1636_ The Saxon Uprising - Eric Flint [117]
“Move to a vote,” said Ableidinger immediately.
The vote was unanimous. Achterhof was probably tempted to abstain, but he didn’t.
Rebecca hadn’t thought he would. Gunther could be aggravating sometimes, but the one thing the man never did was dodge issues and evade responsibility.
“I’ll send the message,” she said.
She sent two, actually. The second one went to the radio station at the Third Division’s headquarters near České Budějovice in Bohemia.
Less than an hour later, a radio message arrived from Third Division headquarters to the radio station of the Hangman Regiment in Tetschen. It was addressed to the commanding officer, Colonel Jeff Higgins, and consisted of one word:
Soon.
Chapter 29
Berlin
Wilhelm Wettin was surprised to hear the door open. Since his arrest and confinement in a small room in a corner of the palace, he’d had almost no visitors. The guards brought his meals regularly, did the same for emptying the chamber pot, provided him with wine at his request, and otherwise did not speak to him at all. The last time he’d seen anyone other than a guard had been several weeks ago, when Oxenstierna sent one of his agents to check on the prime minister’s wellbeing. The chancellor hadn’t bothered to come himself.
Still more to his surprise, the person who came through the door was Colonel Erik Haakansson Hand. The emperor’s cousin was not perhaps the last person Wilhelm had expected to see, but he certainly wasn’t anywhere near the top of the list. The two men barely knew each other, except by reputation.
“I haven’t much time,” the colonel said. He was speaking very quietly, although not in a whisper. “In the nature of things, bribes only last so long”—he pointed over his shoulder with a thumb—“and those fellows on guard out there are from the Dalana Infantry Regiment, whose former commander was none other than Oxenstierna himself. Not quite my still-close boyhood companions.”
Wilhelm stared at him. Why would the king’s own cousin be needing to bribe anyone?
“Something is rotten in the state of Sweden,” Hand continued. “Or at least in one of my greedy cousin’s three realms. I want to know what it is. Why were you arrested?”
He waved his hand abruptly. That was his left hand, the one he usually employed. His right arm couldn’t be straightened due to the terrible injuries he had sustained while leading a brigade against Wallenstein a few years earlier.
“And let’s skip over the twaddle about conspiring with unknown—what was Oxenstierna’s phrase?—ah, yes, ‘seditious elements.’ Such a vague term. On his bad days, I suppose you could accuse my horse of being seditious, and he’s presumably elemental.” The colonel’s familiar cold grin appeared. “At least, I’ve seen no sign that he’s sprouting wings.”
After a moment of silence, Hand shook his head impatiently. “Come on, come on, tell me the truth. My loyalty is entirely to my cousin, Saxe-Weimar. No one else.”
Wilhelm made a quick decision. It was always possible this was a trap, but…
Not likely. Erik Haakansson Hand’s personal attachment to Gustav Adolf went far back. Besides, what difference did it make, at this point? If Oxenstierna wanted him executed, he didn’t have to use an elaborate subterfuge involving the emperor’s own cousin.
“Maximilian of Bavaria’s attack on the Oberpfalz was arranged,” he said abruptly. “By that bastard Oxenstierna himself. He used the count of Nassau-Hadamar, Johann Ludwig, as his intermediary.”
“How did you find out?”
“Two of the count’s associates let it slip while they were drunk. I suppose they assumed I was part of the conspiracy. One of them was—”
“I know who the baron and the guildmaster were. They left Berlin the day before you were arrested. I wondered why, at the time. It makes sense now. When they sobered up and remembered the conversation, they must