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the price.'

Suddenly, Hans shot to his feet and stood at attention. 'I am at your command, sir!' Immediately, the other trainee pilots followed his lead.

Mike smiled at them. 'Good enough. The first thing you're going to do-right now-is be the stars in a parade.'

Jesse was back to scowling. Mike transferred the smile to him. 'A grouch, like I said. Don't be shortsighted yourself, Jesse. Me, I think Richelieu just goofed. And I intend to prove it by swiping a bit from French history.'

'What are you talking about?' gruffed Jesse. 'What I know about French history…'

Frank snorted. 'You have heard about something called 'the French revolution,' I hope.'

'Well. Sure. What's that-'

'What blew it wide open was when the surrounding powers of Europe invaded France. Pissed the average Frenchman off right proper, that did. And so before you knew it the volunteer columns of the revolutionary army were forming up, and… the world was never the same afterward. War stopped being something princes and mercenaries fought on top of the bodies of helpless civilians. The civilians became citizens, you see. With their own kind of army.'

Frank was grinning again. 'Hell, Jesse, I even learned the tune. Allons enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire-'

Everybody in the room winced. Jesse shot to his feet. 'Enough! Enough! Even a damn parade beats listening to you trying to sing!'

By the time the parade was over, late in the afternoon, Jesse was willing to concede that Mike had been right. Truth to tell, he was beginning to suspect that Mike Stearns had the makings of a great politician-or, at least, a great politician for the times. Even, maybe-though the word made Jesse uncomfortable-a 'statesman.'

Mike too, he knew, was thinking in the long run. A war, in itself, is just a war. History recorded thousands of them, all but a relative handful forgotten by anyone except scholars. Every now and then, though, a war became something else.

The crucible of a nation. The forge on which a new society was hammered.

Listening to the chants and slogans which thundered throughout the streets of Grantville that day, Jesse realized he was hearing the hammer blows of that forging. The town was packed, with people pouring in by the minute from the surrounding countryside. He'd seen at least four places where the Committees of Correspondence had set up impromptu enlistment booths, recruiting people into volunteer regiments. Every one of the booths had a long line of young men standing patiently before it. Almost all of them, young Germans-and almost all of those, German commoners. The sons of farmers and artisans-paupers, too-now signing up to engage in an enterprise which, for their society, had always been the business of kings and nobles and mercenaries.

Lambs, deciding they were lions. Choosing to be lions.

Not simply civilians. Not even simply civilians who were allowed to vote.

Citizens.

There had been many slogans chanted that day. But, always, one slogan rose over the rest whenever Jesse and his little crew of fledgling pilots rode by the crowd in the pickups which had been commandeered for the purpose.

Der Adler! Und seine Falken! The Eagle, and his Hawks.

'Oh, Jesse,' Kathy whispered into his ear at one point, hugging him tightly. 'I'm so proud of you. They think they can do anything, now. That's because you showed them they could even fly.'

Chapter 24

Momma hadn't wanted her to come.

Kristina wasn't entirely sure why that was. On the other hand, there were a lot of things she didn't understand about Momma. Not that Kristina didn't love her mother. But there were times when Momma seemed just a little… odd. She seemed to change her mind a lot. And it was important to her that people appreciated her-and told her so.

Kristina was only seven years old-well, almost eight-but it seemed to her that some of the people who kept telling Momma how much they appreciated her wanted things from her. Usually things Poppa and Chancellor Oxenstierna wouldn't give them… or let Momma give them. Which could make things around the palace very uncomfortable.

Things were especially uncomfortable in the palace just now. Everyone seemed very upset and worried about the Danes and the French. Kristina knew where France was, of course. She loved maps. And she knew all about that awful old Richelieu, who ran France instead of the French king. But only a year or so before, Richelieu had been Poppa's friend. Now, he was an enemy.

It was all very confusing. She understood why King Christian was an enemy. Danes were nasty. They wanted to keep Sweden penned up in the Gulf of Finland while they had the Baltic all to themselves. Which was ugly and greedy of them. Especially since the Baltic belonged to Poppa, exactly as it would someday belong to Kristina. So, of course, King Christian was going to do whatever he could to hurt Poppa. But just why Richelieu would help him was something Kristina was still working on figuring out.

It would have helped if someone would explain it to her. People ought to explain things to her. After all, she was the crown princess of Sweden. Someday, she would be queen, too. But except for Poppa, and sometimes her tutors (who were usually so boring about it all), people very seldom explained to her. They didn't care that she was a princess; they just treated her as if she were a baby who couldn't understand anything. Which was really, really unfair of them, because how was she supposed to understand things if no one bothered to explain them to her in the first place?

That was one of the reasons she was so happy that she was going to Magdeburg, whatever Momma thought about it. Poppa had made Magdeburg his new capital, which meant she would finally get to see him sometimes. Poppa was the most wonderful man in the world. Everybody in Stockholm said so, and even if they hadn't, Kristina thought he was the most wonderful man in the world. But he was always so busy, always off fighting the bad people. The Poles, the Russians, the Danes, the Spanish, the Germans-some of them, anyway; the good Germans were on Poppa's side-and now the Danes (and the French) all over again. He beat them all, of course. But because he had to spend so much time doing that, Kristina had never really gotten to spend very much time with him. So she was looking forward to changing that.

