Ring of fire II (assiti shards)

by Eric Flint

  "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 fiance once, but Frantz drowned, swimming in the moat. Now Papa 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?"

  "Mama was always very cross with us, so now that she's been exiled, Papa 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 Papa'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 Papa 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 Papa'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 say
ing. "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 marvels," 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.

  The other seats at the table were filled with eight richly dressed men, some old and some merely middle-aged. Only two were anywhere near as young as the prince, and they stared, one and all, at Eddie as though they had a burr under their saddle.

  And there was no chair for him. He hobbled closer on the single crutch, feeling horribly unbalanced. The thought of tripping and putting any weight on that still-healing stump was terrifying. Black dots shivered behind his eyes like the blobs in a lava lamp, merging and merging until he could hardly see. The room seemed to be buzzing. He reeled, then felt strong hands easing him into a chair.

  After a moment, his vision cleared and he realized the minister seated closest to the king had surrendered his place to Eddie and was now glaring at him from a few paces away. Embarrassed, he tried to get up, but Christian himself pushed Eddie back as the servants brought another chair for the displaced man.

  "No, no," Christian said. The icy eyes were intent. "You have not much strength yet. Americans are not as hardy as Danes. I should have realized."

  A servant wearing the black royal livery pressed a goblet of hot mulled wine into Eddie's trembling hands. "Drink!" Christian said heartily, then upended his own golden goblet and clanked it down on the table. Drops of red wine glistened in his beard as a manservant hastened forward to refill the empty cup.

  Eddie's dad had been an alcoholic, so on the whole, he avoided the stuff, but he sipped the wine. It was deliciously hot and heady and burned all the way down. After a moment, he did feel a bit better. His heart stopped racing and his hands shook less.

  "Now," Christian said, leaning toward Eddie. "Grantville. Tell us how to defeat your navy. How many more of those deadly little boats do you have? How many flying machines?"

  The Outlaw power boat, now reduced to fiberglass splinters floating in Wismar Bay, had been a one-off, though Grantville had a few other power boats, none as big. They were building more planes back home, but he wasn't sure how that was going. Parts were of course limited to what had come back through the Ring of Fire with them, and anyway he'd been too busy helping with the construction of the ironclads in the Magdeburg shipyards.

  He just wished he could be there when the first ironclad met Christian's navy and blew it out of the water.

  "Lieutenant Cantrell!" Christian's florid face with its fussy goatee hovered inches from his nose. "Are you well enough to speak now?"

  It would be easier to say no, to plead infirmity and retreat back to his bed, but, dammit, Eddie'd had enough of lying about, staring at the stupid ceiling. He was ready to do something, anything, even if it was just sparring wits with royalty.

  "Yes, Your Majesty," he said and took another sip of the heady wine. "I am fine."

  "The little boats that dash about in the water, then." The king gazed at him expectantly and Eddie noticed that, despite being bloodshot, those chill eyes were very intelligent. "How many?"

  When he'd first been captured, he'd raised the issue of the Geneva Convention, refusing to give more than his name and rank, professing to have forgotten his serial number, though the truth was that he'd never been issued one. That had worked at the time, but now misinformation and misdirection might help Grantville more than his continued silence.

  "Twenty," Eddie said off the top of his head and saw the councilors stiffen. A murmur ran through the room. "More or less. How long have I been here?"

  "It has been two months since you were plucked out of the sea," Christian said and sat back in his gem-encrusted chair, thinking.

  "Oh, then it's probably more," Eddie said and squirmed until he was sitting up straighter. Maybe if he told a big enough lie, they would think twice before attacking American and Swedish forces again. "We, um, build at least"-he was tempted to say "ten" but decided that would make it seem too implausible-"five or six a month."

  "I… see." The king's tone was frankly disbelieving.

  "We have over three thousand 'engines,' which we use to power machines like speed boats and airplanes, in Grantville," Eddie said. "I'm not sure how many have been allocated to the speed boat program, the airplane program, and other… projects. I'm just a lieutenant. They don't tell me everything."

