The Baltic War(300)

If he was right, in other words, there had been no error of judgment on Christian's part at all. He'd known, cold-bloodedly, that Gustav Adolf would accept Ulrik as Kristina's betrothed. For two reasons. First, just to close the deal. And second, because that would close it better than anything else.



Like most peoples in Europe in the early seventeenth century, Danes didn't really have a national consciousness yet. The roots of it were there and visible—it was indeed a unified nation and they were indeed its subjects, and accepted the fact willingly—but that still wasn't the same thing as what a later age would call "nationalism." If for no other reason than the inveterate particularism of most people in this era. Any resident of any village or town or city could explain to you in great detail why the inhabitants of a village or town or city maybe forty miles away—twenty miles away, for that matter—were a bunch of dolts with lousy manners, stupid customs, and shaky morals. And watch out, because they'll cheat you in a heartbeat.



All that said, every Dane since the battle in Copenhagen's harbor had adopted Prince Ulrik as their champion. Partly because there hadn't been much else for Danes to cheer about in the war, and partly because by this point lots of Danes had seen the ironclads for themselves. Crippling and almost sinking one of those seagoing dragons was indeed a prince's business, and only a true prince could have done it.



And . . .



Obviously the Swedes, dumb and boorish and ill-mannered and criminally-inclined as they might be, were at least smart enough to know it. So, having no prince of their own, they'd turned to the Danes to provide them with one.



As salves for wounded pride went, this one . . . wasn't bad, actually. It had certainly gone a long way to reconciling the Danes to being frog-marched into Gustav Adolf's union       of Kalmar.



What Mike still didn't know, and could only guess at, was exactly why Christian had made that choice. Did he want his sharpest son in that position to thwart the project, over time? Or did he want him there to make it succeed?



Mike's attention was drawn away from his musings, for a moment, by the sight of the door to the chamber opening. A moment later—speak of the devil—Prince Ulrik himself slipped in and quietly and unobtrusively took a seat among the noblemen and officials watching the proceedings at the big table in ranked chairs along three of the four walls.



His gaze met Mike's for a moment, then slid away. As usual, the prince's expression was noncommittal. He was amazingly hard to read, for someone so young.



Which led Mike to another tentative conclusion, which was that in the long run it really didn't matter why Christian had chosen to act as he had. It would be his son, not he, who would determine how it all shaped up.



Interesting times.



Thankfully, it was also time for a break, and Gustav Adolf had just given the signal. Mike got up and headed for the toilets, after holding Becky's chair for her. She scurried for the toilets faster than he did, not surprisingly. Whatever else was different between the early seventeenth and late twentieth centuries, one thing had remained constant. The line at the women's toilet would move a lot slower than that at the men's.



You wouldn't think so, given how few women were attending the Congress of Copenhagen in an official capacity. But Danish concepts of "official capacity"—and Swedes and Germans were no different—were a lot more relaxed than those of the up-time world. So if, for instance—to take an example present right then and there—the count of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, Ludwig Guenther, who'd just celebrated his fifty-third birthday and had been officially invited to the Congress, chose to bring his nineteen-year-old wife and sit beside her, nobody was going to tell him he couldn't.



Normally, Mike would have waited for Becky to emerge before he went back into the big meeting chamber. But he needed to take care of some pressing business during this break.



Fortunately, the admiral hadn't moved from his chair. Mike had noticed before, in other long meetings, that John Chandler Simpson was one of those people who seemed to possess a cast-iron bladder. Probably a very handy thing to have, at long stockholder's meetings.



The chair next to Simpson's was vacant, for the moment, so Mike slid into it.



"It's set, John," he said softly. "If it goes to the wire, we'll get Eddie out of there. Let the chips fall where they may."



Stiffly, Simpson nodded. "Thank you." He paused, and swallowed. "It means a great deal to me. Not just personally, either. There's . . ." His eyes became grim. "Principles at stake."



"So there are. That said, John . . ."