1636_ The Saxon Uprising - Eric Flint [118]
The colonel tugged on his beard for a moment. “All right. I’ll do what I can. Just stay here and don’t do anything foolish like trying to escape.” Again, the cold grin appeared. “If it will settle your nerves at all—I warn you, I know the castle involved, so it certainly wouldn’t settle mine very much—our precious chancellor is not planning to have you executed. No, you’re for exile in St. Olaf’s Castle in Finland as soon as things settle down.”
“And are they settling down?”
Hand sneered. “Of course not. What were you fools thinking, anyway? And then Fool One had Fool Two arrested! Talk about piling wood onto an already out of control fire! Or what’s that up-time expression?”
“Pouring gasoline on the flames,” said Wilhelm, his jaws tightening. He resented the insult. On the other hand…
Sadly, he couldn’t disagree with it. In the weeks since his arrest, he’d come to much the same conclusion about himself. Although he had avoided terms like “fool.” He thought “made some very bad mistakes” was sufficient, thank you.
The colonel turned to go, and then stopped. “And here’s something else to settle your nerves—or make them worse, possibly. I’m almost certain that everything is about to explode.”
“Why?”
Hand snorted. “Why do you think? You left Stearns with an entire division at his disposal? After you let Gretchen Richter steal Dresden from under your noses?”
A moment later, he was gone.
All of it made sense, the colonel thought, as he walked back toward the wing of the palace where his cousin was kept. At least, if you were the sort of schemer who was too clever for his own good; which, in his estimation, was a pretty fair description of Sweden’s chancellor. It would be just like him not to be able to resist ladling an unnecessary scoop of treason onto the pile.
Stupid, really. To begin with, Maximilian of Bavaria probably would have invaded the Oberpfalz anyway. And while neutralizing the army of the State of Thuringia-Franconia would certainly be handy for Oxenstierna’s purposes, it was not critical. So why add the risk that outright treason would be discovered?
Erik Haakansson Hand did not and never had shared in the general admiration for Axel Oxenstierna. An admiration, unfortunately, shared by his cousin the king. Such was life.
He spent a bit of time wondering if he should protect himself in some way from the possibility that the two guards he’d bribed would report the matter to anyone. But it was not likely at all that they would. Bribees generally didn’t confess their sins except under duress, after all. And even if they did, what could he do to prevent it? The only two solutions he could think of—bribe them some more or murder them—would be cures worse than the disease. His own lapse into gasoline-over-fire-pouring, as it were.
Quite a charming expression. Of course, you had to know what gasoline was—but, by now, that knowledge was quite widespread.
It didn’t take him long to reach the king’s quarters. Berlin’s palace was a palace, yes. But it was what you’d expect in Berlin.
When he came into the room, he saw that Gustav Adolf was asleep. That was a blessing, he thought. For the past two days, his cousin had been prone to fits of anger great enough that he’d had to be restrained. But these fits, unlike the ones he’d had earlier, were more complex. There was confusion there, not just fury. In fact, Erik was pretty sure most of the anger derived from the confusion. As if the king, trying to awaken, was frustrated by his difficulty in doing so.
Before he could say anything, the king’s bodyguard spoke. “He asked for you, Colonel,” said Erling Ljungberg. “Twice, before he fell asleep. And the second time, what he said was: ‘Where is Erik? He must see to Kristina. It’s very important.’ ”
The colonel took a long, almost shuddering breath. Three sentences, each of which was clear and meaningful—and what he suspected was most important, all three sentences held together as a coherent,