1632 (49 page)

    “I am concerned about the continuing allegations of witchcraft,” stated Gustav forcefully. He waved his hand. “Yes, yes, James, I realize that the reports come from tainted sources. For the most part. But I am still concerned. There are so
many
reports.”
    Sir James shrugged. “What would you, Highness? Do you expect Catholic mercenaries thrashed by a handful of Scots and their American allies to praise the military prowess of their opponents? Witchcraft is the easiest thing in the world to shout from the rooftops. And the hardest to disprove.”
    Gustav stroked his massive nose, thinking. “I’m well aware of that, James. Nevertheless, the thing is odd.”
    The Scottish general chuckled. “Odd? Say better—
fantastic
. A colony of Englishmen from a future America find themselves planted in the middle of Thuringia? It’s a thing of fable! The tales of Rabelais and Sir Thomas More come to life.”
    Still stroking his nose, Gustav muttered: “You believe Mackay still, then?”
    Spens nodded firmly. “Absolutely. I’ve known him since he was a lad of five. I took him into my service more from my own high opinion than from the fact his father is an old friend.”
    He studied the king intently for a moment. Then: “You were there when he gave his report at Würzburg, Your Majesty. Not three months ago. Did he strike you as a liar—or a witling?”
    “Neither,” came the instant reply. “’A most promising young officer,’ I called him last year. Axel was quite sarcastic about it, given my unfamiliarity with the young man. But that was my impression then, and certainly nothing since has predisposed me otherwise.”
    He sighed heavily. “But I am concerned, James. I have more than enough problems as it is. Treating with mysterious colonists from the future—a fable, as you say!—is a bit much to add to the brew.” His voice trailed off into an inaudible mutter.
    The Scotsman said nothing. From long experience in Gustav’s service, he knew the king was talking to himself now. Gustav II Adolf was no more immune to hesitation and uncertainty than any man. He was simply much better at dealing with it than anyone Spens had ever met.
    As always, the process was brief. Within a minute, the king had stopped stroking his nose and was standing erect.
    “So be it. God’s will, clear enough. Is Satan so powerful he could transplant a colony from the future? I think not!” He went back to rubbing his hands. “Besides, one cannot fixate on the problems. There is also the opportunity.”
    Spens took the moment to fortify the king’s resolve. “
Corpus Evangelicorum,
”
he murmured.
    Gustav smiled faintly. “You are the only man I know besides myself, James, who manages to say that phrase without lifted eyebrows.”
    Spens returned the smile with a grin. “And why not? I think a north European Protestant confederation under the leadership of Sweden would be a splendid solution to the war. And much else. Sweden gets its long-sought Baltic supremacy, the Holy Roman Empire gets its peace, and the north Germans—finally—get a chance to build a real nation instead of a princes’ playground.”
    The king cocked a quizzical eye. “You do not share the general presumption that the result would be a Swedish tyranny?”
    “What nonsense! Forgive me for saying so, Your Majesty, but there is simply no way in the Lord’s green earth that a million and a half Swedes could maintain a genuine tyranny over ten times that many Germans. Not for long, in any event.”
    He shook his head. “I’ve lived in Sweden. You’re a practical lot, comes to it. I imagine a Swedish-led north European confederation would soon enough resemble Sweden itself. Which is the best-run kingdom in the world, in my humble opinion.”
    “Mine also!” exclaimed Gustav cheerily. “And not such a humble opinion, either.”
    He clapped Spens on the shoulder. “Good enough, James. We’ll stay the course. Who knows? Thuringia may well be destined to play a role in all this. But send another courier to Mackay immediately. You heard Lennart. We’re going to need those new guns more quickly than I’d thought. It’ll be interesting to see if Mackay’s boasts about the manufacturing talents of his new friends are justified.”
    Spens nodded. The king continued. “Also make sure to pass along my congratulations to him. The Dutch money is rolling through very nicely. Yet another reason to leave Thuringia in peace, eh?”
    “Is it not?” agreed Spens lightly. He cleared his throat. “If I may be so bold, Your Majesty, I think a promotion is in order as well as congratulations. Mackay now has a full thousand cavalrymen under his command, wearing your colors.”
    “So many?” Gustav shook his head with bemusement. “Well, then—of course. Colonel Mackay, from this moment forth! Nothing less!”
    He and Spens shared a small laugh. As they began walking away from the palace, the king added: “And also tell him to escort the new guns to me as soon as possible. In person. I want to talk to him.” Gustav hesitated, then shook his head firmly—almost vehemently. “No! I want more.” He reached out with his hands, as if groping in the dark. “I want something more tangible than simply a personal report. I want—”
    Grope, grope.
    “An American?”
    “The very thing!” exclaimed the king. “I want to
see
one of these fabled folk!”

