by Eric Flint
"So!" the king had bellowed. "The liar is here!"
He pointed to a large and elaborate looking armchair in front of the fireplace. "Place him in the chair!"
The soldiers who'd brought Eddie immediately complied. While they did so, Eddie had time to contemplate the rest of the arrangements.
There was a fire going in the fireplace. Check.
The remains of a fire, rather, since open flames might have imperiled the chair. But there were still plenty of glowing coals. Check.
There were tongs heating in the coals. Check.
Middle Ages, coming up. Eddie considered raising the fine points of the Geneva Convention, but figured that would be pretty pointless. Given the mood Christian IV was in.
No sooner had he been manhandled into the chair than he discovered the elaborate looks of the thing were no accident. It turned out there were restraints concealed in the armrests that did a very nice job of strapping him down.
Check. Middle Ages, if he were lucky. It was looking more like the Dark Ages every moment.
Ulrik and Anne Cathrine had been present in the room when Eddie was hauled in. The king's daughter was looking distressed. Ulrik simply looked thoughtful.
"You can't do this, Papa!" she wailed.
"Ha! Watch me!" He waved imperiously at another soldier standing in the corner. "Give him the treatment!"
Eddie braced himself. But, to his astonishment-he yelped here; he couldn't help it-what happened was that a flood of ice-cold water came pouring out of the backrest and soaked him.
"Ha! It works!" Christian was beaming, now. He gave his son a gloating look. "I told you it would. Even-well, we shall see."
He made another imperious gesture, this one to the two soldiers standing on either side of the chair. Quickly, they removed the arm restraints.
"Get up, you miserable liar!" commanded Christian.
Eddie rose, a bit shakily. Then, jumped, when a loud toot sounded below him. He jumped high enough, in fact, that he almost stumbled on his peg leg when he landed.
"Ha! Ha!" the king bellowed. "The trumpet works too!"
"Papa!" Anne Cathrine hurried over and took Eddie by the arm. "You shouldn't humiliate him so! And you know Eddie's delicate. He'll likely get sick from that cold water!"
The king bestowed a sneer on Eddie. "Delicate, is he? Another false pretense, daughter, be sure of it! If my own doctors hadn't put it on, I'd have that wooden leg removed. Just to be sure! I might do it anyway."
He strode forward and wagged a very large royal forefinger under Eddie's nose. "Liar! I say it, again! Liar!"
Between the fear and the sudden freezing from the water-and, most of all, the presence of Anne Cathrine and his grumpiness about her continual insistence he was "delicate"-Eddie lost his temper.
"Don't wag that finger at me, dammit! It was you who broke the Geneva Convention! All I'm supposed to tell you is my name, rank and serial number!"
"And there was another lie!" If Eddie's shouts had caused even the slightest waver in that shaking royal digit, he could see no sign of it. "007! Ha! Your prime minister lied, too!"
"Well…"
Eddie didn't really have a good answer to that. God damn Mike Stearns, anyway. It was all his fault!
Ulrik cleared his throat. "Father, let's not forget that he didn't lie about the rest. Not when someone's life was at stake. It was not Eddie who urged the diving suit on us. In fact, he tried to warn us it was dangerous."
That caused a moment's pause in the finger-wagging.
Only a moment's, alas. Proving, once again, that the female is deadlier than the male, Anne Cathrine immediately shifted from distress and concern to indignation.
"But he lied about his betrothed!"
"I did not! That was Mike Stearns!"
Anne Cathrine glared at him. Still holding him by the arm, though.
"So? It was you who lied about Johannes Fitz-stupid whatever his last name was!"
"Well…"
The royal finger-wagging went back into high gear. "So he did! So he did! Toying with my daughter's affections, too, the rogue! I see it all, now! The snake in our midst! I ought to have him strapped into that diving suit, I should! Try it out for its new purpose!"
Anne Cathrine's indignation vanished. "Papa!" That wail was downright piercing.
Christian finally lowered the finger. "Well, I should," he insisted, followed by a truly majestic harrumph, complete with quivering royal mustachios.
"But-magnanimously-I won't. Take him to his new cell! Ulrik, make sure it's done properly. I want no daredevil last-moment escapes from-"
His sneer was just as majestic.
