John Gardner - Freddy's Book

For the first time, Lars-Goren spoke. “Why do you do it then?” His voice broke out louder than he’d intended, sharp as iron striking rock. Gustav gave a start, but the bishop moved only his eyes, studying Lars-Goren. Then, losing interest, he looked away again and lowered his head until his chin was near his chest. “Why do I do it, you say.” His face moved painfully from one expression to another, like the face of an actor constrained to say an overfamiliar line from a too-well-known play. “Why not?” he said at last, and grinned bitterly. He glanced at Gustav’s bandaged arm, nodded to himself, and, without another word, turned abruptly to walk toward his horse. Now as before, he walked a little mincingly, as if he hated the uncertainty of the grip earth gave, hated getting soil and bits of leaf on his shoes. His man gave him a leg up, then went over to his own horse and mounted.

The bishop scowled, made a kind of tsk tsk, then looked, full of gloom, at Gustav and Lars-Goren. “Time for the exit,” he said, “the interesting farewell gesture, the parting bit of wit.” He slung his jaw sideways — exactly as the horse was doing again, trying to be rid of the bit — then breathed deeply, shaking his head. “You know”—he nodded to Gustav Vasa—“you, in my position, would simply turn your horse and gallop off, not true? Man of affairs, much on his mind, no time for entrances and exits; you simply come and go. How I envy you!” He looked up at the sky again. It seemed to have gone darker, affected by his mood “Is Bishop Hans Brask not ten times busier than Gustav Vasa? Yet always, always the intolerable burden of style! Always the cool eye drifting toward the murder! — excuse me, I meant mirror!” He looked flustered, almost shocked. “Stupid slip,” he muttered. He glared at Lars-Goren as if the whole thing were his fault. “Stupid,” he whispered, his face dark with anger, and abruptly, still blushing, he turned his horse toward the woods and galloped off. After a moment his men wheeled around and followed. A little foolishly, as if unable to think what else to do, Gustav Vasa waved.

8.

SO IT WAS THAT GUSTAV VASA became, first, regent, then king, of Sweden. To set off the revolt of the Dalesmen of Dalarna, he scarcely needed to raise his hand. Rumors fanned by the Devil’s huge wings were already widespread of Kristians intention of putting all Swedish mineral exports in Denmark’s control, and there were rumors, too — most of them well-founded — of atrocities committed upon peasants and country priests by the Danish soldiery. On the off chance that anyone alive in Dalarna had not yet heard the rumors, Gustav seized the Lutherans’ printing press at Uppsala and turned it from the printing of Bibles in German and Latin to a different and highly original purpose, propaganda. It was a stroke of genius, that unprecedented use of the new machine. Even in France there were men who gnashed their teeth in envy, wishing they themselves had been the first in the world to think of it.

The miners of Kopparberg soon joined the uprising, then all of Bergslag, then farmers and lumbermen from the areas surrounding; and since Kristians government officials in Stockholm were too busy squabbling among themselves to come up with effective counter-measures, the rebellion gathered momentum. In April 1521 the rebels were able to defeat Kristians forces at Västerås; in May they captured Uppsala. With the speed of an army on sailing sleds, Gustav pushed eastward to the sea to win a port through which supplies could reach him from abroad, and by the beginning of summer his army stood outside Stockholm. Now Hans Brask, bishop of Linkoping, and Ture Jönsson, governor of Västergödand, came openly to his support. It was through their influence that he was elected regent in August 1521.

Kristian of Denmark fumed, pacing, wringing his hands, and swearing; but for the moment he was helpless. For three months he’d been visiting the Netherlands, playing high politics with his Hapsburg relations, pursuing his plan of shifting all his business from the Hanseatic League to the Dutch, where the profits would be greater. He wrote furious, imperatorial letters, the Devil sitting at his elbow, giving him advice, but the letters did no good. By Christmas, most of Sweden was in the hands of the insurgents “Never mind,” said the Devil, his huge, crooked hands calmly folded on the table, his head bowed low, so that Kristian could not see his expression. “Take what they will, these lunatics,” said the Devil, “it will all melt like snow.”

“Like snow, you say,” said Kristian. Even with the Devil, he had a way of staring with one eye wide open, so blue it looked like glass, the other eye closed to a slit. He drummed his dimpled fingers on the table.

Solemnly, the Devil nodded. “You forget, my friend,” he said, “we have on our side the most brilliant general in the world, the magnificent Berend von Melen!”

“Ah!” said Kristian of Denmark, raising both eyebrows and beaming with pleasure. “Ah yes, the German!” He had met this Berend von Melen only twice, and both times had judged him, after careful thought, to be insane. Kristian had been delighted. He had never been much of a warrior himself, and the stories of Vikings he’d heard in his childhood had convinced him that only the insane made good soldiers.

As it happened, and as the Devil was well aware — unless it had briefly slipped his mind — at just the moment when the Devil was giving consolation to Kristian, Berend von Melen was formally switching his allegiance to Gustav Vasa. All that now stood between Vasa’s peasant army and complete victory were the fortresses of Stockholm, Kalmar, and Älvsborg. With the army he had at hand he knew he could not take them, for it was largely an army of volunteers, most of them unpaid, always anxious about their crops and families, eager to go home; but Gustav was by no means out of cards. By April, in return for trading privileges, the two nearest cities of the Hanseatic League, Lübeck and Danzig, were covertly supporting him, sending privately funded armies. By October Lübeck was a formal ally. Gustav was now in control of the sea and able to blockade Stockholm; on land he was now strong enough to invade the Danish provinces of Blekinge, Skåne, and Viken.

Kristian, walking with the Devil on the battlements in Copenhagen, wept and wrung his hands. “What a fool I was, listening to the Devil,” he said. “I’ve lost my kingdom and, for all I know, my immortal soul as well!”

The Devil shook his head as if bewildered by it all. “Who knows?” he said. “Maybe something will turn up.”

He knew pretty well what it was that would turn up. At that very moment the Danish nobility, alienated by Kristian’s legislation on behalf of the peasants and burghers of Denmark — and certain great lords of the Danish church, shocked at Kristian’s flirtation with the Lutherans — were secretly meeting with Fredrik of Holstein, brother of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles. By the end of their meeting, they had elected Fredrik their king.

“I’ll fight him,” said Kristian, when he heard the news. “Nobody’s king of Denmark till he’s sitting right here on this throne, and there’s no room for two!”

“That’s the spirit!” the Devil said eagerly, and ground his fist into his hand. “We’ll fight him!”

One eye wide open, the other almost shut, Kristian looked at the Devil and slowly raised his hand to his mouth. He began to smile like a man who’s lost his senses, like a poor, doltish peasant when soldiers come and murder his parents and take away his horse. The Devil narrowed his eyes to study him more carefully, feeling — for some reason he couldn’t quite get hold of — a mysterious alarm. There were tiers of candles behind the king’s left shoulder, and as the Devil stared intently, trying to make out Kristian’s expression and fathom what it meant, the king’s whole body became, because of the brightness of the light, a blur, a figure as intense and undefined as a sunspot. The Devil, with a feeling of inexplicable dread, looked away.