On top of that, it was September. It wouldn't be very long before the snow began, and they got a lot of snow in Stockholm. It wasn't that Kristina didn't like snow. It was just that once the snow began, it stayed so long. From what her tutors had told her, Magdeburg wouldn't get snowed on as much as Stockholm did.

But most exciting of all to Kristina, Magdeburg had Americans in it. Real Americans. Americans from the future, not just from Germany. Kristina had heard all sorts of wonderful tales about the Americans and their machines. Some of them, she suspected, were the sort of made-up stories people told to little girls because they expected little girls to believe anything. But it even half of them were true…

She stood on the deck of the forty-gun Margaret as the warship glided further into Wismar Harbor. Sailors hurried about the decks and swarmed up the rigging as they furled the sails. The ship slowed even more, barely moving forward at all, and then the anchor splashed into the water and disappeared. The anchor cable streamed out after it, and then, a moment later, Margaret gave a tiny shiver as the cable went taut and snubbed away the last of her movement.

Kristina wanted to dash to the rail and stare curiously at the shore. But she was a princess, and princesses (as Momma had explained to her at great length) didn't go running around gawking at things like some ill-bred peasant. So Kristina made herself stand still on the poop deck beside Lady Ulrike, her governess. Lady Ulrike had a tiresome habit of agreeing with Momma about things like running to see what was happening. Actually, Kristina was pretty sure that that was the reason Momma had wanted Lady Ulrike as her governess, and she wondered if there were some way she could convince Poppa to pick someone else. Momma wouldn't like that, of course, but Poppa was the only person Kristina knew who was perfectly willing to tell Momma to do things his way. Of course, Poppa was very brave. Everyone said so.

Kristina smiled to herself at the thought even as she tucked her hands primly and properly into her fur muff. It was cool enough out here on the water to make her genuinely grateful for the muff's warmth, but mostly she did it to keep Lady Ulrike happy and avoid any words like 'hoyden.'

The sailors were running around doing all sorts of mysterious sailor things. Some of them were coiling ropes neatly, others were scampering about in the rigging, tying the folded-up sails to the yards. But some of them were also bringing Kristina and Lady Ulrike's baggage up on deck, and Kristina saw a big rowboat coming across the harbor toward Margaret.

It didn't take the boat long to reach Margaret. A man in a leather coat and cavalry boots, with a sword at his side, climbed up the wooden battens fastened to the ship's side. He nodded at Margaret's captain, but he also walked straight across to Kristina.

'Your Highness,' he said, bowing gravely to her. 'Welcome to Wismar. I am Colonel Ekstrom. Your father, the king, has instructed me to escort you to join him at Magdeburg.'

Colonel Ekstrom had a big nose, almost as strong as Poppa's (or Kristina's, for that matter), and a thick, closely trimmed brown beard. And he had nice eyes, Kristina decided. They looked very serious at the moment, but there was a twinkle hiding somewhere down in their gray depths.

'Thank you, Colonel,' she told him politely.

'No thanks are necessary, Your Highness,' Colonel Ekstrom assured her. 'It will be my pleasure. Unfortunately,' he looked across at Lady Ulrike, and the twinkle Kristina had thought she'd seen in his eyes disappeared completely, 'it will be necessary for us to begin our journey immediately.'

Lady Ulrike's face tightened the way it did whenever Kristina did something naughty. She opened her mouth as if she were going to say something, but then she closed it again and simply nodded. Kristina recognized that nod. It was the sort of nod grown-ups used when they didn't want to talk about something in front of children. Usually something interesting.

'If you would see to stowing the princess's baggage in my boat, Captain,' Colonel Ekstrom continued, turning back to Margaret's captain, who had followed him across the deck, 'we can be on our way now.'

Kristina decided that she was in favor of whatever was obviously worrying the adults about her. Well, maybe not actually in favor of it, because it was pretty clear that Colonel Ekstrom and Lady Ulrike were really worried about whatever it was they were carefully not discussing in front of her. But whatever it was, it couldn't be all bad from Kristina's viewpoint, because no one was making her ride in a carriage. Kristina hated carriages. They were stuffy, and uncomfortable. Even on a good road, they bounced and jounced whenever they weren't actively swaying, and most of the time they made Kristina sick to her stomach. And, of course, there were very few good roads. Certainly, the one they were on today was a terrible one. She was pretty sure she would already have been throwing up if they'd made her ride over it in a carriage, but they hadn't. Instead, they had provided her with a horse. A wonderful horse Poppa had captured from the Austrians just for her!

Kristina loved horses, and they liked her. She was just as happy Momma wasn't here to see this one, though. Momma worried. Momma hadn't wanted Kristina to stop