The Baltic War(299)

Well, it wouldn't be fair—not to some, anyway—to call them as stupid as cows. But even the bright ones had a very limited and incurious view of the world. Conversations with them were almost invariably dull, and often excruciatingly dull.



True, Princess Kristina had a outsized nose, which she'd probably retain her whole life. In old age, if she also had bad problems with her teeth, she might make a ferocious-looking crone. And while it was impossible to tell yet what her figure would be, once she passed childhood, he suspected it would remain on the scrawny side.



He could live with all that. Quite easily, in fact. What mattered was simply whether he and the Swedish princess could manage to get along. If they could—only time would tell—then all the rest would come into play.



Dear God, the girl was smart! Even with her only at the age of seven, on short acquaintance, it was obvious.



"She's adventurous, too," he murmured to himself. The average Danish noblewoman's idea of adventure was wearing a slightly daring new dress. Not learning how to fly—which he'd heard Kristina pestering the pilot about as she got off the airplane.



"What was that?" asked Baldur. "I didn't catch it."



"Never mind. And to hell with the nose. And we'd better start walking more quickly. I'm already going to be late for the congress."





Chapter 68


"Into the new USE province of Westphalia," Axel Oxenstierna droned on, "we propose to include the following: Muenster, Osnabrück, Schaumburg, Verden, Lippe, Lingen, Bremen, Hoya, Diepholz, and—"



He paused for a moment, here, and Mike Stearns was sure the Swedish chancellor had to force himself not to give King Christian a sharp glance.



"—Holstein."



But, except for a scowl that seemed more ritualistic than heartfelt, Christian IV made no objection. Seated almost across the huge table from Oxenstierna and right next to Gustav Adolf, he simply consoled himself with a royal quaff from his goblet of wine. Which, for its part, was royal-sized.



A bit hurriedly, Oxenstierna went on. "Said province, as we have already agreed, to be administered on behalf of Emperor Gustav II Adolf by Prince Frederik of Denmark."



Here he gave Christian's second oldest son in the line of succession a very friendly smile. The twenty-five-year old prince smiled back, in a semi-friendly manner.



That didn't surprise Mike, however. He was pretty sure that Prince Frederik was still smarting at having been passed over in favor of his younger brother for the really plum position, which was being the quite-likely eventual co-ruler of both the USE and the union       of Kalmar—and Sweden, for that matter, if it turned out that he and Kristina got along well enough. Instead, he was being offered the consolation prize of a newly formed USE province to administer. Yes, yes, it would be a big province, and unless Frederik was hopelessly stupid he'd easily be able to see to it that he was chosen as the permanent ruler once Westphalia was ready for full provincial status instead of being an administered territory. Still, it was very much a consolation prize, and very obviously so.



And why, exactly, had he been passed over? Mike had been told by those in the know that Christian's official excuse to his second-oldest son was that he'd insisted on the youngest of the three brothers because he'd been sure Gustav Adolf would refuse. The youngster in question, of course, being the same fellow who'd inflicted the only major damage on the enemy in the course of the war.



No one was more astonished, went Christian's claim, when the damned Swede had immediately and enthusiastically agreed to have Ulrik betrothed to his daughter—and, of course, it was now too late to do anything about it. No way to withdraw the offer, under the circumstances. As gracious and generally lenient as Gustav Adolf was being about most everything, he was still the victor in the war. You could only take things so far.



The excuse was . . . plausible enough. But Mike didn't believe it for a minute. Now that he'd finally met Christian IV and had been able to spend some time in his company, a few things had become clear to him.



First, the king was an alcoholic with a truly prodigious capacity for alcohol—but, like some alcoholics Mike had known, he was able to function much better than you'd imagine, at least until he got completely soused.



Second, he could play the buffoon like nobody's business.



Third, most of that was an act. Not all of it, especially when Christian was feeling the wind in his sails. But he was nowhere nearly as foolish as he could sometimes make himself out to be.



There was a fourth thing that Mike was not quite as sure about, but damn near. And that was that by far the most intelligent and capable of the Danish king's three sons in line of succession was the one who resembled Christian the least—his youngest, Prince Ulrik. And he also thought that the king himself knew it.