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and socially-conscious noblemen and gentry figures who felt that government should, among other things, look out for the needs of the common people. They weren't actually all that fond of unbridled capitalism, which Quentin thinks will solve all problems. Rather the opposite, in fact.'

He pursed his lips. 'Uriel once told me he thought the best translation of what 'cameralism' meant into modern political concepts-as near as he could figure it out- would be something like 'aristocratic municipal socialism.' Or 'social democracy,' at least, to use the more appropriate European term. Think of it as a mix and match between noblesse oblige, Teddy Roosevelt's progressives, and Milwaukee-style 'sewer socialism.' For guys like Wilhelm, the notion of 'deregulation' ranks right up there with fornication and adultery and worshipping graven idols.'

Frank's eyes were almost bulging. 'Socialism?!' he choked. 'Quentin Underwood?'

James Nichols entered the room, then, talking as he came through the door. 'Okay, Mike, it's set. Stoner's starting to get the stuff packed up and Anne Jefferson's volunteered to lead the medical side of the mission to Amsterdam. Sharon'll go to Wismar and-'

He stared at Frank. 'What the hell's so funny?'

Frank, his shoulders heaving, pointed an accusing finger at Mike.

'James, this bastard is a sneaky, conniving, scheming-'

'It's taken you this long to figure that out?' Nichols shook his head sadly. 'Dumb-ass hillbilly. I figured it out within a week after the Ring of Fire.'

He plumped himself onto another chair. ' 'Course, I did have the advantage of a Chicago street education. He's a politician, Frank. For my money, the best one in Europe. I sure as hell hope so, or we're dog meat.'

Chapter 36

'Monsieur L'Admiral et Madame Simpson!' cried out the majordomo, in a tone of voice which somehow managed to be stentorian without actually bellowing hoarsely. As he passed by the man into the huge and crowded ballroom beyond, maintaining a stiff and stately progress with his wife's hand tucked under his arm, John Simpson found himself possessed by a sudden and well-nigh irresistible urge to have the man impressed on the spot and shanghaied into the United States Navy. One of the many discoveries Simpson had made concerning naval service in the 17 th century was that-in a navy without powered phones-a petty officer with leather lungs and a carrying voice was worth his weight in gold.

The notion, he realized dimly, was a reflection of his own nervousness. Simpson hated being nervous, and handled it with such a rigid external pose that the mind beneath was sometimes prone to mad flights of fancy. He could remember entering a stockholders meeting once, followed by the top officers of his corporation, to give a very pessimistic report. Entering the room and seeing the angry and gloomy faces of the stockholders, he'd had to choke down a sudden impulse to turn around, draw his gold-plated pen, and order the vice-president in charge of marketing to commit seppuku with it on the spot.

But… he hadn't. He'd given the report, and weathered the storm which followed, with his usual wooden expression. The same expression had been on his face the next day, when he'd fired the incompetent jerk.

A little tug on his arm distracted him from the memory. 'Why are they announcing us in French?' Mary whispered. 'I didn't think that had become the language of the courts until Louis XIV came along.'

Simpson shrugged. 'No idea.' He listened to the babble of conversation filling the room. 'Most people seem to be talking in German. Of some sort or another. I think. Hard to tell, as many dialects-'

'Monsieur L'Admiral! Et Madame Simpson! Enchantй!'

A very pretty woman in her late twenties or early thirties was advancing toward them, hands outstretched. The beaming smile on her face was echoed in fabric and embroidery by every single item of apparel she was wearing. From the top of her well-coiffed hair to the soles of her expensive-looking slippers, she positively radiated splendor and wealth.

The smile was supple as well as wide, somehow conveying great unexpected pleasure with I realize you have no idea who I am combined with don't worry about it, I'll get us through the awkward part.

Simpson remained stiff and wooden-faced. His wife Mary, on the other hand-one old pro instantly recognizing another-had a smile plastered on her face that was just as wide and just as supple. God knows who this is welded to but I'm sure we'll get along soldered firmly to no sweat, dearie, give me a lob and I'll get the volley started.

A moment later, the unknown woman and Mrs. Simpson were chattering away like magpies. In French, a language Simpson neither spoke nor had ever had any desire to learn. To his wife, French was the language of class and culture. Good taste personified. To Simpson, it was the tongue of a nation whose character-as any proper Pentagon-corridor-man could attest-was the very definition of 'obnoxious' and 'obstreperous.' He'd learned to speak reasonably passable simple German and Dutch in his NATO years. Useful languages, spoken by useful folk.

He felt a hand on his other arm, and swiveled his head. Wilhelm of Saxe-Weimar was smiling up at him.

'Delighted you could come, Admiral,' said Wilhelm in his fluent English. 'If I could tear you away from your wife for a moment… some gentlemen I'd like you to meet.' He gestured in the direction of an archway in the far corner of the huge room. 'Like me, they find the din in here tiresome, so we've sequestered a smaller room for more civilized conversation.'

