by Eric Flint
When he had everyone’s attention, Jeff used a pointer he’d had made for him by one of the regiment’s carpenters to indicate their position on a large map he had hanging on an easel. The map was new, having just been finished by the same artist who’d done the portrait on the beckies.
“You see this stretch of the Elbe, from here north to Königstein?” He waggled the tip of the pointer back and forth across the border. “That’s why we’re really here, gentlemen. I hope I don’t have any officers in this regiment who are so dim-witted that they really think General Stearns left us here to protect Bohemia against that jackass Heinrich Holk.”
A little sigh swept the room. They’d wondered, of course.
“The general left you with special orders,” ventured Major Eisenhauer.
Jeff shook his head. “No, he didn’t say a word to me. He didn’t need to.”
He turned to face his officers. “Here’s how it is, and if there’s anyone here who thinks he’ll have trouble with what might be coming, you’d better come talk to me in private after this meeting.”
His tone of voice was harsh, which was unusual for Colonel Higgins.
Another little sigh swept the room. They’d wondered about that, too.
“Let me start by making one thing clear. Mike Stearns believes in the rule of law just as much as I do. So if nobody breaks the rules, then you and me and every soldier in this regiment is just going to spend some chilly but probably pleasant enough months twiddling our thumbs here. But if rules do start getting broken…”
He shook his head again. “And being, honest, I’m pretty sure they will. The thing is, I know Mike Stearns—but I don’t think those other people really do. I don’t think they understand just how much they’re playing with fire here.”
Major Fruehauf spoke up. “So our real task is to make sure that if the Third Division needs to return to the USE—quickly—that there won’t be anything in the way.”
Jeff nodded. “The key will be the fortress at Königstein.” He tapped the map again with the pointer. “I only got a look at it from a distance as we marched past, but it looked plenty tough and by all accounts it is.”
One of the infantry captains spoke up. “I have been there, sir. And, yes, it’s still quite formidable even if the structure was built four hundred years ago.”
“What I figured. We’ll maintain some cavalry patrols up and down the Elbe to keep an eye on whatever might be developing at the fortress. But mostly, I figure we’ll rely on the air force. The one definite instruction the general gave me was to build an airfield here. By happy coincidence, any plane coming in and out of Tetschen from the USE is just going to naturally overfly the fortress at Königstein.”
He turned away from the map and paused for a few seconds. “I will repeat what I said. If any of you have problems with any of this, come talk to me afterward.”
The officers glanced around at each other. Then Thorsten Engler said:
“I don’t think so, Colonel. I think I can speak for every man here. If they play by the rules, we play by the rules. But if they break the rules, then we’ll show them why we’re called the Hangman.”
Chapter 4
Magdeburg, central Germany
Capital of the United States of Europe
“Thank you, Jenny,” said Rebecca Abrabanel, as she passed her daughter Kathleen over to the young governess and housekeeper. The child was barely one year old, so the transfer did not disrupt her sleep in the least. She was quite accustomed to the care of Jenny Hayes, anyway, since she spent more time with her than she did with her mother. Rebecca had adopted some of the attitudes of the Americans, but when it came to child-care she was still firmly a woman of the seventeenth century. If you had the money to do so—which she now certainly did—you hired nannies to take care of the tedious portions of child-raising. Which, at Kathleen’s age, was most of them.
About the only concession that Rebecca made to up-time custom was that she still breast-fed the girl herself, instead of employing a wet nurse. But she did that mostly because continuing to lactate was the most effective birth control measure available to her, other than keeping track of her monthly cycle or using condoms. Neither she nor her husband Michael wanted to be bothered with that miserable rhythm business. As for the condoms which had been introduced into the market some months earlier, Michael didn’t like them and she didn’t trust them.
Rebecca enjoyed her children and planned to have at least two more. But she also enjoyed her political career and had no desire to see it crushed flat under the pressure of child-raising.
