1632 (48 page)

    So be it. Such is the whirlwind which brings new societies onto the historical stage. Forging a nation does not happen in a test tube. It happens in the real world, sweeping real people into the political arena for the first time, bringing with them all the accumulated baggage of centuries. Turbulent, chaotic, confused—
messy
.

 

    So be it. Mike was not dismayed. Not in the least. A basket full of puppies is messy too. Which is simply nature’s way of saying:
Alive and well.

 

    Even the new political structure was messy. Half-formed, half-shaped, a thing of big paws and big ears and precious little in the way of real flesh.

 

    The new constitution allowed for an upper and lower house—the Senate, and the House of Representatives. Like the original Senate, the upper house gave representation to states as such, regardless of comparative population. The only difference was that each state got one senator instead of two. But the “upper house” was more fiction than fact. The “United States” still contained only one state—Grantville.

 

    So there was only one Senate seat open in this election, although, of course, everyone was hoping for a future expansion. If nothing else, it seemed almost certain that Badenburg would soon be adding another star to the flag. And the students in Jena—with the tacit support of the town’s poor quarters—were already demonstrating in the streets. The students were even chanting the name of their future Senator: Jeff Higgins. The fact that Jeff did not technically reside in Jena, for all the frequency of his and Gretchen’s visits, did not concern them in the least.

 

    Nor did it need to. The convention had decided that apportioning seats by residence, in an area as geographically small but densely populated as Grantville and southern Thuringia, would be absurd—at least for the moment. So all elections, for all seats, were held “at large.”

 

    Mike came in with eighty-seven percent of the votes for president. Except for Rebecca, every single member of the emergency committee was elected to the House by a similar landslide. To her astonishment—and chagrin—Melissa got as many votes as anyone.

 

    “So much for my standing as a rebel,” she was heard to mutter. But she consoled herself with the thought that Quentin had gotten—by half a percentage point—a higher margin than she. So she was
still
the underdog, in a manner of speaking.

 

    And Rebecca? Her contest was a moot point. Simpson and his followers didn’t even try to run against her. She was elected unanimously, as the sole Senator of the United States.

 

    But that night in his bedroom, weeks earlier, Mike had been swept up in a very different whirlwind. From the months of ever-growing physical intimacy, he and Rebecca had become quite familiar with each other’s bodies. So there was little in the way of surprise or discovery, beyond the act of intercourse itself. Which, even for the virgin Rebecca, no longer held much mystery—and no fear at all. But their first night in bed was still a whirlwind.

 

    Or just the wind itself. Beginning with a tornado, perhaps, but settling, as the hours passed, into something as steady and unvarying as the trade winds.

 

    As dawn crept through the curtains in his window, Mike reflected that his grandfather had been right after all.

 

    “Anticipation,” he murmured. “God, that was
great.
” He pressed Rebecca’s nude form against him, reveling in the sensation.

 

    “Hmm?” she murmured drowsily. Neither of them had gotten any sleep. Her eyes half-closed, Rebecca kissed him. Reveling herself, not so much in the sensation as the knowledge that it would be hers for a lifetime. “What did you say?”

 

    “Anticipation,” repeated Mike happily.

 

    Rebecca’s eyes opened all the way. “What nonsense!” she exclaimed. “You did not
anticipate
anything at all.”

 

    She rose on her elbow, grinning down at him. “It was so amusing, watching you rummaging through your dresser with such frantic abandon.”

 

    Mike’s answering grin was embarrassed. “Well . . .” Justify, justify: “I wasn’t expecting—you didn’t give me any warning—I thought I might have some old ones lying around—”

 

    “Oh, marvelous!” she laughed, slapping his chest playfully. “I have seen those things! They look grotesque enough even when they are new!”

 

    Sheepishly, Mike shrugged. “I was just trying to protect you—”

 

    She silenced him with a very passionate kiss. They weren’t that tired. One thing quickly led to another.

 

    “It does not matter, anyway,” she whispered later. “Even if—” Happy chuckle. “In two months, nothing would show. And even if it did, I am sure I would not be the first bride in Grantville waddling down the aisle in a loosened wedding gown.”

