1634: The Baltic War

Chapter 67

"I can remember when this was easy," muttered Ulrik. "Not more than-at most-one out of hundred people in Copenhagen recognized me, unless I was wearing court dress. Even then, it wasn't more than one in ten."

Walking next to him, in the same sort of cheap and utilitarian clothing, Baldur Norddahl smiled thinly. "You were just a prince, then. Not the Danish national hero."

Ulrik scowled. "I was prepared for death and dismemberment. Not the destruction of what little privacy I had left."

"Oh, stop complaining." Whatever traces of formality had still been left in their relationship had sunk into the Oresund somewhere in the course of the battle. And the prince didn't miss it at all. He'd had very few close friends in his life.

"Not more than four people stopped to take a second glance, Ulrik, and I don't think any of them decided it was really you."

"Still. It's annoying."

A few paces farther down, Baldur put a hand on his arm. "This is it."

Ulrik looked up at the tavern's sign. The nonexistent sign. Then, at what might be the entrance to a tavern. Maybe.

"Could they have found a more inconspicuous and wretched-looking place?" he asked.

"They are who they are. Which, if you've forgotten, is why we came here to begin with."

Ulrik waved him forward. "You first. You're the nerveless adventurer. I'm just a timid national hero. Better you than me, if the floor collapses or the roof falls down or giants rats come at us."

Smiling, still thinly, Baldur led the way.

Inside, the tavern wasn't quite as wretched-looking as its exterior had been. Which wasn't saying a lot, of course.

Aside from the tavern keeper, the only occupants of the room were a small crowd gathered around a large table toward the back. All men, except for two women. They were wearing the same sort of common apparel that Ulrik and Baldur were wearing, but they looked as completely out of place as a den of lions in a mousehole.

"Yes, that's them," murmured Baldur. As if Ulrik could have any doubts.

This time, Ulrik led the way. As he got nearer, he heard one of the men at the table whisper to another, "Heads up, Harry. We got trouble."

He spoke in English, perhaps thinking that a Danish prince wouldn't be familiar with the tongue. Which, indeed, most wouldn't.

Ulrik decided he might as well start there. He not only spoke the language-rather well, by now-he even had something of an Appalachian accent, according to Eddie. So, when he came to a stop, just a few feet away, he said in English:

"I am Prince Ulrik of Denmark. I believe I am speaking to Captain Harry Lefferts, of the USE Army."

He addressed the remarks to the man who been the recipient of the whisper. Even without that clue, however, Ulrik would have known who their commander was. For someone like himself, born and raised in a position of power, it was quite obvious in ways he would have found difficult to explain in words-but obvious, nevertheless.

The man who gazed back at him was a handsome young fellow. Considerably more handsome-and certainly much younger-than Ulrik would have expected, from the reputation. He even had a boyish sort of grin, which he now put on display. The only real indication that Ulrik could see that this was the Captain Lefferts was something in his eyes. There were subtleties there, beneath the apparent insouciance.

Baldur spotted it also, judging from the way he became just that little bit more still, more watchful. Lefferts was a very dangerous man, did he choose to be; of that Ulrik was quite certain. Which was what he expected, of course. He wouldn't have come here, otherwise.

"Yup, that's me, Prince. What can I do for you?"

Ulrik wanted to clear his throat, which felt very dry, but managed to restrain himself. "I believe you have come here to Copenhagen to rescue Lieutenant Eddie Cantrell from captivity. And I believe it would be fruitful if we could discuss the matter, before you do anything."

Every person at the table became suddenly motionless. The aura of menace, heretofore present but subtle, was no longer subtle at all.

Captain Lefferts made a small motion with his hand. A little downward flap, as if to quiet restless monsters.

"Interesting theory, Prince. If you don't mind me asking, is it yours-or your father's?"

Ulrik pointed with his thumb to Baldur, standing next to him. "His, actually. This is Baldur Norddahl, my… ah, call him companion. Or 'sidekick,' to use American idiom."

The eyes of everyone at the table now went to Baldur. As impossible as it seemed, the motionless figures grew intensely motionless. In the manner that wary monsters will, encountering another.

