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He simply wanted-almost desperately-to bring confidence and good cheer into a day of gloom and horror. Besides, unlike Banйr, Axel knew of Mackay's real mission.

Gustav continued: 'Send a courier to Mackay, ordering him to remain in Thuringia. I don't expect him to hold Badenburg against any serious assault, of course. If he's pressed, he can retreat into the Thuringen Forest. I simply want him there to report on Tilly's movements.' He gave Oxenstierna a quick glance. 'But have that courier report to me, before you send him off. I'll have more detailed instructions.'

Banйr nodded. The king turned to Hesse-Kassel.

'William, I can provide you with nothing in the way of direct assistance either. But your situation is less desperate. Tilly will move on Thuringia first, not Hessen. And-'

Hesse-Kassel snorted. 'And Tilly moves like a slug under any circumstances. The great and mighty General Slow.'

Gustav smiled, but the smile faded very quickly. 'Don't underestimate the man, William,' he said, softly and seriously. 'He may be slow, but remember this: Jan Tzerklas, Count Tilly, has been a professional soldier all his life. Most of that time as a commander of armies. He is over seventy years old, now-and has yet to lose a major battle.'

The king's face grew solemn. 'He is the last, and perhaps the greatest, of a breed of generals going back to the great Gonzalo de Cordoba.'

'The butcher of Magdeburg,' snarled Torstensson.

Gustav glanced at his artillery officer. When he spoke, his tone was sad. 'Yes, Lennart, so Tilly will be known to posterity. And everything else forgotten.' The king squared his shoulders. 'I do not say it is unjust, mind you. A general is responsible for the conduct of his troops, when all is said and done. But all reports of Magdeburg are agreed that Tilly attempted to restrain his soldiers. He certainly had no reason to put the city to the torch.'

Torstensson, accustomed to the ways of Swedish monarchy-Gustav's Sweden, at least-did not retreat. 'So?' he demanded. 'Tilly chose to lead that army. No one forced him out of retirement. An army of sheer wickedness. He cannot complain if his devils got loose.' The young artilleryman's anger became mixed with admiration. 'Your army, Highness, has no Magdeburg to stain its banner. Nothing even close.'

Gustav's temper began to rise, but the king forced it down. He did not disagree, after all. 'I am not of that old breed, Lennart,' he replied mildly. 'But I can still admire it for its virtues. So should you.'

Then, smiling wryly: 'I believe I have started a new line of generals. I hope so, at least.'

Several of the officers chuckled. The Swedish chancellor did not.

'You, yes,' murmured Oxenstierna. 'A new breed. But Wallenstein is doing the same, my friend Gustav. Don't forget that. Some day you will break Tilly and his legacy. Only then to face Wallenstein. Like you, he scorns the old ways. And-like you-he has yet to find his master in the art of war.'

Mention of Wallenstein brought silence. The great Bohemian general had retired to his estates, since the emperor dismissed him at the demand of Austria's nobility. The Catholic lords of the Holy Roman Empire despised the man, as much for his low birth as his great wealth and power. But Wallenstein was still there, lurking, ready to be called forth again.

Gustav's face grew ruddy, but his response was very calm. 'You are quite wrong, my friend Axel. I have always had a master, in war as in peace. His name is Jesus Christ.' The piety in that statement was deep, simple-and doubted by no one who heard. 'Wallenstein? Only he knows his master.'

Torstensson looked down between his feet. 'I can guess,' he muttered softly. The officers standing on either side chuckled.

Gustav turned back to Hesse-Kassel. 'William, your forces are much stronger than Saxe-Weimar's, and you should have months to prepare your defenses. So I think you will be able to hold Tilly at bay.'

There was a small commotion at the tent's entrance. A squad of soldiers was bringing in new chairs.

The king glanced at them, smiling. 'Actually, I think those may be unneeded. I don't believe there's much more to discuss. Not today, at least.'

Gustav looked past the incoming soldiers, to the plains of central Germany. His jaws tightened. 'For the moment, William of Hesse-Kassel, the best assistance I can give you is to put some steel into the spines of certain Protestant rulers. We will start with the Prince of Brandenburg.'

'Steel in his spine?' demanded Torstensson. 'George William?' He sneered. 'Impossible!'

Gustav's smile was a thin spreading of lips across still-clenched teeth. 'Nonsense,' he growled. 'He is my brother-in-law, after all. He will see reason. Especially after I give him a simple choice. 'Steel in your spine-or steel up your ass.' '

The tent rocked with laughter. Gustav's thin smile became a shark's grin. He turned his head to Torstensson. 'Prepare for the march, Lennart. I want your cannons staring at Berlin as soon as possible.'

The officers in the tent took that as the signal to leave. Hesse-Kassel and the brothers Saxe-Weimar lingered behind, for a moment. The first, simply to shake the king's hand. The others, to present themselves for their new duty. Gustav sent them scurrying after Torstensson.

Soon enough, only Oxenstierna was left in the tent. Gustav waited until everyone was gone before speaking.

'There has been no word from Mackay?'

Oxenstierna shook his head. The King scowled.

'I need that Dutch money, Axel. As of now, our finances depend almost entirely on the French. Cardinal Richelieu.' His heavy face grew sour. 'I trust that three-faced papist as much as I'd trust Satan himself.'

Axel shrugged. He tried to make his smile reassuring. Not with any great success, despite his skill as a diplomat.

