The Saxon Uprising-ARC

Chapter 41


Magdeburg, central Germany

Capital of the United States of Europe

Rebecca looked at the little stack of radio messages on her desk, wondering if she should read them again.

That was silly, though. By now, she practically had them memorized. Her desire to do so was just an emotional reflex.

Sepharad came into the room, with her brother Baruch in tow.

“Barry wants to know when Daddy’s coming home.”

Despite the tension of the moment, Rebecca had to fight down a smile. For whatever subtle reasons lurked in a child’s developing mind, Sepharad made it a point to pose as the detached and cool-headed one—quite unlike her emotional brother, full of needs and anxieties. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think she was the one who’d written the Ethics and the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus in the universe her father had come from.

“Soon, I think, children. Soon.”

The answer was accurate, as far as it went. Michael would come home soon. If he came home at all. But Rebecca saw no reason to inflict three-year-old children with that caveat.

Within an hour after dawn the next morning, the town house was filled with anxious and needy politicians. Most of them, in a way, wanting the answer to the same question. Except in their case the question was when will the boss be coming home? Michael had been such a dominant figure in their political movement that, at least in a crisis, most of them felt a bit lost without him.

Constantin Ableidinger was one of the exceptions, thankfully. Rebecca was finding his outsized presence a great help this morning.

“Of course he decided to march on Dresden, Albert!” the Franconian was booming at Hamburg’s mayor. “Did you think we could maintain this half-baked civil war forever? Everyone—on both sides; no, on all sides!—is starting to get exhausted. Let this go on for too long and the nation will wind up siding with the damn Swede by default. If you ask me, the general chose the perfect moment to make his move. Right on the heels of Kristina and Ulrik’s arrival in the capital. He has the wind of legitimacy in his sails now!”

Rebecca thought that was a rather grotesque metaphor, but she agreed with Ableidinger’s underlying point. The nation was starting to get frayed by the constant uncertainty.

And now, as he had so many times over the past few years, the Prince of Germany was taking the decisive steps to resolve the crisis. That decisiveness alone would pull millions of the nation’s inhabitants toward him, regardless of what they might think of the specific merits of his political program.

In the royal palace not far away, another child was feeling anxious.

“What should we do, Ulrik?” asked Kristina. The girl was almost literally dancing up and down, with a sheaf of radio messages clutched in her little fist.

“We do nothing, Kristina.” Ulrik tried to figure out the best way to explain the matter. Then, as he had done so many times before, came to the conclusion that with Kristina it was best to just give her the same explanation he’d give an adult. An intelligent adult. She wouldn’t quite understand, perhaps, but she’d know she wasn’t being condescended to—which invariably threw her into a fury.

“Your role as the monarch in this situation is to be, not to do.” He pointed to the messages she was holding. “That’s why General Stearns was careful to stipulate his loyalty to the crown.”

Kristina frowned, while she thought it through. After a while, she sighed.

“I’d rather be doing something,” she complained. “I’m feeling nervous. And I don’t like it. It’s always better if I’m doing something.”

Caroline Platzer cleared her throat. Kristina’s mentor/confidant/governess was sitting on a nearby divan. She and Baldur Norddahl had finally arrived in Magdeburg a few days ago, having taken much slower means of transportation from Luebeck.

Ulrik gave her a quick, appreciative glance. “In that case, Princess, I think you should visit your subjects,” he said. “They’ll be feeling nervous today as well.”

Now, Kristina did start literally jumping up and down. “Oh, yes! Oh, yes! That’s a wonderful idea, Ulrik! Where should we go first?”

Had it been necessary, Ulrik would have guided her to the right destination. But it wasn’t. Whether due to innate Vasa political instinct or simply childish enthusiasm, Kristina settled on the correct answer within seconds.

So, off they went. And if there was anyone in Magdeburg on that cold, clear day in February of 1636 who thought it was odd to see a large contingent of Marines in very fancy uniforms escorting the nation’s princess into the city’s central Freedom Arches, they said nothing about it.

The Marines probably thought it was odd—especially when Kristina told them to take off their shakos (“against sanitary regulations when working in a kitchen”) so they could help her with the cooking.

She even dragooned Ulrik and Baldur into helping her with the cooking. And Caroline, of course.

Platzer seemed quite at home in a kitchen, but Ulrik was well-nigh useless. He couldn’t recall ever cooking a meal in his entire life, much less preparing meals for dozens of customers. (Which soon became hundreds of customers, as the word spread.)

