1635: The Eastern Front

Chapter 42

Magdeburg, central Germany

Capital of the United States of Europe

When Rebecca finished her analysis, there was silence around the table for a moment. Then, Anselm Keller cleared his throat.

"Are you sure you are not…?ah…"

Rebecca smiled. "Overinterpreting my husband's radio messages?"

The member of Parliament from the Province of the Main made a face. "Ah, yes. You did give us the exact working of the messages, after all. Most of it seemed…?well…"

"Personal? Innocuous?"

"Well, yes."

Constantin Ableidinger had been slouched in his chair. Now, he sat erect. "Don't be naive, Anselm. How else should we interpret phrases such as 'Axel seems extraordinarily vigorous despite the king's condition,' and 'I've noticed the prime minister and the chancellor are spending a lot of time together'?"

Matthias Strigel grunted. "Not to mention: 'Lennart seems to share some of my misgivings, but the council feels we are obliged to respect Gustav Adolf's last wishes. So it's off to Bohemia I go. As soon as possible, the prime minister has instructed me.'?"

Melissa Mailey spoke. "You're all missing the key phrase. Even Becky."

Everyone looked at her. "Which is?" asked Rebecca. She was simply curious, not offended.

Melissa looked down at the sheets of paper in her hand and shuffled through them. "It's…?this one. On page four." Her voice got that little singsong pitch people often fall into when they quote something. "Wilhelm seems in quite good health. But I can't help notice how much he's starting to look like my uncle Billy Conn as he gets older."

Rebecca nodded. "Yes, I did wonder about that. He's never mentioned this relative to me before. Or any relative with that surname, in fact."

Melissa chuckled. "Mike Stearns doesn't have an uncle by that name. It's an allusion he must have figured would escape any down-timer's notice-even yours-but I guess he figured I'd be able to decipher it. Although why"-she drew herself up a little-"he would imagine for one moment that I would be familiar with the sordid details of the history of such a brutal so-called sport is quite beyond me."

Rebecca smiled. "Perhaps he assumed Ed Piazza would be here. He has quite low tastes, you know." Her smile widened. "But since you apparently do know these sordid details-this particular one, at least-why don't you share it with us?"

Melissa looked slightly embarrassed. "Well…?It happened back up-time at some point during the 1930s or 1940s, I don't remember the exact date, and, yes, I realize how preposterous it seems to refer 'back' to a year that won't come for another three centuries, but there it is. Anyway, the heavyweight champion boxer at the time was a man by the name of Joe Louis. He was, among other things, a tremendously powerful man who ended most of his fights by knocking out his opponents. Ah, that means punching them so hard that they are knocked down for a while, and sometimes unconscious.'?"

She took a breath. "Billy Conn, on the other hand, was a smaller boxer-what they called a 'light heavyweight'-and one whose great skill was boxing itself. He would often win bouts by outscoring his opponents rather than knocking them out."

Ableidinger frowned. "How do you score something like that?"

"Never mind. Just take my word for it. Billy Conn challenged Joe Louis for the heavyweight title. To everyone's surprise, he won the first twelve rounds-there are fifteen rounds to a championship match, by the way-by outmaneuvering Louis, avoiding his powerful punches and scoring many points with his own much lighter punches. Coming into the thirteenth round, he was far ahead on points and on the verge of winning the match."

She took another breath. "But then Billy Conn got overconfident. He decided he could win the match with a knockout-always the more prestigious method. So he started mixing it up with Louis, as the expression goes. Trading punch for punch, blow for blow."

"Ha!" boomed Ableidinger. "And thereby lost the match, because the Louis ogre knocked him out."

Melissa scowled at him. "Joe Louis was not an ogre. He was…?Well. A very important man in the history of the United States, for reasons I'm not going to get into here. But, yes, that is what happened. Billy Conn didn't even make it to the end of the thirteenth round."

Everyone at the table sat back in their chairs, contemplating this new data.