Being well-to-do helped a great deal in that regard. While Rebecca and Michael were not what anyone would call wealthy, they enjoyed a much larger than average income because of his salary as a major general. And if she finished her book on schedule, the income that derived from its sales might very well double or even triple their income.
Rebecca had been born a Sephardic Jew, and still maintained most of her religion’s customs and rituals. When it came to theological matters, though, she tended to share her father’s attitudes. Balthazar Abrabanel was not exactly what the up-timers meant by the term “free-thinker,” but he came awfully close. He still considered himself a Jew even in doctrinal terms, but there were plenty of rabbis who would dispute that claim. The rabbinate of Amsterdam, which was notoriously harsh and reactionary, had even gone so far as to declare him a heretic.
On the other hand, Prague’s rabbis—who had considerably more prestige than those of the Dutch city—maintained friendly relations with him. They did so partly, of course, for political reasons. Balthazar’s brother Uriel was the spymaster for Morris Roth, who was by far the wealthiest Jew in Prague and was also one of Wallenstein’s closest advisers thanks to his leading role in repelling Holk’s attack on Prague two years earlier.
Whatever her doctrinal doubts and questions, however, on one matter Rebecca was a staunch monotheist. Nannies had been sent down to earth directly by the hand of God.
After Jenny left the vestibule with Kathleen, Rebecca turned and went to the door leading to the room on the second floor of the town house that she used for her political meetings. It was a very large room, in keeping with the town house itself. The three-story building wasn’t quite what one could call a “mansion,” but it came close.
That was a good thing, too, given that the building also served the Fourth of July Party as its informal national headquarters.
As usual when a meeting was in progress, she could hear Constantin Ableidinger’s booming voice before she even opened the door.
“—think we can make such an assumption. As much as I dislike the prime minister’s reactionary political views, he’s just not the sort of human material out of which ruthless counter-revolutionaries are made.”
By the time he finished, Rebecca had passed through the door and closed it behind her. She headed toward her seat at the head of the table. Series of tables, rather.
“No, Wilhelm is not such a man,” she said. “As a human being, he’s actually quite a decent fellow. But Wilhelm is no longer running the show. Axel Oxenstierna is.”
She pulled out her chair and sat down. There had been a time when there had been only four tables in this very large room, arranged in a shallow “U” which allowed everyone to see out the windows. That was no longer true. There were simply too many important leaders of the Fourth of July Party who needed to be present at this meeting. So, there were now eight tables in the room, lined up two abreast and four wide. In effect, a single huge meeting table had been created, measuring about ten feet by thirty feet.
Rebecca’s position at one end of the arrangement, facing down the double row of tables, gave her a good view of everyone present. It was also a subtle indication of her position in the party. Officially, she was simply one of the members of the USE parliament elected from Magdeburg province. Unofficially, especially in the absence of her husband Mike Stearns, she was one of the FoJP’s most prominent and influenti
al leaders.
She’d paused for a moment to let the implications of her last statement sink in. Then she added: “And the chancellor of Sweden is most definitely the sort of human material from which ruthless counter-revolutionaries are made. He is and always has been an advocate—I should better say, a true believer—in the principles of aristocratic privilege. It is no secret that he has never been happy with the compromises that Gustav Adolf made with my husband. Neither when they set up the Confederated Principalities of Europe nor—especially!—when they created the United States of Europe.”
Again, she paused briefly. “I think it is now clear what has been happening these past few weeks. Ever since the emperor was badly injured at the battle of Lake Bledno and rendered non compos mentis, Oxenstierna has been taking advantage of Gustav Adolf’s incapacity to prepare a sweeping counter-revolution. That is why he has insisted on keeping the emperor in Berlin, where he can sequester him and keep him under control. That is why he has been assembling a congress of reactionaries in Berlin. They will declare Berlin the new capital. And that is why, finally—this news has now been confirmed also—he has ordered Princess Kristina to join her father in Berlin. So that she too can be kept under control while the chancellor goes about his bloody business.”
