Stearns. Mentally, Janos rolled the harsh-sounding English name on his tongue. A former coal miner, now grown into a force that had struck Europe like Attila and the Huns a thousand years earlier. In his impact, at least, if not in his methods.
Janos had seen him, once, although only at a distance on the streets of Grantville. The man had been laughing at some remark made by his companion, the president of the USE's State of Thuringia-Franconia. That was Ed Piazza, whom Janos had met briefly and in person in the course of a casual social affair.
He'd liked Piazza's friendly and unassuming manner. Just as he'd liked the look on Stearns' face when he laughed, for that matter. Being fair, it was hard to imagine such a laugh ever issuing from the mouth of Attila.
Maybe . . .
He filed that possibility away. For the moment, and for the foreseeable future, Austria and the USE were enemies.
While silence filled the room for a time, Drugeth went back to scrutinizing the letter.
Very shrewd, many of those suggestions. Janos wondered who had actually originated them? For all their undoubted intelligence, he didn't think Maria Anna and Fernando would have thought of some of them. Being born and raised in royal families also created limits. They had—must have—at least one adviser who was capable of seeing beyond those limits.
"You have my full support, Your Majesty," he said. For the first time since he'd begun reading the letter, he looked directly at von Gottschee. The old man looked tired, more than anything else. As well he might, given that he'd served Austria's dynasty faithfully and well for so long—and now, almost at the age of seventy, he was being asked to undo much of what he had done.
Privately, Janos made another note. It was unrealistic to expect the count to do more than maintain Austria's spy network. Indeed, it might even be dangerous to try to force him to do more. Fortunately, Count von Gottschee had long been grooming his stepson to take his place. Janos got along quite well with Georg Bartholomaeus, who was in his late thirties.
Granted, their background and temperaments were quite different. For all his aptitude at the covert tasks Ferdinand had set him lately, Janos was still a Hungarian cavalry officer in the way he approached things. A soldier, not a spy, where Zwickl took to his stepfather's trade as if he'd been born to it. Still, he and Zwickl should manage to work together easily enough.
It might even be best to retire the count formally. Janos would raise that possibility with the emperor in private, at some later time. It would have to be done carefully, making sure that Johann Jakob was genuinely willing and did not resent being forced into retirement. Given the situation, there was probably no single individual who could do more damage to the dynasty, should his allegiances sour. Khiesel knew . . . almost everything.
Having made his decision, however, Janos was immediately confronted by his major and immediate quarrel with the proposal.
"So," Ferdinand III stated, clapping his hands together. "We're agreed on the basic points, then? First—which I've already had done—repudiate the Edict of Restitution, to as to restore peace in our relations with our Protestant subjects. Second, retake Bohemia. Third—simultaneously, I should say—press forward with the technology transfer from the USE so we can begin the modernization of our economy and our army. Fourth, prepare for an inevitable war with the Turks. Finally, and most important of all, begin the process of drawing all of our peoples and classes into support for our cause. That will necessarily require the introduction of a great deal of popular participation in the empire's political affairs, although we will strive to keep it under control."
That was at least one too many tasks, Janos thought. And he knew, for a certainty, the one that he thought should be eliminated.
For a moment, he hesitated. Then, bracing himself, spoke it aloud. "Your Majesty, I strongly advise you to seek peace with Wallenstein and a stabilization of the northern frontier, rather than trying to retake Bohemia. I believe Wallenstein has no further designs on our remaining territory, and would agree to such an offer."
He was fudging a little, there. Janos was fairly certain that Wallenstein's ambitions lay to the east, not the south, true enough. But those same ambitions would almost require obtaining at least a part of Royal Hungary, or Wallenstein would have no way to reach the east. Not unless he was prepared to launch a war of conquest on the Polish heartland, at any rate, which Drugeth thought unlikely.
He was willing to make the fudge, nonetheless, if he could keep the emperor from such a rash and unwise policy. The truth was, so long as Wallenstein satisfied himself with seizing only the northern portions of Royal Hungary, Janos didn't care. Those lands were mostly inhabited by Slavs, not Hungarians. From a military standpoint, they were more of a nuisance than anything else.