1636_ The Saxon Uprising - Eric Flint [71]
The admiral chuckled. “Not often you hear those two words put together. ‘Oxenstierna’ and ‘imbecile.’ The chancellor’s actually a very intelligent man.”
“There’s no evidence of it right now. Just the instinctive behavior of an aristocrat, as brainless as a bull in rutting season.” Ulrik waved his hand, in another irritable gesture. “In the long run, the victor in this contest is inevitable—and Oxenstierna should be able to see that for himself. All he will accomplish is to prolong the process, at the cost of great agony—and the risk of producing a Germany as distorted as the one in the universe you came from. Which is the last thing anyone needs.”
The prince looked down at his own cup. He’d barely touched the broth, and found he had no more desire to do so now. Nothing wrong with it; the beverage was quite tasty. But when Ulrik was on edge, he lost all his appetite. It was hard to explain what he was groping for, exactly.
“What I hope, John—it’s a gamble, I’ll be the first to agree, and probably one at long odds—is that the legitimacy Kristina can give the democratic movement if she moves to Magdeburg will tip the scale in the civil war. And because of the way she tipped it, will restrain the victors from inflicting excessive punishment on the losers.” He grimaced. “Whereas you can be sure that if they win, Oxenstierna and that pack of curs following him will drown the nation in a bloodbath even worse than the one which closed the Peasant War.”
“Not in the SoTF, they won’t,” Simpson said, in a steely tone. “Make no mistake about this, Ulrik. I am trying to obey the law. So is Jesse Wood. So is Mike Stearns, for that matter. But if Oxenstierna starts massacring Americans, all bets are off.”
The prince shook his head. “He won’t do that. And if someone else starts, he’ll put a stop to it. If for no other reason, no one wants to lose the Americans’ skills. He doesn’t need to destroy you Americans, John. He simply needs to hamstring your political influence. If he crushes the Committees of Correspondence and drives the Fourth of July Party under—to the fringes of power, at least—he will have accomplished that.”
Simpson stared at him. “You’re right, you know.” He waved his hand also. “Not about the massacring business, about all of it. Americans have no magic powers. We simply…How to put it? Ignited something that would have erupted on its own anyway. You could put every American in a box and it wouldn’t matter, in the long run.”
“Not…exactly.” Ulrik paused, while he tried to sort out his thoughts. “I think what Mike Stearns has been aiming for all along—from things he let drop in conversations; mostly from watching him—is to produce a Europe much less maimed and distorted than the one that came to be in your world. If so, with respect to his goal if not necessarily his methods, I have no dispute with him. Indeed, I’d be glad to lend a hand. And in that process, I think it’s actually rather important that as many Americans as possible be kept out of boxes.”
He and the admiral suddenly grinned at each other.
“Well!” said Simpson, rubbing his hands. “On that, we see eye-to-eye.”
He leaned back in his chair and looked at the window again, for a few seconds. “All right, Ulrik. I will provide you and the princess with a refuge here. If Oxenstierna snarls at me, I will simply snarl back, point out that the laws involved are completely murky—and that if he pushes me too far, I can make his life a lot more miserable still.”
Ulrik nodded. “Thank you. I take it you’re trying to keep the navy as neutral as possible in the conflict?”
“Yes. Colonel Wood has agreed to do the same with the air force.”
“Quite wise, I think. In any event, you won’t be in this awkward position for more than a few days. Just long enough for us to make suitable arrangements to get to Magdeburg.”
“Ah… Ulrik, I’d make a suggestion.”
“Yes?”
“Stay here for a while. A few weeks, possibly even a