"Mr. Secret Agent, James Bond, 007. Ha!"
And, bundled off Eddie was, by the two soldiers, with Ulrik following behind.
Anne Cathrine came with them, and stayed in the new cell for half an hour, making sure Eddie was properly dried and tucked into his new bed. So he wouldn't catch a chill, or something. She must have repeated the term delicate at least a dozen times, to Eddie's disgruntlement.
It didn't occur to him until several days later, to wonder why the king of Denmark had let his daughter do any such thing.
Not until Ulrik and Baldur came barreling into the room. With Anne Cathrine in tow.
Wide-eyed, from his perch in front of the window, Eddie watched Baldur spread some sort of large diagram-sketch, rather-across the small table in the center of the room.
"We must be quick, Eddie," said the prince, in a low voice. He glanced over his shoulder. "One of the guards is likely to mention something to his captain, and the captain might… Well, never mind."
Ulrik turned back to the sketch and pointed down at it. "This is another lie, isn't it?"
Hesitantly, Eddie came over. Once he was close enough, he recognized the sketch. It was a depiction-very good one, too-of the huge radio tower that the USE had erected in Magdeburg.
"Uh… Well, no, it's actually pretty accurate."
"Eddie!" Ulrik, normally as even-tempered a man as Eddie had ever met, was obviously on edge and seemed to be controlling his temper. "Stop it. I know it's accurate. It was drawn by one of our best spies. But that's not what I meant, and you know it. You don't need this, do you?"
Eddie glanced at Norddahl. The Norwegian's gaze seemed very icy. Of course, with his color eyes, that came fairly naturally. It was impossible to tell if he was really angry or not.
For a moment, Eddie wondered which of the two had figured it out-the prince himself, or his hireling?
Probably Baldur, if for no other reason than the natural injustice of the universe, which the past half a year had made so blindingly clear to Eddie. In a world run according to sane and rational principles, it would be a shy and bespectacled seventeenth-century geek equivalent who'd manage to deduce, just from matching various entries in an encyclopedia against each other, that radio didn't actually require huge towers hundreds of feet tall. Not for every purpose, at least, especially military ones.
In this universe, of course-mad universe; insane; irrational; unreasoning; worst of all, deadly dangerous to hapless peg-legged West Virginia country boys-it was entirely fitting that the deduction would be made by a man who only needed maybe an earring to be the spitting image of Captain Morgan, Pirate Extraordinaire.
So Eddie imagined, at least. Of course, for all he knew, Captain Morgan had actually been spectacled and geeky-looking.
"I need to know now, Eddie." The prince's voice was low, but very steely and very insistent.
Eddie took a deep breath, and glanced out the window. He couldn't really see the Oresund, from here, but he hardly needed to.
"Did you mine it?" he asked.
"Yes. But I doubt it'll do any good."
Eddie looked away. "No, probably not. Whatever else he is, John Chandler Simpson is nobody's dummy. He's probably forgotten more about mines than you or I will ever learn."
He gazed at the sketch for a moment. "I won't tell you anything that might bear on my a
dmiral's operations. Or that of my nation's armed forces, for that matter. If you can't accept that, then you might as well haul out the tongs and the pincers."
To Eddie's surprise, Ulrik laughed softly. "I can just imagine that." He gave Anne Cathrine a quick, sly glance. "Do I do it over her dead body? Not likely, I think. You're so frail, you know-and she's like a she-bear on the subject."
The king's daughter sniffed. "He is delicate. Partly why I'm so fond of him. Not coarse and crude, like some people I know."
Norddahl smiled thinly. "You wouldn't think that, if you'd been introduced to the lad the way I was. Watching the berserk steer a speedboat into a warship and barely managing to jump off at the last minute."
Eddie had only fragmentary memories of all that. What he did remember for sure, though, was that he hadn't been steering the speedboat. The overpowered Outlaw had simply been running wild, after Larry was killed, and had hit the Danish warship by accident.
On the other hand, he'd never told anyone that, either. He would, when and if the time came to report to Admiral Simpson. But as long as he was in Danish captivity, he'd figured the legend worked to his advantage.