One of the members of parliament from Westphalia province spoke up. “But Oxenstierna is simply the chancellor of Sweden. He has no authority in the United States of Europe.”
Ableidinger made a sarcastic snorting sound. “And do you think that little awkwardness is causing him to lose any sleep? Not likely! Not Oxenstierna.”
He swiveled in his chair to look at Rebecca. “I don’t doubt Oxenstierna’s nature is just as you portray it to be. But how can you be so sure that he has reduced the USE’s prime minister to a cipher? Giving the devil his due, Wilhelm Wettin is a capable man and not one I would think to be easily intimidated.”
“No, he’s not—as a man,” said Ed Piazza. “But right now he’s a prime minister also, and in that capacity I’m afraid he can be quite easily intimidated by Oxenstierna.”
Piazza was sitting at the opposite end of the long set of tables from Rebecca, which indicated his own position in the party. Both by virtue of his abilities and his position as the president of the State of Thuringia-Franconia, Piazza wielded as much influence and authority as anyone in the FoJP other than Mike Stearns himself.
But Stearns was hundreds of miles away now, leading his army into Bohemia, and no longer directly part of the political equation.
The man who was probably the third most influential member of the party present at the meeting cocked his head quizzically and said: “I will repeat Constantin’s question: How can you be so sure?”
That was Matthias Strigel, the governor of Magdeburg province. That province and the State of Thuringia-Franconia were the two great power centers of the Fourth of July Party. The SoTF was the wealthiest and most populous province of the USE. But Magdeburg province had now surpassed it as an industrial center.
It was also, of course, the province where the capital was located. The city of Magdeburg had an extraordinarily complex political structure. It was simultaneously the national capital of the USE, the capital of the province of Magdeburg, and an imperial city in its own right. Just to make things still more complicated, there was a legal distinction between the “old city” and the metropolitan area. Otto Gericke was the mayor of metropolitan Magdeburg, but within the narrow confines of the original city his authority was legally—if not always in practice—superseded by that of the city council.
“The reason I can be so sure,” Ed responded, “is because I agree with Becky’s analysis and I’ve looking at the situation from a strictly military standpoint lately. The minute you do that, everything gets very clear, very quickly.”
He leaned forward to give emphasis to his next words. “The reason the chancellor of Sweden can today intimidate and bully the prime minister of a nation which is many times larger is because Oxenstierna has an army—right there with him, in Berlin—and Wettin hasn’t got a damn thing except his own bodyguards. And even those are mercenaries paid for out of the chancellor’s purse.”
This time it was a member of parliament from the Province of the Main who protested, Anselm Keller. “But the USE has its own army.”
“With a Swedish general in command,” said Charlotte Kienitz, one of the leaders of the Fourth of July Party from the province of Mecklenburg.
The mayor of Hamburg shook his head. “Torstensson’s authority no longer derives from Sweden. He was appointed by the Reichstag, not the king and emperor.”
As he usually did in the middle of an argument, Albert Bugenhagen lapsed into a down-timer’s term for the USE’s parliament. Up-timers, speaking English to one another, had a tendency to call it a “congress,” although that wasn’t technically correct. Down-timers, speaking to one another, tended to call it a “Reichstag”—that meant “Imperial Diet”—although wasn’t technically correct either.
For that matter, the official term “Parliament” wasn’t really correct, in the terms that a fussy political scientist might use. When Gustav Adolf and Mike Stearns created the USE in the course of negotiations late in 1633, Mike had deliberately picked a term that was rather foreign to both American up-timers and German down-timers. The USE Parliament was a hybrid two-house creation with elements from up-time America, the down-time Germanies, and both eighteenth-century and twentieth century Britain.
“I agree with Albert,” said Werner von Dalberg. “Lennart Torstensson is a Swede by birth, but when he accepted the position of commanding general of the USE army he swore an oath to uphold the USE’s constitution. An oath, I will add pointedly, that Axel Oxenstierna has never sworn. I don’t think Torstensson will betray that oath.”
