"They have, sir? That's great!" Eddie grinned broadly.
"Indeed they have. Number One will be Constitution. Number Two will be United States. Number Three will be President, and Number Four will be Monitor. I trust this meets with your approval?"
"Oh, yeah!" Eddie said exuberantly. Then he shook himself. "I mean, it certainly does, sir."
"I am delighted to hear it," Simpson said dryly. "Dismissed, gentlemen."
Chapter 5
"I have it!" Gustav Adolf suddenly exclaimed. "Let's pay them a visit!"
Standing next to him at the open window of the new palace overlooking the heart of Magdeburg, Axel Oxenstierna's eyes widened. He was staring at one of the new buildings which had been recently erected in the city. More precisely, he was glaring rather than simply staring; and doing so at the peculiar ornamentation of the building rather than the building itself.
The fact that the ornamentation was even newer than the building was not the cause of the Swedish chancellor's irritation. Almost every edifice in Magdeburg was new, or largely so. Two years earlier, in the single worst atrocity of a long war filled with atrocities, Tilly's Bavarian soldiers had sacked the city. Most of the inhabitants had been slaughtered-some twenty to thirty thousand people, depending on who told the story-and Magdeburg itself put to the torch. Between the damage caused by the siege and the sack, there had not been much left standing intact when Tilly's army withdrew.
For months now, starting with Gustav Adolf's decision the previous autumn to make Magdeburg the capital of his new imperial realm called the Confederated Principalities of Europe, Magdeburg had been a beehive of activity. No one knew the size of the population, but Oxenstierna was certain it had already exceeded thirty thousand. People from all over central Germany-even beyond-were practically pouring into the city to take advantage of its prospects. New construction was going up everywhere, and of all kinds. New residences, of course-as well as the emperor's new palace in which Oxenstierna was standing. But also, along the banks of the river Elbe, the somewhat bizarre-looking new factories which Gustav's American subjects had designed. From where he stood, Axel could see the naval works where John Simpson and his men were building the new ironclad riverboats.
"Subjects," thought Oxenstierna sourly. Like calling a wolf a "pet" because-for the moment-the wild beast has agreed to wear a collar. With a string for a leash, and no muzzle.
"You must be joking," he growled. "Gustav, you can't be serious."
He twisted his head to look up at his ruler. Gustav II Adolf-Gustavus Adolphus, in the Latinized version of his name-had a personal size and stature to match his official one. The king of Sweden and emperor of the Confederated Principalities of Europe was a huge man. Standing more than six feet tall, he was wide in proportion and very muscular. The layers of fat which inevitably came to him whenever the king was not engaged in strenuous campaigning only added gravity to his figure.
"You must be joking," repeated the chancellor, more in a half-plea now than a growl.
Gustav shrugged. "Why should I be joking?" He lowered his heavy face, crowned with short blond hair and framed with a thick mustache and a goatee. The powerful beak of a nose seemed aimed at the offending structure below.
"They are my subjects, Axel, even if-" A little chuckle rumbled. "I admit, the rascals seem to wear their subordination lightly. But I remind you that not once-not once, Axel-have they done anything openly rebellious."
"Not openly, no," admitted the chancellor. Sourly, he studied the peculiar twin arches adorning the far-distant building. The arches had been painted a bright gold, which made them stand out amidst the gray buildings which surrounded them. All the more gray, in that most of those buildings were factories.
The color annoyed Oxenstierna perhaps more than anything else. Partly because its vividness, against the backdrop of the drab new factories and workshops, served to accentuate the awkward fact that these cursed Committees of Correspondence almost invariably found a receptive audience among the new class of workmen which was rapidly arising in central Germany. Nowhere more so than in Magdeburg.
But, mostly, he was annoyed because gold paint was expensive.
The implications were disturbing to Oxenstierna. It was one thing for a realm to have a layer of its population filled with unrest and radical notions. There was nothing unusual in that. For two centuries, Europe had been plagued with periodic eruptions of mass discontent-even rebellion. The Comuneros had shaken even Charles V's Spanish kingdom to its foundations-the Dutch had thrown the Habsburgs out completely-and Germany itself had been convulsed, a century earlier, by the great Peasant War and the Anabaptist seizure of Mьnster. Even Sweden had had its share of domestic turbulence, now and then, such as the rebellion led by Nils Dacke a hundred years earlier.
But, for the most part, the rebellions had been easy enough to suppress. The rebels, as a rule, were a motley assortment of poor peasants and townsmen, many of them outright vagabonds, "led"-if such a term could be used at all-by a sprinkling of the lowest layers of the nobility. Poorly educated, as much in the realities of politics as anything else, with not much in the way of any guiding principles beyond extremist theology and sullen resentment at the exactions of the mighty. However large the "armies" such rebels could field-the peasants of central and southern Germany had put as many as 150,000 men into the fighting, at one time or another-properly led and organized regular armies could usually crush them within a year or two. Except for the Dutch, who enjoyed special advantages, none of the rebellions in Europe had lasted for very long.
This… was something different. The very fact that the Committees of Correspondence could always manage to raise enough money from their adherents to afford gold paint was a small, but vivid, indication of it.
"Curse that damn woman," Axel muttered. "I sometimes think…"
"Do not say it," commanded the king. "Do not, Axel. Not in my presence, not in anyone's." Gustav swiveled his head, bringing the predator's beak to bear on his chancellor. "I am not that English king-Henry the Second, wasn't it?-who is reputed to have said: 'will no one rid me of this priest?' "
The head swiveled back, resuming its scrutiny of the golden arches. "Besides, you worry too much. The very thing that frightens you the most about Gretchen Richter and her malcontents is actually the thing which reassures me. Those people are not ignorant villagers, Axel, never think it. I've read their pamphlets and their broadsides. So have you, for that matter. Very thoughtful and learned, they are, for all the shrillness of their tone. And do they ever name me as their enemy?"
Oxenstierna tightened his jaws. "No," he admitted grudgingly. "Not yet, at any rate. But I've met the woman-so have you-and if you think for a moment she wouldn't just as soon-"
"Can you blame her?" grunted Gustav. "Tell me, nobleman-had you undergone her personal history, would you be filled with respect and admiration for your so-called 'betters'?"
Again, the swiveling beak. Accompanied, this time, by a laugh rather than a frown. "I think not! You would do well to remember, Chancellor, that the simple fact that a man-or woman-who has a grievance is of low birth does not make the grievance illegitimate. Nor-"
The frown returned. "Nor should you forget that God does not carry these distinctions all that far. Certainly not into Heaven, whatever He may decree on this earth."