The Saxon Uprising(92)

“But it’d be fun!”

Out of the side of his eye, Ulrik could see Baldur grinning.

“Not a word, Norddahl,” he said through clenched teeth.

The Norwegian shrugged. “She’s right, you know. We could have a dandy little adventure, disguising ourselves and dashing all about the land as we make our cunning way toward—”

“Shut up! You’re not helping!”

Once the prince was sure that he’d silenced his servant—using the term “servant” so very, very loosely—he went back to the princess.

“Kristina, if we sneak into Magdeburg like thieves in the night, we undercut everything we’re trying to accomplish. This is all about legitimacy. Everything! All of it! Why else have we stayed here in Luebeck for so long? Why didn’t we go to Magdeburg immediately?”

Kristina wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Ulrik was relieved to see the gesture. The girl didn’t have a runny nose, that was just a nervous reflex she had when she was beginning to back down from a tempestuous fight.

It was…unsettling, to think how well he’d gotten to know Kristina. And she’d gotten to know him, he didn’t doubt. Over the centuries, royals separated by almost two decades in age had become betrothed any number of times. Nor had it been unusual if one of those royals was still a child when the betrothal was made. But normally, the formalities done—often by proxy, not even in person—the future married couple didn’t see each other for years. When the time finally came to consummate the marriage, the husband and wife who climbed into the nuptial bed were almost complete strangers. Awkward, of course, in some ways. But one could still trust nature to take its course.

When the time finally came for him and Kristina, on the other hand…

It would either be hideous or very, very good. It wouldn’t be anything in between, for a certainty.

He gave his head a little shake, to clear the stray thought. That problem was still a decade away. Well, eight or nine years. Seven, at the very least. Six, if you really stretched every…

He shook his head again. No little shake this time, either. “You haven’t answered me.”

He was careful—he was always careful—not to give her a direct command. A father could tell his daughter, “Answer me!” An older brother, even, could do the same. But he was not her father. He was her betrothed, forced to act in many ways as if he were her father or older brother, but never forgetting that he wasn’t.

With a different girl, that might not have mattered. A timid, uncertain, shy—just thinking about it was enough to make one laugh. Kristina would remember each and every transgression; squirrel it away like a rodent hoarding food—no, like a commander saving ammunition—and when the time came she would bring them all forth to exact retribution.

One had to be philosophical about these things, if you were a prince in line of succession. Ulrik could—and did, and would until the day he died—console himself with the knowledge that, whatever else, life with Kristina would never, ever, be dull.

She wiped her nose. “Because—this is what you said—we needed to give Uncle Axel time to look foolish.”

She wiped her nose again. “Well, the admiral said it too.”

Kristina had become quite attached to Simpson. In an odd sort of way, he and his wife Mary had become something like grandparents to her.

“ ‘Foolish’ isn’t exactly the right word,” Ulrik said. “A ruler can seem foolish to his subjects and still have legitimacy, because he had it to begin with. But the day Chancellor Oxenstierna started breaking the laws—which he did when he unilaterally moved the capital to Berlin; when he summoned a convention that had no legal authority to act; most of all, when he arrested Prime Minister Wettin—then he placed himself in a position where he had to establish his legitimacy.”

The prince shrugged. “Not an impossible project, by any means. Every usurper in history has faced the same problem—and history is full of successful usurpers. Still, it has to be done. It’s not something that can be allowed to drift. And that’s exactly what Oxenstierna has let happen. He’s drifted. Been set adrift, rather, by the shrewd tactics of his opponents. By now, many people—including many of those who followed him initially, and especially those who followed Wettin—are beginning to doubt him. That means they’ll be relieved to see someone re-establish legitimacy, since the usurper apparently can’t.”

By now, the princess had gotten interested—always the best way, of course, to get Kristina off a tantrum. “Isn’t there anything Uncle Axel can do?”