The Saxon Uprising-ARC

Chapter 29


Berlin

Wilhelm Wettin was surprised to hear the door open. Since his arrest and confinement in a small room in a corner of the palace, he’d had almost no visitors. The guards brought his meals regularly, did the same for emptying the chamber pot, provided him with wine at his request, and otherwise did not speak to him at all. The last time he’d seen anyone other than a guard had been several weeks ago, when Oxenstierna sent one of his agents to check on the prime minister’s wellbeing. The chancellor hadn’t bothered to come himself.

Still more to his surprise, the person who came through the door was Colonel Erik Haakansson Hand. The emperor’s cousin was not perhaps the last person Wilhelm had expected to see, but he certainly wasn’t anywhere near the top of the list. The two men barely knew each other, except by reputation.

“I haven’t much time,” the colonel said. He was speaking very quietly, although not in a whisper. “In the nature of things, bribes only last so long”—he pointed over his shoulder with a thumb—“and those fellows on guard out there are from the Dalana Infantry Regiment, whose former commander was none other than Oxenstierna himself. Not quite my still-close boyhood companions.”

Wilhelm stared at him. Why would the king’s own cousin be needing to bribe anyone?

“Something is rotten in the state of Sweden,” Hand continued. “Or at least in one of my greedy cousin’s three realms. I want to know what it is. Why were you arrested?”

He waved his hand abruptly. That was his left hand, the one he usually employed. His right arm couldn’t be straightened due to the terrible injuries he had sustained while leading a brigade against Wallenstein a few years earlier.

“And let’s skip over the twaddle about conspiring with unknown—what was Oxenstierna’s phrase?—ah, yes, ‘seditious elements.’ Such a vague term. On his bad days, I suppose you could accuse my horse of being seditious, and he’s presumably elemental.” The colonel’s familiar cold grin appeared. “At least, I’ve seen no sign that he’s sprouting wings.”

After a moment of silence, Hand shook his head impatiently. “Come on, come on, tell me the truth. My loyalty is entirely to my cousin, Saxe-Weimar. No one else.”

Wilhelm made a quick decision. It was always possible this was a trap, but…

Not likely. Erik Haakansson Hand’s personal attachment to Gustav Adolf went far back. Besides, what difference did it make, at this point? If Oxenstierna wanted him executed, he didn’t have to use an elaborate subterfuge involving the emperor’s own cousin.

“Maximilian of Bavaria’s attack on the Oberpfalz was arranged,” he said abruptly. “By that bastard Oxenstierna himself. He used the count of Nassau-Hadamar, Johann Ludwig, as his intermediary.”

“How did you find out?”

“Two of the count’s associates let it slip while they were drunk. I suppose they assumed I was part of the conspiracy. One of them was—”

“I know who the baron and the guildmaster were. They left Berlin the day before you were arrested. I wondered why, at the time. It makes sense now. When they sobered up and remembered the conversation, they must have started worrying what would happen if you took it to Oxenstierna. So, as rats will, they went scurrying for their holes.”

The colonel tugged on his beard for a moment. “All right. I’ll do what I can. Just stay here and don’t do anything foolish like trying to escape.” Again, the cold grin appeared. “If it will settle your nerves at all—I warn you, I know the castle involved, so it certainly wouldn’t settle mine very much—our precious chancellor is not planning to have you executed. No, you’re for exile in St. Olaf’s Castle in Finland as soon as things settle down.”

“And are they settling down?”

Hand sneered. “Of course not. What were you fools thinking, anyway? And then Fool One had Fool Two arrested! Talk about piling wood onto an already out of control fire! Or what’s that up-time expression?”

“Pouring gasoline on the flames,” said Wilhelm, his jaws tightening. He resented the insult. On the other hand…

Sadly, he couldn’t disagree with it. In the weeks since his arrest, he’d come to much the same conclusion about himself. Although he had avoided terms like “fool.” He thought “made some very bad mistakes” was sufficient, thank you.

The colonel turned to go, and then stopped. “And here’s something else to settle your nerves—or make them worse, possibly. I’m almost certain that everything is about to explode.”

“Why?”

Hand snorted. “Why do you think? You left Stearns with an entire division at his disposal? After you let Gretchen Richter steal Dresden from under your noses?”

A moment later, he was gone.

All of it made sense, the colonel thought, as he walked back toward the wing of the palace where his cousin was kept. At least, if you were the sort of schemer who was too clever for his own good; which, in his estimation, was a pretty fair description of Sweden’s chancellor. It would be just like him not to be able to resist ladling an unnecessary scoop of treason onto the pile.

Stupid, really. To begin with, Maximilian of Bavaria probably would have invaded the Oberpfalz anyway. And while neutralizing the army of the State of Thuringia-Franconia would certainly be handy for Oxenstierna’s purposes, it was not critical. So why add the risk that outright treason would be discovered?

Erik Haakansson Hand did not and never had shared in the general admiration for Axel Oxenstierna. An admiration, unfortunately, shared by his cousin the king. Such was life.

