1634: The Baltic War (74 page)

Baldur wasn't abashed. "And you should keep telling yourself that, I agree. Even if only a madman would think that big nose is someday going to shrink down to normal size."

Ulrik was a bit irritated, but there was no point arguing the matter. On the subject of women, it was just a fact that he and Norddahl were almost polar opposites. The Norwegian adventurer, as you might expect, liked women who were good-looking in a bland sort of way, with heftily female figures, and not much brighter than a cow. Given that his own intelligence on the subject was not much higher than a bull's.

Ulrik, on the other hand, had been a prince in line of succession all his life. He couldn't remember a time when he hadn't been surrounded by young Danish noblewomen who were good-looking in a bland sort of way, with figures that ranged from hefty to slender but were usually quite attractive, and . . .

Well, it wouldn't be fair—not to some, anyway—to call them as stupid as cows. But even the bright ones had a very limited and incurious view of the world. Conversations with them were almost invariably dull, and often excruciatingly dull.

True, Princess Kristina had a outsized nose, which she'd probably retain her whole life. In old age, if she also had bad problems with her teeth, she might make a ferocious-looking crone. And while it was impossible to tell yet what her figure would be, once she passed childhood, he suspected it would remain on the scrawny side.

He could live with all that. Quite easily, in fact. What mattered was simply whether he and the Swedish princess could manage to get along. If they could—only time would tell—then all the rest would come into play.

Dear God, the girl was smart! Even with her only at the age of seven, on short acquaintance, it was obvious.

"She's adventurous, too," he murmured to himself. The average Danish noblewoman's idea of adventure was wearing a slightly daring new dress. Not learning how to fly—which he'd heard Kristina pestering the pilot about as she got off the airplane.

"What was that?" asked Baldur. "I didn't catch it."

"Never mind. And to hell with the nose. And we'd better start walking more quickly. I'm already going to be late for the congress."

"Into the new USE province of Westphalia," Axel Oxenstierna droned on, "we propose to include the following: Muenster, Osnabrueck, 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 over having been passed over in favor of his younger brother for the really 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.

And why, exactly,
had
he been passed over? Mike had been told by those in the know that Christian's official excuse to his second-oldest son was that he'd insisted on the youngest of the three brothers because he'd been sure Gustav Adolf would refuse. The youngster in question, of course, being the same fellow who'd inflicted the only major damage on the enemy in the course of the war.

No one was more astonished, went Christian's claim, when the damned Swede had immediately and enthusiastically agreed to have Ulrik betrothed to his daughter—and, of course, it was now too late to do anything about it. No way to withdraw the offer, under the circumstances. As gracious and generally lenient as Gustav Adolf was being about most everything, he was still the victor in the war. You could only take things so far.

The excuse was . . . plausible enough. But Mike didn't believe it for a minute. Now that he'd finally met Christian IV and had been able to spend some time in his company, a few things had become clear to him.

First, the king was an alcoholic with a truly prodigious capacity for alcohol—but, like some alcoholics Mike had known, he was able to function much better than you'd imagine, at least until he got completely soused.

Second, he could play the buffoon like nobody's business.

Third, most of that was an act. Not all of it, especially when Christian was feeling the wind in his sails. But he was nowhere nearly as foolish as he could sometimes make himself out to be.

There was a fourth thing that Mike was not quite as sure about, but damn near. And that was that by far the most intelligent and capable of the Danish king's three sons in line of succession was the one who resembled Christian the least—his youngest, Prince Ulrik. And he also thought that the king himself knew it.

If he was right, in other words, there had been no error of judgment on Christian's part at all. He'd known, cold-bloodedly, that Gustav Adolf would accept Ulrik as Kristina's betrothed. For two reasons. First, just to close the deal. And second, because that would close it better than anything else.

Like most peoples in Europe in the early seventeenth century, Danes didn't really have a national consciousness yet. The roots of it were there and visible—it was indeed a unified nation and they were indeed its subjects, and accepted the fact willingly—but that still wasn't the same thing as what a later age would call "nationalism." If for no other reason than the inveterate particularism of most people in this era. Any resident of any village or town or city could explain to you in great detail why the inhabitants of a village or town or city maybe forty miles away—twenty miles away, for that matter—were a bunch of dolts with lousy manners, stupid customs, and shaky morals. And watch out, because they'll cheat you in a heartbeat.

