The Baltic War(204)

Ekstrom nodded. "And the other matter? Regarding Stearns?"



Still looking out the window, Gustav Adolf smiled. "Ah, Nils—so diplomatic, you are. If you were Axel, you know, you'd have been haranguing me on my folly."



"I don't feel that's my place, Your Majesty." In point of fact, Ekstrom was rather dubious about the emperor's likely decision. But . . .



That simply wasn't his place. His job, as he saw it, was to help the emperor make whatever decision the emperor felt was best. Let the chancellor try to talk him out of it, once it was made. No easy task, that, of course.



"Yes, I've decided. The equipment needed to repair the Achates should have arrived from Magdeburg by now. Send Stearns a message instructing him to take a force from Hamburg—a good cavalry regiment should do—down to the stranded timberclad. He's to reinforce the existing guard, of course. But, most of all, I want him to take charge of the entire operation and get the Achates ready for action again."



Ekstrom simply nodded. "Yes, Your Majesty."



Now, Gustav grinned. "Amazing. Not a single word informing me that I am grossly violating protocol. What, Nils? Not one?"



Ekstrom hesitated, before deciding at the last moment that was an invitation for him to see if he could find any fallacies in the emperor's reasoning.



"They do make a fetish, Your Majesty, of the subject of separating civil from military affairs."



"So they do. But calling it a 'fetish' misses the mark, I believe. There is a logic to the whole thing, which my extensive reading has made clear to me. The problem is not simply—not even primarily—a matter of abstractions. There is a solid core of practicality that lies beneath. I will tell you what it is."



He turned away from the window. "Organization, Nils. A society so well organized—top to bottom—that clear lines of authority can be defined and delineated."



He chuckled heavily. "They have their own superstitions, you know. One of the greatest being their firm belief that they are individualists—'rugged,' no less, being their favorite qualifier—and deeply opposed to anything that smacks of what they call 'red tape.' "



Ekstrom chuckled also. "True. Quite amazing, really, given that they are the world's ultimate bureaucrats. I've been told they even put up signs in their buildings, giving precise instructions as to where anyone should go to reach whatever—precisely defined—office they might be seeking."



"Oh, yes, it's true. My daughter is quite charmed by the things. She got into some trouble once, when she took it upon herself to have soldiers move some of the signs around, in the palace at Magdeburg, just to see what would happen."



"I can imagine!" But the humor of the moment led to a far more serious issue, which Ekstrom wondered if he should raise.



Gustav Adolf raised it himself, however. "Yes, yes, I know. Sooner or later, I will have to decide if I wish to heed the advice of my daughter's attendants. Seeing as how they flood me with enough missives that I use them regularly to start fires in my fireplace."



He clasped his hands behind his back and began pacing, in that heavy cavalryman's way. "But I think not. No, I think those frantic noblewomen will simply have to learn to make the same accommodations that I've decided I must make myself. Now that we've let the genie out of the lamp, putting it back in is simply hopeless. Better to make a pact with the creature. Since he is not, actually, a devil. Not that, whatever else."



Ekstrom waited patiently. Sooner or later, the emperor would come to the point.



Smiling again, Gustav Adolf tugged at his mustache. "There's a soldier somewhere in Torstensson's army. A sergeant in the volley gun batteries, by the name of Thorsten Engler. My daughter insists—instructs me, no less—that I must make him a count, at the very least. He has become betrothed, it seems, to her favorite American attendant."



"The Platzer woman?"



"Yes. The very one that half those frantic letters are devoted to denouncing. She is undermining my daughter's spirit, they claim. Sapping her of the necessary royal will and sense of importance."



He paused in his pacing. "Fools, the lot of them. Do you know how they proposed to solve the problem of the misplaced signs? Simply ordering the soldiers to put them back properly, and there was to be an end to it."



"I take it the Platzer woman felt otherwise?"



The emperor grinned. "Not entirely. She agreed that the signs needed to be fixed—on the following day. For the rest of that day, she made Kristina stand in front of them and personally give directions to anyone who came into the palace and seemed confused."