1634: The Baltic War (22 page)

"The queen?"

Leebrick shook his head. "I found her, but there's no hurry there. No hurry at all."

Patrick winced, understanding. "There's going to be hell to pay, Anthony."

Gloomily, Leebrick nodded. Hell to pay, for sure and certain—and the devil was most likely to present the bill to the officer in charge. Given that he had neither friends in high places nor fortune of his own.

In fact, when he emerged from the carriage after the king's body was lifted out, Anthony saw that the devil's bookkeeper had already arrived.

The earl of Cork himself, no less.

But, to his astonishment, Richard Boyle was both friendly and considerate.

"Yes, yes, Captain—Leebrick, is it?—I understand completely," said Boyle, waving down Anthony's attempt at an explanation. The earl jabbed a thumb at his two companions. Anthony recognized them also, although he couldn't say he really knew either of them. Sir Paul Pindar and Sir Endymion Porter, both prominent figures in court. In his few encounters with the men, he'd found Porter to be aloof but Pindar to be a civil enough fellow. Perhaps that was because Pindar's influence was due to the wealth he'd amassed as a major figure in the Levant Company and a moneylender to the crown, rather than pure and simple favoritism from the high and mighty.

Porter was considerably younger than the other two men, being in his late forties where the earl and Sir Pindar were well into their sixties.

"We happened by chance to be in the vicinity and saw the whole thing unfold," the earl continued. "No fault of yours or your men, it was obvious. The king—"

Boyle shook his head lugubriously. "Well, who's to say what motivated him? Most unfortunate. Had he simply stayed in place, the whole affair would have ended with no trouble. A splendid company you have, by the way."

Endymion Porter was frowning at the carriage. "The queen . . . ?"

"She perished in the accident, I am most aggrieved to report. Must have died instantly, however, so she didn't suffer."

The earl's head-shaking speeded up. "How terrible. His Majesty will be beside himself."

So he would—and
beside himself
did not bode well for one Anthony Leebrick, captain of the royal escort.

As much as he disliked asking for favors, Anthony saw no choice. He cleared his throat. "Begging your pardon, my lord, but . . ."

The head-shake turned into a nod faster than anything Leebrick would have imagined. "Oh, yes, certainly. You needn't fear, Captain, I shall be glad to give the same testimony to the king himself." He looked a bit startled. "Well . . ."

"The king won't want to hear it, Richard," said Pindar quietly. "You know he won't, whether it's true or not. Not from you, not from anyone."

The merchant looked at Leebrick. "If you'll take my advice, Captain, I strongly recommend that you"—he glanced at Welch—"as well as your lieutenants, make yourselves hard to find for a few days. Once he recovers consciousness and discovers his wife is dead, I'm afraid His Majesty is likely to simply lash out at the most obvious and convenient target."

That was exactly what Anthony figured himself. "Yes, Sir Paul. But if I do that, I'm just likely to bring further suspicion on myself."

Boyle went back to head-shaking. "Only if you do it the wrong way, Captain. Go into hiding somewhere unknown . . . then, yes, certainly you'd draw suspicion."

The head-shake came to an abrupt stop, and a big smile appeared on the earl's face.

"But not if you place yourself in the custody of a respected public figure, and await His Majesty's pleasure at a well-known location. I'd recommend, in fact—"

"Richard!" said Porter.

The earl waved his hand impatiently. "Be done with your constant caution, Endymion. Be done, I say! Captain Leebrick, I recommend that you simply return with me to London—you and your lieutenants; Paul's quite right about that—and plan on spending a week or so at my residence there."

Anthony stared at him. The offer made him suspicious, simply because Richard Boyle, the earl of Cork, had no reputation at all for being a man given to goodwill toward his lesser fellows. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Apparently sensing the hesitation, the earl's smile became something vaguely predatory. "Oh, please, Captain. Surely it's no secret to you—is it to anyone in England, other than village idiots?—that I'm on no friendly terms with Thomas Wentworth." His mouth pursed, as if he'd tasted a lemon. "The earl of Strafford, as he likes to call himself now—but he's only an earl due to the king's favor. Which I daresay—"

There was nothing at all vague about the predation in that smile, now. "—is about to be abruptly removed. Indeed, I shall do my very best to see that it is."

Put that way . . .