"He's normally quite harmless," Ulrik said. "I assure you. And in answer to your real question, Captain Lefferts, my father does not know that you are here in Copenhagen. Nor does he know that I came here to speak to you. I came on my own, because I believe my father-not for the first time, alas-is gambling too recklessly."

After a moment, Lefferts nodded. "Have a seat, then, please. Paul and Don, clear a space for him."

As they did so, Baldur reached back and pulled up a chair for Ulrik from an adjoining empty table. By the time the prince sat down, the tension at the table had eased somewhat.

Not much, though.

Lefferts' still had a smile on his face, but there was no trace of the humor that had been in his eyes earlier. "All right, Prince. I'll be blunt. Cut to the chase and do it quickly. Since your Americanese is damn good enough to understand the expression. Got that from Eddie, I take it?"

"Yes. He is, by now, a friend of mine."

"Ah." Lefferts glanced away, looking at the door. "The plot thickens."

"Excuse me?"

"Never mind. Yes, you're right. And if you're not here for the reason I'm guessing you're here, things are going to get really sticky between us. Really quick."

He glanced now at Baldur. "Meaning no offense, Mr. Norddahl, but there's only one of you."

The tension was back in full. Hastily, Ulrik said, "I came here because-in the event Eddie needs to be rescued, which I don't think he actually will-we can handle it in a better way than having you shoot up half a palace in the process."

"Really. And how is that?"

Now, Ulrik felt he could afford to clear his throat. "Well, I am a prince of Denmark. That means, among other things, that I have access to the palace keys."

"That's a step, sure enough. But it's a small step." Lefferts pointed toward a very large man seated down the table, next to one of the women. "You'd be amazed how fast George there can get through a locked door. Clickety-boom; clickety-boom; smash. That's how long it takes."

"Makes a lot of noise, though."

"True enough. But we'd have to get through the guards at the door, anyway. Which also doesn't take much time, although it's just as loud and one hell of a lot messier."

"Not if the guards are irrelevant. Which they would be, if a Danish prince insisted he had to take the prisoner to a private meeting. Very quiet, very clean, in less than five minutes we are at one of the many side entrances to the castle, you have a wagon waiting, and it's done. Nobody is hurt at all."

Lefferts studied him, intently. "You'd catch-pardon the expression-royal hell, afterward."

Ulrik shrugged. "So I would. But it's not likely my father would have me executed, either. The worst he'll do is have me imprisoned for a year or two-and that, in very comfortable quarters."

After a moment, the cool smile on Lefferts' face broadened and became considerably warmer. "Well, I guess the stories about you aren't bullshit. I figured they probably were. Royal spin doctors at work, you could say."

One of the women spoke up. "Harry, this is awfully damn dicey." She gave Ulrik a quick hard glance. "All we've got is his word-"

"No we don't, Sherrilyn," said Lefferts brusquely. "He hasn't 'given his word,' to begin with. Just said what he would do. No solemn royal oaths, no bullshit sacred vows, nada. Just said what he would do."

When he looked back at Ulrik, the good humor had returned to his eyes as well. "I figure a prince of Denmark who charged one of the admiral's ironclads in a rowboat with nothing better than a bomb on the end of a stick has probably got the cojones to do this, too."

Clearly, the woman wasn't bashful. From her accent, Ulrik thought she was another American. "Yeah, fine, Harry, point taken. Which means he's a complete screwball. Meaning no offense, Your Highness or whatever you Danes call you." She was now looking at Ulrik directly. "I mean, Jesus. What're you? Fucking crazy?"

Suddenly, the room burst into laughter. No little round of laughs, either, but riotous laughter.

"I'll drink to that!" boomed one of the men who'd moved aside to make room for Ulrik. Paul, he thought. "Here's to crazy fucking princes!"

"Another round!" called out Lefferts, waving his hand at the tavern keeper. "And bring a couple of more mugs. Baldur, have a seat. Paul, you and Felix make room, this time."

Once the tavern keeper had carried out his tasks, Harry gave him a meaningful glance. Or so, at least, it seemed to Ulrik-a guess which was confirmed when he saw that the man quickly left the room, thereby eliminating any possible eavesdroppers.