Baldur wasn’t much better. “They don’t have any salted fish,” he complained. Norwegians had certain definite limits.

But their skills didn’t matter. Neither did Kristina’s, which weren’t really any better despite the girl’s own delusions. Magdeburg’s central Freedom Arches was the premier such establishment in the whole of the United States of Europe. Its kitchen was huge, its cooking staff large and very experienced. They had no trouble making up for the royal errors.

The customers in the large eating rooms didn’t care in the least. They weren’t flocking to the place this morning to ingest food, they were flocking to ingest symbols.

Darmstadt, Province of the Main

By noon, the entire city council had gathered at the Rathaus. So had every guildmaster in the city and the leading figures of every prominent wealthy family. The tavern in the basement was packed.

The mayor read through all the radio messages again, for the benefit of the late arrivals. When he was finished, there was silence for perhaps ten seconds. Then the head of the city militia drained his stein and slammed it down on the table. Almost hard enough to break the thick glass. As it was, everyone sitting at that table jumped in their seats a little.

“Well, f*ck!” he exclaimed.

One of the city councilmen sitting at the mayor’s table gave him a sour look. “Oh, give it up, Gerlach. It’s over.”

The militia commander scowled at him. “He’ll probably get beaten. He’s an amateur. Banér is as good as they come.”

“Banér is a Swedish pig,” said the master of the coopers’ guild. “Besides, what difference does it make? Listen to them out there.”

Even through the thick walls of the Rathaus, the chants of the crowd marching through the streets outside were quite audible.

Prince of Germany! Prince of Germany!

“All of my apprentices are out there,” continued the guildmaster. “So is every single one of my journeymen except Ehrlichmann, and the only reason he’s still at home is because he’s sick. Even if Stearns loses and Banér kills him, he just becomes the national martyr. Remember how many damn streets and squares they named after Hans Richter, after he got killed? How many do you think they’ll name after the Prince?”

He took a pull from his own stein. “Gunther’s right. It’s over.”

There was silence again, for a moment.

“Well, f*ck,” said the militia commander. But his tone was one of resignation now, not anger.

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

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

“The rest of you can do as you like,” he said to the city council. His gaze swept around the table, his lip curled in a sneer.

“I’m going out there to join the parade.” He pointed toward a window. The sounds of the celebration outside came right through, closed or not.

Prince of Germany! Prince of Germany!

“And I’m taking the whole militia with me. Me and my boys are sick of the damn Swedes.”

And off he went.

After a while, one of the council members stood up.

“I’m sick of them too, now that I think about it.”

And off he went.

After a while longer, Jeremias Jacob Stenglin rose from his own chair. “Come on, fellows.” The head of the city council headed for the door. “The way people have their tempers up, if we don’t show we’ll never get elected to anything again. Under any kind of franchise.”

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.

Another reveler stood up, hoisting his stein. “And here’s to the Prince of Germany! May he whip that Swede like a cur!”

Not a single stein failed to come up to join that toast either. Or the seven that followed it, each succeeding one wishing a worse fate still upon Johan Banér. By the eighth toast, the revelers had him flayed, drawn, quartered, fed to hogs—and the hogs were dying of poison.

A tavern on the coast of the Pomeranian Bay

The fisherman sat down at the table in the corner where his shipmates were waiting. “Believe it or not, there’s someone who admits to voting against the Prince.”

The fisherman’s two companions gave him a skeptical look. “Who?” asked one, as he lifted his stein. “Josias, the village idiot?”

The fisherman who’d made the claim shook his head. “No. It’s old Margarete, the baker’s widow.”

His two companions frowned.

“The Prince shouldn’t have let women have the vote,” said one.

The other nodded. “Yah. I almost didn’t vote for him myself, because of that.”

Leipzig

General Hans Georg von Arnim read through the message again. That was just to give himself time to think, not because he had any trouble understanding it. Chancellor Oxenstierna had been brief, blunt, very clear—and quite obviously irate.

“I thought the radio was broken,” he said.

The adjutant who’d brought him the message from Berlin shook his head. “No, sir. It’s working properly.”

“I thought the radio was broken,” von Arnim repeated.

The general’s adjutants were not chosen for being stupid. It didn’t take Captain Pfaff more than three seconds before the head-shake became a nod.

“Why, yes, it is, General. The operator tells me it’ll take days to fix.”

“At least a week, I think.”

“Yes, a week.”

