Fortunately, the abbess of Quedlinburg had taken the old lady under her wing as soon as she arrived, along with keeping an eye on the rambunctious Princess Kristina. The sight of the abbess and her two companions—a young princess and an old commoner—caused Mary to shake her head slightly with bemusement. Of all the strange things in 17th-century Germany, perhaps the strangest for her had been discovering a Lutheran abbess, governing an institute of noble bluestockings who took no religious vows; also governing an independent territory of her own which had given her a seat in the Reichstag and then in the Chamber of Princes; a cousin of the Saxe-Weimar brothers; and fearsomely intelligent and well-educated to boot. Spending some time in the abbess’ company, as Mary had done for the past period, had dispelled whatever lingering suspicions she might have had that the people of her new world were inferior to those of her old one. She’d have given her eyeteeth to have had the abbess working with her in Pittsburgh.
There were a few other notables present. The three most important of which were: Ed Piazza, who had arrived in the city with James Nichols; Wilhelm Saxe-Weimar—or Wilhelm Wettin, as he was now calling himself; and Otto Gericke. Gericke was a scientist, engineer and government administrator in his early thirties. One of the few survivors of the slaughter in Magdeburg in 1631, he had been appointed to oversee the city’s reconstruction. Mary Simpson had grown very fond of him in the past few days. Gericke had an artistic streak in him as well, and was always receptive to her ideas and proposals.
He looks good, Mary thought, as she inspected Mike. Then, forcing herself to be completely honest: No, he looks superb.
He did, too. The tailor she’d sent him to had managed to combine Stearns’ insistence on a certain “plebeian simplicity” with as splendid a fabric and cut as that worn by any of the princes in the room. Mary was quite certain that, soon enough, the style would be copied throughout much of Germany. It was almost bound to be. Style and fashion were always determined, in the end, by the world’s most powerful and prestigious people.
Which, today, Mike Stearns was—and looked the part. If the garments he wore had none of the sheer splendor of those being worn by the princes, the lack was more than made up for by the imposing nature of the man who wore them. Stearns was tall, very well built, and had the kind of face which, if not precisely handsome, exuded the manly vigor and self-confidence that made the term “handsome” a moot point.
Princes who look the part are almost always handsome by definition. Taken feature by feature, after all, Gustav II Adolf himself was not a particularly attractive man. One could claim that he had a beak of a nose, was usually overweight, on and on—none of which made any difference at all. Put the king of Sweden in a room, dressed for the occasion, and he would instantly dominate it.
Such were the rules in Mary Simpson’s world, at least. And she thought the same rules, perhaps diluted and adjusted, would apply in all worlds. But she gave the matter no more thought. Tonight, she was in her world again. And knew that, at least for some time, she would be able to remain there. The relaxation which that knowledge produced gave her, effortlessly, the ability to project her own proper persona for the occasion.
And so she did, sweeping forward through the crowd. The official hostess for the event, and one who was already starting to be called, here and there, the “Dame of Magdeburg.” Her hands outstretched, the supple professional smile firmly in place, and her eyes—without seeming to—quickly doing a last inspection of her troops.
The landgravine’s in place. Excellent. Didn’t expect any less, of course. Amalie’s such a smart woman, thank God. The abbess is keeping Veronica and Kristina sheltered. Good, good. Hesse-Kassel has a huge crowd pinned to the Nichols, père et fille. Splendid.
“Prime Minister Stearns! So delighted you could come!”
She gave not a moment’s thought to the title. The majordomo, of course, had presented Mike with his full set of titles: President of the United States, prime minister of the United States of Europe. But that was all much too complicated for the purpose of this evening’s soiree. Soon enough, in any event, Mike would be resigning as president and Ed Piazza—having gone in quick succession from secretary of state to vice-president, after Frank Jackson’s resignation from that post—would succeed him until new elections could be held.