That assertion made Kristina laugh. “So, not only is Frederik attempting to rule the oceans, but he’s also gained mastery of the sun?”
Kathrine was losing her patience. “Your Majesty is known for being perfectly informed about everything that happens in Europe. How many times has Holland been flooded this year?”
“What a question! It would be easier to count how many days it hasn’t been flooded.”
“That’s right. The Dutch have many virtues, and my favorite is how organized they are. Their historical records show clearly, year by year, that floods used to happen less often. Something very bad is happening to the sea.”
“And you want to convince me that this is somehow Frederik’s fault, too.” Kristina paused to organize her thoughts, and said, “You wouldn’t have come to see me if Frederik were indulging in a harmless whim. You have found something bigger than a cartographic novelty. What is this about? What does he want with all that ice?”
Leonora blurted, “Think no ice.”
All Kristina could say to that was a “Huh?” that prompted Kathrine to close her eyes and gather her strength before completing her act of treason.
“As may be obvious from my name, I’m the daughter of Jens Munk. I’ll tell Your Majesty a thing about my father: he hated the cold. I don’t blame him; three times in a row he was detained by winter in the middle of nowhere. When he returned home, he became immensely rich, and our family regained its titles, but he was a shadow of a human being. He’d lost all his teeth; his limbs had been chewed and spat out by frostbite. Until his dying day he professed a dream more ambitious than opening the Arctic: he wished to see the day when the polar region could be traversed freely, when no one would have to endure the hardships of winter ever again.”
“And my father, the king, adopted his vision,” added Leonora. “That’s why Denmark has been taking over frozen lands no one else cares to claim. It’s executing a large-scale operation to unfreeze them. That’s where the north Asian forests come into the picture: they are serving a double purpose. Those strongholds we mentioned along the coast are being kept warm by gigantic bonfires that burn day and night. Thousands of them, fed by a seemingly endless supply of wood, burning continuously for the past twenty-five years.”
The image of a perpetual line of fire at the northern extreme of the world filled Kristina’s imagination with stunned awe. “Is Frederik hoping to make the north more livable?”
Kathrine swept her hand over the globe. “He intends to melt it. Once the floating ice has vanished, the route to China will be navigable by normal ships.”
“The north of Asia,” added Leonora, “may be unusable for now. But under the endless snow, there’s endless land. If my brother succeeds in exposing it, he’ll become one of the world’s richest landowners.”
Kristina asked Kathrine, “Is Nova Dania on fire too?”
“I haven’t allowed it so far. But Frederik is growing impatient. And that leads us to the actual reason we’ve come to see Your Majesty. We wish to ask for the help of Sweden in our quest for independence.”
The word fell like a hammer in the room. None of them dared say anything more until they felt they could almost pretend it hadn’t happened.
“Is it at all possible?” Leonora asked finally, deliberately ambiguous as to whether she referred to the feasibility of Novadanian independence or of Swedish assistance.
The king breathed loudly, organizing her thoughts, before saying, “You have made it clear that Canutic military capabilities surpass mine, and probably everyone’s. Frederik already has his eyes on me, ready for any suspicious gesture on my part. I have all my soldiers deployed in the war against the Holy Emperor; and just today, you say a Danish warship was able to fire its cannons near my castle without being spotted by my navy. Do you realize what I’d be risking if I as much as tried to make a move against Denmark?”
Leonora couldn’t resist replying with another question. “Why is Sweden still fighting for a faith Your Majesty has abandoned?”
The king didn’t mind her bluntness. “Because my people remain Lutherans, and in these senseless times, that suffices to make them targets. I know better than anyone how ruinous war is, and I’d be happy to end it as soon as the Holy Emperor stops sending his armies my way.”
Leonora refrained from making the comment, which would have been rather unhelpful, that during her tour of German lands in search of allies to protect her husband she had heard the view that the Holy Emperor considered Sweden to be the aggressor, and thus the war only proceeded by the kneejerk mistrust between two sides neither of which wanted to keep fighting.
Kathrine hastened to redirect the conversation back to their request. “We’re not asking for any overt intervention. The idea of independence has been discussed for years in the Spanish colonies. With Denmark sabotaging as many Spanish ships as it can, the viceroyalties are dismally mismanaged. It wouldn’t appear as that big of a stretch if a similar movement arose farther north.”
The king stepped away from her visitors, walking backwards until both of them were contained within her visual field. She regarded them with admiration and fear, and prayed for the arrival of a time when the fate of nations wouldn’t hinge on secret conversations between so few people. Her conscience longed to be released from the weight of the crown, and she knew, because she cared enough to listen, that no one but the nobles, and not even every noble, was happy under monarchy; and the example of the Dutch Republic in leaving the Spanish Empire was being hailed in hushed tones by the brightest minds of Europe, who resented having to bow before kings to earn their sustenance. Doing away with monarchy: there was a worthy cause. As soon as the king of Sweden admitted it to herself, she felt at peace with what she had to do. “You make a good point that Frederik owns too much territory. I’ll help you get rid of him. What do you need?”
The globe rolled again and Kathrine stopped it by placing a finger on the east coast of North America. “We want to use the port of New Stockholm as a smuggling hub.”
The king approached to look more closely at the map, and frowned. The colony of New Sweden was but one of the numerous opportunistic endeavors that had spawned to fill the vacuum left by the extinction of the Kingdom of Great Britain and its colonization projects. It lay far enough from Nova Dania, but next door to New Netherland. “A smuggling hub for what?”
Kathrine started counting on her fingers. “Pamphlets, printing presses, wanted fugitives—” she opened her hands. “Everything, actually. New Amsterdam would be a closer, more practical location, but it’s too risky. The alliance between Denmark and the Dutch Republic is the strongest among Protestant nations. New Stockholm would allow for more secrecy.” She knew explanations would be easier if she could tell Kristina about the submarines, but she wanted to be able to claim some measure of patriotic loyalty. Even without mentioning the Danish Secret Navy, the reasons for the way she and Leonora had devised their plan were straightforward: king Frederik’s soldiers kept the strictest vigilance on anyone who disembarked at the port of Munkhaven, but the southern borders of Nova Dania extended into unmapped regions that only the Natives crossed with confidence. Frederik had abandoned his aspiration to expand the colony to the south after the spread of a new custom, started by the Ojibwe and imitated in the other trading tribes: the Natives had stopped hunting beavers and switched to breeding them on purpose. The result was such a proliferation of dams that the Great Lakes river basin and its outlet to the sea were impossible to invade with submarines. So the Danish were forced to stay in the north, the Natives lived unmolested around the lakes, and anyone coming by land could move at will.