To make things still more difficult for Banér, he didn’t have enough soldiers to really seal off the city. Especially not in wintertime, when his men would shirk their responsibility to maintain patrols at night and loads could be moved into the city by sleigh without needing to use roads. Dresden’s population would be on short rations, but they wouldn’t be in any danger of starving for at least a year.
Probably longer, in fact. Gretchen Richter and the CoC had clamped down their control of Dresden. The fact that Richter used a velvet glove whenever she could didn’t change the fact that the grip itself was one of iron. Whatever anyone thought of the political program and policies of the CoC, one thing was indisputable: they greatly strengthened a city under siege, if they were in charge. Rations would be evenly and fairly apportioned; sanitation and medical measures would be rigorously applied and enforced; spies and traitors would be watched for vigilantly.
Those measures directly addressed the most common reasons a city fell—hunger, disease and treachery. The risks weren’t eliminated, but they were significantly reduced. At a guess, Eric thought any city run by Gretchen Richter could withstand a siege half again as long as it would otherwise. Maybe even twice as long. She was one of those rare people of great notoriety whose reputations weren’t overblown at all.
Odd, really, to think that she was the wife of his good friend Jeff Higgins.
“Stop daydreaming!” scolded Tata, giving his shoulder a little nudge. “Shouldn’t you be ordering the men to fire a cannon or something?”
Noelle Stull tried to ignore the sound of the cannonade. The house she’d rented was large, well-built, and located toward the center of the city. The odds that a cannon ball fired from one of the besiegers’ guns would strike her down at her writing desk were very slight. She’d faced much greater risks any number of times in the past. Although she’d been classified as a statistician, her real duties for the State of Thuringia-Franconia’s innocuously-named Department of Economic Resources had been those of an undercover operative. An investigator, officially, although given the murky realities of power in which she’d moved, she’d been as much a spy as a detective. At one time or another she’d been shot at, imprisoned, shackled, bombed—usually by someone seeking to do her personal harm.
Compared to that, the chance that a haphazardly aimed cannon ball fired from a great distance would come anywhere close to her was not even worth worrying about. Yet, somehow, it was the very random, impersonal vagaries involved that made her nervous.
She tried to concentrate on the letter she was writing to Janos Drugeth. That wasn’t helped any by her knowledge that sending the letter off would be almost as much a matter of chance and happenstance as the trajectory of the cannonballs coming over the walls. Normal postal service was erratic, to say the least.
Amazingly, though, it still existed. The couriers who worked for the Thurn and Taxis service were like rats and cockroaches. Impossible to eradicate and able to squeeze through the tiniest cracks.
But not even such couriers could deliver a letter to an unknown address. Noelle had no idea where Janos was at present, just as she was quite sure he had no idea she was in Dresden. She hadn’t gotten a letter from him in months. With another man, she might have worried that he’d lost interest and simply stopped writing her. But with Janos, somehow, she wasn’t. That spoke well for their possible future, of course.
If they had one. A muted crash had come from not too far away. A cannon ball had caved in a wall somewhere.
“See?” said Denise triumphantly. She pointed to the spot across the square where a Swedish cannonball had punched a large hole in the upper floor of a building. “Give it a few weeks and there’ll be a plenty big enough runway.”
Next to her, Minnie nodded. “Just have to shovel up the wreckage. Some of it’ll make good gravel, too.”
Eddie examined the scene of their optimism. The siege would have to last for several years before the Swedish army’s gunfire removed enough of the buildings fronting the square and lining the main boulevard leading from it to allow for an airplane runway that wasn’t just an elaborate form of suicide.
He did not bother to point that out, however. Denise’s response was a foregone conclusion.
So? A few years are nothing, in a siege! Those Trojan guys lasted…what? Twenty years? They’d still be holding out, too, if the stupid jerks hadn’t fallen for that old wooden shoe trick.
Ernst Wettin turned away from the window. When all was said and done, and unless you happened to have exceptionally bad fortune and fall victim to a stray cannon ball, watching a siege was about as boring as watching ants at work. Not at the very end, of course, if the defense gave way. Then tedium would turn to terror. But until then…
He sat back down at his writing desk. Ernst was the sort of man who believed firmly that all situations provided their own advantages. Since he retained the formal trappings of authority here in Saxony but had had the real power stripped away from him by Richter, he no longer had any tasks to perform that required more than a modicum of attention, for not more than two hours a day. Yet he still had all his comforts and facilities available.
Ernst Wettin came from a very prominent noble family and was himself a very capable official and administrator. Inevitably, therefore, since he’d reached his majority, he’d had very little time to himself.
Now, he did. At last, he had the opportunity he needed to concentrate on what he believed to be his true calling. The development of a systematic and reasoned program of educational reform for the whole of the Germanies.
A faint crash came from the distance. Presumably, a lucky cannon ball had done some significant damage. But the sound barely registered on his consciousness.
What to call the essay? Tentatively, he penned a title.
A Treatise on the Subject of the Education of the German Peoples
There was a knock at the entrance to his suite. “Come in!” he said loudly. He’d sent his servants off in order to have some quiet and the door was a room and a half away.
