1636： The Saxon Uprising ARC - By Eric Flint Page 0,33
better equipped. They were veterans, too, and their morale would be splendid if Torstensson led them against Oxenstierna and Wettin.
As it happened, Lennart had no intention of doing any such thing. Until the situation with Gustav Adolf became clarified, he would remain strictly within legal bounds. But Oxenstierna couldn’t be sure of that.
Even if he were, what then? The discipline that held the First and Second Division in check was shaky already. If the chancellor removed Torstensson and replaced him with a new commander, there was a very real chance—a likelihood, in fact, in Lennart’s own estimation—that the army would mutiny and march on Berlin anyway.
True, they’d be easier to defeat if their leadership was informal and hastily assembled, than if they still had Torstensson in command. But not that much easier. At the very least, they’d bleed Oxenstierna’s forces badly—right at the moment he needed them most to deal with an increasingly restive populace.
No. Oxenstierna and Wettin would growl and scold and complain—possibly even shriek with fury, from time to time—but they wouldn’t do any more than that. Torstensson’s men would stay in the trenches. They’d suffer badly anyway, as soldiers always did in winter sieges. But there wouldn’t be the butcher’s bill that a mass assault would produce.
He glanced at the sun, which was nearing the horizon. Nothing more to be done this day. There wouldn’t be much to do, beyond routine, for many days to come.
Later that night, after supper, Torstensson retired to his quarters in the tavern of a village he’d seized not far from Poznan. Before going to bed, he lit a lantern and began resumed reading the book that had arrived from Amsterdam earlier that week.
Political Methods and the Laws of Nations, by Alessandro Scaglia. The book was one of a very limited edition, intended only for private circulation. Lennart had received it as a gift from the author himself, with a hand-written flowery dedication and signature on the frontispiece.
He was a little more than halfway through, and found the book quite absorbing.
PART II
December 1635
Unequal laws unto a savage race
Chapter 10
Prague, capital of Bohemia
After he entered the huge salon that served Morris and Judith Roth for what Americans left back up-time would have called a living room on steroids, Mike Stearns spent half a minute or so examining the room. No casual inspection, either—this was a careful scrutiny that lingered on nothing but didn’t miss any significant detail.
By the time he was finished, his hosts had seated themselves on a luxurious divan located toward the center of the room and the servants had withdrawn at Judith’s signal, giving them some privacy.
Morris had a pained expression on his face. “Go ahead. Make the wisecracks about the nouveau riche so we can be done with it.”
Mike took a last few seconds to finish his examination and then took a seat on an armchair across from his hosts.
“Actually, I was going to compliment you on your judgment,” he said. “God help me for my sins, but I’ve become an expert on gauging ostentation, the proper degree thereof. I’d say”—he raised his hand and made a circular motion with his forefinger—“you’ve hit this just about right. Splendid enough to cement your position with the city’s Jewish population and satisfy any gentile grandee who happens to pop over that you’re a man to be taken seriously, but not so immodest as to stir up the animosity of those same gentiles.”
Morris grunted. “The second reason’s less important than the first. The only gentile grandee who pops over here on a regular basis is Pappenheim.”
Judith winced. “Puh-leese don’t use that expression in front of him, either one of you. The man has a sense of humor—pretty good one, in fact, if you allow for the rough edges—but it only extends so far, when it comes to himself. General Gottfried Heinrich Graf zu Pappenheim does not ‘pop over.’ He visits, with grace and style.”
Morris and Mike both smiled. Then Morris added: “The point being, Pappenheim’s the only important gentile figure in Bohemia who’s ever been over here and most of what’s in these public rooms is stuff that means nothing to him.”
He pointed to a series of etchings on one of the walls. Morris and Judith were the subjects of three of them, two separately and one as a couple. Mike didn’t recognize any of the other people portrayed, but from subtleties of their costume he thought they were probably other prominent figures in Prague’s very large Jewish community.