Gustav picked up the pot. “More coffee?”
“Please.” Mike extended his cup.
They used the brief time needed to prepare the beverages to ponder the matter silently. Or rather, the emperor did.
After he took his first sip, he set down the cup and said: “Agreed. With your permission, I will privately let the key parties on the other side know where you are prepared to compromise, and where you are not.”
Mike had lifted his cup to his lips but paused just before taking a sip. “Satisfy my own curiosity, if you would. Who are these ‘key parties,’ as you see it?”
“Wilhelm and the landgravine, of course. Also Duke George of Brunswick. Just because he’s in the siege lines around Poznan doesn’t mean he’s not a central figure in the nation’s political life. No one of any importance in Brunswick will do anything without George’s approval.”
“Who else?”
The emperor named half a dozen prominent figures. All of them were in what could be called the moderate wing of the Crown Loyalist party—and not one of them had come to Berlin in response to Oxenstierna’s summons.
“Finally…” Gustav Adolf hesitated. “I think also Ernst Wettin.”
Mike’s eyebrows raised. “He considers himself an administrator, you know. Not a politician.”
The emperor chuckled. “Yes, I know. It is time he expanded his horizons, I think.”
The next two hours went smoothly, almost effortlessly. By the end, Gustav Adolf assured Mike that he would rescind his disqualification of the Crown Loyalist MPs in a week or so.
That done, Mike stood up. “And now that we’ve agreed I won’t run again for the prime minister’s post and I’ll stay in the army, what do you want me to do?”
The emperor’s nostrils flared. “You need to ask?” He pointed to the south. “I have had enough of Duke Maximilian! Since the Poles are being pigheaded, I have to leave Lennart and his two divisions at Poznan. So I’d appreciate it if you would take your Third Division down there and crush him like a bug.”
Mike stared down at him, for a moment. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“You don’t have any doubts—”
“Michael, please!” The emperor stood up himself. “Will you allow that I know whereof I speak, when it comes to military affairs?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then here is the truth, whether you understand or accept it. You have now won three major battles. One of them included taking a well-fortified town, another resulted in the complete destruction of the enemy army. By the end, your forces were larger than they were when you started. Larger in numbers—and better equipped. And you managed to do all this without generating hatred among the populace as a whole. Indeed, I’m told civilians are more likely to regret seeing your soldiers leave than they are to welcome the sight.
“These are signal accomplishments, whether you realize it or not.” He raised his hand dramatically, as if to hold back the tides. “By all means, deny it! Continue to insist to any who will listen that you are a novice, a witless bumbler, and are only kept from total disaster by the desperate efforts of your staff. But please spare me the silliness. You are already one of the best generals in the continent. Still crude in some ways, but not in what really matters—you are willing to fight and you fight to win. So, as I said. Crush the Bavarian bastard for me, would you?”
There didn’t seem to be anything Mike could say to that. So, off he went.
On the way back to his townhouse, he wondered if perhaps he should put together a brass band for the Third Division. For the endless series of triumphal parades the emperor seemed certain were in his future.
When he raised it with Becky that evening, her reply was: “Of course you should.”
He raised it again several hours later, just to be sure that hadn’t been her hormones at work. By then, the hormones—his too—had been given a thorough workout.
She stirred, half-asleep, and nuzzled him. “Of course you should,” she said.
The next morning, at breakfast, his daughter Sepharad weighed in.
“Barry thinks you need a brass band, Daddy.”
He gave Becky an accusing glance.
“I said nothing to them,” she insisted. “It’s obvious to all.”
He looked at Baruch. The three-year-old philosopher-to-be gazed back at him solemnly.
“It’s just in the nature of things, Daddy,” he explained.
“I knew it!” exclaimed his wife.
It was a little unsettling, in fact. Mike steeled his resolve again. As soon as possible, that kid needed to get a Harley-Davidson patch for his jacket.