Silence fell over the table. After a time, Amalie rose. “Well, I think that’s enough for one night. It’s late and I’m tired.” She smiled down at the two men. Not quite serenely, but surprisingly close. “Though I have no doubt we will be having many such nights, in the years to come.”
“It’s not as bad as war,” observed Saxe-Weimar. “Especially a civil war.”
“Certainly isn’t,” agreed the landgrave, draining his wine glass. “I’ve seen a real war. Been watching a civil war, in fact, for fifteen years now. It’s filthy.”
* * *
Wilhelm spent the night in a guest room in Hesse-Kassel’s quarters. Late the next morning, they left to attend the session of the Chamber of Princes scheduled to begin in the early afternoon. On their way out, the doorman handed Wilhelm a letter, saying it had been left for him by a courier who arrived shortly after dawn. Saxe-Weimar broke the seal, opened the letter, and scrutinized it. Then, folded it up and tucked it away.
Since it was a very pleasant day and they had plenty of time—no session of Germany’s princelings began punctually—they chose to walk. The imperial palace was no great distance in any event.
As they neared the palace, a strange noise was heard in the sky. Like everyone else on the street, they stopped and looked up. Above, sailing directly over the palace, came the most bizarre-looking contraption anyone had ever seen.
Anyone except Wilhelm, at any rate. The former duke had seen it before, any number of times.
“Is that—?” asked Hesse-Kassel.
“Yes, Landgrave. That is what they call an ‘airplane.’ President Stearns informed me, in the letter I was handed as we left, that he would be flying back to Grantville this morning.”
Hesse-Kassel’s head craned, as he gawked at the Las Vegas Belle passing overhead. So did everyone on the street except Saxe-Weimar, who took the time to draw out the letter and read it again.
Only after the aircraft had passed out of sight did Hesse-Kassel lower his head. He frowned, and pointed to the south. “But I don’t understand. Thuringia is that way. So why is he going—?”
Saxe-Weimar sighed. He still had a long way to go, before Germany’s princelings—to use an American expression—got the picture.
“Why is he flying north? Well, if you ask him—or the head of his little flying military force who is probably the one at the controls of the machine—he will claim it was due to the necessities of wind direction, or whatever. A technical explanation which you will not be able to follow very well.”
The same peculiar droning sound began to fill the sky again, coming now from the north. Like a giant wasp, perhaps.
“The real reason, of course—” Wilhelm fell silent, waiting for the noise to subside. Coming back, Mike Stearns’ aircraft was flying very low. As it passed directly over the imperial palace and then above the thoroughfare where Saxe-Weimar and Hesse-Kassel were standing, Wilhelm realized that this was the first time he had ever stood directly under the flying machine.
“I believe they call this ‘buzzing’!” he half-shouted.
The aircraft, and the noise, faded away.
“As I was saying, the real reason he did it was to remind everyone who is attending the session today—none too subtly—” Saxe-Weimar poked a finger toward the imperial palace. “—that we can either reach an accommodation with Gustavus Adolphus or—” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, pointing to the now-vanished aircraft. “—we will someday have to try reaching an accommodation with him.”
Hesse-Kassel grunted. “Indeed. The Swede looks better all the time.”
“Does he not?”
They took a few more steps and then Wilhelm handed Hesse-Kassel the letter.
“Most of this is really for you, I think, even though it’s addressed to me. It’s all very polite. But the gist of it is that the President of the United States feels that—with war now here—it would be a good gesture—show our enemies that we stand united—if the American admiral residing here in Magdeburg—and his wife—were to be invited to some of the social functions which surround this gathering of so many of Germany’s princes. And since you’re the most important of them, Wilhelm—we’ll leave aside Saxony and Brandenburg, no chance of them doing it—I think you should take the lead. Besides, Amalie always has the best soirees anyway.”