Ring of Fire II

by Eric Flint

  Hobbes looked at the address side of the letter again, still puzzled. There was no name on it. No whale, for that matter. Just a drawing of a bipedal orange tiger, wearing a gown and a mortar board cap.

  What could that refer to? Then Hobbes remembered the comic strip William had shown him, months before. Calvin . . . and Hobbes.

  Eddie and the King's Daughter

  K.D. Wentworth

  King Christian IV nodded as the Danish court physician unbandaged what was left of Eddie Cantrell's leg. The monarch was a big, bluff man, narrow on the top and bottom, but wide in the middle. It was late at Rosenborg Castle, but, as Eddie had come to realize since his capture, the king kept idiosyncratic hours.

  Lying on his narrow bed, Eddie flinched as his stump was revealed in the flickering candlelight, but the king's homely face took in the scarred flesh, the lack of both ankle and foot, with the utter aplomb of one who is whole himself and has never gotten in the way of an eighteen-pound roundshot in the heat of battle. "A very nice stump, Dr. Belk," he said in German. "Very nice, indeed. You have outdone yourself. Soon he can be fitted for a peg leg."

  The doctor, who looked shriveled, as though he'd been freeze-dried at some point, waved a careless hand and replied testily, though Eddie couldn't understand more than a few words. Eddie's Danish was just barely coming along in the weeks since he'd been pulled out of the sea by the Danes, and the blasted doctor steadfastly refused to speak a single word of German to him. King Christian however spoke German like a native and seemed to prefer it. He even had a fair amount of English.

  Eddie's room in Rosenborg castle was large and well furnished, with clean linens as well as a fireplace against Denmark's late autumn chill. He might have been an honored guest, but for the everpresent uniformed guard outside his room.

  The doctor gestured at his truncated leg again, shrugged, then gathered the discarded bandages.

  "What?" Eddie said. His fingers clawed at the bedclothes as he pushed himself up against the headboard. "Are you trying to tell me that it's going to grow back?" Despite of his gladness to be alive, even in this condition, he was tired of being treated like a stick of wood.

  King Christian's forehead wrinkled. Fifty-six years old, he liked to dress in bright colors and sported a silly little goatee along with a single braid that stuck out of his dark hair. Tonight, as usual, he smelled of strong drink, but Eddie did not make the mistake of thinking him a fool. He just wished he could remember more of what the history books in Grantville said about Denmark in this era. Not that they'd said much, beyond some good articles in some of the encyclopedias. The problem was that given the rush with which Eddie and Hans Richter and Larry Wild had been sent up to Wismar to try to fend off the Danish fleet approaching it, there just hadn't been time to study anything that hadn't been directly tied to the task at hand. He'd read those encyclopedia articles, once, but simply couldn't remember much from them.

  "They can do that?" the king said. "Your people from the future time?" His eyes, the pale-blue of winter ice, studied him shrewdly.

  For a moment, Eddie was tempted to say yes. The more the king respected up-timers, the more leverage Eddie would have as a prisoner-of-war, but it just wasn't in him to tell a whopper that big at the moment. Lying took a lot of energy and he was fresh out. "No," he said, then tugged the red and blue quilt back over his stump so he wouldn't have to look at it. "We can't."

  "Regrettable," the king said. "I would have liked to see that, but do not be downcast. You are mostly whole, just a little damaged, and it is not Our fault you attacked Our splendid navy in that tiny ship."

  The battle flashed again inside Eddie's head—the roar of the Outlaw power boat, his foot exploding in raw, wrenching agony, blood everywhere—

  He shuddered and threw an arm over his eyes as though he could blot out the memory. The grisly scene was embedded in his brain, though, and replayed endlessly. It didn't help that when he tried to sleep, he often saw Larry and Bjorn sliced to bloody ribbons by the same roundshot that had taken him out.

  Christian patted his shoulder, but the man was so big, it felt more like a good-natured swat. "We have followed your Geneva Convention, and, by all appearances, your people set great store by you, even though you are only a lieutenant. Is your family highly placed?"

  Eddie stared at the king's face, stifling an undignified snort at the thought of his old man being respected by anyone.

  Christian didn't seem to notice. "Once negotiations are concluded, your people will most likely pay your ransom, and then you can go home to your family."

  Eddie flopped back against his pillow. If Christian was pestering Mike Stearns for armaments or technology in return for Eddie's battered carcass, it just wasn't going to happen. He'd already come to terms with that.

  He stared up at the fancy decorated ceiling. Besides, what good could he do the folks back in Grantville anyway? He couldn't see that anyone would have much use for a one-legged lieutenant.

  "You rest now." The king turned away. "Tomorrow, I mean for you to tell my councilors about this Grantville so we can better understand how to defend against them. Your people are far too clever for my peace of mind."

  Great, Eddie thought. Just great, icing on the cake, as his fellow Americans would have said. Now, on top of everything else that had happened to him, the Danes thought he should betray his country. Something to freaking look forward to. Too bad that roundshot hadn't been aimed just a hair higher.

  He turned over and buried his face in his pillow as the door clicked shut.