Anthony felt his suspicions ebbing, at the same time as he felt his distaste for the earl of Cork rising. Given a choice, he'd far rather serve a man like Thomas Wentworth than Richard Boyle.

But he probably didn't have a choice, any longer. And when it came down to it, although he'd found Wentworth a good master, he was hardly what you'd call a personal friend of the man. It was likely true that the kingdom was about to be swept by another royal storm, and that Boyle would surge to the fore as Wentworth was cast out. Better to be in Boyle's good graces, then, than stranded as he now was with no friends at all in court.

He glanced at Patrick, who'd overheard the whole discussion. The Irishman gave him a slight nod. He'd come to the same conclusion, obviously. So would Richard, most likely, had he been present.

"Very well, my lord. I accept your offer, and with thanks. I'd need to bring Patrick here with me, and one other man." He pointed up the road. "That's Richard Towson, the lieutenant I left in charge—"

"Oh, yes. Splendid man. He sent those Trained Band louts scampering smartly. I saw a bit of it before I raced off to see what had become of His Majesty."

That very moment, Anthony heard the sound of a military force approaching. A few seconds later, the first ranks of his company appeared around the bend. At the fore was Richard himself, on his horse. Still better, the carriage holding the children came right after him, with soldiers helping the driver and coachmen to steady its team. Whatever else had happened, at least the heirs to the throne were still safe.

"I'll need to see to my men first," Anthony said.

"Don't tarry, Captain," said Porter. "Haven't you a good sergeant or two, who can take charge of the rest of this business and then get your company back to their quarters?" He pointed at the carriage. "We still need to extract the queen's corpse, you know. And get the king himself back to the palace where he can get proper medical attention."

Before Anthony could say anything, Pindar spoke up. "Yes, Captain, that will also stir Wentworth into motion—and he's a man who can move quite well, under most circumstances. But not these. I'm afraid the so-called earl of Strafford is about to discover that turning most of the court into enemies is a tactic that only works so long as you have the royal favor."

The merchant glanced at the king. Charles was now resting in the same sling that had gotten him out of the carriage, but two poles had been added to create a litter held by four of Patrick's skirmishers. Welch must have ordered that done. Wisely, he'd decided that on the road today, a litter would be safer carried by men than horses.

"A royal favor which is not conscious at the moment," Pindar continued, "and will almost certainly vanish when consciousness is regained. Time presses, Captain. If you intend to take up the earl of Cork on his gracious offer, you'd best do it very quickly. We weren't the only witnesses, be sure of that. It won't be long before word of the disaster reaches Whitehall. By midafternoon, if you and your lieutenants aren't in the earl's custody, Wentworth will have you arrested. He'll have no choice, you understand."

No, he wouldn't.
Somebody
would have to take the blame for this. Were there any justice, the blame would be accepted by the man actually responsible, who was the man lying unconscious in the litter. But there was less chance of Charles doing that than there was of the sun stopping in its tracks.

For a moment, Anthony found himself desperately wishing he'd joined his friend Christopher Fey and enlisted in the new regiments that Gustavus Adolphus was forming in the Germanies. True, Kit complained bitterly in the letters he occasionally sent Leebrick about the riotous conditions in the ranks of those regiments. But Kit was a complaining man at all times—and the one complaint that had been noticeably absent in those letters were any complaints about the monarch he served. The Swede wouldn't have panicked in the first place, at the sight of a ragged militia. And, if he had, would have taken the responsibility for whatever happened on his own shoulders.

But, Leebrick had turned down the offer. The money Wentworth had offered was better, first of all. Even more important was that Liz was in London, not Magdeburg. Ten years ago, that wouldn't have weighed much with Anthony. But now that the age of forty was nearer than the age of thirty, he'd found the pleasures of a purely bachelor mercenary's life were waning. Rather quickly, in fact. There was a lot to be said for the regular company of a woman he liked and trusted, even if her history didn't bear close examination. It wasn't as if Anthony Leebrick came from the sort of family that had to worry about such matters.

"Yes, you're right," he said. He gave Richard Boyle a little bow. "If you'll just give me a moment or two to speak to the sergeants."

"Of course, Captain. There's not
that
much of a hurry, never mind what Paul says."

The smile hadn't left the man's face, although it wasn't that of a predator any longer. Not, at least, a predator in pursuit of prey. It was simply confident. As a lion's might be, after a meal.