“See to it, Captain.”

After Pfaff left, von Arnim moved to the fireplace. His servants had a big fire going, which was quite pleasant on such a cold day.

It made a handy incinerator, too. The message was gone in seconds.

Oxenstierna would have sent a courier, of course. No one except up-timers—and not all that many of them—relied entirely on the new radios. But it would take a courier days to make it here from Berlin, this time of year. The recent storm had left the roads filled with snow. Such as they were, in benighted Brandenburg.

Von Arnim would have no choice but to acknowledge receipt of that message. Still, mobilizing ten thousand men was not a quick process, especially in February. By the time he could get his army onto the field to join Banér’s, anything might have happened.

Banér could be dead. Stearns could be dead. Both could be dead. The chancellor could be dead. The emperor could have regained his wits.

A horse might even have learned to sing.

Paris, capital of France

After he finished reading the copies of the intercepted radio messages that Servien had given him, Cardinal Richelieu rose from his desk and went over to one of the window in his palace.

“A real pity,” said Servien, echoing the sentiment he’d expressed a month earlier.

Richelieu said nothing. He didn’t agree with his intendant, as it happened. It might be better to say, was feeling a different sort of pity this morning.

Pity poor France. What had the great nation done to so offend God, that he inflicted Monsieur Gaston upon it?

And an even greater mystery: What had the wretched Germanies done to gain His favor, that He would bless them with such a prince?

Madrid, capital of Spain

There was no reaction to Mike Stearns’ radio messages in the court of Spain.

They had no radio. They wouldn’t receive the news for days yet.

Brussels, capital of the Netherlands

Fernando I looked around the conference table at his closest advisers.

“We’re all agreed, then?” said the king in the Netherlands. “We will still take no advantage of the current civil conflict in the USE, even now when it’s coming to a full boil?”

“With Stearns on a rampage?” said Rubens. “Risky, that.”

“He’s badly outnumbered,” pointed out Scaglia. “Outclassed, too, in terms of experience.”

Miguel de Manrique shook his head. “The numbers probably aren’t as bad as they look, Alessandro. And in that sort of fight—it’ll be a slugging match, fighting in the snow in February—his army will have a great advantage when it comes to morale. I agree with Peter. It’s too risky. If Stearns wins, we’ll have a bear to deal with.”

“And to what purpose?” chipped in Archduchess Isabella. The old woman’s expression was even more skeptical than Miguel’s. “We’ve done quite well so far. Minor gains, all of them, yes. But they came with no real risk and they’re solid. Leave it be.”

The king had listened attentively, but that was simply to be courteous. He’d already made his decision the night before, while discussing the matter with his wife. Maria Anna was as bold an adviser as any he had—and even she had urged the path of caution.

“We’re all agreed, then,” he stated. “We’ll just wait to see what happens.”

Poznan, Poland

“The king is still adamant, and the Sejm even more so,” said Stanislaw Koniecpolski. The grand hetman shrugged massive shoulders. “They’ll have no talk of a peace settlement. There’s no point in raising the issue any longer.”

Lukasz Opalinski’s jaws were tight.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. As every day passed, it became clearer and clearer to him that his friend Jozef Wojtowicz had been right all along. If Stearns had the two divisions of the USE army out there in the siege lines around Poznan to add to his own, he would win this civil war easily. And everyone knew—well, perhaps not every szlachta voting in the Sejm, as pig-ignorant as so many of them were—that Stearns had been opposed to the war with Poland from the start.

It could be argued, of course, that Torstensson would stand in the way. But Lukasz didn’t think even Torstensson could keep his men under control, if Stearns summoned them. The Poles had quite good intelligence on what was happening in Torstensson’s army, from all the Polish civilians employed by that army. The USE troops were restive and getting more so by the day. They’d even presented a petition to Torstensson three days ago, urging him to march on Berlin and restore the rightful prime minister.

The only thing that really enabled Torstensson to keep them under control any longer was…

The Poles. The stance of King Wladyslaw IV and the Sejm of the commonwealth.

What had poor Poland done, to so offend the Almighty that he visited seven years of stupidity upon the nation? Followed by seven years of idiocy, another seven of imbecility, yet another seven of cretinism—all that coming after seven years of dull-wittedness, preceded by seven years of struggling to count toes, seven years…

He wondered what had happened to Jozef. Was he still in Dresden? If so, was he still alive? They had heard nothing from him in weeks, since the batteries in his radio died.