  Eddie awoke with a start to find a very pretty teenaged girl with long curly red-gold hair sitting on the stool beside his bed. She regarded him with unblinking blue eyes, her face very solemn for one so young. "Papà says you are feeling better," she said in flawless German.

  His mouth sagged open and he could think of nothing to say. He'd kicked the bedclothes off in his sleep and suddenly realized she was leaning forward to examine his stump. Face burning, he covered it with the quilt.

  "It is quite all right," the girl said. No more than fourteen or fifteen, she smoothed her skirts with utter aplomb. "I have seen such before. You are fortunate to be alive." The scent of roses drifted toward him.

  It was still dark outside, so it had to be either very late or very early. The fire had burned down low in the grate. Shadows lay thick in the little room. Eddie struggled to sit up, clutching the quilts to his chest. "Who are you?"

  "Anne Cathrine," she said as though that explained everything. Her hands were folded in her lap and a white lace shawl lay across her shoulders. She was dressed in a well-cut gown of dark-green, which was obviously far too expensive to belong to any sort of serving girl.

  "I still don't understand," he said.

  "Papà said you were feeling better when he came to tell us good night," she said again, this time speaking very slowly, as though he were brain-damaged, "so I thought I would visit you. I have never seen anyone from the future before."

  He ran his fingers through his bedraggled ginger-colored hair, vainly attempting to restore some order. It had grown shaggy since his mishap at Wismar. "Who is your Papà?" Maybe the doctor or one of the court officials? he thought.

  "Oh, he is the king." She cocked her head, studying him. "I thought everyone knew that."

  His heart thudded and he became acutely aware that he hadn't washed in days. His scalp began to itch and he had to force his hands not to scratch. "Then you are a princess," he said.

  "No, my official title is King's Daughter," Anne Cathrine said and picked at a bit on lint on her bodice with slim fingers. "The marriage with my mother was morganatic. Her rank was too far below his, so she was never queen and none of her children can inherit the crown." She sighed. "I did have a fiancé once, but Frantz drowned, swimming in the moat. Now Papà will marry me off to another nobleman, probably much older than me. Several have recently petitioned for my hand. I do not care for any of them."

  "Gee, sounds like fun," he mumbled
in English.

  She leaned toward him, eyes bright. They were the same piercing pale blue of her father. "Is that American?" she asked. "If so, I should like to learn. I am very good with languages."

  "Won't you get in trouble, if someone finds you here?" he said. "For that matter, won't they be angry with me?"

  "Mamà was always very cross with us, so now that she's been exiled, Papà lets me do as I please," she said loftily. "At least until I am married. Then I suppose I will have to obey my husband."

  "Well, he doesn't give me that kind of freedom," he said. Sweat pooled in the hollow of his back. "I think you had better go before someone finds you here."

  "You are telling me to leave?" She blinked in surprise.

  Eddie was no expert in royal protocol, but he didn't have trouble visualizing what folks would think if a jailbait-aged princess, king's daughter, whatever, was caught hanging around with a disreputable prisoner—in his bedroom—unchaperoned.

  "It's late," he said and turned his face to the wall. Jeez, he hadn't shaved in days either. Suddenly, he itched from head to toe, or at least the toes that he still had. "I am tired. I want to sleep."

  Her skirts rustled. "Very well," she said. "I will go—for the sake of your health."

  Footsteps, light and precise as a dance figure, crossed the floor. The door opened and closed. He rolled back over and stared at the empty room. Light flickered from the remnants of the fire in the grate and the scent of roses lingered in the air.

  The next morning, he asked for hot water and a razor when the maid brought him the usual bowl of warm milk and thick slices of cinnamon bread for breakfast, then did his best to eat all of the food. Most mornings he hadn't bothered. The washing water, when it came in a basin, was tepid, the soap yellow and harsh.

  He pulled off his nightshirt, then sat on the edge of his bed and sponged himself down, trying not to look at his stump. In the light flooding in through his window, he could count his ribs. He'd lost a lot of weight since being injured, and he hadn't exactly been sporting any extra pounds in this pre-junk-food world.

  He sighed. What he wouldn't give for a bag of Doritos or an egg McMuffin or even one lousy bite of a Hershey bar.

  The door creaked open and he made a grab for his lacy bed-shirt, which guys back in Grantville would have snickered at as a nightgown. "Who is it?"

  "Anne Cathrine." Her expectant face peered around the edge.

  He tugged the shirt over his head, but it caught on his ears. "Go away! I'm not dressed!" he said, struggling to get his arms in the sleeves.

  "Good," she said and pushed the door inward. "I have brought new clothes."

  "Jeez!" His face flushed. He thrust his right arm through the sleeve, then clutched the covers over his bare legs. "What is it with you people?" he burst out in English. "This isn't a damned bus station, you know!"

  Anne Cathrine's arms were full of clothing. One red-gold eyebrow lifted. "Could you say that again in German?"

  "It, um, wouldn't translate very well." He could feel his ears burning. "Don't you have a—" He wanted to say "keeper." "A servant to watch after you or something?"

