The Saxon Uprising-ARC

Chapter 34


Berlin

When he read the radio message, Axel Oxenstierna burst into a rare fury. “The girl is impossible! Why doesn’t she just abdicate now and save us all twenty years of grief?”

Darmstadt, Province of the Main

The radio message was reported in every newspaper in the USE. That included Darmstadt’s own Abendzeitung.

After the mayor finished reading the short account out loud, there was silence in the council chamber. In the streets outside the Rathaus, the sounds of celebration filtered through the thick walls. The city’s CoC had organized a parade.

“Well, now what!” said the militia commander. It was not even a rhetorical question. More in the way of an exasperated outburst.

One of the council members shrugged. “Face it, Gerlach. The Swede’s floundering.”

In times past, “the Swede” would have been a reference to the king, Gustav II Adolf. Today, it was a reference to Chancellor Oxenstierna.

“If only the emperor would come back,” pined another council member.

And so, the status of a dynasty shifted still further.

Augsburg, one of the USE’s seven independent imperial cities

As usual, the commander of Augsburg’s militia had a very different viewpoint from his counterpart in Darmstadt.

He’d been reading aloud too. Now finished, he set down the copy of the Augsburger Nachrichten and leaned back in his chair. Less given to formalities than their counterparts in Darmstadt, Augsburg’s city council had been meeting in the tavern in the Rathaus basement.

“Good for her,” he said. “Good for her.”

Herr Langenmantel was still holding a grudge over the personal insult concerning his former betrothed. “That borders on treason, it seems to me!”

By now, though, Langenmantel was on his own. Even the head of the city council, Jeremias Jacob Stenglin, had resigned himself to the inevitable.

“Don’t be stupid,” he grumbled, picking up his stein of beer. “How can the throne betray itself?”

As Stenglin drowned his sorrows, another city council member spoke up. “Face it, Adelbert. The citizenship issue is a lost cause. By now, even half the guildmasters are against making any changes.”

“More like two-thirds,” grunted the militia commander. “Look, it’s just not that important. The city was doing well enough, wasn’t it?” He waved a thick hand. “Yeah, sure, the CoC is annoying. So is my wife, a lot of the time. But she’s reliable. Things could be worse.”

A tavern in Melsungen, in the province of Hesse-Kassel

“Here’s to the health of our landgravine!” shouted one of the revelers, holding up his stein of beer. “Long may she reign!”

The tavern was full, as it often was on a winter’s eve. Not a single stein failed to come up to join the toast.

It now seemed almost certain that Hesse-Kassel would weather the storm without damage. Thanks to the landgrave’s blessed widow.

Another reveler stood up, hoisting his stein. “And here’s to the empress! Long may she reign!”

“She’s getting an early enough start!” shouted another.

Amidst the laughter, not a single stein failed to come up to join that toast either.

A tavern on the coast of the Pomeranian Bay

“I’m glad now I voted for the Prince,” said one of the fishermen at the table.

His two companions gazed at him suspiciously. “You said you’d voted for Wettin,” said one.

The fisherman shrugged. “I lied. Didn’t want to get into trouble, seeing as how the rest of you were so dumb.”

After a moment, the third fisherman said, “Yah, I voted for him too.”

The skeptic rolled his eyes. “Give it a month and it’ll have been pure magic, the way Wettin got elected. Seeing as how apparently nobody voted for him at all.”

Tetschen, near the border between Saxony and Bohemia

“Message just came in from the general,” said the Hangman’s radio operator. He set a slip of paper in front of Jeff Higgins.

With a sense of relief, the regiment’s commander put down the newspaper he’d been laboriously working his way through. There was no German-language newspaper in Tetschen so he’d been trying to make sense out of the analysis in the Noviny.

With no great success. Jeff’s grasp of Czech was rudimentary and mostly limited to everyday phrases you’d use about town. Order a beer, buy a loaf of bread, that sort of thing—not interpret commentary about political developments in a neighboring country.

It was probably a moot point anyway. He already knew what the radio message from Magdeburg said, since it had been picked up by the regiment’s own radio as soon as it was transmitted. In fact, the Noviny had gotten it from them in the first place. Jeff had just been hoping he might pick up some further scraps.

When he looked at the message which had just arrived, that became a moot point also. To hell with scraps. The meal had arrived.

The message was one word.

Now.

“Showtime,” said Jeff, heaving himself to his feet. “Adjutant! We’re moving out!”