The title was…suitable, he supposed.
A few seconds later, at a slight coughing noise, he swiveled in his chair. To his surprise, he saw that Gretchen Richter was standing right behind him. He’d been so engrossed he hadn’t heard her approach.
“Ah! I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I’m not planning to stay long. I just wanted to see if there was anything you needed.”
He smiled crookedly. “I don’t suppose you’d accept an answer of ‘my power returned.’ ”
She smiled, just as crookedly. “No. Well…not now, at any rate. In the future…we’ll see what happens.”
She leaned over to look at the line he’d just written. “I take it this is that major treatise you’ve been talking about wanting to write?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “The title is awful. I’d call it A Summon to Duty. Or if that’s not militant enough for you, Educational Reform: A Call to Arms.”
The next few minutes passed pleasantly enough, as they always did in Richter’s company. Say what else you would about the young woman, she was invariably gracious in her blunt sort of way.
After she left, Ernst went back to examining the title. Finally, he crumpled the initial sheet and took out another. Again with a crooked smile on his face, he began to write.
Educational Reform: A Summon to Duty
Chapter 19
Berlin
“For pity’s sake, we’re about to launch our great campaign!” It was all Oxenstierna could not to snarl openly. “Your Grace,” he added, in an attempt to remain polite.
A pointless attempt. “I remind you again that I’m no longer a duke,” said Wilhelm Wettin stiffly. “And as for the other, I think a plot to commit treason in collusion with a hostile foreign power needs to take precedence over our domestic concerns.”
The Swedish chancellor stared down at the smaller man. For a moment, he was disoriented by a clutter of disco
nnected thoughts. He hadn’t foreseen this development.
We’re dealing with a matter of internal treason, you idiot, which is far more dangerous than anything else.
Maximilian is playing over his head, anyway. We can get the Oberpfalz back soon enough, once order is established.
One of the first things we’ll do once we’ve consolidated power is get rid of that “house of commons” nonsense. Can there be anything more absurd than a duke having to give up his title in order to rule?
How in God’s name did he find out?
The answer to the last question was probably the simplest. The problem with working through men like Johann Ludwig was that they were…men like Johann Ludwig. The count of Nassau-Hadamar had none of the great virtues, so why should it be surprising that he lacked the lesser ones as well? Such as being able to keep his mouth shut and refrain from bragging.
No matter. Johann Ludwig was playing over his head too. Oxenstierna had been careful not to deal with the man directly. When the time came, and Duke Maximilian of Bavaria needed to be humbled again, the count of Nassau-Hadamar’s treasonous role could be exposed and the man sent to the executioner’s block.
For the moment, there was this much greater problem of Wettin to deal with. The USE’s prime minister had been balking more and more at the necessary measures to be taken, as time went by. He’d become a nuisance to everyone, especially Oxenstierna.
Perhaps more to the point, he’d also by now thoroughly aggravated most of his own followers. The staunch ones, by his vacillations; those even more inclined toward compromise, such as the landgravine of Hesse-Kassel, by his accommodations.
So, perhaps not such a great problem after all.
He placed a hand on Wettin’s shoulder. “There’s someone you need to speak to, who is intimately familiar with the Bavarian situation. The information you’ve received, from whatever source that might be”—which you’ve refused to tell me, but he left that unsaid—“has grossly misrepresented the true state of affairs.”
Again, the prime minister nodded stiffly. “I assure you, Chancellor, that no one would be happier to be proven wrong than myself, with regard to this matter.”
“Please wait here, then, while I fetch the person. If won’t take but a moment.”
Wettin’s head inclined toward the sound of the crowd in the nearby assembly hall. No one was orating or shouting slogans, at the moment, since they were all waiting for Oxenstierna and Wettin to appear. But that large a crowd makes a lot of noise just standing around and talking to each other.
Understanding the gesture, Oxenstierna gave the prime minister’s shoulder a friendly little squeeze. “The mob can wait, Wilhelm. Reassuring you regarding this Bavarian business is more important.” And with that, he left.
As he’d promised the prime minister, he returned very quickly. Within less than a minute, in fact. For weeks, the chancellor had made sure that the Swedish soldiers who served Wettin as bodyguards were completely reliable. The two he found currently on duty just outside the prime minister’s quarters would do as well as any.
“I’m afraid I have to put you under arrest, Your Grace,” Oxenstierna announced, quietly and coldly.
Wettin stared at the two guards approaching him. At the last minute, he tried to draw the sword scabbarded to his waist. It was a valiant if pointless gesture. The sword was a ceremonial blade; capable of killing a man, to be sure, but not really well-suited to the task. The soldiers, in contrast, were armed with halberds and pistols.
They were also quite a bit larger than the prime minister and in much better physical condition. Wettin was a fairly young man, still, not even forty years of age. But he’d spent the past few years in sedentary pursuits, where these men were in their twenties and had remained physically active. It was the work of but a few seconds to subdue him.
Wettin began shouting. Curses at Oxenstierna, at the moment, but it wouldn’t be long before he began calling for help.
