John Gardner - Freddy's Book

As soon as he arrived, Lars-Goren sought out the cheerful little German who’d done the hiring when Lars-Goren and Gustav had come here first. He was now much risen in the world, part-owner of the mine.

“Iss a sad bissness,” the German said, shaking his head, smiling brightly. “But vat you going to tell dem, dese miserable people?” He winked merrily and offered Lars-Goren a beer.

At the meeting that night, there was no trace of the careful order that had before been so conspicuous. They shouted one another down, sometimes threw things. Scuffles broke out here and there in the crowd, and gradually it came to Lars-Goren that Germans were as rare here tonight as Danes had been the last time he’d visited. No wonder, for the talk was all of foreigners, and how Gustav’s government had no Swedes in it, to speak of — only Germans, Russians, and Danes.

Suddenly his back turned to ice and he realized that the man at his side was the Devil.

“Well, well, Lars-Goren!” said the Devil, in a voice like an old woman’s. “How things change, from time to time! But have no fear, my friend, don’t be fooled by appearances! I’m as much on your side as I ever was!” Torchlight glittered on his corpse-pale skin and on his mouth, where there were droplets of blood.

“I’m sure that’s true,” said Lars-Goren, just audibly. “I’m sure you’ve never changed sides.” He began to back away.

The Devil’s head shot forward, grinning. “Don’t fool with me, Lars-Goren,” he whispered, “for the sake of your children!”

Blindly, crazily, Lars-Goren began to run. The Devil was right beside him, like a floating fire. Lars-Goren ran so hard he thought his heart would burst but still the Devil was at his elbow. “Christ save me!” Lars-Goren shouted. Suddenly it was dark. He was lying in his bed in Stockholm fortress.

2.

“AH, AH!” SIGHED GUSTAV, pacing before the window, pulling at his knuckles. He looked fifteen years older but tougher, leaner, more leathery than ever. His beard was like a wild man’s, glittering in the sunlight his eyes, for all his troubles, seemed filled with some crazy joy. Abruptly, he came bounding toward Lars-Goren’s chair. “Anyway, now you’re back,” he said, seizing Lars-Goren’s shoulders, “you can shatter all my plans with good advice!”

Lars-Goren closed his eyes.

“Here now!” Gustav shouted. Lars-Goren opened his eves again. “Here now, my dear friend and kinsman! No napping!” He snapped his fingers. His eyes, peering into Lars-Goren’s, went suddenly unsure, then evasive, looking past Lars-Goren’s ear. “Very well!” he said, and turned away as if angrily, storming back toward the window, into the light. He clasped his hands behind his back and nodded, then laughed. “How simple it all seemed to us when we were poor young idealist fools!”

Lars-Goren for a moment put his hands over his eyes.

“Ah, ah, ah!” groaned King Gustav in sudden agony. He stretched out one arm and clenched the fist. “I meant to make Sweden magnificent,” he said. “I knew what to do, how the government should run, how it could benefit the people.” He jerked his head around and stared at Lars-Goren, sunlight behind his head so that Lars-Goren saw only the outline, like a burn. “But it hasn’t been so easy to put Sweden on her legs! Not so easy, believe me! I was called to rule a country shattered and disorganized by political uncertainty, exhausted by her war of liberation, also bankrupt. And who was to help me with the heavy work of government, from the highest ministerial positions to the work of local sheriffs? All our best people had perished in the bloodbath of Stockholm — not just people who knew the ropes, I don’t ask that; I mean people with the simplest kinds of skills, such as reading and writing! Just reading and writing! Is that so much to ask? But there was no one — anyway, no one Swedish, no one I could trust. In such a case, you take your ministers where you find them!” Again Gustav laughed. Smiling, more sour than the Devil, he raised his left hand, fingers spread, to count on them with his right index finger. “My first chancellor is none other than Erik Svensson, toady to King Kristian of Denmark — a double-dealing Swede who’s already changed sides twice! My second minister is Master Lars Andreae, one of the men who gave the verdict that led to the bloodbath. Ha! My archbishop of Uppsala, Johannes Magnus, is another of the same, even fouler than Master Lars. And then there’s that cabbage-eater Berend von Melen, Kristian’s former general, now husband to my cousin, God help me, and illegally (between you and me) made a member of the råd. There’s the cabbage-eater count John of Hoya, married to my sister — God help me again! — to whom I’ve given, again illegally, the castle and the fief of Stegeborg. I’ve even made overtures to that bitch Gustav Trolle. I say ‘bitch’ of course only because he’s dared to turn me down. My peasants — the poor devils who died for all this — and especially the peasants of Dalarna, God knows — they don’t altogether understand these things.”

King Gustav stopped, legs wide apart, before Lars-Goren’s chair, and smiled as if with satisfaction, his eyelids trembling. “But all that’s nothing,” he said. “Take the matter of taxes. Most of Sweden’s paid no taxes since long before Sten Sture’s rebellion. Poor bastards, they have little enough to give, God knows — and they’re the very same people whose sons I saw butchered in the war. Nonetheless, what am I to do about my loans from Lübeck, eh? What am I to do about piracy, or repairing the fortresses and docks we blew up? What am I to do about the crippled and the starving? Eh?

“Starvation, that’s another thing!” King Gustav clapped his hands. “Whether or not it’s the work of my old friend the Devil, ever since the day I took the crown we’ve been having the most incredible bawl of bad weather! The peasants are down to eating barkbread. They’re calling me ‘King Bark’—it’s a fact! No doubt they’re right; if I were a proper king I’d raise my hands against the snow and the snow would turn away and say ‘Excuse me, sire!’ I’d sing out for rain and the rain would come in gushes. ‘Oh, yer welcome, sire!’ But I’m the only king they’ve got, as they know, or rather as they should know. They don’t. No, they don’t, not at all. That’s another of my troubles.”

He was standing bent toward Lars-Goren’s chair, his hands on his knees, his bearded face thrust forward. “Kristina Gyllenstierna’s on the move — Sten Sture’s widow. She’s sending out letters for help in all directions — no doubt you’ve heard. She’s even written to the king of the pirates, Sören Norby. On which subject more later. Also she has her various old friends, like Bishop Brask. They’ve found plenty to work with, no lack of grievances to nurse: the dearness of the times, the lack of salt, the no-good coin — I’ve been minting pure cowshit, I readily admit it. I’ve analyzed the riches of Sweden, and that’s our best product. Where was I? Ah yes — the grievances. They say I’m plundering the True Holy Church — which I am, so I am. They also say I’ve murdered dear Kristina’s son, someone named Nils — which is an absolute lie; I think so; to the best of my knowledge pure slander.” King Gustav smiled. “So you see, beloved kinsman, I could use a little clever advice.”

Lars-Goren sat perfectly still, dizzy.

“I know,” said Gustav, wheeling away, throwing out his hands to each side, furious, “no doubt it all seems simple to a man like you! You haven’t heard the half of it.”

At that moment Berend von Melen broke in on them.

3.

“FORGIVE ME, YOUR HIGHNESS,” cried von Melen, thumping his chest with his right hand, “I was told you were alone!”