The Devil's Opera(107)

He and Kristina were safe in Magdeburg, which had by no means been a certain thing. Flying, after all, was still a very new and, to be truthful, somewhat risky thing in the here-and-now. Oh, the rewards had far outweighed the risks, he admitted, but that was not the same as saying that the risks of their trip had been eliminated.

More than safe, they were welcome in Magdeburg. Which had also been by no means a foregone conclusion.

Ulrik had counted on Kristina being welcome. She had, after all, been the—what was the phrase Admiral Simpson had used?—the “poster child” of the first great flexing of the commoners’ strength after the Battle of Wismar. So her warm reception had been no surprise.

On the other hand, he had been prepared for his own welcome to be scant and cool. It had been a relief that it had been otherwise. Oh, he had no illusions—every one of those leaders and politicians who had been smiling out in the biting cold today had serious reservations about him, and what he might portend. But they were all following Senator Abrabanel’s lead, even the ranks of the Committees of Correspondence behind Spartacus and Gunther Achterhof. They were willing to talk, and reason, and negotiate—at least, as long as he operated in good faith.

The wine was every bit as good as what his father had laid down in his cellars, Ulrik decided after another sip. He wondered how that had happened, after Pappenheim had purportedly not left two stones of Magdeburg touching one another some four years ago.

His mind returned to the thread he had been turning in his mind for much of the evening. Yes, he and the princess might have the—nominal—support of the leaders in Magdeburg. But that support ultimately rested on the commoners, and he now realized that those people were not perhaps as controlled as he had assumed.

Frau Linder’s song still left him unsettled. And he could tell that the song had touched everyone in the room this evening. From leaders on the one hand to servants on the other, everyone had been touched…but the touches had been different. And what he had seen in the eyes and faces of the servants, just for that brief moment, had been chilling.

It would have been a serious concern if it had only been performed here in Magdeburg. But the up-timers had recorded it, and it had been played over the radio, not once but many times now, and Trommler Records was supposedly selling as many records of the song as they could make.

Ulrik’s father, King Christian IV of Denmark, was greatly enamored of the many technological marvels brought back by the up-timers. Many a scholar rejoiced over the knowledge available in Grantville. And many of the radical philosophers wrapped themselves in the egalitarianism of the Americans. But who would have thought that music might shake the foundations of Europe?

Ulrik spent much of the night pondering that thought, and how the radio and the records just might be as much of a social lever as the SRG rifle.





Chapter 41

Ulrik came around the corner and managed to sidestep in time to avoid running into Baldur Norddahl. He and Caroline Platzer, Kristina’s favorite guardian, had arrived a day or two earlier, having had to travel from Luebeck on the ground instead of by air as the princess and her consort-to-be had done. The burly Norwegian was studying a broadside with a wide grin on his face.

“Have you seen this one?” He held it out to Ulrik.

The prince glanced at it.

“Yes. That’s the one that Caroline insisted we keep from Kristina. She said it was a bit raw, even for the current times.”

Ulrik had to admit, though, the drawing of a minotaur figure with widespread horns ravishing a female from behind was certainly attention getting. Clothing in disarray, she was bent over the walls of a city. The label “Magdeburg” pointed to both the city and the woman, making an obvious play on the German word for “maiden.”

The CoC must have a new cartoonist, he thought. The maiden’s face was recognizably that of Wilhelm Wettin, complete with moustache. And little touches about Oxenstierna-as-minotaur, such as the tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, indicated an artistic vision that had been lacking in some of the earlier broadsheets that had lampooned the Swedish chancellor. Nonetheless, the point of this new cartoon was as savage and sharp as any he had ever seen.

Baldur pulled it back and looked at it a moment longer. “Girl’s ugly, though.”

Ulrik snorted as his sometime-lieutenant folded the broadside with care and stowed it in a jacket pocket. Before he could say anything else, one of Kristina’s ladies came around the corner and almost ran into him, much as he had encountered Baldur minutes earlier.

“Oh, there you are, Prince Ulrik. Frau Platzer says that you should come to the palace radio room now, please.”