"Do you still think Rebecca is 'overinterpreting' her husband's radio messages, Anselm?" asked Matthias Strigel.

"Uh, no," he replied.

Constantin was examining Rebecca. "Your husband was one of these American pugilists, wasn't he?"

"He was very young then," she replied, a bit defensively. "Foolish. He says it himself."

Ableidinger waved his hand. "Yes, yes. Still, he was a pugilist. So I'm curious. Was he also one of these superb boxers like this Billy Conn?"

Rebecca seemed at a loss for words. Quite unusual that was, for her. Her mouth opened, closed. Opened again. Closed.

"Ah…" she said.

Melissa spoke up. Her voice was firm, her words a bit clipped. "Mike Stearns had eight professional fights. All of them were fought at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. He won seven of them by knock-out, all within the first four rounds."

She cleared her throat. "So, no. He bears very little resemblance to his not-uncle Billy Conn." She gave Constantin an unfriendly glance. "Some might even call him an ogre."

"Not I," said Ableidinger, smiling like a cherub. "Not I."

"How do you know all this about boxing?" asked Rebecca. "I did not even know those details concerning Michael's career."

"Just picked it up here and there," Melissa said. "By accident."

"Oh, surely not," said Rebecca.

"That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

Stockholm

The first thing Princess Kristina said when she came into Prince Ulrik's salon was: "Uncle Axel says I have to come to Berlin. Right away. To be with Papa."

Ulrik set down the newspaper he was reading on the low table in front of his chair. Americans would have called it a "coffee table," except no American with a net worth less than fifty million dollars would have dared place a coffee cup on it in the first place.

He was glad enough to put down the newspaper. It was a five-day-old copy of the Leubecker Zeitung, a journal that was just marginally tolerable. Unfortunately, none of the Hamburg or Magdeburg newspapers arrived in Stockholm regularly.

Still, anything from the continent was better than what passed for news in Swedish journals. The combination of being isolated and victorious-not to mention the chancellor's heavy hand when it came to censorship-made Stockholm quite a provincial place, despite its objective political importance. Ulrik had been in small town taverns in the Germanies where the political analysis was superior to the drivel you heard here, even in the palace.

Especially in the palace, now that he thought about it.

Caroline Platzer had followed the princess into the salon. From the expression on her face, it was obvious she was worried.

As well she might be, thought Ulrik.

"Do you wish to go?" he asked the girl.

Kristina frowned. "Well…?yes, I suppose. I'd very much like to see Papa."

Ulrik volunteered the unspoken word at the end of that sentence. "But…?"

Kristina stamped her foot. "I don't like Berlin! I was there once, with Mama, visiting her brother. He was stupid and everybody in the palace was stupid and the whole city was stupid. I've never been so bored in my life."

"That's not a good enough reason not to go, Kristina." He smiled. "Mind you, I don't disagree. I've been to Berlin twice. It's quite boring, yes."

He waited. Ulrik was fairly certain they had come to a critical point. He was also fairly certain that he knew the right course of action. But it was not something that could be done-or should be done-against Kristina's will.

She was pouting a little, staring down at her shoes.

"Is there any other reason not to go, Kristina?"

The princess glanced at Caroline. The American woman made a little gesture with her head, a nod in Ulrik's direction. Combined with the rather stern expression on her face, Ulrik interpreted it to mean: Tell him. But you have to do it yourself. I can't do it for you.

Kristina looked back at Ulrik. "I don't know that I should. It doesn't seem right to me."

That was enough, Ulrik thought. To start, at least.

"It's certainly not right from a legal standpoint," he said firmly.

"I don't have to obey Uncle Axel?" There was a little lift in the girl's voice. Hope, you might call it, if you were the sort of person who saw oak trees in acorns.

Which Ulrik did, as it happened. He fancied himself something of a botanist.

"No, of course you don't have to obey him. To begin with, he's not your uncle. Secondly, no one has appointed him regent. He's simply the chancellor of Sweden. Someone whose opinion you should listen to, of course, but he has no authority over you."

