THE RINGSTETTEN SAGA, PART II: LOVE AND WAR AND OLD LACE

A couple of posts before, I started to tell you the story of Gerhard and Hedwig von Ringstetten: the children of Küstrin's governor (a boy of 16 and a girl of 15), who became an ensign in the Swedish army and a maid in Queen Eleanor's entourage. And thus, they parted ways on that sacred August day... but what happened then?
Previously on the Ringstetten Saga:
The first leading characters to be introduced are both the children of Küstrin's governor (Kommandant, as before, is the German/Swedish word for fortress governor). Their father Konrad von Ringstetten, having been forced to convert to Catholicism and aware of the fall of Templin, is worried about the outcome of a Swedish royal visit to his own guardhouse. However, Küstrin is pardoned on Queen Eleanor's advice, its garrison is spared (though the prisoners are freed), and Konrad and his wife Elsa, re-converted to Lutheranism, let their children, Gerhard and Hedwig, follow their respective dreams as a Swedish Army officer and a maid in the Queen's entourage, respectively... as they emotively take leave of the sixteen-year-old ensign and the fifteen-year-old maid, his younger sister. A traitor within the garrison is exposed (a Wallonian Jesuit dressed as a lieutenant, who tried to take Küstrin for the Count of Tilly at the head of a fifth column sent to watch the Kommandant and, at a given signal, have the sentries drugged, then take the fort from within), and he is sentenced to run the gauntlet on the outskirts of Küstrin, as the governor lights the fireplace (though it's mid-summer), to symbolically burn a portrait of Tilly and a wooden Virgin Mary. 
Well, Gerhard entered the Swedish encampment, and he swore an oath to the flag: never to lose it and to treat it "like his own fiancée". Now our young officer wasn't even betrothed... but that changed over the course of the war. For he met by the campfire, that evening, a red-haired girl dressed as a soldier. Who was she? Elisabeth Charlotte "Liselotte" von Tarlenheim, his commanding officer's only daughter. That's who...
If you like the "spirited"/tomboyish type of female character in historical and fantasy fiction, you'll understand what Gerhard saw in Liselotte (by the way, she's 16 as well). They started as friends, and gradually their relationship developed. But a Swedish officer, in the olden days, required the consent of both his liege and father-in-law to marry.
And so, Gerhard decided to draw the attention of both King Gustavus Adolphus and Colonel Karl Hermann von Tarlenheim. In which way? Well, let's say charging headlong against detachments of passing-by Croatians, Walloons, and other Catholics, hoping to be rewarded with a lieutenancy.
Our young ensign also learns how to sew and make lace, skills that Swedish officers are taught to be able to mend their own clothes and have something to do while waiting. At first, Gerhard holds prejudice against a warrior being taught such "feminine" activities, and his first lace looks rather like tangled cobwebs... but he is soon encouraged by His Majesty, who advises him that not doing anything is even more feminine than sewing or lacemaking.
Gustavus is also fond of reading, especially the deeds of his predecessors as strategists, and he takes to his personal portable library every night, even in camp, during the war that is going on.
And the Swedish royal is even writing a song (in Swedish and German, the translation is mine) to sing before confrontation and thus encourage the Protestants:

"Do not despair, my little band,

though enemies throughout the land

are seeking to destroy you!

They rejoice, hoping you'll fall soon,

but they will sing another tune,

so keep on brave and coy, you!"

What has happened outside the encampment palisade in the meantime? If you guess that Tilly had Magdeburg burned to the ground, and that Leipzig soon yielded to him... you're completely right!

So, we have Gerhard "parti pour l'armée", during wartime, and finding Liselotte as more than a friend, while she merely sees him as a brother figure. Gustavus paying slightly more attention to this li'l blond ensign. And the Swedish ranks soon find themselves in the half-occupied Electorate of Saxony (its capital, Dresden, still remains intact). Soon, the hitherto neutral (and overweight) Elector George von Wettin visits the Swedish camp with his ranks (in finer scarlet doublets), including a patriotic red-haired Law student from Leipzig (don’t forget Kurtius, for he’ll soon prove his mettle!), and they garrison there, striking an alliance with Sweden.

That's the setup for the battle of Breitenfeld!

The upcoming confrontation is the talk of the encampment: this is no petty skirmish against some colonel, but a battle royale against Count Tilly himself! And the Swedes' first confrontation with the League's leader, on top of that!

No wonder Gerhard, like all other subaltern officers, is so stirred. Every ensign and lieutenant wants His Majesty to see the worth in him.
On the eve of battle, both armies prepare the best way they can. Gustavus Adolphus, thirsty and excited, visits another nearby estate, Krostewitz or Crostewitz, home of the Elector's favourite brewery, where the hop harvest is being celebrated. Draining his tankard of spicy mulled beer at one fell swoop, he greatly praises the drink he has quaffed, and even rewards the estate lord with a ruby ring of pure gold.
In the meantime, in the morgue in suburban Leipzig, now the League's headquarters, the badass and foolhardy Count of Pappenheim tries, with the aid of his fellow generals, to coax the Count of Tilly into giving battle. The careful Walloon would rather wait until reinforcements arrive, yet the younger generals' coaxing and taunting finally leads him to give in, to confront the Swedes at Breitenfeld. At last Gottfried zu Pappenheim will have some action and excitement: the scar on his forehead, shaped like the crossed swords on his clan's coat of arms, flares up like whenever he is enraged or excited, for he is burning to fulfil the prophecy that a Count of Pappenheim scarred with his family crest, riding a white steed, will defeat a great ruler on the field of battle...
While the younger leaders of the League coax Tilly throughout the night, Gustavus lies asleep in his pavilion after a night of revels and fireworks, dreaming that he wrestles against the septuagenarian Walloon, pulling his opponent's silver hair, receiving a bite from the old count on his left arm in response, yet, being younger and stronger, the Swede quickly pins the Walloon to the ground, ripping his chest open. Right when he was going to see if the Count of Tilly had got a heart, the King of Sweden awakens. The sun has not risen over the Saxon plains and the towers of Leipzig yet.