1633

'Expand on that, if you would.' For all the mildness of the words, it was a royal command.

Young Thierbach did not bridle. A fact which was also interesting. Most hotheaded youngsters would have, in Gustav's experience.

'The differences between Gretchen and me are not so much differences of opinion, Your Majesty-certainly not differences over principles-as they are simply the natural differences which derive from our differing activities. Gretchen is…' He didn't seem to be groping for words so much as simply trying to find the most precise. 'Call her our 'guiding spirit,' if you will. She is fearless, bold-the one who will always lead the charge into the breach.'

Gustav nodded. He'd met the young woman-and the first time, while she was standing with a smoking pistol over the bodies of Croat cavalrymen in the service of the Habsburg emperor. Some of whom she'd slain personally.

Joachim smiled, adjusted his glasses, and ran fingers over his balding forehead. 'I like to think I would not flinch at that breach myself, you understand. But I'm hardly cut from the same cloth. I am more of what you might call the organizer of our Committees. The one who comes behind and makes sure that the fearless ones in front don't fall over in a faint from lack of food.' The smile widened. 'The Americans have a crude expression for it. They abbreviate it as 'REMF.' '

Gustav grinned. Oxenstierna laughed outright. For all his snobbery, the chancellor was not a prig-and he'd led troops himself in battle. 'Rear echelon motherfuckers,' he chuckled. He glanced sidelong at his monarch and added: 'Which is the role Gustavus Adolphus usually bestows on me, you know.'

Oxenstierna's eyes moved back to the young political radical at the table, and, for the first time, Gustav saw something beyond blank incomprehension and veiled disdain in that gaze.

Thank God. I could use your intelligence for a change, Axel. Your prejudices are no good to me at all.

'Please continue,' said the chancellor. For a wonder, the tone was as polite as the words themselves.

'The point I'm trying to make is simply that Gretchen, because of her position at the front, often ignores what you might call the political logistics of the campaign.' Joachim's face seemed suddenly that of a much older man. 'I am not oblivious, King and Chancellor, to the cost of a revolution as well as its benefits. I've studied the same history books the Americans brought with them-as I'm sure you have. And while those books played a great role in leading me to the conclusions which I have reached, they have also-more than they did with Gretchen, perhaps-cautioned me about the possible dangers. So, personally, I would prefer a slower campaign.'

The owlish gaze was back-and, this time, very much that of a raptor. 'Sieges can be won in many ways, after all. A furious battle at the breach, followed by a sack, is only one of them-and not, all things considered, usually the ideal resolution.'

Gustav II Adolf, king of Sweden, emperor of the Confederated Principalities of Europe, returned the raptor gaze with one of his own. Given that he was almost universally acknowledged as the greatest soldier of his time, it was an impressive stare. The great beak of a nose helped, of course.

Still, the young owl did not flinch from the eyes of the eagle in his prime. For some odd reason, Gustav found that reassuring.

'True,' he said abruptly. 'I've fought and won many sieges, you know-more, perhaps, than any man of my time. The best way to resolve a siege is for the defenders to surrender. And, in my experience, that's always helped greatly if they are allowed to surrender with honor and dignity, and march out of the town still carrying their colors and arms. Best of all, if they then take service in your own ranks.'

Finally, Thierbach seemed to be what he was-a very young man, confronting an older and much more powerful one. His expression was… not abashed, no, not even nervous-but perhaps a bit uncertain.

'So I believe also,' he said softly. 'I have no love for bloodshed, Your Majesty. Neither does Gretchen, for that matter, whatever others might think.'

A very young man, now. His eyes were worried. 'How is she, by the way? Have you heard anything?' He made a little gesture toward the crowd of people in the room. 'We're all worried about her. Things in France seem… not good.'

Gustav barked a laugh. 'Isn't that why you sent her there in the first place? 'Not good,' indeed! The perfect place for a trouble-maker.'

Joachim managed a smile, but the worry was still evident.

The king waved his hand heavily. 'I have not heard anything, no. But-'

Afterward, Axel would chide and scold him. For hours, and days, dribbling on into weeks and months. But Gustavus Adolphus had always been a decisive man. Convinced, since he was sixteen, a teenage prince leading his father's troops in the capture of a Danish fortress, that hesitation lost far more battles-and wars-than mistakes ever did.

'Done,' he said firmly. 'Whatever I can do to help your firebrand lady, if it proves necessary, I will do. You have my word on it. For my part-if it proves necessary-I will expect your full support against my own enemies. Things in France, as you say, do not look good.'

'Richelieu,' hissed Joachim. Gustav was gratified to hear the hiss echoed throughout the room.

The young radical straightened. 'Richelieu, the Habsburgs-all that carrion-against them, Your Highness, the Committees of Correspondence stand firmly at your side.'

Again, the murmur rippling through the crowd indicated that young Thierbach spoke for all of them. Gustav nodded his head.

'Good. And now, before I leave, is there anything further you wish to discuss?'

Joachim studied him with those solemn, owlish eyes. Then, a bit abruptly: ' 'Discuss' is not perhaps the right term, Your Majesty. 'Illustrate a point,' might be better.'

He swiveled in his chair and pointed to one of the young men standing toward the front of the crowd. A stripling, perhaps seventeen years old, short and skinny. 'That's Friedrich Gulda. He comes from Mecklenburg. He's an orphan now. Has been for five years, since Wallenstein passed through the area. He managed to hide in the fields while his family was destroyed. He was there for hours, listening to it all. Wallenstein's soldiers took their time about it.'

