1635_ The Eastern Front - Eric Flint [142]
And off he went.
During his stay in Grantville, Jozef had been introduced to the work of the English playwright Shakespeare—who was almost a contemporary, oddly enough—and become quite taken by it. So the appropriate thought came to him instantly:
Hoist with his own petard.
Indeed. He had to flee Schwerin, at once. To where? He had no idea, as yet, but surely a destination would come to him.
He rose from the table, gave his companion a most friendly smile—she really had been splendid company if you excluded her final demonic impulse—and said, "I'm afraid I have to leave."
She looked distressed. "Now? But . . . Where are you going?"
He was already walking away. "The seacoast of Bohemia," he said over his shoulder.
Stockholm
Ulrik dumped the documents onto the bed next to him. Had his physical condition allowed, he'd have used a much more dramatic gesture. Hurling them into the fireplace would have been his own preference, albeit counterproductive. Still, even being able to pitch them onto the floor would have been nice.
The problem was that he might want to pick them up later, in order to illustrate a point from some part of the text. He was completely incapable of such a motion and would be for some time to come. Baldur would pick them up for him, if he insisted, but the Norwegian's ensuing sarcasm would be tedious. So would Caroline Platzer, but her ensuing lecture on psychological self-control and the need thereof especially for a prince in line of succession would be even more tedious. Kristina might or might not, depending on her mood of the moment.
It wasn't worth it. Thankfully, his wounds had not impaired his most necessary skills for the task at hand. The bullet that had broken two of his ribs—thank God for good Danish buff coats, or he'd probably be dead—had also left that whole side of his torso aching and immobile. The bullet that had creased his skull—thank God also for good Norwegian bearskin hats, which had probably kept the bullet from piercing his skull—had stunned him for a moment and left a wound that bled badly, as head wounds always did.
But neither of the injuries had affected his brain. He could safely ignore Caroline's warning that he might have suffered a mild concussion. Americans were notorious for seeing perilous injuries everywhere. Many of them even went so far as to oppose corporal punishment for errant children. Speaking of insane.
Nor, best of all, had the injuries affected his tongue.
"Colonel Forsberg, I repeat: Your theory makes no sense."
The colonel stood by the bed, his head bend slightly downward but his back straight as a ramrod. An instrument which, in Ulrik's considered opinion after dealing with the man, had been inserted into his rectum at the age of two and never been removed since.
Forsberg pointed a finger at the papers. The finger was rigid too. Everything about the colonel was rigid. How did he manage to bathe?
"The evidence is in the documents themselves, Your Highness. It says right there, in black and white, that Richelieu was behind it all."
"I know what the documents say, Colonel. But that's not really the issue, is it? The real question is whether we can place any credence in these documents. To put it a different way, why should we assume that documents which were oh-so-conveniently left for us to find by people who planned to murder us—did murder Her Majesty—should be taken at face value?"
It was clear from the expression on Forsberg's face that Ulrik was wasting his time.
Again.
But Forsberg didn't really matter, in the end. Kristina had been following Ulrik's logic since the day after the incident, when he'd recovered enough to start thinking. Her brain might be only eight years old, but it was a superior organ—considerably superior—to those taking up space in the skulls of most of Stockholm's officials.
"And why did they leave the documents at all?" she said. "Why not simply destroy them? They came