Eric Flint: 1635: The Eastern Front

"Ha!" boomed Ableidinger. "And thereby lost the match, because the Louis ogre knocked him out."

Melissa scowled at him. "Joe Louis was not an ogre. He was…?Well. A very important man in the history of the United States, for reasons I'm not going to get into here. But, yes, that is what happened. Billy Conn didn't even make it to the end of the thirteenth round."

Everyone at the table sat back in their chairs, contemplating this new data.

"Do you still think Rebecca is 'overinterpreting' her husband's radio messages, Anselm?" asked Matthias Strigel.

"Uh, no," he replied.

Constantin was examining Rebecca. "Your husband was one of these American pugilists, wasn't he?"

"He was very young then," she replied, a bit defensively. "Foolish. He says it himself."

Ableidinger waved his hand. "Yes, yes. Still, he was a pugilist. So I'm curious. Was he also one of these superb boxers like this Billy Conn?"

Rebecca seemed at a loss for words. Quite unusual that was, for her. Her mouth opened, closed. Opened again. Closed.

"Ah…" she said.

Melissa spoke up. Her voice was firm, her words a bit clipped. "Mike Stearns had eight professional fights. All of them were fought at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. He won seven of them by knock-out, all within the first four rounds."

She cleared her throat. "So, no. He bears very little resemblance to his not-uncle Billy Conn." She gave Constantin an unfriendly glance. "Some might even call him an ogre."

"Not I," said Ableidinger, smiling like a cherub. "Not I."

"How do you know all this about boxing?" asked Rebecca. "I did not even know those details concerning Michael's career."

"Just picked it up here and there," Melissa said. "By accident."

"Oh, surely not," said Rebecca.

"That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

Stockholm

The first thing Princess Kristina said when she came into Prince Ulrik's salon was: "Uncle Axel says I have to come to Berlin. Right away. To be with Papa."

Ulrik set down the newspaper he was reading on the low table in front of his chair. Americans would have called it a "coffee table," except no American with a net worth less than fifty million dollars would have dared place a coffee cup on it in the first place.

He was glad enough to put down the newspaper. It was a five-day-old copy of the Leubecker Zeitung, a journal that was just marginally tolerable. Unfortunately, none of the Hamburg or Magdeburg newspapers arrived in Stockholm regularly.

Still, anything from the continent was better than what passed for news in Swedish journals. The combination of being isolated and victorious-not to mention the chancellor's heavy hand when it came to censorship-made Stockholm quite a provincial place, despite its objective political importance. Ulrik had been in small town taverns in the Germanies where the political analysis was superior to the drivel you heard here, even in the palace.

Especially in the palace, now that he thought about it.

Caroline Platzer had followed the princess into the salon. From the expression on her face, it was obvious she was worried.

As well she might be, thought Ulrik.

"Do you wish to go?" he asked the girl.

Kristina frowned. "Well…?yes, I suppose. I'd very much like to see Papa."

Ulrik volunteered the unspoken word at the end of that sentence. "But…?"

Kristina stamped her foot. "I don't like Berlin! I was there once, with Mama, visiting her brother. He was stupid and everybody in the palace was stupid and the whole city was stupid. I've never been so bored in my life."

"That's not a good enough reason not to go, Kristina." He smiled. "Mind you, I don't disagree. I've been to Berlin twice. It's quite boring, yes."

He waited. Ulrik was fairly certain they had come to a critical point. He was also fairly certain that he knew the right course of action. But it was not something that could be done-or should be done-against Kristina's will.

She was pouting a little, staring down at her shoes.

"Is there any other reason not to go, Kristina?"

The princess glanced at Caroline. The American woman made a little gesture with her head, a nod in Ulrik's direction. Combined with the rather stern expression on her face, Ulrik interpreted it to mean: Tell him. But you have to do it yourself. I can't do it for you.

Kristina looked back at Ulrik. "I don't know that I should. It doesn't seem right to me."

That was enough, Ulrik thought. To start, at least.

"It's certainly not right from a legal standpoint," he said firmly.

"I don't have to obey Uncle Axel?" There was a little lift in the girl's voice. Hope, you might call it, if you were the sort of person who saw oak trees in acorns.

Which Ulrik did, as it happened. He fancied himself something of a botanist.

"No, of course you don't have to obey him. To begin with, he's not your uncle. Secondly, no one has appointed him regent. He's simply the chancellor of Sweden. Someone whose opinion you should listen to, of course, but he has no authority over you."

Shrewd as always, Baldur played the devil's advocate. "Not yet. But he can summon the council and the riksdag and have himself declared regent."

Ulrik shrugged. "So? The riksdag's authority extends only to the kingdom of Sweden. Not to the United States of Europe, not to the Union of Kalmar. Never forget that Gustav II Adolf wears three crowns, not one."

He nodded at Kristina. "And so will she."

"Ah!" said Baldur, as if he has just been enlightened. "I hadn't thought of that. And the equivalent authority of the riksdag when it comes to the Union of Kalmar is…?"

The Americans had a term for it that Ulrik had learned from Eddie Cochrane. Throwing soft pitches. Or was it softball pitches? Easy pitches?

Whatever it was called, Baldur did it superbly.

"Well, that's a very interesting question," said Ulrik. "The final structure of the Union of Kalmar hasn't been settled yet. A union council was created, but its authority remains unclear. There's certainly nothing in the laws established thus far to give the council the right to create a regent."

He cleared his throat. "To the contrary. The only hard and fast rule when it comes to determining the source of final authority in the Union-which was enshrined by law, right there at the Congress of Copenhagen-is that until such time as what they chose to call the 'organic royal line' of the Union comes to the throne-"

He pointed a forefinger at Kristina; a thumb at himself. "That's us, and then our children, and so on. But until that time, the Congress clearly stipulated that the king of Sweden was the premier political figure in the Union, followed by-"

He cleared his throat again. "My father, Christian IV, the king of Denmark. So the authority to create a regent for the Union of Kalmar clearly lies with him, given that Gustav II Adolf is incapacitated. Not Axel Oxenstierna, who has no formal standing at all in the government of the Union."

Kristina was looking brighter by the moment. "What about the United States?"

"Aye, that's the question," said Baldur. "Isn't it?"

"Well, yes, I think so."

Kristina was standing very close to him, now. Ulrik reached out and took her little hands in his. "What you are faced with, my betrothed, is something that no child should have to deal with. But it happens. It has happened before, it will happen again. It's called a succession crisis."

Kristina looked up at Caroline. "Have you heard of that?"

At the time of the Ring of Fire, Caroline Platzer had had the same knowledge of history that most Americans had. Not too bad when it came to American history itself, allowing for big gaps of knowledge between the Revolution and the Civil War and the Civil War and the Great Depression. Abysmal when it came to everything else.