The Saxon Uprising(139)

Jeff Higgins spent less than two hours at the same task. First, because he only had a regiment’s worth of men to deal with. Secondly, because unlike Mike Stearns he wasn’t comfortable striding around the stage. Any stage.

He didn’t really need to do it anyway. No regiment in the division had higher morale this night than the Hangman. They were ready to go at Banér’s throat. Many of the standard bearers weren’t even planning to carry the regiment’s colors into battle the next day. They’d made jury-rigged substitutes, straw figures supposed to be Banér hanging from a gibbet. They’d carry the gibbets themselves into the fight, with their straw Swedish generals blowing in the wind along with the snow.

Thorsten Engler spent even less time at the task. No more than forty-five minutes. First, because he only had two hundred men under his command instead of a thousand. Secondly, because the morale of flying artillery units was a bit eccentric. The volley gun crews considered themselves an elite force. So, unlike common garden variety soldiers, they needed no artificial stimulants like silly speeches from officers to get them ready for battle. No, no, no. They were the cold-eyed killers, the deadly ones, the men who broke cavalry charges.

They needed nothing, thank you. Beyond a commander who passed through their ranks, from campfire to campfire, quietly checking to make sure no one lacked anything in the way of equipment or supplies.

A commander like Engler, in short. Detached, intellectual, reasoned. They all knew his ambition to become a psychologist after the war. Once the meaning of the term was explained to them, each and every man in the company agreed that he would make a superb psychologist.

And not one of them would consider using his professional services as such. Even by volley gun crew standards, that man was a little scary.

Berlin, capital of Brandenburg province

Colonel Erik Haakansson Hand was also contemplating the use of poison that night. In his case, though, the thought was neither idle nor fanciful. He had a real problem on his hands.

Unfortunately, after weeks of welcome slothfulness and incompetence on their part, one of Gustav Adolf’s doctors was taking a genuine interest in the case. Instead of a perfunctory few minutes breezing in and out of the king’s room every other day or so, this bastard was starting to spend time there.

A full hour, yesterday. Luckily, there had been no signs from the king that he was starting to recover from his condition. He’d been asleep most of the time and when he did wake up, immediately started shouting at the doctor in fury.

Incoherent fury, too. The annoying man had fled in five minutes.

But if he kept coming around, there was bound to be bad luck sooner or later. And once any of the doctors assigned to the king began to think the king might be recovering, he’d be sure to tell Oxenstierna.

Or if one of them didn’t, the king’s chaplain would. That was the Pomeranian Jacobus Fabricius. He’d been wounded in the battle at Lake Bledno but not badly enough that he hadn’t been able to start attending the king after a few weeks. But he’d resumed those duties too early and in his weakened state he’d fallen badly ill. A stroke of luck, that was, since the chaplain hadn’t been present during the recent period to see Gustav Adolf’s growing flashes of coherence.

Hand didn’t think any of the doctors, and certainly not the chaplain, wished any ill upon his cousin. But regardless of their motives, any of them who noticed was sure to inform Oxenstierna. Nor would it matter if the chancellor had already taken the army to Magdeburg by then. He’d be taking a radio with him. Several, in fact. Just as he’d be leaving several behind in Berlin. He’d get the news within hours.

And then…

There was no telling what would happen. But Erik now feared the worst. Three months ago—two months ago—perhaps even one month ago, he’d have sworn that Oxenstierna would do no personal harm to Gustav Adolf. Not to his own king, and a man who’d been a good friend for many years.

But Axel Oxenstierna had been changing, and the change had sped up rapidly over the past few weeks. The course of action he’d set for himself had careened out of his control, something which was now obvious to everyone except those reactionary imbeciles who guzzled the palace’s wine, gobbled food from its kitchens, and sang praises and hosannas to Oxenstierna every drunken evening.

It was certainly obvious to Oxenstierna. Most of his followers might be dull-witted but not the chancellor himself.

Nothing had gone the way he’d planned. His enemies had not reacted as he’d foreseen. There’d been none—very little, anyway—of the chaos he’d expected and had partly been depending upon. Wilhelm Wettin had dug in his heels once he stumbled across outright treachery and had had to be arrested. The princess had not knuckled under to pressure. Indeed, she and her consort-to-be had defied Oxenstierna in the most flamboyant fashion imaginable. Dresden had defied him and held out against Banér. And now Stearns had come out in open rebellion and marched his troops back into Saxony. By all reports, there would be a battle soon between his Third Division and Banér’s mercenaries. Only a new storm was delaying it.