Probably, anyway. It was hard to tell, sometimes. But he thought he could detect, more often than not, that ancient Norse spirit lying under the seventeenth-century patina. Barely lying under it, in Baldur's case.
Eddie Cantrell, the Delicate Berserk. There were times he thought he might go mad, in this new world.
Then again-in his more honest moments-he'd admit that he'd never felt quite so alive in West Virginia. "Wild, Wonderful," was the proud claim on the state's license plates-but he'd never met a girl like Anne Cathrine there, now had he?
Or a prince like Ulrik, for that matter. Or an adventurer like Baldur Norddahl. Talk about wild and wonderful.
"Agreed?" he asked.
Ulrik nodded. "Yes, agreed."
Eddie looked down at the sketch again. "It's too late now for any of it to matter, anyway. Well, except-"
He gave Ulrik a sharp glance. "What do you know about our people locked in the Tower of London? I want a straight answer, Ulrik, or I'm not saying anything more."
The prince shook his head. "We know very little, Eddie. Not even my father. That's the truth. More to the point, perhaps, we don't care, either."
He made a little grimace, then. "Charles is hardly what you'd call a bosom friend of Denmark. About all I can tell you is that, at last report-a week ago, perhaps-your embassy was still locked in the Tower."
Before Eddie could say anything, Ulrik added, "I will not pass anything on to anyone who might pass it on further to the English. My solemn vow, on that, Lieutenant Cantrell. I care only for Denmark. The whole League of Ostend can go to hell in a handbasket, to use your charming expression. With that idiot Charles leading the rest."
"Fair enough. The answer to your question is that, no, it's not exactly a lie." Eddie tapped the sketch. "For the purpose of general broadcasting to a large audience, you really do need something like this. Especially in this day and age, when we're in the Maunder Minimum. But for a lot of military or diplomatic purposes, you don't. When all you want to do is transmit narrowly to specific locations or parties."
Ulrike sighed, his head sagging. "In other words, my father's assumption-everyone's assumption, all along-that there was no way for Gustav Adolf to coordinate his various forces was completely baseless."
"Well… I wouldn't say 'completely' baseless. It's still not that easy to do, you know, not even with radio. And there's a pretty tight range limit. But, yes, you're basically right. The admiral has radio capability, and he'll be able to notify the emperor in Luebeck once he's entered the Kattegat and is within range of a radio carried by one of the airplanes. Which…"
Eddie looked back out the window. "Should be any day now, I figure. Unless you were lying last week when you told me he'd gotten out of the Elbe. Or unless there was a huge storm in the North Sea I haven't heard about."
Norddahl chuckled. "You wouldn't have to 'hear about it.' You'd know, believe me, if there had been a big storm. What's to stop it from striking Copenhagen? The towering mountains of Denmark? The highest spot in the whole country is Yding Skovhoj, and that's maybe six hundred feet tall. If that."
"And I didn't lie to you," Ulrik added. "One of the timberclads was apparently left behind, due to some problem or another. I didn't tell you that, simply because we only found out ourselves three days ago." He got a tight look on his face. "The stinking French pass as little information to us as possible. We found out from one of our own couriers."
Sighing, he began rolling up the sketch. "So once Gustav Adolf knows that Simpson has passed through the Great Belt-that's the route I'm assuming he'll take, anyway-he will be able to notify Torstensson by radio. And since he must have set up a radio link to Stockholm, he'll also be able to notify Oxenstierna and Admiral Gyllenhjelm."
He cocked an eye at Eddie. "Yes?"
Eddie hesitated, but… it really didn't matter, any more. And, who knows? Maybe King Christian might decide to sue for peace. The truth was, Eddie wasn't real happy himself at the thought of Simpson leveling Copenhagen. And wouldn't have been, even if he weren't perched in the Blue Tower, which was the most visible part of Copenhagen from the waterfront and almost sure to be a prime target for those ten-inch guns.
"No, you're right. You can tell your father-"
"I'm not telling the king anything," Ulrik said bluntly. "You think he'd listen? Don't be stupid, Eddie. We're long past that point, if it ever existed at all, which I doubt. He's a wonderful father, in many ways, believe it or not. But his pride is involved, and he's just not given to being sensible on such matters. Maybe after…"
The prince shrugged. "We'll see. Or you'll see, at least. I may very well not."
