1636： The Saxon Uprising ARC - By Eric Flint Page 0,136
of the revelers, holding up his stein of beer. “Long may she reign!”
The tavern was full, as it often was on a winter’s eve. Not a single stein failed to come up to join the toast.
Another reveler stood up, hoisting his stein. “And here’s to the Prince of Germany! May he whip that Swede like a cur!”
Not a single stein failed to come up to join that toast either. Or the seven that followed it, each succeeding one wishing a worse fate still upon Johan Banér. By the eighth toast, the revelers had him flayed, drawn, quartered, fed to hogs—and the hogs were dying of poison.
A tavern on the coast of the Pomeranian Bay
The fisherman sat down at the table in the corner where his shipmates were waiting. “Believe it or not, there’s someone who admits to voting against the Prince.”
The fisherman’s two companions gave him a skeptical look. “Who?” asked one, as he lifted his stein. “Josias, the village idiot?”
The fisherman who’d made the claim shook his head. “No. It’s old Margarete, the baker’s widow.”
His two companions frowned.
“The Prince shouldn’t have let women have the vote,” said one.
The other nodded. “Yah. I almost didn’t vote for him myself, because of that.”
Leipzig
General Hans Georg von Arnim read through the message again. That was just to give himself time to think, not because he had any trouble understanding it. Chancellor Oxenstierna had been brief, blunt, very clear—and quite obviously irate.
“I thought the radio was broken,” he said.
The adjutant who’d brought him the message from Berlin shook his head. “No, sir. It’s working properly.”
“I thought the radio was broken,” von Arnim repeated.
The general’s adjutants were not chosen for being stupid. It didn’t take Captain Pfaff more than three seconds before the head-shake became a nod.
“Why, yes, it is, General. The operator tells me it’ll take days to fix.”
“At least a week, I think.”
“Yes, a week.”
“See to it, Captain.”
After Pfaff left, von Arnim moved to the fireplace. His servants had a big fire going, which was quite pleasant on such a cold day.
It made a handy incinerator, too. The message was gone in seconds.
Oxenstierna would have sent a courier, of course. No one except up-timers—and not all that many of them—relied entirely on the new radios. But it would take a courier days to make it here from Berlin, this time of year. The recent storm had left the roads filled with snow. Such as they were, in benighted Brandenburg.
Von Arnim would have no choice but to acknowledge receipt of that message. Still, mobilizing ten thousand men was not a quick process, especially in February. By the time he could get his army onto the field to join Banér’s, anything might have happened.
Banér could be dead. Stearns could be dead. Both could be dead. The chancellor could be dead. The emperor could have regained his wits.
A horse might even have learned to sing.
Paris, capital of France
After he finished reading the copies of the intercepted radio messages that Servien had given him, Cardinal Richelieu rose from his desk and went over to one of the window in his palace.
“A real pity,” said Servien, echoing the sentiment he’d expressed a month earlier.
Richelieu said nothing. He didn’t agree with his intendant, as it happened. It might be better to say, was feeling a different sort of pity this morning.
Pity poor France. What had the great nation done to so offend God, that he inflicted Monsieur Gaston upon it?
And an even greater mystery: What had the wretched Germanies done to gain His favor, that He would bless them with such a prince?
Madrid, capital of Spain
There was no reaction to Mike Stearns’ radio messages in the court of Spain.
They had no radio. They wouldn’t receive the news for days yet.
Brussels, capital of the Netherlands
Fernando I looked around the conference table at his closest advisers.
“We’re all agreed, then?” said the king in the Netherlands. “We will still take no advantage of the current civil conflict in the USE, even now when it’s coming to a full boil?”
“With Stearns on a rampage?” said Rubens. “Risky, that.”
“He’s badly outnumbered,” pointed out Scaglia. “Outclassed, too, in terms of experience.”
Miguel de Manrique shook his head. “The numbers probably aren’t as bad as they look, Alessandro. And in that sort of fight—it’ll be a slugging match, fighting in the snow in February—his army will have a great advantage when it comes to morale. I agree with Peter. It’s too risky. If Stearns wins, we’ll have a bear to deal with.”