1633

"Two things I want you to learn from this, Lieutenant." The admiral came to a stop and glared down at him. Simpson was a big man, even if not the semi-giant that his son Tom was. "First. When I tell you to keep your mouth shut at a meeting, I mean shut. Is that understood?"

"Yessir."

"Good. Second thing."

A wintry smile came to Simpson's face. "I imagine by now both you and Lieutenant Cantrell call me 'the bastard' more often than not. In private, that is. If I ever catch you doing it in public, I'll have your ass. But you might as well understand the other half of it. The Navy takes care of its own, son. Always. So if I'm a bastard, at least you can count on me to be your bastard."

Larry jerked his mind out of reminiscence. He'd just noticed that four of those new rifles were being slid free of their saddle scabbards as he jogged toward the Tott's Regiment troopers. Their officer started to say something to them, but before he could, someone else spoke up sharply. The troopers looked over their shoulders at the huge blond shape of Anders Jцnsson and put their rifles back with the sort of hasty "I-wasn't-doing-anything" air of small children caught out by an irate tutor. Jцnsson glowered at them for a moment; then said something else, gesturing at Larry's 21 st -century clothing, and shook his head.

Under other circumstances, Larry would have chuckled at the troopers' hang dog attitudes. Unlike the cavalrymen, Jцnsson was not armed with a flintlock rifle. In fact, he didn't carry a rifle at all, and he'd already discarded all of his wheel locks, as well. Instead, he wore a shoulder holster which contained a single HK.40-caliber USP automatic. It was one of the half-dozen or so most expensive handguns to have made the trip back from the 21 st -century, but no one in Grantville begrudged it or the four high-capacity magazines which had accompanied it when Mike Stearns presented the black, polymer-framed pistol to Jцnsson. Given that assassination was an acknowledged if officially frowned-upon way of dealing with problems in this day and age, anything which made it more difficult for someone to get past Gustavus Adolphus' personal bodyguard struck most Americans as a very good idea indeed.

Larry reached the side of the building slip just in time to hear the tag end of Jцnsson's caustic homily. It was in Swedish, which was still a foreign language-in every sense-for Larry, but he didn't need to be able to understand the words to grasp the meaning. He tried hard not to grin at the discomfited troopers. Actually, when he thought about it, he was in favor of paranoia on their part where the safety of their monarch was concerned. As long as that paranoia wasn't expressed by pointing rifles at his own personal body, at least.

"Can I help you, Lieutenant?" Jцnsson inquired, switching to heavily accented but clearly understandable English and nodding courteously as Larry trotted up to him. The bodyguard carried no official rank, but Larry had privately decided that his effective rank had to be somewhere around that of a colonel, so he paused to come to attention and salute in the fashion Simpson insisted upon. It still felt more than a little unnatural, but it no longer felt silly; and Gustavus' bodyguard returned the formal military courtesy with unsmiling dignity.

"I have an urgent message for the king," Larry told him, puffing slightly for breath after his hurried trip.

Jцnsson regarded him for a moment, then nodded. He said something to the Tott officer in Swedish, then gestured politely for Larry to accompany him and led the way up a ladder to the deck of the incomplete warship. A couple of workmen glowered at them for getting in the way as they stepped onto the partially planked deck, but Jцnsson ignored them as he and Larry crossed to the powerfully built figure of the king of Sweden.

At the moment, that regal monarch was covered in sawdust from head to toe while he stood glaring down at the building draft spread out over a pair of sawhorses and waved his arms energetically. The man facing him across the sawhorses was much smaller and even more heavily coated in sawdust, and he did not appear to be greatly daunted by his king's vigor. He stood with his arms folded, frowning ferociously, then shook his head firmly. He stepped forward, tapping an index finger on the building plans, and spoke emphatically. Gustavus frowned back, even more ferociously, and tapped his own finger on the plans, but the other man was singularly unimpressed and only shook his head again. Gustavus glared at him, then threw both hands in the air, and turned to stomp away from him.

Jцnsson made a beeline toward the king, and Larry followed in his wake. Gustavus looked up, still frowning, as Jцnsson spoke to him in Swedish. Then the king's expression altered. The frown remained, but the emphasis was completely different.