Eddie squinted at him. "What does that mean?"
"Never mind. Just accept that there are times a prince must act like a prince, or he'll be able to do nothing thereafter. Leave it at that."
He tucked the rolled-up sketch under his arm and scanned the room. "No place here," he muttered. Then, after sticking his head into the alcove that passed as a toilet, he shook his head. "And not here, obviously."
He came back into the center of the room. "The original plan, then. Baldur, have you seen to it?"
The Norwegian nodded. "Yes, Your Highness. They've been very well paid. And the carriage will be ready, when the time comes."
Ulrik nodded, and turned to his half-sister. "Any last hesitations?"
She shook her head, looking far more solemn than a fifteen-year-old really should.
"What are you all talking about?" Eddie asked.
Ulrik turned to face him. "Amazing, really. What did they teach you in those famous up-time schools, beyond mechanical matters?"
"What are you talking about?" Eddie repeated. Feeling, not for the first time since he'd fallen into captivity, like a dunce.
"I read a charming story about those schools," Baldur said. "The really dumb and inattentive ones, they'd make sit in a corner. With a tall pointed hat on his head that said 'dunce.' "
All of them laughed. To rub salt into the wounds, none more loudly than Anne Cathrine.
The North Sea
White water curled back on either side of SSIM Constitution's blunt bows as the ironclad butted her way through the North Sea waves. Sea conditions were actually quite good, Simpson thought, standing on Constitution's bridge wing while the chilly wind hummed around his ears. Wave height was only about three and a half or four feet, which was practically millpond-smooth compared to typical Atlantic conditions. Not that any of his ships had been designed for typical Atlantic conditions, of course.
Fortunately, he thought, turning to look astern to where President followed along in Constitution's wake, he'd at least had coastal operations in mind when he designed the ironclads. Flooded down, they drew almost ten feet, and he'd built them around what was effectively a double hull. Each of the propulsive pumps-and the tunnel in
which it worked-occupied its own individual "pod," separated from the rest of the hull (and from one another) in order to prevent them from being disabled by a single hit or hull breach. It was almost a catamaran effect, and he'd used the flood tanks to further subdivide the portion of both pods which was submerged at maximum draft, giving himself as many of the advantages of watertight compartmentalization as he could. The fuel tanks were nested inside the flood tanks, and the magazines and powerplant were, in turn, nested inside them.
While he'd been at it, he'd taken advantage of the "pod" configuration to incorporate a centerboard feature into the design. Forward and aft of the magazines and the huge, thundering diesel, he'd added a pair of centerboards between the pods, each of them basically a big wooden plank, fifteen feet from front edge to rear edge, which could be lowered vertically to add ten more feet to the ship's draft. That additional stability, "twin screw" maneuverability, and their much better power-to-weight ratio, made Simpson's ironclads far more stable and seaworthy than the majority of the original river ironclads-several of the later Civil War monitors had even been sailed across the Atlantic, which was generally rougher than typical North Sea conditions. He'd known all of that, but it was still a great relief to discover that the USE's ironclads were having no trouble handling the requirements of their current voyage.
Of course, he thought dryly, looking back to where Ajax and Achilles steamed gamely along behind the larger, deeper-draft ironclads, it's being a more pleasant experience for some than for others.
The timberclads hadn't been designed for coastal waters-not really. They were typical, flat-bottomed, shoal-draft riverboats, designed to operate in shallow waters. Their bulky steam-powered plants had imposed design constraints of their own, as well. He'd had to locate the boilers as low in the limited hull volume as possible in order to protect them from hostile fire if they got close enough to something with guns heavy enough to penetrate their thick timbers. One of the greatest dangers to the original ironclads' crews had been the threat of fatal scalding when their boilers were breached, and he'd done everything he could to minimize that particular risk. Then he'd had to squeeze in their magazines around the boilers, for the same protective considerations. And after that, he'd had to find a place to put their coal bunkers, although he'd actually managed to use those to strengthen the side protection of the powerplant and ammunition. But there'd been neither space, nor pumps, nor surplus power available to worry about features like flood tanks, or variable draft, and their paddle wheels were simply a less efficient means of propulsion.