In a peculiar way, he found that more impressive than anything else. He knew from Baldur that Lefferts and his team had only arrived in Copenhagen very recently. Yet somehow, in that short a time, they'd managed to find a tavern they could use as a headquarters, replete with a cooperative owner. How, he wondered.

Probably by waving money under his nose, along with the none-too-subtle suggestion that they were about some criminal enterprise. In a neighborhood like this, and with a tavern this run-down, that had probably not been difficult. It wouldn't occur to the tavern keeper, of course, that the criminal enterprise in question would have anything to do with infuriating the Danish crown.

Still, it was impressive. There were skills involved here that went far beyond the obvious.

Developing the plan itself didn't take long. The biggest problem was simply timing the escape properly, so that whatever alarm was given wouldn't come in time to prevent a slow-moving wagon from getting to the harbor at Helsingor. Lefferts insisted on that, although it would obviously be much faster to get Eddie from the palace to a boat in Copenhagen's own harbor.

"Tell you what, Ulrik," he'd said, "I won't tell you how to prince, you don't tell me how to do my line of work. Misdirection's the key. We'll have a couple of our guys-Felix and Don, I'm thinking-make a big production out of smuggling somebody-that'll be Sherrilyn, all bundled up so you can't tell if she's a guy or a girl-onto a boat in Copenhagen's harbor. The kind of thing an eyewitness or two-or ten, more like-is bound to notice. That way, when your father's soldiers come searching-and where else would they start?-they'll think Eddie's on that boat. By the time they catch up to the boat and search it and find nobody, we've got Eddie on a boat in Helsingor and we're sailing around the Skaw. I figure we'll smuggle him back to Amsterdam, rather than trying for the USE. They won't expect that."

"He's got the right of it, Ulrik," said Baldur.

"Why me?" demanded Sherrilyn, a bit crossly.

Felix snorted. "To make it easy on us, once we get caught. What do you think? With you as the smugglee, we can claim one of us was your paramour and we were getting you out of Denmark to save you from the lecherous and slimy clutches of… Hmmm. Probably Harry himself, I'd say."

Harry grinned. Don did, too. "Which one of us, Felix, is what I want to know? 'Paramour' is one of those words that usually comes"-here, he leered at Sherrilyn-"with all sorts of perks and privileges."

"In your dreams, wise guy," was Sherrilyn's answer. But she immediately added, "Okay, that makes sense."

"Done, then." Harry rose and extended his hand to Ulrik and Baldur. "Prince, Baldur, it's been a pleasure. We'll stay in touch, probably using Juliet as our go-between."

As Ulrik and Baldur were about to go out the door, Harry called out. "Hey, Ulrik?"

He turned. "Yes?"

"If it ever happens-God forbid-that your royal line of work doesn't pan out right, and you find yourself unemployed, feel free to look me up. You too, Baldur."

Not knowing what to say, Ulrik simply nodded and left.

When they were gone, Don Ohde gave Harry a sly smile. "Speaking of misdirection, I notice you didn't tell the prince about the airplane we're really planning to use."

Harry shrugged. "Who says we are? The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of using a boat at Helsingor. Keep the whole USE out of it entirely, except for us. And-"

He gave his companions at the table a smile that was slyer by an order of magnitude. "It ain't like it'd be hard for Mike to claim we're a pack of goddam rogues, now would it?"

After the laughter died down, he added, "Especially as pissed as he'll be, when he realizes we misdirected him too. You wanna talk about plausible denial."

As they started walking back toward the palace, Ulrik frowned. "I think that was a compliment."

"Oh, yes, indeed," murmured Baldur. He had a peculiar expression on his face, as if he were daydreaming. "I'm almost tempted… Ah, well, never mind. Although he does remind me a great deal of… ah, well, best leave that name buried. What adventures we had, though, while it lasted. Too bad the bards don't sing about… ah, well, never mind. Probably just as well. Empty half the sprightly lads out of Norway, it would, if they started singing about it. And then who'd do the farm work?"

In the quick way he had, Norddahl suddenly changed the subject. "So what did you think of the princess? Aside from the fact that she'll be ugly when she grows up. No worse than most princesses around, after all."

Ulrik gave him a half-scowl. "Kristina is all of seven years old, you lout. No way to know what she'll look like in ten years, even, much less twenty or thirty."

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."