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The Baltic War(302)





Mike didn't know himself, but he suspected the poor girls were wasting their time. Ulrik didn't seem like a cold fish, as such. But if Mike had assessed him correctly, he was far shrewder than his sire, and much less prone to impulsive behavior. In the short run, a royal mistress might be a veritable delight. In the long run, she was likely to become a monstrous headache—and her children, worse still. If anyone had any doubts, they had only to contemplate French politics.



The slight look of relief on Ulrik's face when he spotted Mike muscling his way to the center gave support to that hypothesis, at least.



"Excuse me, ladies," the prince said smoothly, "but I must speak to the prime minister now."



After the little mob of young women went their regretful way, Ulrik gave Mike a nod. "Thank you. I felt like a city under siege. What are their mothers thinking, anyway? Do they really believe I'm that mindless?"



"Well . . . You might want to consider, Your Highness, that trying to ram an ironclad with a rowboat doesn't exactly give the impression of a cool and calculating fellow."



Ulrik smiled. "No, I suppose not. What may I do for you, Prime Minister?"



"Mike, please. This is more in the way of a personal conversation."



"In that case, please call me Ulrik. You're here with regard to Eddie, I assume."



"Yes."



Ulrik took a deep breath, glanced over to the table where his father was now talking to Chancellor Oxenstierna, and let it sigh out slowly. "I've done what I can, Mike, and I will continue to do so. But my father is set on his course. When he gets like this, it's impossible to budge him. Partly it's just childish; the fact that he enjoys drama—and he did, personally, catch the culprit . . . ah, what's your expression for it?"



"Red-handed." Mike made a little shrug. "Yes, that's understood. But I wasn't actually referring to that part of the business. I wanted to raise with you—open a discussion, rather—of what happens if Eddie, ah, sees his way clear."



"Oh." For a moment, the prince's face got an actual expression. Very warm, it was. "I'd like that. I surely would."



Mike rubbed his chin. Doing so reminded him that he hadn't shaved that morning, and he'd best not let it go another day. Alas, however marvelous a wife Becky might be in most respects, she was not one of those broad-minded and jolly ladies who thought beards on a man's face were splendid. "Like kissing a dog," was the way she put it. She'd become downright adamant on the subject since some too-damn-enterprising fellows had figured out how to make safety razors a few months ago, so Mike no longer had the excuse of the deadly perils of using a straight razor.



"Well, good. But I trust you understand that the connection will work both ways?"



Ulrik smiled. "The 'conduit,' you might also say, if I've gotten the right term. Yes, of course." He swept the room with his finger. "Isn't that what we're about here, after all? Making connections and laying conduit."



The hypothesis was looking better and better, all the time.



But Oxenstierna was rising again.



"Nice talking to you, Ulrik. Let's do it again."



"Lunch tomorrow, perhaps."





He slid back into his seat just late enough to get a sharp glance from Becky.



"—province of the Main will remain under direct imperial administration, between the Fulda region under Thuringian administration and the Rhine, down to Mainz. Franfurt-am-Main, however, remains an independent imperial city. As for Baden-Durlach and Strassburg—"



Ulrik was right, of course—as was demonstrated by Oxenstierna's droning recitation. None of the business taken up this afternoon, after all, had anything to do with the union       of Kalmar. It was all internal matters for the United States of Europe. But Gustav Adolf had wanted the Congress of Copenhagen to be sweeping and authoritative, and he'd insisted that Christian sit in on all of its deliberations. His capable advice might be needed, for one thing—which the emperor said with a perfectly straight face, even solemnly—and, for another, his son Frederik was about to become one of the USE's top officials.



So, sit Christian did. And if he drank wine throughout, he also paid attention—and did, indeed, offer his advice and opinions. Much of which was quite good, and only a little of which was half-drunken nonsense.



"—be allotted to a future Province of Swabia once it is pacified, the administrator of which will be the margrave of Baden-Durlach, the following territories: everything east to the Lech and south to the borders of Switzerland and Tyrol, except for—"