"I
am
the earl of Cork, after all. Hardly likely that anyone—including Wentworth—is going to pester me when I'm about my lawful affairs, now is it?"

Amsterdam, Holland

"He was only here for a short time, woman," Gretchen Richter said accusingly. "Not even a month!"

Rebecca Abrabanel looked serene.

Sitting on a divan in the USE embassy's salon next to her fiancé Adam Olearius, Anne Jefferson laughed softly. "God, she does that better than anyone I've ever known."

Rebecca looked toward her. "Are you referring to me? Does what?"

Anne laughed again, louder. "Oh, sure, play the innocent. That Mona Lisa look. Serene. Inscrutable."

"What nonsense," said Rebecca. "I am simply not given to pointless passions"—she stuck a finger at Gretchen—"like this one here."

Gretchen's eyes widened, her expression going from accusatory to outraged. "Pointless passions?
Pointless passions?
You—you—have the nerve to accuse
me
of such?"

She clapped a hand on the broad shoulder of her husband Jeff, sitting next to her on another divan. "I remind you that he and I have shared the same bed here for months now—and used it to good purpose, rest assured! But you do not see me"—here she slapped her midriff, which was surprisingly slim given her impressive bust and hips—"pregnant again, do you? Whereas—
you!
He was here less than a month!"

Rebecca shrugged, somehow managing to do it without losing a trace of the serene expression on her face. "You are more disciplined than I am, Gretchen. Besides, fine for you to preach the virtues of the rhythm method, rigorously and ruthlessly applied as only you could manage the miserable business. But I remind you—as you pointed out yourself—that you have had your husband available the remaining three weeks of every month. I did not. I was supposed to tell him, poor fellow, that he chose the wrong time of the month to fly into Amsterdam? Ha."

She looked out the window at the snow-covered streets. "I say it again. Ha. Besides, what does it matter? I enjoy having children. If it had not been for Baruch I think I might have gone mad here, so much do I miss my little Sepharad."

Jeff Higgins glanced over into a corner of the salon, where Baby Spinoza—as everyone called him except his adoptive mother—was sleeping in a crib. "He's a cute kid, Becky, I'll give him that. Even if he is a genius."

But Gretchen was not to be so easily diverted. "All kids are cute, it's in the nature of the creatures," she said dismissively. "How else could they survive? But two are quite enough for any reasonable woman, if she plans to spend her life engaged in worthwhile work beyond using her tits. I leave aside the small matter that this irresponsible vixen chose to get herself pregnant in the middle of a bitter siege."

Rebecca looked at her.

"Fine. Not-so-bitter siege. It's still a siege. And who knows how long it will last? If your new baby is not born in rubble, so he—worse yet, she—will be born into starvation and disease."

Rebecca was still looking at her. Gretchen threw up her hands.

"Damn Mona Lisa! Fine, Becky. Tell us how long the siege will last."

Rebecca's serene smile returned. "Do not be silly, Gretchen. How could I possibly do that? But what I can say, based on my meeting with the prince of Orange yesterday, is that—"

"Hold it, hold it, hold it!" Anne Jefferson rose to her feet and extended her hand to Adam. "I think it's time for us to be out of here. Seeing as how my fiancé is officially the agent of a foreign and possibly hostile power. Which for some damn reason y'all seem to keep forgetting."

"Hardly that, dearest," Adam said, rising. "The hostile part, I mean. I will allow a foreign power, but it's absurd to think my employer is going to be engaging in hostilities with anyone. Alas for him, the duke of Holstein-Gottorp is in the position of a mouse surrounded by cats. Hungry cats, to make it worse. His strategy these days is entirely that of the sensible small rodent caught in the open. Hold completely still and hope no predator notices you."

Jeff waved his hand. "Oh, hell, Adam, sit down. By this time"—he glanced around the room—"I don't think any of us is worried that you'll spill our beans on anybody's else plate. And if you did, who cares? Who would you tell? The cardinal-infante already knows what the beans look like."

"Not the point," replied Adam, shaking his head. "You may not care, but I do. Much as I'd personally prefer making my living as a mathematician, I do not live—neither do you, any longer—in that magical up-time world where great universities paid people simply to teach and research mathematics. No, alas, here I need a
job.
And since my existing credentials are as a diplomat, I think it best that I not—how would you say it?—tarnish my resumé, I believe."