All that said, every Dane since the battle in Copenhagen's harbor had adopted Prince Ulrik as their champion. Partly because there hadn't been much else for Danes to cheer about, in the war, and partly because by this point lots of Danes had seen the ironclads for themselves. Crippling and almost sinking one of those seagoing dragons was indeed a prince's business, and only a true prince could have done it.

And . . .

Obviously the Swedes, dumb and boorish and ill-mannered and criminally-inclined as they might be, were at least smart enough to know it. So, having no prince of their own, they'd turned to the Danes to provide them with one.

As salves for wounded pride went, this one . . . wasn't bad, actually. It had certainly gone a long way to reconciling the Danes to being frog-marched into Gustav Adolf's Union of Kalmar.

What Mike still didn't know, and could only guess at, was exactly why Christian had made that choice. Did he want his sharpest son in that position to thwart the project, over time? Or did he want him there to make it succeed?

Mike's attention was drawn away from his musings, for a moment, by the sight of the door to the chamber opening. A moment later—speak of the devil—Prince Ulrik himself slipped in and quietly and unobtrusively took a seat among the noblemen and officials watching the proceedings at the big table in ranked chairs along three of the four walls.

His gaze met Mike's for a moment, then slid away. As usual, the prince's expression was noncommittal. He was amazingly hard to read, for someone so young.

Which led Mike to another tentative conclusion, which was that in the long run it really didn't matter why Christian had chosen to act as he had. It would be his son, not he, who would determine how it all shaped up.

Interesting times.

Thankfully, it was also time for a break, and Gustav Adolf had just given the signal. Mike got up and headed for the toilets, after holding Becky's chair for her. She scurried for the toilets faster than he did, not surprisingly. Whatever else was different between the early seventeenth and late twentieth centuries, one thing had remained constant. The line at the women's toilet would move a lot slower than that at the men's.

You wouldn't think so, given how few women were attending the Congress of Copenhagen in an official capacity. But Danish concepts of "official capacity"—and Swedes and Germans were no different—were a lot more relaxed than those of the up-time world. So if, for instance—to take an example present right then and there—the count of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, Ludwig Guenther, who'd just celebrated his fifty-third birthday and
had
been officially invited to the Congress, chose to bring his nineteen-year-old wife and sit beside her, nobody was going to tell him he couldn't.

Normally, Mike would have waited for Becky to emerge before he went back into the big meeting chamber. But he needed to take care of some pressing business during this break.

Fortunately, the admiral hadn't moved from his chair. Mike had noticed before, in other long meetings, that John Chandler Simpson was one of those people who seemed to possess a cast-iron bladder. Probably a very handy thing to have, at long stockholders' meeting.

The chair next to Simpson's was vacant, for the moment, so Mike slid into it.

"It's set, John," he said softly. "If it goes to the wire, we'll get Eddie out of there. Let the chips fall where they may."

Stiffly, Simpson nodded. "Thank you." He paused, and swallowed. "It means a great deal to me. Not just personally, either. There's . . ." His eyes became grim. "Principles at stake."

"So there are. That said, John . . ."

Simpson raised his hand, his expression lightening a great deal. "Please, Mike. I'm fully aware of how bad the fallout is likely to be. And I'm just as aware that there's an easy solution to it all. But I'm still not going to force Eddie into it."

Mike smiled. "Who said anything about 'forcing' him? I simply point out two things to you. The first is that any man who successfully ran a major corporation for umpteen years has got to have some skill at getting people to do what he wants them to do, without breaking their heads. Am I right?"

"Well. Yes."

"Thought so. And the second thing I'll point out is that since he got put back under arrest, Eddie has clammed up completely. The only thing he says—so the Danes tell me—is that the only one he'll report to is his commanding officer, Admiral Simpson."

Simpson's lips quirked. It wasn't quite a smile. "Yes, I know. And, yes, I understand your point. I'll do what I can. But when are they going to allow me to speak to him?"

Mike coughed into his fist. "Well . . . actually, John, I've been the one dragging it out, not them. I wanted to make sure I had Harry in place, first. So . . ."