Shrewd as always, Baldur played the devil's advocate. "Not yet. But he can summon the council and the riksdag and have himself declared regent."

Ulrik shrugged. "So? The riksdag's authority extends only to the kingdom of Sweden. Not to the United States of Europe, not to the Union of Kalmar. Never forget that Gustav II Adolf wears three crowns, not one."

He nodded at Kristina. "And so will she."

"Ah!" said Baldur, as if he has just been enlightened. "I hadn't thought of that. And the equivalent authority of the riksdag when it comes to the Union of Kalmar is…?"

The Americans had a term for it that Ulrik had learned from Eddie Cochrane. Throwing soft pitches. Or was it softball pitches? Easy pitches?

Whatever it was called, Baldur did it superbly.

"Well, that's a very interesting question," said Ulrik. "The final structure of the Union of Kalmar hasn't been settled yet. A union council was created, but its authority remains unclear. There's certainly nothing in the laws established thus far to give the council the right to create a regent."

He cleared his throat. "To the contrary. The only hard and fast rule when it comes to determining the source of final authority in the Union-which was enshrined by law, right there at the Congress of Copenhagen-is that until such time as what they chose to call the 'organic royal line' of the Union comes to the throne-"

He pointed a forefinger at Kristina; a thumb at himself. "That's us, and then our children, and so on. But until that time, the Congress clearly stipulated that the king of Sweden was the premier political figure in the Union, followed by-"

He cleared his throat again. "My father, Christian IV, the king of Denmark. So the authority to create a regent for the Union of Kalmar clearly lies with him, given that Gustav II Adolf is incapacitated. Not Axel Oxenstierna, who has no formal standing at all in the government of the Union."

Kristina was looking brighter by the moment. "What about the United States?"

"Aye, that's the question," said Baldur. "Isn't it?"

"Well, yes, I think so."

Kristina was standing very close to him, now. Ulrik reached out and took her little hands in his. "What you are faced with, my betrothed, is something that no child should have to deal with. But it happens. It has happened before, it will happen again. It's called a succession crisis."

Kristina looked up at Caroline. "Have you heard of that?"

At the time of the Ring of Fire, Caroline Platzer had had the same knowledge of history that most Americans had. Not too bad when it came to American history itself, allowing for big gaps of knowledge between the Revolution and the Civil War and the Civil War and the Great Depression. Abysmal when it came to everything else.

The Greeks invented democracy and were the smartest people who ever lived even if they couldn't run anything bigger than a city. The Romans were very powerful and sometimes majestic but they had a lot of nasty personal habits and killed a lot of Christians. The Dark Ages came next and…?Moving right along, the Middle Ages were in the middle and there were knights and stuff. Then the English were mean to the Puritans which is why most people in England came to America, and the French had a revolution that went sour and somewhere around that time Napoleon was really big and then you got to modern times and there were two big world wars. And then history ended and current affairs started. That was fourth period class, taught by Mrs. Abrams.

But after the Ring of Fire, she'd taken the study of history much more seriously. To paraphrase Dr. Johnson, being plunged into the Thirty Years' War concentrates the mind wonderfully.

So, today, she knew the answer.

"Yes, and Ulrik's right. It seems like half the wars you Europeans fought were because of succession crises. War of the Spanish Succession, War of the Austrian Succession, War of the Polish Succession. You name the war, and if you dig a little you'll find out it usually got triggered off because King Whatsisname keeled over without leaving any heirs or-this is often worse-did leave an heir but the heir was just a kid."

She was almost glaring, now. "You've heard of Alexander the Great?"

Kristina nodded.

"Well, that was probably the great-grand-daddy succession crisis of them all. He died leaving as his only heir a still unborn son. Guess what happened to his empire?"

Kristina was wide-eyed, mute.

"It got carved into pieces by his generals. Guess what happened to his wife and son?"

Still wide-eyed, still mute.

"They got carved up, too."