  "Three thousand?" echoed around the table. Chairs shifted uneasily. Startled glances were exchanged.

  "We have calculating machines called 'computers' that help in their design," Eddie said. "And we have made some improvements lately in what we call 'software.' The new boats will be faster, and we should have a lot more of them."

  "We have sent spies to Grantville," the king said, "and to the shipyards at Magdeburg. As far as we can tell, they are building very large ships with no sails at Magdeburg, nothing else. How can you explain that no one has seen any evidence of more deadly little boats anywhere?"

  "They're… ah, in a building, hidden away," Eddie said. A drop of cold sweat rolled down his temple.

  "Do you know this secret location?"

  "Y-e-s," Eddie said, drawing the word out as he thought furiously.

  "If we captured some of these 'engines,' " the king said, "could we build our own deadly little boats as well?"

  "It wouldn't do you any good," Eddie said. "They require an energy source that you do not have, and anyway you would need what we would call a 'technician' to build, then service them." He gave the word in English.

  The king pushed to his feet and loomed over Eddie. "Are you one of these 'technicians'?"

  "No, I was just a pilot,' " Eddie said, "what I guess you would call a helmsman.' " The wine was potent, much stronger than any that he'd ever tried. He could feel it all the way down to his toes, even the ones that weren't there. He gazed morosely at his truncated leg, masked by the lame stocking they'd provided for him to wear under knee-length black trousers. He hoped the guys back in Grantville never got a gander at him dressed like this. "Or at least I was a pilot. Don't imagine I'd be good for much like this."

  "You will mark for me a map!" Christian said. "Showing the location where these 'engines' of yours are built, so that we can send an expedition to acquire some for ourselves. And we will need to know more about this mysterious 'energy source.' "

  "Sure, sure," Eddie said in English. "Whatever. It will be a waste of time, though. They will have moved the facility by now so that I can't give them away." The room was spinning again. The wine had gone to his head. He should have been more careful in his weakened condition. Well, what the hell. This was the best he'd felt since that terrible day in the bay. He upended the goblet and took another fortifying swig.

  The king gave some commands in Da
nish that Eddie couldn't follow, then the ministers talked to one another in their native language.

  At length, just when Eddie's eyelids were growing very heavy, Christian turned back to him and pushed a large map across the table. "Now, show us the location of these 'engines' at the time of your capture."

  Eddie tried to make his eyes focus on the crude map of Grantville, with the high school and other major buildings indicated. "Right here," he said, trying not to slur his words. He stabbed his finger on the outskirts of town, pointing to the sketched-in square that he was pretty sure occupied the same space as Grantville's Value Mart in real life. It was a big retail building with a large area in the back for storage that wasn't accessible to customers. That might do the trick, unless the Danes could get a spy into the employees-only area.

  An advisor made a careful X.

  "And we will need at least one of your 'technicians,' " King Christian said, "who could construct and then operate one of these 'engines.' Give us a list of names."

  A cold chill penetrated Eddie's increasingly hazy mind, then shivered down his back. He couldn't give them real names. Dimly, he was aware that he'd screwed up big-time. Jeez, couldn't he do anything right?

  "Um, there's…" He tried to cudgel his useless brain to think. "Walt Disney and, ah, Harpo Marx. And Clint Eastwood. They're all pretty-you know-good at what they do."

  One of the ministers scribbled down the names, asking Eddie for the details of the spelling. Christian looked satisfied, like an immense cat that had cornered a mouse. "It may not be necessary to actually infiltrate Grantville. Although ransom is usually paid in money, your king seems to value you highly for one of your rank. Perhaps he will be amenable to trading a 'technician' and one of these 'engines' along with its 'energy source' in order to ransom you."

  Oh, yeah, Eddie thought as the room swooped around him in lazy circles, that was just so likely to happen.

  Back in his room, once his head stopped spinning, Eddie was aghast at his stupidity. Eventually the king was going to find out there was no speed boat construction program. He'd think Eddie had made a fool out of him, and people who incurred the displeasure of monarchs didn't last long in this century. Outside, sleet rattled against the window and he shivered.