He glanced over and saw that Gustav Adolf and Christian were alone, for the moment. "Give me a minute."

It took two minutes, before he got back. "Right after the meeting. In fact, they'll have Eddie brought to one of the rooms off to the side."

Simpson nodded again. Even more stiffly than before. Then, very quietly, he said, "It is a pleasure to have you as my commander-in-chief, Prime Minister Stearns."

Axel Oxenstierna stood up. "The session will resume!"

Mike rose and went back to his chair at the table. Becky was already there. And if anybody wondered why a female who was merely a senator from one of the provinces of the United States enjoyed one of the coveted seats at The Table, they could kiss Mike's sweet ass. On some subjects, he and the seventeenth century saw eye to eye, thank you.

"—following principalities will henceforth be part of the province of Hesse-Kassel: Paderborn, the Duchy of Westphalen—"

"Someday," Mike muttered, "somebody is going to have to explain to me the logic of creating a new province called 'Westphalen'—and then incorporating the existing Duchy of Westphalen into a different province."

"It's a seventeenth-century thing," Becky whispered. "You wouldn't understand."

"—Waldeck, Wittgenstein, the northern portions of Nassau-Siegen and Nassau-Dillenberg, Wied, Trier east of the Rhine, parts of Mark and Berg, Corvey—"

"Smart ass," Mike complained. "And where the hell do you pick up all these Americanisms, anyway?"

"I hang out with a bad crowd at the mall," Becky whispered. "And you're muttering too loudly."

"—into the new Upper Rhenish Province: The remnants of the Rhine-Palatinate, Pfalz-Zweibruecken, the Diocese of Speyer, Erbach, Saarbruecken—"

"Let's have three cheers for coherent political geography. Free at last, free at last . . ."

"Michael—
hush
." She slid her hand under the table and squeezed his knee. Since the squeeze turned into a caress, Mike decided to shut up. It never pays to irritate a very affectionate but political-junkie wife at a major political conference where she has ringside seats.

"—Saarwerden, Hagenau, Dagsberg, the northern portion of the Diocese of Strassburg, Obersalm, Landstuhl—"

At the next break, Mike tracked down Prince Ulrik. It was time for a casual conversation, he figured.

That proved to be a lot harder. Not because Ulrik was hard to find, but because Mike had to fight his way through three circles of admiring young Danish noblewomen who surrounded him. There were some Germans in there too, he thought, and at least one Swedish girl.

Again, it would seem odd, if you didn't understand the time and place. Why, after all, would the fact that a young man was about to become betrothed to a princess make him attractive to other women? There was not a cold chance in hell that he'd abandon a match with Kristina for anything else.

But . . . there were wives, and there were mistresses, and nobody knew yet whether Ulrik was going to be one of those monarchs—Gustav Adolf being an example—who dallied little if at all. Or whether he'd prove to be a chip off the old block and follow his
father's example. For an ambitious and enterprising young noblewoman, the status of royal mistress was a lot more exciting—not to mention probably renumerative—than that of a nobleman or rich merchant's wife. Especially when the prince was young, physically fit and rather good-looking, and the nobleman or merchant was likely to be a pot-bellied middle-aged man with flatulence and bad breath.

Mike didn't know himself, but he suspected the poor girls were wasting their time. Ulrik didn't seem like a cold fish, as such. But if Mike had assessed him correctly, he was far shrewder than his sire, and much less prone to impulsive behavior. In the short run, a royal mistress might be a veritable delight. In the long run, she was likely to become a monstrous headache—and her children, worse still. If anyone had any doubts, they had only to contemplate French politics.

The slight look of relief on Ulrik's face when he spotted Mike muscling his way to the center gave support to that hypothesis, at least.

"Excuse me, ladies," the prince said smoothly, "but I must speak to the prime minister now."

After the little mob of young women went their regretful way, Ulrik gave Mike a nod. "Thank you. I felt like a city under siege. What are their mothers thinking, anyway? Do they really believe I'm that mindless?"

"Well . . . You might want to consider, Your Highness, that trying to ram an ironclad with a rowboat doesn't exactly give the impression of a cool and calculating fellow."

Ulrik smiled. "No, I suppose not. What may I do for you, Prime Minister?"