Kristina turned the wide eyes onto Ulrik. Her hand had never left his grip. "Would Uncle Axel really cut me up?"

Ulrik shook his head. "No. Oxenstierna has been your father's friend and close adviser for many years. He wouldn't harm your father or you, of that I am quite sure." He paused a moment. "Not himself. But succession crises have a dynamic of their own. They're like wild horses. Set them loose-which is exactly what I fear Oxenstierna is doing-and you're likely to get trampled."

He gave the girl's hands a reassuring little squeeze. "So, no. I don't think Uncle Axel means you any harm. But he does believe-with great certainty-that he knows what is best for you. And for your incapacitated father. And for Sweden. And for the Germanies." His jaws tightened. "And probably for Denmark, when it comes to it. Which it will."

Kristina made a valiant last stand. She'd been told many times-including by Ulrik-that she needed to think for herself and especially to consider all sides of a question instead of just jumping onto the conclusion that pleased her the most. Caroline could get downright tedious on the subject.

"But what about Papa? I really would like to be with him. And Uncle Axel says that maybe just by being there I might help Papa get back his wits."

Ulrik's jaws got tighter still. He'd just bent over backward not to blacken Oxenstierna's name. In fact, he had come to a much darker assessment of the man. Oxenstierna might not wish any harm on Gustav Adolf and his only child. But Ulrik was now certain that the man wouldn't let their well-being restrain him, either, if the situation came to what he considered a critical juncture.

"And he may be right, Kristina," he said. "But I would like the answer to a different question. Several questions, actually."

Ulrik nodded toward the table. The Leubecker Zeitung was only the latest newspaper and journal and broadsheet stacked on it. The pile was so big it threatened to spill off entirely. If it did, it would cover a good portion of the floor.

"I have been following the news closely, Kristina, as you know. Why did the chancellor of Sweden send away the American Moor Nichols? Everyone knows he's the best doctor in the world. So why is he no longer at your father's bedside in Berlin?"

Kristina looked uncertain. "I…?I don't know, Ulrik. But maybe Uncle Axel has a reason."

"Oh, yes, I'm sure he does. In fact, I'm sure I know what he would say to me right now if he were in this room and I asked him the question directly. He'd say that he sent Dr. Nichols away because the doctor himself said there was not much more he could do, now that he'd saved the king from the infection in his body. And so-being as he is such an important physician-it would really be best if he returned to Magdeburg, since everyone knows Magdeburg is becoming the great center of medicine in the Germanies. It might even have surpassed Grantville and Jena, by now."

"Well…?doesn't that makes sense? It sounds like it does."

"In and of itself, yes. But it simply raises the next question, which is-"

Caroline interrupted. There was real anger in her voice.

"Which is why the hell didn't James Nichols take your father back to Magdeburg with him? So what if there's not much more that can be done for him? 'Not much' isn't the same thing as 'nothing,' and whatever can be done for your daddy can be done a lot better in Magdeburg than it can in Berlin."

So. Platzer had come to the same dark conclusion as Ulrik had. Axel Oxenstierna would not kill his own king. But he was willing to risk letting him die, wasn't he?

Still, Kristina soldiered on. Ulrik was very proud of her.

"But…?maybe the travel would be too hard on Papa."

Ulrik shook his head. "I'm sure that's what the chancellor would say. But it's simply not true."

Baldur finally gave up the softball act. "To put it mildly!" he said, in a caustic tone. It sounded so much more like him, too, it really did.

He'd been leaning against a nearby wall. Now, he levered himself away from it with a little heave of his shoulders and took two steps toward Kristina. "They hauled your father in a horse-litter across western Poland and Brandenburg-which is to say, along cow trails-for five and a half days, didn't they? And he survived, didn't he? Don't let anybody ever tell you otherwise, girl. King or not, emperor or not, your Papa is as tough as men come."

Kristina looked pleased, as well she might. Baldur Norddahl passed out praise the way a miser passes out coins to the needy.

The Norwegian shook his head. "It's all crap. You've ridden in a plane."

