1636_ The Saxon Uprising - Eric Flint [119]
Erik realized, with a little start, that he’d never actually taken that thought to its conclusion. Until what? Always, he’d stopped at the edge of hoping—desperately hoping—for his cousin’s recovery. But now that it seemed he might actually be recovering…
He came to one immediate decision. There was no more time for subtlety.
“My loyalties are entirely to him, Erling Ljungberg.” He pointed at Gustav Adolf. “Yours?”
“Don’t be an ass. You know the answer to that. What you really want to know is if I’m as dumb as the ox I look like.”
Erik couldn’t help laughing. A quick, nervous laugh—but a laugh it definitely was. “I’d hardly use the term ‘ox’! Bull, yes. And now that you bring it up, how smart are you?”
Ljungberg heaved his massive shoulders. The gesture might have been a shrug, or it might have been a bull shifting his stance to attack, or it might be something of both. Ljungberg himself probably didn’t know for sure.
“I’m not so stupid that I can’t figure out the chancellor is taking advantage of my king’s condition to carry through policies my king would never have agreed to himself. Nor am I so stupid that I can’t figure out that the blessed chancellor is in over his head. And he’s supposed to be the clever one!”
As answers went, that was the best Hand could want. “How does the rest of your unit feel about it?”
“Even Scots aren’t that dumb. And they take their orders from me, anyway.”
The colonel nodded. He started chewing on his lower lip again, deciding on his next steps. He’d begin with the Östergötlanders. He no longer commanded that regiment, but he had their respect, and he was on good personal terms with its current commander. After that…
“Ha!” jeered Ljungberg. “Haven’t really thought about it, have you? Well, I have. You’ll start with the Östergötland infantry regiment, of course. After them, go see Colonel Klas Hastfer and his Finnish regiment. He’s married to my wife’s half-sister, by the way. Then, I recommend you talk with Karl Hård af Segerstad.”
He commanded the Västergötland infantry. Erik didn’t know him very well, though.
Ljungberg grinned. His grin was as cold as Hand’s own. “My cousins aren’t as highly placed as yours, Colonel. But I have three of them in that regiment, one of whom is the commander’s adjutant. I know what they’re thinking, and it’s nothing the chancellor would like to hear.”
Hand spend a moment looking at the issue from all angles he could think of. On the one hand, this level of caution seemed a bit mad. No one including Oxenstierna would question Gustav Adolf’s authority if he should recover. On the other hand…
Who knew, really? There was a sort of insanity lurking underneath Oxenstierna’s whole enterprise. The man’s resentment at the steady erosion of the aristocracy’s position in the USE had obviously been much deeper than anyone realized. Hand had always assumed—so had his cousin, he was pretty sure—that Oxenstierna would be satisfied with the still-intact position of the nobility in Sweden. But apparently the chancellor had concluded that if things continued on their present course in the Germanies it would only be a matter of time before the position of the nobility in Sweden itself was undermined.
He might even be right, for all the colonel knew. But to plunge everyone into a civil war because of it…
That was simply not sane, in Hand’s opinion. Not outright madness, perhaps; but not sanity either.
So who knew what the chancellor might do, if he felt himself driven into a corner? Best to establish some safeguards ahead of time.
“I’ll do as you suggest, Erling.” It was the first time he’d ever used the man’s given name. “In the meantime…”
The huge bodyguard made a dismissive gesture. “That, you needn’t worry about, Erik. The bodyguard detachment is entirely reliable. I can personally vouch for that.”
The colonel wasn’t about to question the statement. First, because this was the first time Ljungberg had ever