  "Yes." She stiffened. "Mistress Sehested, our governess, 'watches,' as you say, after us. Fortunately, she is busy at the moment with my younger sisters. She would most likely beat me if she knew I was here, so we will not tell her."

  "But you're a princess," Eddie said, flustered. He dropped the blankets, then managed, finally, to get his left arm through the nightshirt sleeve. "I didn't think princesses were ever beaten. That just doesn't sound right."

  "I have told you—I am king's daughter, not a true princess." Her eyes narrowed, as she sorted through the clothing items. "It is very clear you know nothing about court life."

  "I didn't mean to offend."

  "Anyway," she went on, setting her bundle on his bed, "I thought a man from the future should look distinguished when appearing before Papà's councilors." She had her father's height and would be at least as tall as Eddie, if he were standing. She wore a wine-colored gown this morning, and her red-gold hair had been carefully coifed into elaborate braids pinned about her head. Two bright circles of red appeared in her cheeks. "They are fussy men, most of them old, who never want to let Papà have his way and always they say we do not have enough money! You must impress them so they will back all his wonderful plans."

  He looked at the little pile, topped by a pair of gleaming black boots. Two boots. His heart lurched. He wouldn't need but one.

  A maid carrying a single crutch appeared in the doorway behind Anne Cathrine. "Oh," the girl said, "and you will need this too." She motioned the servant across the room. "Do you wish help in getting dressed?"

  "No!" Eddie blurted and scooted back across the bed out of reach. "I do not!"

  She gazed at him with those luminous pale-blue eyes as though he were a three-year-old who'd just spilled catsup on the carpet. "I can assure you that I was not offering to do it myself, Lieutenant Cantrell," she said. "I will, however, send for a manservant if you desire assistance."

  "I can dress myself," Eddie said, wishing she would just go away. Was it really possible to die of embarrassment? "Been doing it for years," he added in English.

  "They say it is different in Grantville," Anne Cathrine said in a breathtaking change of subject. "For women, that is. They say your women can choose whom they will marry."

  "Yes," Eddie said cautiously. Sweat beaded on the back of his neck.

  "I should like to see a place like that," Anne Cathrine said. Her fingers fiddled with the white lawn shirt she'd brought, aligning the seams as though it mattered. "Later, after you speak to Papà's councilors, I wish for you to tell me all about this Grantville, with its wonderful clockwork carriages and flying machines."

  "Sure, sure," Eddie mumbled. "Just let me get dressed."

  "Oh." She nodded. "Very well." She turned to the maid. "Put the crutch where he can reach it, Gudrun."

  The maid, a tiny dark-haired girl no older than the king's daughter, scurried forward, leaned the crutch against Eddie's bed, curtsied, then fled. Anne Cathrine followed, skirts rustling, glancing wistfully at him over one shoulder. "Promise you will tell me about the future."

  "Yes, whatever!" Eddie said.

  The door closed and he collapsed back against his pillows, drenched in nervous sweat. Now he needed to take that darned bath all over again, and he could just bet the water was as cold as the December air outside his window.

  He thought of Anne Cathrine's blue eyes, the exact shade of the winter sky, and her supple young figure, then sighed. Maybe a cold bath wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.

  The trip down to the king's audience chamber was arduous. Unfortunately, his room was at the top of one of the castle's towers. Eddie hadn't tried walking with a crutch until now. He'd asked for one, for a pair of them, actually, weeks ago, but the doctor had refused, finally saying through a translator that he was too weak. Eddie suspected that the real reason for denying him had been that, with crutches, he would be mobile and harder to confine.

  Unfortunately, using one wasn't as easy as he hoped. He had a number of narrow winding staircases to negotiate, and in the end, the male servant sent to fetch him had to practically carry him the last few yards. Eddie was soaked in sweat all over again, despite the day's chill.

  Just as they reached the audience chamber, he heard voices inside, arguing in German. "We have lost too many ships already, both at Luebeck and Wismar," one of them was saying. "More warships will cost money that Your Majesty's treasury simply does not have!"

  "These future people are very clever," the king's voice said. "Think of all the damage done by one roaring little boat and a single air machine. If we could use this prisoner to get access in trade to armaments built in such a style, we might just achieve the edge we need to hold off the Swedes. And if we have even one of these devices in hand, our artisans might then be able to build our own."

  "They will never sell us any of these marve
ls," someone else said in a froggy bass. "They have allied themselves with that wretch Gustavus Adolphus!"

  "They were hasty," the king said calmly. "Alliances can change."

  "They have no reason to change!" another voice put in. "After our failure at Wismar, we will be lucky to just to keep what we have. Mark my words, the island of Bornholm is at extreme risk! The Swedes have had their eyes on it for years."

  Eddie shook off the servant's arm, straightened his back as best he could, and hobbled through the door. King Christian looked up from his thronelike chair at the head of a vast gleaming wooden table. "You are here, Lieutenant Cantrell! Good!" he boomed with his customary good humor. "Now we can get started."

  He recognized the king's heir, Prince Christian, a slight thirty-year-old, standing behind the king. The son had come up to the tower, accompanying the king, several times during Eddie's convalescence, but never spoken to him.