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Torstensson gave him an exasperated look. "Stop clowning, would you? Michael, if we eliminate the buffoonery, what George says is true enough."

Mike spread his hands a little, inviting the Swedish general to continue. But before he could say anything, Knyphausen spoke up.

"The thing is, General Stearns, you are a neophyte and the Saxon commander von Arnim is certainly feeling desperate by now."

The professional soldier had a lean and very long-nosed face that naturally lent itself to lugubrious expressions. He had such an expression now. "Poor bastard, with John George for an employer."

He seemed genuinely aggrieved at the plight faced by the Saxon general. Mike had to fight down another grin. Professional soldiers in the Thirty Years' War tended to have a thoroughly guildlike mindset, when it came to their attitudes toward other officers. There were some exceptions like Heinrich Holk, who were generally despised. But for the most part generals on opposite sides of the battlefield were more likely to feel a closer kinship to their opponent than either one of them felt for their employers.

Knyphausen leaned back, apparently satisfied that his cryptic references to Mike's inexperience and von Arnim's difficulties had made everything clear.

Mike looked back at Torstensson. "Could you perhaps be a bit more precise?"

Torstensson now tugged at his ear. "Well . . . The thing is, Michael, I would like you to behave recklessly in the coming battle. Pretend to behave recklessly, rather."

Brunswick-Lüneburg's smile seemed fixed in place. "What he'd really prefer would be for you to act the poltroon at the coming battle. Flee at the first sign of a Saxon attack."

"Much as the Saxons did themselves at Breitenfeld," chimed in Knyphausen.

Torstensson gave them both an exasperated glance. "Actually, no. As a theoretical exercise, that would be indeed ideal. But battlefields don't lend themselves well to abstractions. A rout, once started—whether in fakery or not—is extraordinarily hard to stop. And I don't actually want your division to leave the field."

Mike settled back in his seat and once again had to suppress an expression. A sigh, this time, not a grin.

"Let me guess. The reason you want to undertake such a gambit—which is bound to be risky, especially with a divisional commander as inexperienced as I am—is because you figure we'll be outnumbered in the coming battle."

"You do have an experienced and capable staff," pointed out George. "Just leave it to them."

That was not quite blithering nonsense, but close. Mike's firsthand knowledge of military affairs was limited to a three-year stint as an enlisted man in the up-time American army twenty years back. He'd also done a lot of reading since he'd realized he was most likely going to end up as a general—what Civil War era Americans would have called a "political general"—after he left office as the USE's prime minister. But he knew enough to know that a good staff could only substitute so far for the character of a unit's commander.

Torstensson knew it himself, of course. A bit hastily, he added, "Mostly, it will just require steady nerves on your part. And the emperor himself told me he thought you had nerves of steel."

That last came with a friendly expression. But Mike wasn't about to let himself get sidetracked by a compliment. It was not really a compliment anyway, since he was pretty sure Gustav Adolf had said that to Lennart in a fit of aggravation due to Mike's admittedly hard-nosed approach to political negotiations.

"The more interesting issue," he mused, "is why you expect us to be outnumbered in the coming battle. By all accounts I've heard, John George can't field an army any larger than thirty-five thousand men. That's an official count, mind you. In the real world, you have to allow for desertion and illness. There'll be plenty of men just too drunk, too. I've been told by—your words, gentlemen, I remind you—my experienced and capable staff, that we won't actually