 

    She laughed, very happily. “Hillbillies! You have no
respect
.”
Part Five

And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
 

Chapter 45

    Striding out of the Schloss, the enormous palace of the Archbishop-Electors of Mainz which he had appropriated for his own use during these past winter months, Gustav II Adolf caught sight of the Rhine. The flow of the river—clear, clean, simple, straightforward—brought a certain relief to his spirit.
    He stopped abruptly, to admire the sight. Behind him, his little escort of advisers stumbled to a halt. Fortunately for them, none of the advisers actually collided with the king. There would have been no royal repercussions, of course. Gustav was not that kind of monarch. But as enormous as he was—and the king had gained considerable weight during the months of physical idleness and diplomatic feasting—it would have been somewhat like running into an ox. Startled king; bruised adviser, sitting on his ass. Contemplating the futility of trying to move the king of Sweden when he chose otherwise.
    “No, Axel,” said Gustav firmly. He did not take his eyes off the Rhine. “Let Wilhelm and Bernard Saxe-Weimar rant and rave all they want. I am not
sending an expedition to Thuringia.”
    “Wilhelm is not ’ranting and raving,’ ” demurred Oxenstierna. “He is simply expressing concern over the situation in his duchy. You can hardly blame him.”
    Gustav scowled. “I don’t care how polite he’s being—which his brother certainly isn’t! The answer is still
no
.”
    The king rubbed his hands briskly. There was no snow on the ground, but it was still only mid-March. The temperature was chilly. “I’ve gotten soft and tender,” grumbled Gustav. “All this easy living in the south!”
    Just as briskly, he turned and faced his advisers. They were all Swedish, except for Sir James Spens.
    To Axel: “No, no, no. In this, the dukes of Saxe-Weimar are proving to be as petty as any German noblemen. In their absence—
protracted
absence, let me remind you—the people of their principality have seen fit to organize themselves to survive the winter and the depredations of the war.” Half-angrily: “What were they supposed to do, Axel? Starve quietly, lest the tranquility of the dukes be disturbed?”
    Oxenstierna sighed. His long-standing, half-amicable quarrel with the king of Sweden on the subject of aristocracy had intensified over the past year. And the chancellor of Sweden was losing the argument. For a moment, trying not to grit his teeth in frustration, Axel silently cursed his German counterparts.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
In truth, the chancellor did not really disagree with his monarch on the specifics of the matter. Axel wouldn’t wish the German nobility on a pack of dogs, except as provender. Still—
    “Gustav,” he said firmly, “the issue is not petty. And it can’t be shrugged off as another instance of aristocratic fatuity. For all intents and purposes, power in southern Thuringia—every single report agrees on
this
, whatever else they are in dispute over—has been seized by a republic.” His lips tightened. “They even chose the Dutch United Provinces as the model for their own name. The ’United States,’ if you please!”
    The king began to speak, but Axel held up his hand. The gesture was not peremptory—there were limits, even with Gustav II Adolf—but firm for all that. The monarch acceded politely to the wishes of his chancellor, and held his own tongue for the moment.
    “The issue is a general one,” continued Oxenstierna. He snapped his fingers. “I care
that
for southern Thuringia. But what if the example spreads? Or simply starts to panic the surrounding principalities? We have enough problems with nervous German allies as it is. Let the Protestant princes start fretting over revolution, and the yoke of the Habsburg empire will start seeming more like a shelter than a burden.”
    Standing a few feet away, Torstensson snorted. “As if the Saxons or the Prussians needed an excuse to be treacherous!”
    Oxenstierna cast the artillery general a quick glare, but Torstensson stood his ground. More—he pushed back. The young general snapped his own fingers. “And I care