Piazza shrugged. “Neither do I. So what, Werner? Torstensson has most of the USE’s army besieging the Poles in Poznan. He was ordered to do so, I remind you, by the duly elected prime minister of the United States of Europe, Wilhelm Wettin, who is Lennart’s own commander. Torstensson is not going to disobey that order.”
“And as the winter comes on, it would become harder and harder to disobey it anyway,” said Matthias Strigel. The Magdeburg governor had military experience. “Pulling out of siege lines in winter—certainly against an opponent as aggressive and capable as Grand Hetman Koniecpolski—would be dangerous.”
Piazza nodded and then went on. “As for Mike Stearns and the Third Division, Oxenstierna—officially, Wettin, of course—saw to it that he was as far away as possible in Bohemia. That leaves Wettin with only garrison units, logistics units and a small number of mostly specialized troops. Some of them are combat units, but most of them are things like radio operators.”
“There is also the navy and the air force,” pointed out Helene Gundelfinger. She was the vice-president of the State of Thuringia-Franconia.
Ed shrugged. “True, but those forces are the ones that matter the least in a conflict of this nature. Which is—let’s finally put the words on the table, shall we?—an outright civil war. There was a time when Wettin could have played an independent role in such a conflict, but that time is past. He has no ground troops worth talking about and Oxenstierna has the entire Swedish army.”
Ableidinger grunted. “What’s left of it. Koniecpolski hammered them pretty badly at Lake Bledno, from all accounts I’ve heard.”
“ ‘Hammered’ is not the right word. He bloodied them, yes. But it was the Poles who quit the field, not the Swedes. That army is still intact and functional and it outnumbers—it certainly outpowers—any other army which will become active in a civil war except the USE army itself. Which Oxenstierna, no fool, has dispersed and sent entirely out of the nation.”
There was silence for a moment. Then Strigel leaned back in his chair and said: “There is your own provincial force, Ed. The SoTF’s National Guard is probably the most powerful of the provincial armies.”
Piazza nodded. “Except for poss
ibly Hesse-Kassel’s, in time past. But today, with Wilhelm V dead and many of his troops still with Oxenstierna in Berlin—”
“Not for long, I think,” said Liesel Hahn, an MP from Hesse-Kassel. “The landgravine is furious with Wettin and the chancellor. They won’t be able to stop her if she orders her soldiers home, which we think she will.”
“Why do you think that?” asked Charlotte Kienitz. “I would hardly think Amalie Elisabeth is now taking us into her confidence.”
“You might be surprised before much longer, Charlotte,” interjected Rebecca. “I’ve received no fewer than three letters from her over the past two weeks. None of them contain much substance, but the tone is quite friendly. I believe she is determined to keep as many of Hesse-Kassel’s bridges intact and unburned as possible.”
“Might I speak with you about those letters after the meeting, Rebecca?” asked Hahn. “That’s…quite an interesting development.”
“Yes, certainly.”
Charlotte shook her head, as if to shake off some confusion. “If you didn’t already know about the letters, Liesel, why did you think Hesse-Kassel’s widow would be recalling her troops?”
Hahn smiled. “I’ve met her several times, you know. She’s actually quite nice in personal encounters. But she’s still a Hochadel and has their innate attitudes. It barely registers on her that servants are within hearing range when she discusses her affairs with her counselors and advisers. Several of those servants report to the CoC regularly, and they pass the information on to us.”
Piazza had been listening to the exchange with keen interest. Now he spoke up again. “Even if Amalie Elisabeth brings all her troops back, I doubt very much she’ll be using them to intervene in any nation-wide civil war.”
“I deduce the same thing from her letters,” agreed Rebecca. “Not that she speaks of such matters directly, of course. Still, given her well-known attitudes in the past and her current friendliness toward to us—well, that’s a bit too strong; call it cordiality, rather—I think we can safely assume that Hesse-Kassel will keep to itself in the event a civil war breaks out.”