Chapter 46

    Ollie Reardon, the owner of the machine shop, wasn’t sure if he was amused or aggravated. Both, he decided.
    “Why is he wasting time cutting the outside of the barrel?” demanded Mackay. The Scots officer was practically dancing with impatience. “We don’t have time for cosmetic adornment!”
    Studying the work being done at the lathe, Ollie pursed his lips. The lathe operator, Jack Little, had been a machinist for longer than Alexander Mackay had been alive.
    
Guess which one of them knows what they’re doing?
But for all the irritation in the thought, Ollie decided to explain. Politely.
    He pointed to the large casting. The butt end of the future cannon was held in the lathe’s jaws; the front, already center-drilled, was held steady by a live center projecting from the tailstock. The two trunnions were rotating so rapidly they formed nothing more than a blur. Soft bronze could be machined at a much higher RPM than steel. Jack was making a very shallow cut a few inches long near the end of the barrel—a skin cut, as it was called.
    “There’s nothing cosmetic at all about what he’s doing. He needs a machined surface for the steady rest. Unless the end of the barrel is held steady, it’d take forever to drill out the internal diameter. Just holding the casting at one end, the chatter would be ferocious.”
    Mackay frowned. “What’s a steady rest?”
    Ollie suppressed a sigh. He pointed to a fixture sitting in a rack at the end of the lathe’s ways. The fixture, which could be swung apart on a hinge, formed an open circle some ten inches in diameter. Three adjustable columns ending in ball bearings projected into the center at 120-degree intervals. Two of them would cradle the piece from below; the third, from directly above.
    “That is,” he growled. “You set it on the ways, clamp it down, and then bring the bearings to ride on the machined surface which Jack’s cutting right now. Steadies the piece and holds it true for the next operation, which, on these three-pounder barrels, is drilling out the bore.” The precisionist soul of a machinist surfaced. Frowning: “We really
ought
to be reaming it, for the finish cut—we’ll use a boring bar for the six-pounders—but those cast iron cannonballs are so sloppy and uneven there’s no point. We’d be trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
    Mackay flushed. “I see.” With obvious embarrassment, he tugged at his short beard. “I see,” he repeated.
    Next to him, Julie grinned. “Any more questions, big shot?” She turned to Ollie and shrugged. “You got to make allowances. He’s still trying to adjust to his magnificent new status.”
    The grin widened. “
Colonel
Mackay, no less. And he only just turned twenty-three!”
    “Stop it, girl,” grumbled Alex. “I was only—”
    Ollie clapped him on the shoulder. “Congratulations on your promotion, by the way. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to make it to the celebration at the Gardens yesterday, but—”
    A little salt in the wounds, here. “I was here till midnight, making sure we were set up to run the new castings. No time for
me
to be carousing all night.”
    Mackay’s embarrassment deepened. He
had
caroused all night. His grumpy attitude this morning was the direct result.
    “Sorry,” he muttered. Then, rallying what was left of his dignity: “Well, since everything is obviously under control, I think I’ll be on my way.”
    Ollie let no sign of his relief show. In truth, he liked the Scotsman, and was willing to forgive the man being an occasional fussbudget. Besides, Ollie understood as well as Mackay what was riding on this first shipment of new guns to the king of Sweden. So, politely—even affably—he escorted the Scotsman and his girlfriend to the door.
    Memory of something he’d heard this morning suddenly surfaced. “Oh! And congratulations on your engagement, also.”
    Julie beamed happily and showed off the new ring on her finger. “Nice, isn’t it? Alex found it in Eisenach, when he was there last week.”
    Mention of Eisenach caused Ollie to raise an eyebrow. He hesitated, wondering if he should ask—
    “There’s no big secret about it, Ollie,” said Mackay. “Eisenach’s almost certain to come in. They’re just dancing around for a bit, waiting to see what Gotha decides.” The Scotsman snorted. “And
they’re
dancing around waiting on Erfurt, and Erfurt is dancing on Weimar. But it should be all over soon enough.”
    “That’d give us—what? Six stars on the flag, instead of two?”
    Julie butted in before Alex could speak. “Eight, I bet! Word is that Mike and Becky’s trip to Saalfeld and Suhl was a big success too!”
    Ollie started. “I didn’t know they were back. Saalfeld, huh? That’d give us a boost on the chemical side, what with the mines in the area. And—”
    Mackay, his voice filled with satisfaction, completed the thought: “And that would almost certainly bring in Gera. The United States would have all of Thuringia’s major towns, then. In the south of the province, anyway. Every last one.”
    But Ollie’s mind was already elsewhere. “I’m thinking about Suhl. That town would give us control of the entire Thuringenwald. And what’s probably more important is that it would stabilize our ordnance industry. A hundred years ago, you know, Suhl was the biggest armament center in Germany. Still has a lot of capacity left.” He pointed over his shoulder with a thumb. “We got those castings from Suhl, as it happens. Be nice to see them part of the family.”
    Less than a year ago, the Scots nobleman Alexander Mackay would have been astonished to see a manufacturer and a former schoolgirl discussing matters of foreign policy. Today, he didn’t even take notice of it. On that happy note, Alex and Julie left the machine shop and entered the street.
    Immediately, another discussion on foreign policy erupted. Mackay launched a preemptive strike before Julie could raise the subject anew.
    “You are
not
going—and that’s final.”
    “Ha! We’ll see about that!
You
don’t get to make
that
decision—
Colonel, sir
!”
    The two lovers glared at each other as they worked their way down the street. Their progress was slow, partly because they were immersed in the argument, but mostly because the street was very crowded. By April of 1632, Grantville’s population density bore a closer resemblance to Calcutta than the small town in West Virginia it had once been.
    The preemptive strike having failed, Mackay launched his next salvo.
    “Impossible,” he stated. “Your father would insist on a chaperone. For that matter,
I’d
insist on a chaperone. And there’s—”
    He stumbled for a moment, trying to force words through Julie’s ensuing sarcastic remarks about his drastic change in attitude on the subject of chaperones—which he
certainly
hadn’t been concerned about the night before; quite the contrary! Hadn’t it been
he
who found that deserted—
    Rally, Scotsman! “—no other woman be going,” he concluded.
    Julie looked smug. Mackay felt the pit opening beneath him.

