The Saxon Uprising(112)
Soon enough, they were done. The only complication was produced by Kristina’s final words: I’m having a party, and everybody’s invited!
From their startled expressions, Ulrik deduced that the notables hadn’t planned further festivities of any kind. Much less a party to which the entire city had been invited.
He was amused to see the way so many of them looked toward Abrabanel, and began drifting in her direction. The young Sephardic woman was already issuing quiet orders to a coterie of other young women whom she seemed to have gathered around her. Calm, relaxed, confident. What was the difficulty of organizing an impromptu festival, after all, when one has already organized an impromptu overturn of the established order?
Ulrik wondered who the young women were. Most were probably commoners, but several of them were obviously noblewomen. They reminded him of the ladies-in-waiting that could be found in any royal court. At least, those courts run by very capable queens.
By mid-afternoon, the palace was close to a shambles. Not quite, because the mob that had poured into it was in good spirits and not particularly given to drunken revelry. Not this day, at least, when the party was in honor of a child. Still, there was simply no way that number of people could pass through a palace without producing a lot of damage.
Most of the damage could be cleaned up by the morrow, though. Even the worst of it—an entire section of balcony collapsing; fortunately, with enough warning for the people below to escape death and mutilation—could be repaired within a week or two.
Well worth it, Ulrik thought. Cheap at the price.
The palace had a radio room of its own, which Rebecca had ordered closed off within two minutes of hearing Kristina’s impromptu party announcement. There were Marine guards at the door to enforce the orders. These Marines weren’t wearing fancy uniforms but they were carrying exactly the same fearsome weapons.
“Send it,” Rebecca ordered the operator. This message was going out in simple Morse code. She wanted it transmitted as far and as wide as possible.
Princess Kristina, heiress to the thrones of Sweden, the union of Kalmar, and the United States of Europe, arrived in Magdeburg today accompanied by her betrothed, Prince Ulrik of Denmark. The entire populace of the nation’s capital was there to greet her. Long live the Vasa dynasty!
“Anything else?” the operator asked, when he was finished.
“No,” she said. “I think that will do.”
Chapter 34
Berlin
When he read the radio message, Axel Oxenstierna burst into a rare fury. “The girl is impossible! Why doesn’t she just abdicate now and save us all twenty years of grief?”
Darmstadt, Province of the Main
The radio message was reported in every newspaper in the USE. That included Darmstadt’s own Abendzeitung.
After the mayor finished reading the short account out loud, there was silence in the council chamber. In the streets outside the Rathaus, the sounds of celebration filtered through the thick walls. The city’s CoC had organized a parade.
“Well, now what!” said the militia commander. It was not even a rhetorical question. More in the way of an exasperated outburst.
One of the council members shrugged. “Face it, Gerlach. The Swede’s floundering.”
In times past, “the Swede” would have been a reference to the king, Gustav II Adolf. Today, it was a reference to Chancellor Oxenstierna.
“If only the emperor would come back,” pined another council member.
And so, the status of a dynasty shifted still further.
Augsburg, one of the USE’s seven independent imperial cities
As usual, the commander of Augsburg’s militia had a very different viewpoint from his counterpart in Darmstadt.
He’d been reading aloud too. Now finished, he set down the copy of the Augsburger Nachrichten and leaned back in his chair. Less given to formalities than their counterparts in Darmstadt, Augsburg’s city council had been meeting in the tavern in the Rathaus basement.
“Good for her,” he said. “Good for her.”
Herr Langenmantel was still holding a grudge over the personal insult concerning his former betrothed. “That borders on treason, it seems to me!”
By now, though, Langenmantel was on his own. Even the head of the city council, Jeremias Jacob Stenglin, had resigned himself to the inevitable.
“Don’t be stupid,” he grumbled, picking up his stein of beer. “How can the throne betray itself?”
As Stenglin drowned his sorrows, another city council member spoke up. “Face it, Adelbert. The citizenship issue is a lost cause. By now, even half the guildmasters are against making any changes.”
“More like two-thirds,” grunted the militia commander. “Look, it’s just not that important. The city was doing well enough, wasn’t it?” He waved a thick hand. “Yeah, sure, the CoC is annoying. So is my wife, a lot of the time. But she’s reliable. Things could be worse.”