"Yes, it's wonderful!"

Baldur smiled. "Probably not so wonderful if you're badly injured. Still, if the pilot is being careful, the ride won't be any rougher than a trip in a horse-litter."

He raised a finger. "But with one great difference! It took Stearns almost six days to get your Papa to Berlin. How long would it take to fly him from Berlin to Magdeburg?"

The princess frowned. "Well, I've flown from Luebeck to Magdeburg. And that's even farther, isn't it?"

"A lot farther," Ulrik said. "Berlin is less than a hundred miles from Magdeburg. The truth is, Kristina, there are several ways your father could be brought to Magdeburg, where he'd be able to get the best medical care available in the world. An airplane would be the fastest, but it's not actually the one I'd propose. Speed isn't critical any longer."

"Barge," said Baldur. "The Havel river runs right by Berlin. It's navigable-for a shallow barge, but it doesn't need to have much of a draft for this purpose-and it will take you down to the Elbe. The Havel enters the Elbe near Werben. Then you'd transfer him onto one of the newer and bigger powered barges and bring him up the Elbe to the Magdeburg."

"It's a roundabout route," said Ulrik. "Still, it can't be more than three hundred miles all told. Three hundred miles on river barges which could be prepared beforehand for the trip would take far less time than the trip your father already took to Berlin. And be far more comfortable and easier on him."

"I'd rather be on a well-made river barge," added Baldur, "than be stuck in Berlin."

Kristina's jaws got tight. "I'm getting mad now."

"As well you should," Ulrik said.

"So what should we do?" she asked. "We can't stay here. Uncle Axel's word is law here. It really is. I never liked Stockholm anyway. Should we go to Copenhagen?"

Caroline Platzer looked alarmed, until she saw that Ulrik was already shaking his head.

"No. That would be a very bad mistake. I think it's essential that you and I stay together and-"

"Oh, yes!" Kristina exclaimed. "You have to stay with me, Ulrik! You have to!"

Her hands were gripping his as tightly as they could, now. Her eyes were wider than ever, her face as pale as he'd ever seen it.

"You have to!"

He drew her near and gently kissed her forehead. "You are my betrothed, Kristina," he said softly. "And I am not a man who takes my vows lightly. I will not leave you. I swear that on my honor, here before God."

She released his hands and threw her arms around him, clutching him tightly. "Good. That's very, very, very good. It would be so hard for me, without you."

After perhaps a minute, she relaxed her hug and stepped back a foot or so.

"But why not go to Copenhagen?"

"Because if we both go-and we would have to, since we've agreed to stay together-it would look as if I'd coerced you. And was trying to take advantage of the crisis to advance the interests of Denmark."

"Oh." She thought about that for a moment and then nodded. "That makes sense."

Caroline spoke up. "We probably don't have much time left, do we?"

Ulrik glanced at the pile of newspapers. "Not much, no. Uncle Ax-Oxenstierna is summoning all of them to Berlin. Well, Wettin is, officially. But I'm sure the chancellor is really the driving force now."

Ulrik had met Wilhelm Wettin and spent several hours in his company. He liked the man. But like him or not, the prime minister of the USE had recklessly plunged into the depths. Ulrik did not think those waters would suit him much. But into them he'd gone, nevertheless.

"Summoning all of who?" Caroline asked, frowning.

"Who do you think? Most of the major figures in the Crown Loyalist Party, to start with. But this goes beyond narrow politics. Important disgruntled noblemen, of course. Wealthy and resentful burghers. If a man has influence and wishes profoundly that the Ring of Fire had never happened, he's probably on his way to Berlin by now. He certainly got an invitation."

Caroline stared at him. She was now quite wide-eyed herself.

"You're guessing," she said abruptly.

"To a considerable degree, yes." He flicked a dismissive forefinger across the stack of newspapers. "Most of these are fairly wretched, and the ones that aren't come irregularly. So, yes, a lot of this is guesswork on my part." He flashed a little smile. "But on this subject I'm a very well educated guesser, you know."

