Ulrik frowned. "You just told me yourself that's how the up-timers sank a Spanish ship in Amsterdam."
"Not the same thing at all, Your Highness. In Amsterdam, the Americans had the advantage of complete surprise. In the Øresund, we won't. You can be as sure as anything in the world that the American admiral knows all about the danger of mines and . . . they'd call them 'torpedo boats,' I think. They'll be alert at all times, even in a storm, and they have more than enough weaponry on board those ships, even leaving aside the main guns, to destroy any rowboat before it got close enough to pose a danger."
He grimaced. "I'll be willing to lead the thing, when the time comes. But only because it's not completely suicidal, and I have a taste for adventure."
"More than a taste!" exclaimed Ulrik, half-laughing. "But I see your point. All right, then. There's no point in throwing away the lives of our sailors to no purpose. Spend enough time to make sure you have the torpedo boats ready, in case we can figure out a way to make them effective. The rest, devote as much as you possibly can to the mines."
"And you'll keep your father as far off as you can."
"Yes. And when the time comes, you and I will both see what a torpedo boat can do."
Norddahl's eyes widened. "Ah . . . you're a prince, Your Highness. I'm not sure your father—"
"Damn my father. As many children as he sires, what difference does it make? I have two older brothers anyway, not even counting the morganatic line."
He gave the Norwegian the best royal stare he had. He knew it was quite good, too. He'd learned it from watching Gustav Adolf, the king of Sweden, in the time he'd spent with him as a youngster. A man he liked and generally admired—and was now his enemy. But such was the life of a prince.
Finally, Ulrik got what he needed. There was nothing but respect in Baldur Norddahl's gaze, any longer. No trace of the rogue or the rascal. Just that of the grim ancient that the prince of Denmark would need at his side come a desperate moment in the spring, when they both went a-viking.
Chapter 16
When he emerged from the workshop, Prince Ulrik discovered that the overcast skies of the morning had turned into an afternoon's snowfall. He was just as glad, though. First, because the really bitter cold days in January were the days with clear skies; second, because he liked snow anyway. When he was a boy, he and his brothers had greeted a heavy snowfall with great enthusiasm. It meant days of marvelous play in the castle gardens, digging tunnels through the snow and erecting what they were pleased to call fortresses.
The big workshop the king had had built for Baldur Norddahl was on the southernmost of the three islands in the lake that Frederiksborg Castle was built upon. It was located almost adjacent to the two round towers erected by the castle's original founder, Ulrik's grandfather Frederik II. Giving those familiar sights a mere glance, the prince headed for the S-bridge that would take him to the middle island.
He took a shortcut through the royal stables. That was quicker, warmer—and he liked horses even more than he did snow. As he passed through, he exchanged greetings with the stablehands he encountered, but did not, as he usually would, take the time to chat with them. He was preoccupied today, lost in thoughts that were dark and foreboding.
Once across the S-bridge and onto the middle island, Ulrik stopped in the square to gaze at the Neptune Fountain.
There'd been snowball fights also, of course, many of them in this very square. Lots of those. Ulrik liked to fancy that he first learned military tactics in those melees.
Melees they'd been, too. One of the advantages of being a boy prince—perhaps simply one of the realities, advantageous or not—was that you always had a coterie of other boys around you. Sons of courtiers or sons of stablehands, either way or both. At that age, people did not make the fine distinctions they would grow into as time passed. That was one of the things about his childhood that Ulrik found himself missing a great deal, especially after he visited Grantville and came to realize how very differently the up-timers calculated rank and station in life.
Sadly, the main lesson Ulrik had learned from those mass snowball fights was that the surest of all military tactics was simply to outnumber the foe. "Sadly," because his illustrious father, for all his erratic but undoubted brilliance, seemed to be unable or unwilling to accept that reality and everything that flowed from it.
Slowly, ignoring the snowfall that was covering his hat and the shoulders of his heavy coat, Ulrik walked most of the way around the Neptune Fountain in the middle of the square, examining, as he passed, the edifices around him.