav Adolf had seen fit to delegate a somewhat larger company of the largest army around to escort him.

  "Nobody’s ever going to call him handsome," a watching woman commented.

  "Impressive nose, though," her friend Jutta answered. "What would Herr Jensen say? The old man at the bookstore who loves to use such long words? A prominent proboscis."

  "That lump in the middle could mean that he’s broken it at some time." Trinke stood on tiptoe and craned her neck. "Good seat on a horse. He’s not fat, but he shouldn’t be developing jowls yet, as young as he is."

  "I thought Scandinavians were supposed to be blonds. His hair’s dark brown. And so curly."

  "There’s a lot of it though, not thin or stringy, so he’s not likely to go bald. He’s probably one of those children who were born blond, but their hair gets dark when they grow up. I sort of like that feather in his hat."

  "I like the hat. It looks like crushed velvet. I wouldn’t mind having one like it myself. He’d be better off without the mustache and little goatee."

  The gubernatorial procession was moving on toward the city hall.

  "It’s hard to tell from here, but it looks like his lips are sort of full and puffy. Maybe he’s trying to hide that."

  "Overall, though, there are a lot of worse-looking men in the world."

  Jutta laughed. "A lot of better-looking ones, too."

  He entered by the side of the ancient guildhall, the Schütting. On the opposite, northeastern, side of the square, the four Bürgermeister, one from each quarter of the city, were waiting for him, lined up in front of the arches that were the main feature of the remodeled Flemish Renaissance facade of the originally Gothic city hall, flanked by the twenty members of the city council, the Hochedler Hochweiser Rath, five from each quarter of the city: Liebfrauen, Ansgarii, Martini und Stephani.

  They were arrayed below the statues of the Holy Roman Emperor and the empire’s seven electors that proclaimed Bremen’s centuries-long ambition to become a free imperial city, independent of the prince-archbishops, owing allegiance only to the emperor, and with its own vote in the Reichstag. An ambition that had never become fact.

  He rode past the eighteen-foot-high Roland statue that symbolized the council’s right to supreme criminal jurisdiction as well as the medieval Hansa’s commitment to free commerce and trade, hoping that upon this occasion, the highly noble, highly wise, councillors would be more noble and wise than was customarily the case when it came to their dealings with the prince-archbishops.

  He dismounted.

  The protocol was stiff.

  As governor, he officially broke the news to the city council of Bremen—the Calvinist city council of the Calvinist city of Bremen—about the guarantee of religious toleration in the constitution of the United States of Europe.

  He glanced to the side of the square at the ancient cathedral of St. Peter, so old that the lower portions of the mixed stone and brick construction were Romanesque in style, and the archbishop’s palace. Then, leaving his official retinue under Captain von Bargen with the city councillors, he mounted up and rode out by himself through the gate by which he had entered and part way around the wall. He dismounted and walked in through the narrow Bishop’s Needle gate that the council had imposed on the archbishops during those parlous 450 years: a gate too low to admit a mounted, armored rider. This time, he was followed by a line of Lutheran diocesan officials, pastors, and school teachers, headed by those among the noble canons of the cathedral’s collegiate chapter whom he had been able to rouse from their normal lethargy. The majority of them did not qualify as theologians, having gained their seats through family connections.

  Arriving back at the city hall, he announced the establishment of regularly scheduled Lutheran services at the cathedral, the Dom, St. Petri. The impending church services were his own innovation. The cathedral had been the church of the canons, used for special religious celebrations and special events of the archdiocese. But since the parish churches of the city were Calvinist, had been for forty years, and at this point it did not seem prudent to stress relations with the city council further by demanding them back, it would become a parish. Given how long St. Peter’s had been essentially abandoned, there would be a lot of cleaning to do in its Gothic interior.

  He would have liked to accompany this by a ceremonial opening of the cathedral doors. However, after nearly a half-century of being closed, they were probably stuck, and it would take a great deal of huffing and puffing on the part of construction workers to get the hinges loose. That would have been neither impressive nor edifying. Not to mention that the south tower looked so shaky that it might fall down any day if vibrations disturbed its perilous equilibrium.

  Now wasn’t that going to be an expensive construction project? Reconstruction project—one for which he would have to find funds, if he didn’t want to risk
having it come down on the worshippers now that the building would be back in use. He made a mental note to recommend that Bremen’s Lutherans should use the entrance near the sacristan’s house on the north side for the time being and concentrate their activities at the rear of the building.

  They could. There weren’t a lot of Lutherans left in Bremen. He wiped off these mental cobwebs and announced that, additionally, he was establishing a Lutheran Latin School at St. Peter’s. Mental note—again, for the time being, put the school in the adjoining archbishop’s palace, currently unused for any other purpose. Eventually construct a modern building in the Domshof on the north side. And a public library. With an equestrian statue of Gustav II Adolf looking heroic in the middle of the square.

  Bowing slightly to the gathering of Lutheran clerics, he turned himself into the provincial governor again, informing the mayors and council that if they proved to be reasonably cooperative in the future, he would negotiate with that same Gustav II Adolf, who was now their emperor, for an imperial charter that would turn their Calvinist Gymnasium Illustre into a degree-granting university. This was accompanied by a few terse words about his intentions to support the expansion of educational institutions in general within the new province.

  Getting such an imperial charter would be a trick if he could manage it, given that the future Lutheran imperial reluctance to license Calvinist establishments would most likely be as strong as the past Catholic imperial reluctance to license them (all having to do with the fact that Calvinism had not been comprised within the Peace of Augsburg of 1555). Given the short timing of managing this day, though, the prospect was something he could dangle in front of their noses as an enticement that might get the mule-stubborn patricians of this place to modify their natural tendency toward recalcitrance. For now.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Having gotten entree into Bremen as his first accomplishment, an easier one than he had expected, Frederik duly partook of the ceremonial meal hosted by the council and then led his party once more out of the Ansgarii Tor and across to the west bank of the here shallow Weser River, where he had set up temporary quarters in the Neustadt where the city’s population was currently spilling over its official boundaries—spilling to the point that there was now an Alte Neustadt and, since the end of hostilities, a sprawling Neue Neustadt in which everything appeared to be lively, messy, and disorganized.