He spent a bit of time wondering if he should protect himself in some way from the possibility that the two guards he’d bribed would report the matter to anyone. But it was not likely at all that they would. Bribees generally didn’t confess their sins except under duress, after all. And even if they did, what could he do to prevent it? The only two solutions he could think of—bribe them some more or murder them—would be cures worse than the disease. His own lapse into gasoline-over-fire-pouring, as it were.

Quite a charming expression. Of course, you had to know what gasoline was—but, by now, that knowledge was quite widespread.

It didn’t take him long to reach the king’s quarters. Berlin’s palace was a palace, yes. But it was what you’d expect in Berlin.

When he came into the room, he saw that Gustav Adolf was asleep. That was a blessing, he thought. For the past two days, his cousin had been prone to fits of anger great enough that he’d had to be restrained. But these fits, unlike the ones he’d had earlier, were more complex. There was confusion there, not just fury. In fact, Erik was pretty sure most of the anger derived from the confusion. As if the king, trying to awaken, was frustrated by his difficulty in doing so.

Before he could say anything, the king’s bodyguard spoke. “He asked for you, Colonel,” said Erling Ljungberg. “Twice, before he fell asleep. And the second time, what he said was: ‘Where is Erik? He must see to Kristina. It’s very important.’ ”

The colonel took a long, almost shuddering breath. Three sentences, each of which was clear and meaningful—and what he suspected was most important, all three sentences held together as a coherent, consistent and logical whole. He wished he could consult the Moor doctor, but there was no chance of that, not now. He had to stay in Berlin, until…

Erik realized, with a little start, that he’d never actually taken that thought to its conclusion. Until what? Always, he’d stopped at the edge of hoping—desperately hoping—for his cousin’s recovery. But now that it seemed he might actually be recovering…

He came to one immediate decision. There was no more time for subtlety.

“My loyalties are entirely to him, Erling Ljungberg.” He pointed at Gustav Adolf. “Yours?”

“Don’t be an ass. You know the answer to that. What you really want to know is if I’m as dumb as the ox I look like.”

Erik couldn’t help laughing. A quick, nervous laugh—but a laugh it definitely was. “I’d hardly use the term ‘ox’! Bull, yes. And now that you bring it up, how smart are you?”

Ljungberg heaved his massive shoulders. The gesture might have been a shrug, or it might have been a bull shifting his stance to attack, or it might be something of both. Ljungberg himself probably didn’t know for sure.

“I’m not so stupid that I can’t figure out the chancellor is taking advantage of my king’s condition to carry through policies my king would never have agreed to himself. Nor am I so stupid that I can’t figure out that the blessed chancellor is in over his head. And he’s supposed to be the clever one!”

As answers went, that was the best Hand could want. “How does the rest of your unit feel about it?”

“Even Scots aren’t that dumb. And they take their orders from me, anyway.”

The colonel nodded. He started chewing on his lower lip again, deciding on his next steps. He’d begin with the Östergötlanders. He no longer commanded that regiment, but he had their respect, and he was on good personal terms with its current commander. After that…

“Ha!” jeered Ljungberg. “Haven’t really thought about it, have you? Well, I have. You’ll start with the Östergötland infantry regiment, of course. After them, go see Colonel Klas Hastfer and his Finnish regiment. He’s married to my wife’s half-sister, by the way. Then, I recommend you talk with Karl Hård af Segerstad.”

He commanded the Västergötland infantry. Erik didn’t know him very well, though.

Ljungberg grinned. His grin was as cold as Hand’s own. “My cousins aren’t as highly placed as yours, Colonel. But I have three of them in that regiment, one of whom is the commander’s adjutant. I know what they’re thinking, and it’s nothing the chancellor would like to hear.”

Hand spend a moment looking at the issue from all angles he could think of. On the one hand, this level of caution seemed a bit mad. No one including Oxenstierna would question Gustav Adolf’s authority if he should recover. On the other hand…

Who knew, really? There was a sort of insanity lurking underneath Oxenstierna’s whole enterprise. The man’s resentment at the steady erosion of the aristocracy’s position in the USE had obviously been much deeper than anyone realized. Hand had always assumed—so had his cousin, he was pretty sure—that Oxenstierna would be satisfied with the still-intact position of the nobility in Sweden. But apparently the chancellor had concluded that if things continued on their present course in the Germanies it would only be a matter of time before the position of the nobility in Sweden itself was undermined.

He might even be right, for all the colonel knew. But to plunge everyone into a civil war because of it…

That was simply not sane, in Hand’s opinion. Not outright madness, perhaps; but not sanity either.

So who knew what the chancellor might do, if he felt himself driven into a corner? Best to establish some safeguards ahead of time.

“I’ll do as you suggest, Erling.” It was the first time he’d ever used the man’s given name. “In the meantime…”

The huge bodyguard made a dismissive gesture. “That, you needn’t worry about, Erik. The bodyguard detachment is entirely reliable. I can personally vouch for that.”

The colonel wasn’t about to question the statement. First, because this was the first time Ljungberg had ever used his first name. Second, because the hand that made that gesture was at least half again the size of his own.

Unlike the king’s chancellor, the king’s cousin was not even the littlest bit insane.