that
for the tender pride of the German aristocracy. Any one of those noblemen”—he glared himself—“and I do not except the Saxe-Weimars or Hesse-Cassel—will abandon us quickly enough, given the opportunity.”
    A small murmur of protest began to arise from the other generals. “That’s not fair, Lennart,” said Banér. It seemed a day for scowling. A fair example now adorned the face of the field marshal. “Bernard is an arrogant ass, sure enough. But Wilhelm is another story.”
    The king intervened, before the dispute could get out of hand. Let the personal character of Bernard of Saxe-Weimar assume center stage, and hot tempers would invariably result. For all the undoubted military ability which the young duke had demonstrated over the past year, the Swedish generals found him insufferable as often as not.
Arrogant ass
was the mildest of the epithets which Gustav had heard his officers use.
    “All of that is also beside the point,” stated the king. To Banér: “Johann, I share your personal estimate of Wilhelm. I think quite highly of the man, as it happens.” Gustav gave Axel a quick, half-humorous glance. “Wilhelm is the one exception to my general condemnation of the German breed. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was a Swedish nobleman.”
    A little laugh went up. With the exception of the Scotsman, all of the men standing in that little group near the Rhine were members of the Swedish aristocracy—and proud of it.
    It was also, apparently, a day for finger snapping. Now the king added his own thick-fingered version. “
That
for this whole argument.” He glanced again at Oxenstierna—and this time, with no humor at all. “I
do
care about Thuringia, Axel. For two reasons.”
    Solidly, stolidly: “First, because I am a Christian before I am anything else. My title, my lineage, my trappings—all these came from the hand of God, and no other. I have not forgotten, even if other monarchs have, that the Lord gave us that power for a purpose. Let others ignore their duty, I shall not. If a king or a prince or a baron cannot see to the needs of his folk, then he is not fit to rule. It is as simple as that. God’s punishment on such men is evident in all the pages of history. Where are the Roman emperors
now
?”
    The foregoing words, pious and heartfelt, had been spoken with neither heat nor pride. The next words, Gustav II Adolf spoke fully erect, his pale blue eyes alive with his own lineage. In that moment, peering at his subordinates down a majestic and powerful nose, the immense man was every inch the king.
    “Secondly, because I am
Vasa.
” The name of Sweden’s ruling dynasty rolled across the flagstones of the terrace. For an instant, it almost seemed as if the Rhine rippled in response.
    “Vasa!” he repeated. The name was both a reminder and a challenge. A reminder to himself, a challenge to—
    Gustav stared at his underlings. The gaze was not a glare. Not quite—there was too much iciness in the thing. A glacier does not glare; it simply
is.
    “Do not forget,” he said softly.
    Under that gaze, his subordinates did not flinch. But they did seem to shrink a little. The Vasas had established their rule over Sweden by many methods. Among those, of course, had been political and military skill. But there had also been—proven time and again—their instant readiness to break the aristocracy to their will.
    Gustav Adolf had been named after his grandfather, the great Gustav Vasa who founded the dynasty and created the modern nation called Sweden. His grandfather’s contempt for nobility was a matter of historical record—as was the result of that contempt. The Swedish aristocracy had been broken, bridled, disciplined. Accepted back into royal favor only after they demonstrated their willingness to work alongside the new dispensation. In Gustav Vasa’s realm, the four estates had all been listened to—the peasants and the citizens of the towns as much as the nobility and the clergy. If anything, Gustav Vasa had favored the rising middle class—and been rewarded, in return, by a state treasury flush with silver, a powerful fleet and army, and Europe’s finest, if not largest, munitions industry.
    
