1636： The Saxon Uprising ARC - By Eric Flint Page 0,116

behalf of the USE? His friends wouldn’t care, of course, and Grand Hetman Koniecpolski was a man of broad and wide experience, who’d take the thing in stride.

Alas, the average hussar was about as broad-minded as a rooster. Jozef would never live it down. The ridicule would follow him into the grave. Which might be an early one, if any of the hussars took it in mind to be outraged and offended.

Alas, the average hussar got outraged and offended about as readily as a rooster too.

Maybe he could argue that since he’d actually been fighting on the side of the rebels in the affair—

But that wouldn’t do him any good if the rebels won the civil war, in which case they would become the USE themselves and he was right back in the soup, as far as hussars were concerned. Yet if the rebels lost the civil war—starting right here in Dresden, this being the only place there was any serious fighting—then hussars would be the least of Jozef’s problems. Outraged and offended Swedish mercenaries would have done for him already.

Outraged and offended, indeed. They were suffering horrible casualties out there on the ice. The volley guns really were quite murderous.

When Ernst reached the command center, he found Tata there, along with Joachim Kappel. But Gretchen was gone.

“She’s out walking the lines,” Tata explained.

The responsibility of command. Wettin would have been doing the same, had he still been in charge. So would the best kings and queens, down through the years.

It was not always enough, to be sure. Constantine XI had personally led his troops in the final battle against the Turks in the siege of Constantinople in 1453, but they’d taken the city despite him. He’d vanished in the fighting, presumably killed, his body tossed with those of others into a mass grave.

The same might happen to Gretchen Richter, this very night.

But it might not, also—and by personally visiting the soldiers on the ramparts, she improved the odds in favor of the defenders. Quite a bit, probably. The sort of close quarter combat involved in repelling assaults during a siege required a great deal of raw courage and confidence. Richter exuded those traits. They emanated from her, almost as if they took real and physical shape.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Ernst asked.

Tata and Joachim looked at each other. Then Joachim turned and pointed toward a long table near the back wall. Half a dozen youngsters were gathered around it, arguing about something.

“Yes, if you would. Go over there and put them in order. Make sure they get their job done.”

“What are they doing?”

Tata sniffed. “They’re supposed to be organizing supplies for the wounded.”

Ernst looked back over. The oldest of the group looked to be perhaps sixteen.

Pity the poor wounded. “Shouldn’t be a problem,” he said, heading toward them.

Eric Krenz felt his spirits pick up, when he caught sight of Gretchen Richter coming onto the bastion.

His spirits had been rather high already, as it happened. He didn’t have much doubt, any longer, that they’d be able to beat off the assault. Banér had gambled, Eric was pretty sure he’d lost the gamble—and there’d be a high price to pay for it on the morrow. Mercenaries were tough, up to a point. Very tough, in fact, as you’d expect from professional soldiers. But they reacted more poorly to heavy casualties in a failed assault than regular soldiers did—and regular soldiers didn’t react well. It would probably be at least a fortnight before the Swedish general could marshal another major attack.

Still, he was glad to see Richter, and so were all the men on the bastion with him. That was obvious from their pleased expressions. It was like having their own angel pay a visit.

No sweet cherubim, either. This was a sword-bearing angel from the heart of God’s fury.

Good-looking, blonde, and she was actually unarmed. But none of them were fooled.

“Gott mit uns!” one of the men suddenly shouted, in the old anti-imperialist war cry.

“Gott mit uns!” roared the soldiers on the bastion. In an instant, the call was picked up and racing down the curtain wall. It sailed out over the snow and the darkness and the blood-covered ice of the Elbe.

Chapter 33

Magdeburg

At the end, their pilot chose to fly all the way around the field—and right across the whole city of Magdeburg—before he brought the plane down to land. Prince Ulrik was surprised. Egidius Junker had behaved like such a stolid and unimaginative fellow up until then,