Jeff squinted at him. "I'm not following you."

"Jeff, of one thing you may be completely assured. If Rebecca's scheme works even remotely the way she plans—yes, of course, I know what it is even if no one ever told me in so many words—then this episode will go down in the long annals of European diplomacy as one of the art's true masterpieces. Which means, in turn, that the deeds of everyone involved—and that includes me, as mouselike as my role may have been—will be subjected to long and careful scrutiny, by a very large number of minds. Some of which are exceedingly acute—and would be my most likely future employers. Now do you understand?"

"Oh."

"Yes. Oh. Whatever other lines may exist on an unemployed diplomat's resumé, the one that absolutely
cannot
be there is: 'not to be trusted; plays both sides of the fence.' "

He went over to the rack beside the door and removed his coat as well as Anne's. "And now, we shall be off."

Once they were outside, Anne tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. "Is that going to be that bad? 'Unemployed,' I mean."

Olearius pursed his lips. "Mostly likely, I'm afraid. No matter what happens, I can see very few alternatives that would produce a still-independent duchy of Holstein-Gottorp at the end of it. Neither can my employer. My instructions from Duke Frederik are no longer to strive to maintain his independence. Simply to get him the best possible deal when he gives it up."

Anne nodded, sighing. "Well, I was afraid of that, not that I'm really surprised. It means we'll have to move around a lot, I suppose. Damn it all. I like Amsterdam, and now I've got a practice of my own. I was hoping we could stay."

"I . . . wouldn't be so sure of that, Anne." Olearius stopped at a corner, gently disengaged her hand from his elbow, and turned to face her squarely. "Perhaps it is best for me to say this as bluntly as possible. Lay all the cards on the table, as you might put it."

Anne looked up at him, tucking her hands into her pockets. "Okay."

"It's not complicated. We both want children, and children require a good income. No matter what employer I wind up with, however, it will almost surely be the case that your income as a medical practitioner—let's call it doctor, rather, since neither one of us is a guild idiot—will exceed my own."

He smiled, a little ruefully. "By a great margin, most likely. Much as it grieves my proper seventeenth-century masculine spirit to say it."

Anne chuckled. "Honey, relax. You do one hell of a lot better job of keeping the testosterone to a reasonable level than most up-time men I ever knew. Sure as hell West Virginia hillbillies. I'm not complaining."

He gave her a little appreciative bow. "Well, then. It seems quite obvious. By all means, let us stay in Amsterdam. Within a year—two, at the outside—you will have a medical practice here that dwarfs that of all other so-called doctors in the city. And since your clientele—your extremely loyal, even devoted—I will not say fanatical clientele, although I could—consists mostly of CoC members, it's not as if you'll have any worries that the medical or apothecary guilds will be able to shut you down. Much less threaten you with physical reprisals."

Anne chuckled again, quite a bit more loudly. "Ah . . . no. That's not likely. As in snowball's chance of hell likely." She cocked her head slightly. "Do they really do that in most places?"

"Oh, yes," Adam said solemnly. "Believe it that they do, dearest. The guilds will not tolerate even a man who officially and publicly practices medicine or dispenses medications without their license. A woman, except as a midwife? Unheard of."

"Jesus." Anne looked around, as if finding reassurance from the familiar sights of Amsterdam. Which, in fact, she did. After months of the siege—more to the point, months of Gretchen Richter—the largest Dutch city was a CoC stronghold. Not even the prince of Orange tried to pretend otherwise, any longer. Not after, a few weeks since, the CoC had simply disbanded the former city council—most of whose patrician members were in exile to begin with, having been wealthy enough to flee the city before the Spanish army invested it—and replaced it with a new one of their own creation. To which eight out of ten members elected had run openly on a CoC platform.

Two days later, they'd done the same to the city's militia, most of whose officers had also fled into exile. Nine out of ten of the officers who'd replaced them had been CoC members. To be sure—Gretchen Richter had gotten far more sophisticated, with experience—they'd been quite careful to elect the prince of Orange's seven-year-old son William as the official commander of the city's military forces. No one except possibly the boy himself was fooled by the formality; certainly not Fredrik Hendrik. Still, it allowed the prince of Orange to maintain the necessary public image.