Vasa.
Upon his accession to the throne at the technically illegal age of seventeen—made possible by a special dispensation of the
riksdag
, the Swedish parliament, engineered by Oxenstierna—Gustav II Adolf had agreed to a compromise whereby some of the privileges of the aristocracy were restored. And he had kept his promises. Unlike his grandfather, who favored commoners, Gustav II Adolf generally appointed only noblemen to high office. Yet, beneath the surface, the reality remained the same. The power of the dynasty rested on Sweden’s people, not its aristocracy—and the latter knew it as well as the former.
    
Vasa . . . 
    “It is settled,” stated the king. “Thuringia will be left in peace, to manage its own affairs. If Wilhelm and—ha!—Bernard can make an accommodation, excellent. But it is their business, not ours. I will
not
send a single soldier to enforce the will of Saxe-Weimar on the province.”
    “We already have soldiers on the scene,” pointed out Torstensson mildly.
    Gustav cocked his eye. “Mackay?” He shrugged. “A few hundred cavalrymen.”
    Spens began to speak. The king shot him a quick glance, and the Scottish general closed his mouth.
    The king’s eye moved on to Oxenstierna. Having made his point, Gustav would now sweeten the thing. “I will speak to Wilhelm personally, Axel,” he said. “I will give him my assurances that, regardless of what happens in Thuringia, the family of Saxe-Weimar will not be abandoned by me.” He chuckled harshly. “Who knows? Wilhelm, unlike his younger brother, is sagacious enough to realize that being the duke of a petty principality is not, all things said and done, the highest goal to which a man might aspire in this new world.”
    He clapped his hands, announcing a change in subject. The clap turned into another brisk rubbing of the palms. To ward off the cold, of course. But the motion also conveyed a great deal of satisfaction. So does a craftsman gesture, contemplating a new masterwork.
    “And now, gentlemen—Tilly! The latest report indicates that the old man is stirring again. He’s left Nördlingen and is moving against Horn at Bamberg. Wallenstein, meanwhile, is also back in business.”
    Torstensson laughed. “Big business! Has ever a mercenary general in history gotten such a contract? Who is emperor and who is lackey now, I wonder?”
    His laugh was echoed by the other generals. News had recently arrived of Wallenstein’s terms for accepting Emperor Ferdinand’s plea for help. After Breitenfeld, the Habsburgs had been desperate, and Wallenstein had driven a devil’s bargain. The Bohemian general had the emperor’s formal agreement that he was in exclusive command of all military power in imperial lands. Wallenstein had also been granted civil power over all imperial territory in the possession of Ferdinand’s enemies—including the right to confiscate lands and do with them as he wished. That meant booty on a gigantic scale, for all his officers. Mercenaries and adventurers could become landed noblemen overnight, in the event of victory—and why not? Hadn’t Wallenstein himself set the example, in the early years of the war?
    Gustav continued. “All accounts have Wallenstein assembling a huge new army. You can imagine what wolves are gathering around his banner!”
    General Tott grunted. “They’ll make Tilly’s men look like gentle lambs.”
    The king nodded. “When that army moves, they will ravage everything in their path. But they will not move for weeks yet. I propose to deal with Tilly first.”
    He began issuing orders, facing each man in turn.
    “Axel. I want you to return to Alsatia. We’ve got enough of a force there to keep the Spanish Habsburgs from getting ambitious. And take Bernard with you.” He chuckled, seeing Oxenstierna’s grimace of distaste. “Please! He
is
a very capable military commander, after all. And I’d much rather have him there than stirring up trouble about his precious Thuringia.”
    “Which he hasn’t even bothered to visit in years,” muttered Torstensson.
    As if his low voice were a cue, the king turned to Torstensson next. “Lennart, you’ll be staying with me in this campaign. Tilly will be using the tributaries to block my advance up the Main. I expect we’ll see a lot of gun work, to clear the fords.”
    The young artillery general frowned. “My guns are getting pretty badly worn, Your Majesty.” Scowling: “The ordnance facilities in these blessed Rhenish archbishoprics are a joke.”
    Spens cleared his throat. The king seemed to ignore the sound, except that his next words came in a bit of a rush. “Don’t worry about that. I think I’ve found a new supplier. I expect to have new guns arriving within a month or two. The ones you have should last that long.”
    Torstensson nodded. The king turned to General Tott next.
    “Return to the Weser. Keep an eye on Pappenheim. Our Saxon allies will help you readily enough with that.” Another nod. Then, Banér:
    “And you, Johann, I want back on the Elbe. That’ll keep our Prussian friends half-honest, if nothing else. But I also need you there in case the Poles get ambitious or Wallenstein decides to move directly on Saxony.”
    The immediate measures taken, the king went back to rubbing his hands. “That’s it, then.” To Spens: “Stay behind a moment, would you, James?”
    The signal was clear enough. Within seconds, the Swedish officers had all left, hurrying to set their new orders into motion.
    Gustav examined Sir James Spens silently. The Scotsman occupied a peculiar position in the king’s forces. He was, simultaneously, the Swedish ambassador to England as well as the English ambassador to Sweden—
and
one of Gustav’s top military commanders in the bargain. The multiplicity of functions indicated the king’s high regard for the man, but of those functions it was Spens’ military position which was paramount. In truth, there was not much in the way of diplomatic exchange between Sweden and England. The island, for all its official Protestantism, had maintained an aloof and standoffish attitude toward the war raging on the Continent.
    When all was said and done, Sir James Spens was Gustav Adolf’s man. Like most of the Scotsmen who figured so prominently in the Swedish service, Spens’ allegiance was highly personal. Unlike the Swedish officers, Spens had no ties of family or class to dilute his loyalty to the Swedish crown. For that reason, Gustav often used him in matters which were of a delicate political nature.