Before Simpson could even think of a response, Mary was saying: 'By all means, John. You'll be more comfortable there anyway.' The smile plastered on her face was as wide as ever. It would remain so, he knew, for the rest of the evening. Supple as always, of course, the variations would change as quickly as clouds passing through the sky. Right now the smile was radiating thank God I'm in civilized hands standing at attention next to and she's got such a splendid volley with you'll get underfoot, buster saluting smartly and get lost but don't go far holding up the colors.

A moment later, Wilhelm was steering him toward the archway. Again, Simpson had to fight down an almost irrepressible urge. This time, to laugh uproariously. This was not the first time in his life, of course, that he'd seen this same maneuver carried out on the field of social battle. But he couldn't ever recall seeing it handled so surely and effortlessly.

Just before passing through the archway, he turned his head and caught a last glimpse of Mary. By now, there were perhaps half a dozen women in the little group surrounding her. All of them had the same general aura of wealth and position, though their ages and appearance varied widely. Two of them seemed to be as old as Mary, late middle age. It was, as always, difficult to tell. Even for noblewomen, the 17 th century was a heavy burden. Simpson wouldn't be surprised if they were ten years younger than his wife.

But he wasn't paying much attention to them, in truth. He was just immensely relieved to see that, for the first time since the Ring of Fire had shattered their well- ordered universe, Mary Simpson actually seemed to be enjoying herself.

An hour later, Simpson was not feeling so cheerful. The small group of men gathered in a small salon in the palace, so much was quickly obvious, were the inner circle of what Simpson could easily recognize from past experience constituted a faction of some kind. And, since his German had become rather good over the past two years, if not fluent, he was able to follow the conversation easily enough. The more so once the men apparently decided he was 'safe and acceptable'-several of them had obviously been surprised to learn that he spoke any German at all-and began unbending a little and speaking more frankly in his presence.

There was even something mildly amusing about their increasing relaxation. Some of it, he suspected, was because they assumed the particular dialect most of them favored would be rather opaque to the stranger in their midst. As it happened, however, Simpson's NATO years had left him with an odd combination of half-remembered Dutch as well as German. And the dialect these German noblemen were speaking was riddled with expressions and phrasings which seemed very 'Dutch-like' to him.

That was enough to bring the picture into focus. To some degree, at least. Simpson made a stern resolve to pay more attention to what his assistant Dietrich Schwanhausser had been telling him about the internal politics of Germany. He hadn't really done so in the past, partly because of his own preoccupation with the ironclad project, but mostly because he found the subject infuriatingly complex and intricate. Accustomed as he was to the comparative logic and rationality of late 20 th - and early 21 st -century government administration, Simpson found the traditions left over from feudalism utterly bizarre. 'Quaint' was the polite way to put it. As far as he was concerned, 'idiotic' was more accurate.

The Holy Roman Empire had been a political mare's nest to begin with. Since Gustav Adolf had sundered away a good portion of it from Ferdinand II of Austria to form his Confederated Principalities of Europe, the situation had-if anything-gotten even worse. As if a bowl of spaghetti had had a heavy layer of Swedish cheese melted over it.

This much Simpson did know:

The Holy Roman Empire's nobility, the 'Adel' as it was called, was basically separated into two major classes. At the top were the Hochadel. The Hochadel were also known as the 'territorial princes,' because they were the ones who had a seat in the Holy Roman Empire's Reichstag and, in theory, dealt directly with the emperor himself. They also had jurisdictional rights over their subjects, since they ran the law courts. It was in this class of noblemen that one found the electors, prince-bishops, prince-abbots, counts, margraves, landgraves, and the like. Despite their legal equality, however, their actual power varied enormously-from the ones as large as John George of Saxony with a million subjects down to a reichsritter with one village.

When Gustav Adolf formed the CPE, he had simply transferred their status to the new Chamber of Princes. He had also transferred with it their debts to the Holy Roman Empire-which were considerable, because it had been this class of noblemen whom Ferdinand II had squeezed ruthlessly to pay for his wars.

The rest of the German nobility were called Niederadel, and had at least one layer of the territorial nobility standing between them and the emperor. But all of them, no matter how petty their actual power and wealth might be, were officially classified as being one of the Adel, or nobility. Taken as a whole, Dietrich had told Simpson, the Adel constituted perhaps one out of a hundred of Germany's population-a much higher percentage than the small English aristocracy constituted of that island's population.

Perhaps most critical, at least from the standpoint of taxation and government revenue, was the fact that any nobleman was exempt from taxation. And while the Adel constituted only one percent of the population, they controlled perhaps a third of Germany's land. Which removed from the tax rolls a disproportionate share of potential government income-and threw an extra burden on both the commoners at the bottom and the territorial princes themselves, who, come what might, were the ones whom the emperor was going to squeeze when he needed money.

It was even more tortuous than that, because the tax exemption applied to the property itself, not the individual landholder. Over the centuries, as tax-exempt properties passed from one set of hands to another, Germany had become a crazy quilt of tax exemptions. From what Simpson could determine, the situation was roughly analogous to what might have happened in the United States if all taxes owed to the federal government had been the responsibility of the state governors to collect-but