1636： The Saxon Uprising ARC - By Eric Flint Page 0,106

greedy cousin’s three realms. I want to know what it is. Why were you arrested?”

He waved his hand abruptly. That was his left hand, the one he usually employed. His right arm couldn’t be straightened due to the terrible injuries he had sustained while leading a brigade against Wallenstein a few years earlier.

“And let’s skip over the twaddle about conspiring with unknown—what was Oxenstierna’s phrase?—ah, yes, ‘seditious elements.’ Such a vague term. On his bad days, I suppose you could accuse my horse of being seditious, and he’s presumably elemental.” The colonel’s familiar cold grin appeared. “At least, I’ve seen no sign that he’s sprouting wings.”

After a moment of silence, Hand shook his head impatiently. “Come on, come on, tell me the truth. My loyalty is entirely to my cousin, Saxe-Weimar. No one else.”

Wilhelm made a quick decision. It was always possible this was a trap, but…

Not likely. Erik Haakansson Hand’s personal attachment to Gustav Adolf went far back. Besides, what difference did it make, at this point? If Oxenstierna wanted him executed, he didn’t have to use an elaborate subterfuge involving the emperor’s own cousin.

“Maximilian of Bavaria’s attack on the Oberpfalz was arranged,” he said abruptly. “By that bastard Oxenstierna himself. He used the count of Nassau-Hadamar, Johann Ludwig, as his intermediary.”

“How did you find out?”

“Two of the count’s associates let it slip while they were drunk. I suppose they assumed I was part of the conspiracy. One of them was—”

“I know who the baron and the guildmaster were. They left Berlin the day before you were arrested. I wondered why, at the time. It makes sense now. When they sobered up and remembered the conversation, they must have started worrying what would happen if you took it to Oxenstierna. So, as rats will, they went scurrying for their holes.”

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