The Baltic War(44)

"I couldn't say, Your Highness. I'm not a theologian. But I am an artist, and I can promise you some splendid portraits."



He eyed the prince's costume, which was a purely martial one. "I assume you will not wish to pose in your cardinal's robes."



Don Fernando grinned. "Be a bit awkward, wouldn't it? Since the most important portraits will be of me and my future wife—whoever she might turn out to be—surrounded by our children. That is, after all, the first thing you need for a successful dynasty."



"Indeed." The diplomat pursed his lips, for a moment, thinking. "Dispensing with the title of cardinal should not be too difficult, I think. You could simply resign unilaterally, although that would cause a stir. But the pope is generally quite practical about these things, and I know—I've spoken to him—that Urban is none too pleased with the endless war."



"I've come to the same conclusion," the prince said. "As God Himself knows, it's not as if I ever wanted a cardinal's robes in the first place. My father and his advisers insisted on it. That leaves . . ."



His eyes became slightly unfocused, for a moment. "A wife. It will have to be someone acceptable to the haughtiest monarch or nobleman in Europe. That's essential."



Rubens inclined his head. "Yes, of course. Under the circumstances, a morganatic marriage—anything that even had a whiff of it—would be out of the question." He went back to pursing his lips. "I can begin some discreet inquiries. There are not really all that many options, you understand?"



Don Fernando gave him a quick, stoic nod of the head. "Yes, Pieter, I know. Do your best to find someone reasonably pleasant and not too ugly, if you can. But what matters is that she be fertile and young enough to bear a number of children. The rest I can—will have to—just live with."



His expression brightened. "But what I am saying? First I have to win this war—or get a good enough settlement, at least. A wife can wait. Must wait, in fact. No suitable bride will be found for a king who doesn't have a realm to show for the title. Even the Germans would laugh at such a one."



Rubens was a little amused to see the way the prince—a man still in his early twenties—so obviously found the demands of war more congenial than the demands of marriage. Of course, for royalty, that attitude was not so unusual, even in much older men. Very rarely was congeniality, much less affection, a significant factor when it came to choosing spouses. As it would not be in this instance, either.



Within seconds, after a polite but brief dismissal, Don Fernando was consulting with his officers over the best place to prepare what the Americans called a "landing field." Before too long, Rubens was sure, the prince would come to the inevitable conclusion that—since neither he nor any of his officers had ever seen an airplane—they would need to send an envoy to Amsterdam to discreetly inquire if the up-timers residing in the city could provide them with some advice.



Rubens himself would probably be the envoy chosen, in fact.





As he walked back to his quarters, picking his way carefully through the trenches and earthworks that had turned the land around Amsterdam into something that reminded him of nightmarish paintings by the elder Brueghel, Rubens mused over which up-timer would be sent as a consultant.



Not Anne, unfortunately, as much as Pieter liked the woman. The young nurse had several times commented jokingly on her complete ineptitude with up-time mechanical devices. "Outside of nursing and medical equipment, I'm hopeless. I can change a light bulb and that's about it. Ask me to tell a spark plug from an alternator, and I'd have to go eeny-meeny-miny-mo."



The terms themselves had all been meaningless to Rubens, but the gist of the statement was clear enough.



Who, then?



Probably the big one, who was married to the agitator woman, Gretchen. Jeff, his name was, if Pieter remembered correctly. The artist had gathered, from various comments he'd heard, that the young man was considered a "geek." So far as Rubens could determine, that referred to a person who was obsessed with up-time devices and mechanical skills—something called "electronics," especially. Like some astrologers and alchemists of his own time, it seemed, about whom similar jokes were made.



Odd, really. From the man Jeff's appearance, Pieter would have assumed he was a simple soldier—and perhaps a brutish one, at that.



He paused for a moment, after negotiating his way through a particularly tortuous set of trenches, and gazed back at Amsterdam.



But that was the key to it all, he thought. In a small way, that contradiction between a young up-timer's appearance and the lurking truth behind it was a good symbol.