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 Ostergotlanders. 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 Ostergotland 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 Hard af Segerstad.'
He commanded the Vastergotland 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.
Chapter 30
Baghdad Uzun Hussein looked expectantly toward the platform that had been erected the day before. A few moments ago a brace of horsemen had appeared, and fanned out around it. This suggested that the speech they had been assembled to hear was about to commence. Ordinarily, Hussein didn't have much interest in speeches, even when given by sultans. He had been a janissary long enough to see three sultans come and go before this one. He would fight whoever he was told to fight without much caring about the reason, so long as his pay came regularly.
But he would listen to the Sultan Murad. The young padishah had won him over with his courage on this campaign, as he had most of the janissaries. Besides, the rumor was that the sultan was coming to tell them they were going back to the City. That was worth listening to, whoever said it. There was no place in the world that compared to Istanbul.
Not even Baghdad, the fabled city they had just conquered. Uzun could see Baghdad from where they were assembled, just across the great river. He could see many of the towers that guarded the city from here. Not all, of course. You probably couldn't see all of those towers from any one place. He'd been told by one of the sultan's lagimci-military engineers, mostly miners and sappers-that there were two hundred and eleven towers on the city walls.
As impressive as they were, though, even the towers were dwarfed by the mighty walls. Twenty-five yards high, in most places, and ten yards wide at the base. Uzun had walked along a stretch of those walls after the city was taken, marveling at the cunning design. Each tower was separated from its neighbor by more than a hundred paces, with a crenel every two and a half paces. More than ten thousand embrasures in all, according to the lagimci.
But that very design had perhaps been the city's downfall. Baghdad should have been held by an immense army, one that could match its walls. Instead, the sultan's surprise march on Baghdad had caught the Safavid heretics off balance. There had only been a relatively small force defending the city, who couldn't keep up the defenses well enough.
Even then, it had taken several weeks to seize Baghdad. Heretics though they might be, no one claimed Persians couldn't fight.
The sultan appeared on the platform. Hussein looked up at him with approval. Murad looked like a sultan should look, tall and strong. And when he spoke, he got right to the point.
'My wolves, you have shown the redheads what happens when they fight the followers of the true faith!'