"Well…?yeah, I guess that's true."

"So we have some time still, you think?" That came from Baldur. It was about as far removed from an idle question as could be imagined. Ulrik could practically hear the blades being sharpened, the pistols loaded…

The outrageous lies and subterfuges, of course.

"Yes, but not all that much. The chancellor-nor the prime minister, certainly-won't take any drastic public steps or measures until they have their own people organized." He snorted disdainfully. "As much as you can organize such a sullen pack of dogs. I swear, they make even Danish noblemen look like paragons of civic virtue. But once they feel they have the wind at their back, then-yes. If we're still here in Stockholm, they'll simply have us arrested if we haven't obeyed Oxenstierna and come to Berlin already."

"You too?" asked Kristina. "Won't that make your father very angry?"

"Probably. But…" Ulrik sighed. "I am very fond of my father in most ways. But he's simply not a king you can depend on in a crisis."

"So where do we go?" asked Caroline.

"I should think it was obvious. We go straight to the heart of power. We go to Magdeburg." His voice began to rise, as the anger finally seeped through. "Let the chancellor try to dictate who rules and who does not, when the rightful heir to the land, the empire and the union had placed herself in the bosom of her people. Let him try."

Kristina clapped her hands. "Oh, yes! People like me there!"

"Yes, they do. Soon, girl, they will like you even more."

Caroline Platzer finally realized the full scope of what was about to unfold.

"Prince," she said, her tone one of pleading. "She's still only a child…"

"I'm almost nine!" Kristina stamped her foot. "In a month. Month and a half. Well, almost two. Still, nine years old isn't a child anymore."

She looked up at her husband-to-be, who was almost three times her age. "Is it, Ulrik?"

He gave her a shoulder a little squeeze. "For most people, yes. Nine years old is still a child. But you're of the house of Vasa and I'm of the house of Oldenburg, We grow up much faster."

Kristina gave Caroline a triumphant look. "See?"

Caroline wasn't looking at the princess, though. She was still looking at Ulrik.

"I didn't…?I hadn't…"

He cocked an eyebrow. "Yes?"

She swallowed. Then took a breath and squared her shoulders, as if she were a soldier reporting for duty. "I never understood-never realized-I didn't think…"

She took a second breath. Her shoulders relaxed a little.

"I guess I just didn't think you were this…?bold."

"Oh, most certainly!" exclaimed Baldur. He clapped Ulrik on the shoulder. "In the olden days he'd have gone a-viking. Every summer! And I'd have followed him, too."

The humor went away, then. Norddahl's eyes were normally a light blue, but now they looked almost gray. Not the warm gray of ash, but the gray of arctic seas.

"Every summer, I'd have followed him," he said quietly. "Each and every one. There are not so many princes in the world-not real ones-that you can afford to let go of the one you find."

"That's very…?medieval, Baldur," said Kristina. Very, very approvingly.

Kassel, capital of Hesse-Kassel

Amalie Elizabeth von Hanau-Munzenberg had access to many more newspapers than Ulrik did. Better ones, too.

But she'd let slip her lifelong habit of reading newspapers, these past weeks. She was a widow now, no longer a wife. And she'd found that the change had affected her far more powerfully than she would have believed, before her husband was killed on the banks of the Warta.

Her marriage to Wilhelm V had been one of political convenience and family advancement, originally, as were most marriages among their class of people. Neither at the beginning nor at any time since could you say they were romantically involved, in the way the up-timers used the phrase.

Still, they'd been married for years. She'd borne him a son, who would someday become William VI. She could hear him now playing in a nearby room, with all the energy and enthusiasm of a healthy six-year-old boy. He was a smart boy too, it was already obvious.

For years, the last face she'd seen most days before she slept was her husband's. And his was usually the first face she saw in the morning. Except for servants, of course, but they didn't count.

