“I’ve brought someone who has news of other lands. Worse news.”
This time it was Kristina who felt the need to whisper. “Worse than Denmark taking over Sweden?”
“There’s so much more to take over.”
“As I said, can’t you tell me about it now?”
“As I said, more things are happening than Your Majesty knows. The information my guest has discovered is even more dangerous than anything I’ve said tonight.”
“Who needs so badly to talk to me?”
“The colonial governor of Nova Dania. The daughter of Jens Munk.”
Dawn, July 20 (Julian), 1651
Stockholm archipelago
As she paddled her way between the thousands of little islands that lay between Stockholm and the sea, Leonora was thinking of the enclosed space where she’d spent the past weeks and where Kathrine Munk was still waiting for the signal that it was safe to go out. Kathrine had been living inside a stolen submarine since the start of the year, traveling undetected to all corners of the world while her siblings ran the Munkhaven settlement at Hudson Bay, the same place that had almost killed her father three decades before. She’d needed their help with that arrangement while she gathered the evidence to unmask the scale of Denmark’s operations and the risk they posed for all nations. With Catholic Europe firmly in the grip of superstition, Kristina was the only ruler clear-headed enough to understand their report of what was happening and powerful enough to do something about it.
Leonora’s rowboat reached their rendezvous point between three unpopulated islets of the unimaginably vast and intricate archipelago where Stockholm was all but hidden. She extended a hand to tap six times at a metallic object sculpted and painted to look like the bloated corpse of a seagull. It not only showed the submarine’s position, but also kept its occupants alive. At full capacity, a submarine of the Danish Secret Navy was able to maintain thirty rowers for two months before needing to resurface for clean water; human waste could be released directly into the sea via two airtight doors, whose design had required rapid advancement in the techniques of sealing wooden surfaces with tar. Procuring food was as easy as fishing; air, however, was still an unsolved problem. By heating saltpeter, as taught by the alchemist Sendivogius, Drebbel had found a way to replenish a few hours of life-giving air for a small vessel, but ships of the size that Christian wanted to use in war would have needed such large amounts of saltpeter that the furnaces would have ended up consuming the very substance they were trying to obtain. Instead, a system had been devised whereby an extendable pipe was raised to the surface and allowed to stay open for a few minutes. Its end was always shaped deceptively: a piece of wood, a clump of seaweed, a shoe. Since the creation of this new navy, Christian had intuited that the greatest portion of its success would depend on keeping its existence unknown. The same careful approach under Frederik’s rule was proving lethal for Spanish sailors. But one problem of having a fleet of undetectable ships was that, when the empire lost track of one, it was never certain whether it was due to a faulty airlock, a fire, a bout of scurvy, a broken breathing pipe, a lucky cannon ball from a Spanish galleon, or a determined thief.
And Kathrine Munk was nothing if not determined.
Leonora tapped against the metal of the pipe six times, meaning that the crew should make the vessel emerge. Five meant they should hold their position, and four meant there were enemies nearby. The ship had already used up its ammunition when they had taken it, but by staying deep enough it was able to evade attack, even from other submarines, because Danish military engineers hadn’t yet found a way to make gunpowder ignite underwater. After signaling her presence, Leonora took her boat a prudent distance away. The end of the breathing pipe had been closed and retracted. At that moment Kathrine would be ordering her rowers to operate the multiple pumps whose function was to remove water from a series of tanks in the ship and thus render it buoyant. After less than a minute, the shape of the D.H.M. Tarasque, officially lost in an accident during an assault on a Portuguese expedition tasked with charting the Indian Ocean, emerged in all its grandeur. Fruit of Christian’s obsession and Drebbel’s genius, a vessel of Hafgufuprojektet was a brute presence that refused to be dismissed, an incontestable fact that by its mere size and simplicity of shape displaced all other impressions from the observer’s mind as effortlessly as it did water. Leonora hoped it would never cease to have the same effect on her.
An airlock on top of the Tarasque opened and Kathrine climbed out. Leonora paddled closer to the massive structure of wood and bronze and tar, with a thick hemisphere of transparent glass on front, and helped her jump onto the boat.
“Did anything happen overnight?” asked the countess.
“Two more rowers have caught scurvy.” Kathrine raised her eyes to the open sky and felt a flood of relief as she took in the morning air. “I’m starting to feel weakened myself. We all need some shore leave.” Her knuckles tapped a signal on the hull of the Tarasque and it began the laborious procedure to submerge again.
“Not here,” said Leonora. “The last thing we need is for a crew of Danish deserters to be seen taking shelter in Sweden.”
Kathrine entertained the scenario and found that she liked it. “If you want to put it in those terms, losing our alliance with Sweden would hasten the end of the war.”
“By letting the wrong side win,” said Leonora. “I may be betraying my brother, but I won’t betray Denmark.”
“I thought we were doing this because we had become the wrong side.”
“Let’s not rehash that discussion.” Leonora cursed the brightness of the risen sun and started steering the boat back toward Stockholm. “I agree that your information—” She couldn’t finish the sentence. Her expression became fixed with terror.
Kathrine turned her head to the spot Leonora was looking at, and recognized the unmistakable pattern of waves generated by a submarine cannon being prepared to surface. “We were followed!” She tried to stand up to get a better look. The other ship had positioned itself out of sight of the Tarasque’s lookout glass. “We need to warn the crew.” Her efforts to stay on her feet were rocking the boat.
Leonora grabbed her hand to force her to sit. “No, we need to flee, fast.”
Kathrine wiggled out of her grasp, and the boat responded to her forceful move by throwing them both into the water.
Leonora started to sink and hurried to rip off the gigantic skirt of her dress. Kathrine, who was wearing a soldier uniform, braced toward the quickly descending mass of the Tarasque, desperate to reach it in time to slam her palm against the hull, but the sound of a cannon shot crushed her efforts. The ball ripped a hole in the Tarasque, just above the waterline. The ringing in her ears drowned the cries of alarm she knew must be there. She was so stunned that she didn’t resist when her companion took her under her arm and dragged her away.
“Take air and dive,” urged Leonora.
Kathrine obeyed, too shocked to object. Once she was fully underwater, her survival impulse kicked in and her blood ran with alertness. She knew they had to take advantage of the shallower passages between islets, where the submarine wouldn’t be able to follow them. Above all, they must not let their pursuer know they were headed for the royal palace.
A full minute passed and she swam up to breathe, and quickly dove again because the gunner had been waiting for her reappearance to fire another shot. It passed well above their heads and got lost in the winding channels, which meant they were still very short of a safe distance.