He trailed off into silence.
Jesse cocked his head still further. “Yes?”
The admiral sighed. “I don’t always trust Mike to do the right thing, but I do trust him to do something. And in the situation we’re coming into, I think that willingness on his part to act may be the most critical factor. Whereas I don’t see how Scaglia’s gradualism is going to be much of a guide in the days ahead.”
“To put it in my crude terms, you’ll side with Mike.”
“Not…exactly. I think what’s going to happen is that Prime Minister Wettin is going to start breaking the law—the spirit of it, for damn sure—and then Mike will toss the rules overboard himself. Depending on the circumstances, I don’t know that I’d take Mike’s side. What I’m sure and certain of, though”—his face got stiff—“is that I’m damned if I’ll do Oxenstierna’s dirty work for him. And Oxenstierna’s the one who driving all this, it’s not Wettin.”
Jesse looked at the radio message lying on the table. “So you’ll tell her to come here.”
“Yes. She’ll be taking the union of Kalmar across, so there’s no way the Swedish navy could intercept her. I’ll guarantee her the protection of the USE Navy while she’s in Luebeck. I’ve had my legal staff look into the matter, and while there are a lot of gray areas involved, the one thing that’s clear enough is that Wettin has no authority over the heir apparent. And Oxenstierna’s regency—I’m assuming that’s just a matter of time—would only have authority over her on Swedish soil.”
Jesse smiled. “It occurs to me that Luebeck is not Swedish soil.”
“No, it is not.”
“It also occurs to me that if the navy wants to, it can pretty much hold Luebeck against all comers. For a few months, anyway.”
“My own estimate is that we could hold it for at least a year, actually. It’s hard to take a well-defended port city when you don’t control the sea it fronts on. Not impossible, of course, but very difficult. It would help, though…”
Again, he trailed off into silence. Jesse’s smile widened.
“It would help if you had air support. If you needed it. God forbid.”
The admiral nodded solemnly. “God forbid.”
“Well, God doesn’t actually run the air force. I do. And I agree with you that our eight-year-old princess has the right to visit her own domains-to-be whenever she wants to, without interference from busybodies.”
There was silence in the room. After a while, Simpson said: “The Ring of Fire seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it?”
Chapter 9
Poznan, Poland
The grand hetman of Poland and Lithuania finished studying the enemy lines beyond the city’s fortifications. From his expression, Lukasz Opalinski thought he wasn’t very happy with what he saw. Not so much because of the enemy’s lines, but because of his own. Poznan had begun the process of renovating its walls with the modern trace italienne design, but had not finished it when the USE launched its invasion of Poland. As usual, funds had been short and erratic. King Wladyslaw IV was a spendthrift and the Sejm was feckless.
Stanislaw Koniecpolski turned away, shaking his head. “Lucky for us the Swedish bastards are pre-occupied with their own affairs for the moment.”
Lukasz decided that gave him the opening he’d been waiting for. “As it happens, I just got a letter from Jozef yesterday. He thinks—”
The grand hetman waved a massive hand. “I know what my n-nephew thinks, young Opalinski.” Koniecpolski suffered from stuttering, if he wasn’t careful. “My l-letter from him arrived the day b-before yesterday. I am w-willing to wager that if we m-matched the two letters, they’re word-for-word alm-most the same.”
The stuttering was much worse than usual. That was partly an indication of the grand hetman’s anxiety, and partly—so Lukasz liked to think, anyway—because Koniecpolski had developed a great deal of trust in his young new adjutant. He was less careful about his speech impediment in the presence of close friends, relatives and associates.
The grant hetman tightened his lips and took a slow, deep breath. That was his method for bringing the stuttering under control. It usually worked, as it did this time.
“I might even agree with Jozef,” Koniecpolski continued. “But it’s not my decision, something which Wojtowicz tends to overlook.”
Overlook wasn’t really the right word. Lukasz had had many long political discussions with Jozef Wojtowicz over the past two years. The grand hetman’s bastard nephew was disgusted with the state of Poland’s political affairs. Actually, he’d been fed up with them since he was fourteen years old. But his experience as the grand hetman’s spy in Grantville and later as the head of Koniecpolski’s espionage apparatus in the USE had brought that teenage semi-inchoate discontent into sharp focus. The reason Jozef kept urging courses of action on his powerful uncle was not because he “overlooked” the legal formalities but because he no longer cared much about them and had no confidence at all in either the king or in the Sejm.