She'd almost always been glad to see the face, too. Many wives in her class dreaded opening their eyes in the morning. But she never had. Wilhelm's worst flaws had simply been irritating, nothing worse than that. If he wasn't always the cleverest and shrewdest of men, he was certainly no dullard, either. Generally good-natured, often of good cheer…

She missed him. She really missed him. There was still an ache inside.

Finally, though, just a few days ago, she'd started to resume her normal activities.

It hadn't taken her long to start feeling another ache inside. A hollowness in her stomach, this one, not a hollowness in her heart.

She got the Hamburg newspapers and journals regularly. Also all the most important ones from Magdeburg, Hannover, Mainz, Nurnberg-Grantville, of course.

The pattern was clear in all of them, if you knew what to look for.

The Swedish chancellor fixed in Berlin, like a barnacle on a piling. Why? Berlin was a wretched place. Miserable to live in, and a political backwater.

The badly injured king kept there, jealously guarded, the great up-time Moorish doctor dismissed. Why? Once the weather cleared, Gustav Adolf could have easily been moved to the capital. Or Grantville or Jena, for that matter-wherever the medical care would be the best for his condition.

General Lennart Torstensson and the bulk of the USE army, ordered to besiege Koniecpolski in Poznan.

For God's sake, why? Amelie Elizabeth was no soldier herself, but as you'd expect from a very capable landgravine of Hesse-Kassel, she understood a great deal about military affairs. Torstensson had no chance of taking Poznan, not as badly as the war had gone so far. So why keep his army in winter siege lines which would be very hard on the troops? It would be much more sensible to retreat and winter over in Gorzow and Zielona Gora.

Only one explanation made sense. The Swedish chancellor Oxenstierna-Wilhelm Wettin, formally, but Wilhelm on his own was not this ruthless-was keeping the unreliable USE soldiery as far away as possible. And he was deliberately bleeding them.

The strategy was cunning, in a reptilian way. But didn't the chancellor understand how reckless it was? Did he really think an army would just quietly starve to death?

The USE's Third Division, under Stearns, had been sent even farther away. To southern Bohemia, if the newspaper accounts were to be believed. To do what? Help Wallenstein defend himself against the Austrians?

Again, why? The last time Austria attacked Wallenstein-just a little over two years ago, at the second battle of the White Mountain-they'd been defeated. Was it likely they would try again? Not impossible, of course, but also not at all likely. So why weaken the USE army by drawing off a third of its forces?

Then, there was the evidence she'd spent all of yesterday and half of today piecing together. This took much more time, because there was no summary to be found anywhere, in any one newspaper or journal. Just small accounts scattered across many of them-most of them, actually-of what seemed to be casual movements. This markgraf going to visit his first cousin; this freiherr off to purchase some land; this burgermeister off to do this; that reichsritter off to do that.

She didn't believe it for a minute. She knew many of these people. The markgraf in question only had three first cousins. One had drowned as a young man during his wanderjahr in a drunken stupor, one had married an Italian viscount and was living somewhere in Tuscany, and the third had been filing lawsuits against the markgraf for at least fifteen years.

The freiherr? Going off to buy land? With what? Just six months ago, he'd tried to borrow money from Hesse-Kassel. They'd refused the loan, of course. The man was notorious for not repaying his creditors.

The burgermeister? Oh, that explanation was particularly grotesque. He was supposedly-

"Ah!" Angrily, the landgravine swept all the newspapers off her desk.

And the final piece of the puzzle-and to her mind, the most damning. Why had she not received an invitation to this so-obvious conclave?

The answer was just as obvious. She called for a servant.

"Paper and ink. Then pick this up. Not now. After I'm finished with the paper and ink which you still haven't fetched for me."

The servant girl raced off. Amalie Elizabeth forced herself to calm down a bit. There was no purpose in being harsh to servants simply because they were there. Doing so just made them more impervious to discipline when it was needed.

As soon as the servant returned, she began to write.

It was almost certainly a futile exercise, but she had to make the attempt.

Wilhelm, my old and dear friend. I implore you once again-