'The French-Richelieu-have their own pressing reasons to support us, Gustav. They may be Catholics, but they're a lot more worried about Habsburg dynastic ambitions than they are about reestablishing the pope's authority in northern Germany.'

The king was not mollified. 'I know that!' he snapped. 'And so? What Richelieu wants is a long, protracted, destructive war in the Holy Roman Empire. Let half of the Germans die in the business-let them all die! Richelieu does not want us to win, Axel-far from it! He simply wants us to bleed the Austrian Habsburgs. And the Spanish Habsburgs, for that matter.' He scowled ferociously. 'Swedish cannon fodder, working for a French paymaster who doles out the funds like a miser.'

He slammed a heavy fist into a heavy palm. 'I must have more money! I can't get it from Richelieu, and we've already drained the Swedish treasury. That leaves only Holland. They're rich, the Dutch, and they have their own reasons for wanting the Habsburgs broken.'

It was Oxenstierna's lean and aristocratic face which grew heavy now. 'The Dutch Republic,' he muttered sourly.

The king glanced at his friend, and chuckled. 'Oh, Axel! Ever the nobleman!'

Oxenstierna stiffened, a bit, under the gibe. The Oxenstiernas were one of the greatest families of the Swedish nobility, and Axel, for all his suppleness of mind, was firmly wedded to aristocratic principles. Ironically, the only man in Sweden who stood above him, according to that same principle, was considerably more skeptical as to its virtues. Gustav II Adolf, King of Sweden, had spent years fighting the Polish aristocracy before he matched swords with their German counterparts. The experience had left him with a certain savage contempt for 'nobility.' The Poles were valiant in battle, but utterly bestial toward their serfs. The Germans, with some exceptions, lacked even that Polish virtue. Most of them, throughout the long war, had enjoyed the comforts of their palaces and castles while mercenaries did the actual fighting. Paid for, naturally, by taxes extorted from an impoverished, disease-ridden, and half-starved peasantry.

But there was no point in resuming an old dispute with Axel. Gustav had enough problems to deal with, for the moment.

'If Mackay hasn't reported, that means the Dutch courier hasn't reached him yet,' he mused. 'What could have happened?'

Axel snorted. 'Happened? To a courier trying to make it across Germany after thirteen years of war?'

Gustav shook his head impatiently. 'The Dutch will have sent a Jew,' he pointed out. 'They'll have provided him with letters of safe-conduct. And Ferdinand has made his own decrees concerning the treatment of Jews in the Holy Roman Empire. He doesn't want them frightened off, while he needs their money.'

Oxenstierna shrugged. 'Even so, a thousand things could have happened. Tilly's men are rampaging through the area already. They don't work for the emperor. Not directly, at least. What do those mercenaries care about Ferdinand's decrees, if a band of them catch a courier and his treasure? Much less Dutch letters of safe- conduct.'

The king scowled, but he did not argue the point. He knew Axel was most likely right. Germany was a witches' sabbath today. Any crime was not only possible, or probable-it had already happened, times beyond counting.

Gustav sighed. He laced thick fingers together, inverted his hands, and cracked the knuckles. 'I worry sometimes, Axel. I worry.' He turned his head, fixing blue eyes on brown. 'I worship a merciful God. Why would He permit such a catastrophe as this war? I fear we have committed terrible sins, to bring such punishment. And when I look about me, at the state of the kingdoms and the principalities, I think I can even name the sin. Pride, Axel. Overweening, unrestrained arrogance. Nobility purely of the flesh, not the spirit.'

Oxenstierna did not try to respond. In truth, he did not want to. Axel Oxenstierna, chancellor of Sweden, was eleven years older than his king. Older-and often, he thought, wiser. But that same wisdom had long ago led the man to certain firm conclusions.

The first of those conclusions was that Gustav II Adolf was, quite probably, the greatest monarch ever produced by the people of Scandinavia.

The other, was that he was almost certainly their greatest soul.

So, where the chancellor might have argued with the king, the man would not argue with that soul. Oxenstierna simply bowed his head. 'As you say, my lord,' was his only reply.

Gustav acknowledged the fealty with his own nod. 'And now, my friend,' he said softly, 'I need to be alone for a time.' Regal power was fading from his face. Anguish was returning to take its place.

'It was not your fault, Gustav,' hissed Oxenstierna. 'There was nothing you could do.'

But the king was not listening. He was deaf to all reason and argument, now.

Still, Axel tried: 'Nothing! Your promise to the people of Magdeburg was made in good faith, Gustav. It was our so-called 'allies' who were at fault. George William of Brandenburg wouldn't support you, and John George of Saxony barred the way. How could you-?'

He fell silent. Hopeless. The human reality which the warrior king had put aside, for a time, was flooding into the man himself.

The huge, powerful figure standing in the center of the tent seemed to break in half. An instant later, Gustav Adolf was on his knees, head bent, hands clasped in prayer. His knuckles were white, the hands themselves atremble.

The chancellor sighed, and turned away. The king of Sweden was gone, for a time. For many hours, Axel knew. Many hours, spent praying for the souls of Magdeburg. Oxenstierna did not doubt that if his friend Gustav knew the names of the tens of thousands who had been slaughtered in that demon place, that he would have commended each and every one of them to the keeping of his Lord. Remembering, all the while, the letters they had sent to him, begging for deliverance.