1632

"Steel in his spine?" demanded Torstensson. "George William?" He sneered. "Impossible!"

Gustav's smile was a thin spreading of lips across still-clenched teeth. "Nonsense," he growled. "He is my brother-in-law, after all. He will see reason. Especially after I give him a simple choice. 'Steel in your spine-or steel up your ass.' "

The tent rocked with laughter. Gustav's thin smile became a shark's grin. He turned his head to Torstensson. "Prepare for the march, Lennart. I want your cannons staring at Berlin as soon as possible."

The officers in the tent took that as the signal to leave. Hesse-Kassel and the brothers Saxe-Weimar lingered behind, for a moment. The first, simply to shake the king's hand. The others, to present themselves for their new duty. Gustav sent them scurrying after Torstensson.

Soon enough, only Oxenstierna was left in the tent. Gustav waited until everyone was gone before speaking.

"There has been no word from Mackay?"

Oxenstierna shook his head. The King scowled.

"I need that Dutch money, Axel. As of now, our finances depend almost entirely on the French. Cardinal Richelieu." His heavy face grew sour. "I trust that three-faced papist as much as I'd trust Satan himself."

Axel shrugged. He tried to make his smile reassuring. Not with any great success, despite his skill as a diplomat.

"The French-Richelieu-have their own pressing reasons to support us, Gustav. They may be Catholics, but they're a lot more worried about Habsburg dynastic ambitions than they are about reestablishing the pope's authority in northern Germany."

The king was not mollified. "I know that!" he snapped. "And so? What Richelieu wants is a long, protracted, destructive war in the Holy Roman Empire. Let half of the Germans die in the business-let them all die! Richelieu does not want us to win, Axel-far from it! He simply wants us to bleed the Austrian Habsburgs. And the Spanish Habsburgs, for that matter." He scowled ferociously. "Swedish cannon fodder, working for a French paymaster who doles out the funds like a miser."

He slammed a heavy fist into a heavy palm. "I must have more money! I can't get it from Richelieu, and we've already drained the Swedish treasury. That leaves only Holland. They're rich, the Dutch, and they have their own reasons for wanting the Habsburgs broken."

It was Oxenstierna's lean and aristocratic face which grew heavy now. "The Dutch Republic," he muttered sourly.

The king glanced at his friend, and chuckled. "Oh, Axel! Ever the nobleman!"

Oxenstierna stiffened, a bit, under the gibe. The Oxenstiernas were one of the greatest families of the Swedish nobility, and Axel, for all his suppleness of mind, was firmly wedded to aristocratic principles. Ironically, the only man in Sweden who stood above him, according to that same principle, was considerably more skeptical as to its virtues. Gustav II Adolf, King of Sweden, had spent years fighting the Polish aristocracy before he matched swords with their German counterparts. The experience had left him with a certain savage contempt for "nobility." The Poles were valiant in battle, but utterly bestial toward their serfs. The Germans, with some exceptions, lacked even that Polish virtue. Most of them, throughout the long war, had enjoyed the comforts of their palaces and castles while mercenaries did the actual fighting. Paid for, naturally, by taxes extorted from an impoverished, disease-ridden, and half-starved peasantry.

But there was no point in resuming an old dispute with Axel. Gustav had enough problems to deal with, for the moment.

"If Mackay hasn't reported, that means the Dutch courier hasn't reached him yet," he mused. "What could have happened?"

Axel snorted. "Happened? To a courier trying to make it across Germany after thirteen years of war?"

Gustav shook his head impatiently. "The Dutch will have sent a Jew," he pointed out. "They'll have provided him with letters of safe-conduct. And Ferdinand has made his own decrees concerning the treatment of Jews in the Holy Roman Empire. He doesn't want them frightened off, while he needs their money."

Oxenstierna shrugged. "Even so, a thousand things could have happened. Tilly's men are rampaging through the area already. They don't work for the emperor. Not directly, at least. What do those mercenaries care about Ferdinand's decrees, if a band of them catch a courier and his treasure? Much less Dutch letters of safe-conduct."

The king scowled, but he did not argue the point. He knew Axel was most likely right. Germany was a witches' sabbath today. Any crime was not only possible, or probable-it had already happened, times beyond counting.