He allowed Gustav Adolf and Oxenstierna to flesh out in their own minds the details concerning what 'took their time about it' meant. Being very experienced soldiers, neither of them had any difficulty doing so. Joachim's finger moved on.

'That girl is Hannelore. She's sixteen years old. She's from Brandenburg. A similar story, except her older brother survived also and their people were killed by Danish troops. They think, at least. Might have been some of Mansfeld's men. Who knows? To commoners, especially peasants, mercenary armies are hard to tell apart.'

Gustav Adolf's jaws tightened. Hard to tell apart for their own supposed 'commanders,' too. Not the least of the reasons I agreed with Stearns' proposal. Or Simpson's, as I think it really emerged.

The finger moved on, centering on a hard-faced man in his mid-twenties. The expression on the man's face was… implacable.

'That's her older brother, in fact. Gunther Achterhof.' Joachim's lips twisted. 'When Gunther first arrived here he had some ears and noses wrapped up in a cloth. Horrid withered things. It took me a week to convince him to throw them away. Fortunately, he'd already thrown away the private parts.'

He gave king and chancellor a glance which was every bit as hard as Achterhof's face. 'He and his cousin and some neighbors, you see, caught two of the soldiers afterward. Stragglers. Probably not the soldiers who murdered his family, but Gunther doesn't care much. Not at all, in fact. A mercenary soldier is a mercenary soldier. And…'

If anything, Joachim's face was now even harder than Achterhof's. 'As far as he's concerned, the prince who hired the soldier is simply another prince. Gunther Achterhof is no longer interested very much-if at all-in making fine distinctions. Neither is his cousin Ludwig, who is the tall man standing over there in the corner.'

The inexorable finger moved on. 'That red-headed man is Franz Heidbreder. He comes from Mecklenburg also. Most of his family survived, fortunately. In fact'-the finger slid sidewise-'that's his brother Friedrich and over there are his cousins Moritz and Agnes. Their farms were destroyed three years ago when your own Swedish army arrived in Germany. All the sheep were requisitioned, along with just about everything else. True, they were paid for the sheep. But you have debased your currency so many times that Swedish coin isn't accepted by most merchants.'

Gustav's heavy jaws tightened still further, but he did not argue the point. He had debased his currency, trying to cover the huge expenses of his expedition to Germany.

Softly, but in a tone as unyielding as granite, Joachim continued. 'Franz's mother died that first winter, from disease brought on by hunger. His youngest brother died in the spring. After the whole family left Mecklenburg to try to find shelter elsewhere, one of his cousins and an aunt died on the road. Again, disease; again, because they were weakened by hunger and had no shelter. When Franz found his aunt's body, she had a handful of grass stuffed in her mouth. At the end, apparently, she tried to eat it.'

By now, Oxenstierna's face was pinched. Gustav's was simply impassive. The chancellor began to say something but the king laid a firm hand on his arm.

Meanwhile, Joachim's finger had moved on. The young Saxon nobleman's face seemed to soften a bit. 'That girl there is Mathilde Wiegert. She was the one who introduced me to Gretchen Richter, as it happens. She's from the Palatinate, also driven into exile when the war struck. I met Mathilde herself when I was a student at Jena. She and her cousin Inga had become prostitutes by then, in order to support themselves and the younger girls with them.'

The pretty young woman named Mathilde gave Gustav Adolf a little smile. Hers was the only smiling face in the room. But the king understood that the smile was not really directed at him. It was directed at the young man who was giving the king a none-too-subtle 'illustration.'

Joachim swiveled back in his chair, to face Gustav and Oxenstierna squarely. 'As it happens, also, Mathilde is the immediate cause of my estrangement from my family. My noble father had no objection at all to my having mounted a commoner prostitute-in fact, he encouraged me to do so as part of my education-but he was outraged when I told him I plan to marry her once the laws have been changed here in Magdeburg to match the laws of the United States.'

Once the laws have been changed. Not if. There, too, was a point being made.

'Such is the piety of aristocracy, King and Chancellor. Such is what-nothing more-all of your fine distinctions between Lutheran and Calvinist and Catholic come to in the end. Which nobleman gets to plunder and abuse which commoner at his convenience.'

'Enough!' barked Oxenstierna.

A little growl rumbled through the cavernous room. Joachim fixed Oxenstierna with a stony gaze. 'Yes, indeed, Chancellor. Precisely my point. Enough.'

Oxenstierna started to rise, angrily. But Gustav's hand, this time, was more than 'firm.' The king of Sweden was an immensely powerful man. He simply seized Oxenstierna by the shoulder and drove him back down into his chair.

'You will listen to my people, Chancellor,' he hissed. 'I will not lose my dynasty because of the folly of nobility.' He gave Oxenstierna his own version of a stony gaze; which, if it had none of the fervor of Joachim's, made up for the lack by sheer self-confidence. 'Vasa. Do not forget.'

He turned back to Joachim, sensing the crowd settling down a bit. For a moment, the king and the revolutionary studied each other. Then Gustav Adolf nodded, and came to another decision. It would not be the first time, after all, that the king of Sweden had found it necessary to burn a bridge while on campaign. Some of those bridges had been behind him.