    “I don’t like it,” growled Mike. “Not one bit.”

 

    Rebecca said nothing. She simply sat there on the couch, relaxed, hands clasped in her lap, and returned her husband’s scowl with a patient smile. Three months of marriage had brought a deeper intimacy into their relationship. Intimacy—and a much better knowledge of each other’s habits and foibles.

 

    So, where the fiancée would have argued, the wife simply let the husband argue with himself.

 

    It wasn’t much of an argument. The advantages to her proposal were blindingly obvious.

 

    “I don’t like it,” he repeated. “You’re pregnant and it’s wartime. God knows what you’d run into.”

 

    Blithely, Rebecca ignored the issue of her pregnancy, other than running her hands down her waist to show that it was still as slim as ever. But the rest seemed to call for a response.

 

    “Michael, all reports agree that Tilly has fallen back on the Danube. The Lower Palatinate and Franconia are firmly in Swedish hands, as is most of Würtemburg. We would encounter nothing on our way to Gustav Adolf’s camp except for a few bands of stragglers and deserters. None of whom, as you well know, pose any threat to the expedition. Not with Mackay’s cavalry
and
Tom’s dragoons as an escort.”

 

    Silence. Rebecca decided to add a sweetener. “And since your sister
insists
on accompanying Tom,” she added, smiling, “I would be chaperoned. So you would not even have to worry about my fidelity.”

 

    For all his fretting, Mike couldn’t stifle a laugh. “What a relief! Boy, will
that
help me sleep easy at night.”

 

    The humor broke the tension. “All right,” he sighed. “I agree it’s the best response. I’d like to go myself, of course, but—”

 

    Rebecca was already shaking her head. “That
is
impossible. I know you do not like to hear this, Michael, but the fact remains that your personal authority is key to our negotiations with the other cities in Thuringia. We