Gretchen would be gone some day, of course. Probably, Anne thought, with as many regrets as Anne would feel, if she had to leave. Amsterdam was the place where Gretchen Richter had finally come into her own. The place where she'd learned to make herself and her skills match her reputation; where she went from a famous but uncertain firebrand and orator to a superbly capable organizer and revolutionary political leader.

Which meant, in turn, that it wouldn't really matter to Anne whether Gretchen was still here in the flesh or not. Firebrands are very visible, but they leave few traces behind. Gretchen's footprints would stamp Amsterdam for at least two generations, and probably forever. Deep enough, certainly, that if any guild doctor or apothecary returning from exile was foolish enough to protest Anne's medical practice, he'd be lucky if he just got out of it with his shop turned into a wreck. The journeymen and apprentices who were the backbone of the city's CoC were in no mood to tolerate any presumptions by returning guildmasters. Not any longer; not after they withstood the might of Spain, while their former masters fled into exile.

Anne took Adam by the arm again and resumed walking. "But what will you do? Adam, I
really
don't like the idea of you leaving for long stretches on diplomatic missions."

He grimaced. "Neither do I. But I probably won't have any choice, dearest."

Anne took a deep breath. "Uh . . . How's your testosterone level doing, at the moment?"

He looked down at her, curious. "No worse than ever, I'd say. Why?"

This time it was she who stopped, disengaged her hand, and turned to face him squarely. "Okay, fine. Then let's cut through all of it. Here's the truth. If I put my mind to it—yes, even with children—I can turn this half-assed medical practice I started on the side, more to keep from getting bored stiff than anything else, into a serious money-maker. I wouldn't even have to gouge anybody. I've already got such a long line every time I open my door that what I really need to do anyway—I'll ask Mary Pat if she thinks Beulah MacDonald is up to leaving Jena for a couple of months to come here and walk me through it—is set up a real medical clinic. Eventually, maybe, the city's first hospital worth calling by the name. You follow my drift?"

He frowned. "I'm not sure I even follow your idiom."

"Oh. Sorry. I forgot we were speaking English instead of German. Easy for me to lapse into American slang when we do that. What I meant was, do you understand what I'm proposing? We
both
stay here. You only take diplomatic missions that won't keep you from home for . . . what's reasonable? Two months?"

He shook his head. "You have to allow at least four, Anne, for anything serious. Even if I'm going no farther than a hundred miles."

She thought about it. "Okay. I can live with four months. Six, tops. But that's it."

"That would mean I'd be unemployed most of the time."

"Don't be silly. You just do the work you really want to do, anyway. Your mathematics. And—pardon my English—fuck whether or not you're getting paid for it. Who cares? I'll make enough for both of us."

He looked away. "Let me think about it."

"Sure. How long?"

"Um. Two days?"

"Make it four."

He laughed, and they went back to walking. After a few minutes of companionable silence, Adam cleared his throat.

"Do you think that was really true? What Rebecca said, I mean, concerning Gretchen's—ah, what was the phrase?—rigorous and ruthless methods for preventing pregnancy. Granted that Gretchen is the dominant one of the couple, but I wouldn't have thought she could keep her husband that much under her thumb." He looked a bit alarmed. "I trust that you have no such plans?"

Anne grinned. "You haven't seen any signs of it so far, have you? Relax. I'm a doctor, remember? Well, nurse—but that makes me one of the few doctors worth calling by the name, in the here and now. I've got other ways of handling that little problem. Which I've been using since the first time you finagled your way into my bed, not that you'd ever notice. Men. So would Gretchen, if she'd follow my advice. But you know what she's like. Politics aside, she's almost a reactionary. The old methods work, so why mess with them?"

Adam had the grace to look a little embarrassed. "I had wondered, actually. But . . . ah . . . since you didn't seem concerned . . ."

"Ha! Men, like I said. And besides, you're wrong about the rest of it, anyway. The part about Gretchen and Jeff, that is."

"How so?"

"She's the flamboyant one of the two, no doubt about it. And since she also knows what she wants to do with her life and has the determination of a glacier—and Jeff really doesn't care otherwise and is willing to go along for the ride—you make the mistake of thinking there's dominance involved. There really isn't, Adam. I think Gretchen would be quite lost without him. He's her anchor, you could say."