In all likelihood, none would come. But there was no point taking the risk.
“Gag him,” Oxenstierna commanded. “Place him for the moment in my chambers. Keep him gagged and under close watch until I return.”
That wouldn’t be for some hours, which would be most unpleasant for Wettin. Having a cloth gag in one’s mouth was a nuisance for a short time; uncomfortable, for an hour; and the cause of bleeding sores after several. But the man had made his choice, so let him live with it.
On his way to the assembly hall, Oxenstierna pondered the prime minister’s—no, the former prime minister’s—final disposition.
Executing him would be unwise. That would stiffen the resistance of such people as Amalie Elizabeth of Hesse-Kassel and Duke George of Brunswick, not to mention the man’s two brothers still in the USE. Ernst Wettin had to be replaced in Saxony anyway, of course, since he’d also proven unreliable. But he and Albrecht would remain influential in some circles regardless of the positions they currently held.
There was no way of knowing what reaction Wilhelm’s execution would elicit from his youngest brother Bernhard. But for the moment, that was another pot that Oxenstierna would just as soon leave unstirred.
And there was no need for such drastic action, anyway. Oxenstierna was not given to killing people for the sake of it. Exiling Wettin to one of the more isolated castles in Sweden—even better, Finland—would serve the chancellor’s purposes perfectly well. The former prime minister really had worn out his welcome even with his own followers. A popular pretender kept in exile always posed a potential threat. Wilhelm Wettin would not.
Oxenstierna’s assessment proved quite accurate. He began the assembly by making the announcement that Wilhelm Wettin had been discovered plotting with seditious elements and been placed under arrest. Following the laws of the USE, his successor would be whatever person was chosen by the party in power, the Crown Loyalists. The Swedish chancellor elided over the fact that he had no authority in the USE to be arresting anyone and that he was planning to discard those same laws as soon as possible.
“If you will allow me to offer my advice, I would recommend that you choose Johann Wilhelm Neumair von Ramsla.” He pointed to an elderly man seated in the front row.
Von Ramsla stared back at him, his mouth agape. The chancellor’s proposal came as a complete surprise to the man. He’d played no part in the dealings with Bavaria, of course. Johann Wilhelm was a political theorist, full to the brim with axiomatic principles—hardly the sort of man you wanted to use for such gray purposes. However, he’d be splendid as the new prime minister. The combination of his age—he was in his mid-sixties—and his ineffectual temperament would make him a pliant tool for the eventual destruction of his own office.
There was silence in the room for a few seconds. Then, a few more seconds in which the room was filled with quiet hubbub, as people hastily consulted with each other in whispers. Then, not more than ten seconds after the Swedish chancellor stopped speaking, a man toward the back of the huge chamber climbed onto his chair and shouted:
“Hurrah for the new prime minister! I vote for Johann Wilhelm!”
That was Johann Schweikhard, Freiherr von Sickingen. As a nobleman, he had no business casting a vote for the leader of the Crown Loyalists in the House of Commons, but no one in that chamber cared very much about such legal niceties any more. At least a third of the crowd were also noblemen, after all.
Not more than two seconds later, a roar of approval erupted. If not from the entire crowd, certainly from its majority.
Given that he was ignoring all rules anyway, Oxenstierna decided he could safely accept that roar as a vote of approval by acclamation. He stepped down onto the floor of the assembly hall, took Johann Wilhelm by the arm, and hauled him onto the dais. Von Ramsla put up no resistance, even if he was not exactly active in his so-very-rapid rise to power.
Oxenstierna saw no point in giving the old man the speaker’s podium, however. Von Ramsla was a fig leaf, and the sooner he learned that fig le
aves were mute, the better.
“And now, my friends, let us move on to the purpose of this assembly. The first order of business is to adopt our new Charter of Rights and Duties.” He swept the crowd with his forefinger. “You’ve all had time to read the Charter, by now, so I will move to a vote by acclamation of each point in order.”
He paused just long enough to allow everyone to take their copy of the charter in hand, if they didn’t have it in hand already.
“Point One. The capital and seat of government of the United States of Europe is henceforth to be located in Berlin.”
Huge roar of approval.
“Point Two. For purposes of determining citizenship—”
Colonel Erik Haakansson Hand found out about Wilhelm Wettin’s arrest at the same time everyone else did, from Oxenstierna’s announcement at the assembly. (The “convention,” they were calling it—and never mind that the event was more in the nature of a staged political rally than anything you could reasonably call a deliberative undertaking.) He wasn’t quite as surprised as most people present, because the tensions between the USE prime minister and the Swedish chancellor had become quite obvious to him. Still; Erik certainly hadn’t expected the development.
Why? he wondered. Oxenstierna’s terse explanation didn’t make a lot of sense to him. “Plotting with seditious elements.” Which elements, and what was the nature of the plot?
A thought suddenly occurred to him. He left the assembly hall and made his way hurriedly to the nearest of the city’s gates. Fortunately, the sky was clear and there was still at least an hour of daylight left.
Nothing. The guards said no one of any significance had left the city within the past few days.
He then made his way to the southwestern gate, the Leipziger Thor.