Eric Flint - 1634 - The Baltic War

"No we don't, Sherrilyn," said Lefferts brusquely. "He hasn't 'given his word,' to begin with. Just said what he would do. No solemn royal oaths, no bullshit sacred vows, nada. Just said what he would do."

When he looked back at Ulrik, the good humor had returned to his eyes as well. "I figure a prince of Denmark who charged one of the admiral's ironclads in a rowboat with nothing better than a bomb on the end of a stick has probably got the cojones to do this, too."

Clearly, the woman wasn't bashful. From her accent, Ulrik thought she was another American. "Yeah, fine, Harry, point taken. Which means he's a complete screwball. Meaning no offense, Your Highness or whatever you Danes call you." She was now looking at Ulrik directly. "I mean, Jesus. What're you? Fucking crazy?"

Suddenly, the room burst into laughter. No little round of laughs, either, but riotous laughter.

"I'll drink to that!" boomed one of the men who'd moved aside to make room for Ulrik. Paul, he thought. "Here's to crazy fucking princes!"

"Another round!" called out Lefferts, waving his hand at the tavern keeper. "And bring a couple of more mugs. Baldur, have a seat. Paul, you and Felix make room, this time."

Once the tavern keeper had carried out his tasks, Harry gave him a meaningful glance. Or so, at least, it seemed to Ulrik-a guess which was confirmed when he saw that the man quickly left the room, thereby eliminating any possible eavesdroppers.

In a peculiar way, he found that more impressive than anything else. He knew from Baldur that Lefferts and his team had only arrived in Copenhagen very recently. Yet somehow, in that short a time, they'd managed to find a tavern they could use as a headquarters, replete with a cooperative owner. How, he wondered.

Probably by waving money under his nose, along with the none-too-subtle suggestion that they were about some criminal enterprise. In a neighborhood like this, and with a tavern this run-down, that had probably not been difficult. It wouldn't occur to the tavern keeper, of course, that the criminal enterprise in question would have anything to do with infuriating the Danish crown.

Still, it was impressive. There were skills involved here that went far beyond the obvious.

Developing the plan itself didn't take long. The biggest problem was simply timing the escape properly, so that whatever alarm was given wouldn't come in time to prevent a slow-moving wagon from getting to the harbor at Helsingor. Lefferts insisted on that, although it would obviously be much faster to get Eddie from the palace to a boat in Copenhagen's own harbor.

"Tell you what, Ulrik," he'd said, "I won't tell you how to prince, you don't tell me how to do my line of work. Misdirection's the key. We'll have a couple of our guys-Felix and Don, I'm thinking-make a big production out of smuggling somebody-that'll be Sherrilyn, all bundled up so you can't tell if she's a guy or a girl-onto a boat in Copenhagen's harbor. The kind of thing an eyewitness or two-or ten, more like-is bound to notice. That way, when your father's soldiers come searching-and where else would they start?-they'll think Eddie's on that boat. By the time they catch up to the boat and search it and find nobody, we've got Eddie on a boat in Helsingor and we're sailing around the Skaw. I figure we'll smuggle him back to Amsterdam, rather than trying for the USE. They won't expect that."

"He's got the right of it, Ulrik," said Baldur.

"Why me?" demanded Sherrilyn, a bit crossly.

Felix snorted. "To make it easy on us, once we get caught. What do you think? With you as the smugglee, we can claim one of us was your paramour and we were getting you out of Denmark to save you from the lecherous and slimy clutches of… Hmmm. Probably Harry himself, I'd say."

Harry grinned. Don did, too. "Which one of us, Felix, is what I want to know? 'Paramour' is one of those words that usually comes"-here, he leered at Sherrilyn-"with all sorts of perks and privileges."

"In your dreams, wise guy," was Sherrilyn's answer. But she immediately added, "Okay, that makes sense."

"Done, then." Harry rose and extended his hand to Ulrik and Baldur. "Prince, Baldur, it's been a pleasure. We'll stay in touch, probably using Juliet as our go-between."

As Ulrik and Baldur were about to go out the door, Harry called out. "Hey, Ulrik?"

He turned. "Yes?"

"If it ever happens-God forbid-that your royal line of work doesn't pan out right, and you find yourself unemployed, feel free to look me up. You too, Baldur."

Not knowing what to say, Ulrik simply nodded and left.

When they were gone, Don Ohde gave Harry a sly smile. "Speaking of misdirection, I notice you didn't tell the prince about the airplane we're really planning to use."

Harry shrugged. "Who says we are? The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of using a boat at Helsingor. Keep the whole USE out of it entirely, except for us. And-"

He gave his companions at the table a smile that was slyer by an order of magnitude. "It ain't like it'd be hard for Mike to claim we're a pack of goddam rogues, now would it?"

After the laughter died down, he added, "Especially as pissed as he'll be, when he realizes we misdirected him too. You wanna talk about plausible denial."

As they started walking back toward the palace, Ulrik frowned. "I think that was a compliment."

"Oh, yes, indeed," murmured Baldur. He had a peculiar expression on his face, as if he were daydreaming. "I'm almost tempted… Ah, well, never mind. Although he does remind me a great deal of… ah, well, best leave that name buried. What adventures we had, though, while it lasted. Too bad the bards don't sing about… ah, well, never mind. Probably just as well. Empty half the sprightly lads out of Norway, it would, if they started singing about it. And then who'd do the farm work?"

In the quick way he had, Norddahl suddenly changed the subject. "So what did you think of the princess? Aside from the fact that she'll be ugly when she grows up. No worse than most princesses around, after all."

Ulrik gave him a half-scowl. "Kristina is all of seven years old, you lout. No way to know what she'll look like in ten years, even, much less twenty or thirty."

Baldur wasn't abashed. "And you should keep telling yourself that, I agree. Even if only a madman would think that big nose is someday going to shrink down to normal size."

Ulrik was a bit irritated, but there was no point arguing the matter. On the subject of women, it was just a fact that he and Norddahl were almost polar opposites. The Norwegian adventurer, as you might expect, liked women who were good-looking in a bland sort of way, with heftily female figures, and not much brighter than a cow. Given that his own intelligence on the subject was not much higher than a bull's.

Ulrik, on the other hand, had been a prince in line of succession all his life. He couldn't remember a time when he hadn't been surrounded by young Danish noblewomen who were good-looking in a bland sort of way, with figures that ranged from hefty to slender but were usually quite attractive, and…

Well, it wouldn't be fair-not to some, anyway-to call them as stupid as cows. But even the bright ones had a very limited and incurious view of the world. Conversations with them were almost invariably dull, and often excruciatingly dull.

True, Princess Kristina had a outsized nose, which she'd probably retain her whole life. In old age, if she also had bad problems with her teeth, she might make a ferocious-looking crone. And while it was impossible to tell yet what her figure would be, once she passed childhood, he suspected it would remain on the scrawny side.

He could live with all that. Quite easily, in fact. What mattered was simply whether he and the Swedish princess could manage to get along. If they could-only time would tell-then all the rest would come into play.