He gave Mike a look that was half-amused and half . . .
Wondering, perhaps.
“Torstensson’s at the base, by the way. I think he’s been on the radio to Gustav Adolf for at least two hours. They’ve already had to switch operators, to give the first one’s fingers some rest. So. What next, O great stage magician?”
Mike was watching the princess. Both of them, it might be better to say. They were still hugging.
“The education of royalty, I think. That’s got to be put into the right hands.”
Mary gasped. “Michael Stearns! You can’t take a little girl hostage.”
“Why the hell not?” he replied, almost snarling. “When Europe’s royalty has taken millions of poor girls hostage? Watch me, dammit.”
Seeing the look on her face, he sighed. “Forget the Three Rivers, Mary Simpson. Welcome to the Thirty Years War. Gustav Adolf won’t blink at the idea, trust me. First, because he knows she’ll be treated right. Second, because he’ll get his own back for it. Don’t think he won’t. Royal blood be damned. That man could swap horses with anyone in the hills. Matter of fact, I think he’d have made a champion horse thief.”
Chapter 51
That evening, in Edinburgh, Robert Mackay gazed down on the sleeping form of his daughter-in-law. She had brought his grandchild to him, once the fever finally broke and it was certain Alexi would survive. This disease, at least. Then, exhausted by her own travails over the past days, Julie had fallen asleep herself, lying on the bed next to Robert and cradling Alexi in her arms.
It was a large enough bed, so Robert had made no attempt to rouse her. Nor, truth be told, had he had desire to.
“She must have struck you like a thunderbolt, the first time you saw her.”
Sitting on a chair next to the bed, his hand caressing Julie’s hip, Alex smiled. “Oh, father, aye and she did. I could not keep my eyes from her. ‘Twas a bit awkward, given the circumstances. What with her people standing about with those frightening guns of theirs.”
“Life is an awkwardness, son. Why should its most precious moments be otherwise?”
The infant was beginning to stir. Ignoring the pain, Robert leaned over and plucked her out of her mother’s arms. Then, cradled her in his own.
“You’ve still got your first winter ahead of you, babe,” he murmured. “But we’ve a fire, and you’ve a spirit. So I think God will wait, for the pleasure of your company. For a time, at least.”
* * *
That same evening, in London, the fate of other children hung in the balance.
“Your Majesty,” said the earl patiently, “you cannot—”
“Cannot! Cannot! You—Wentworth—cannot use that word! Not to me!”
Charles was in full and peevish fury, stomping back and forth in his private chambers—insofar as his somewhat mincing steps could be described as “stomping” at all.
“There was nothing in the books about this! Nothing! And I read them all!”
“Please, Your Majesty. We must deal with the matter using our reason. You cann—” He broke off, for a second or two, almost grinding his teeth. “The history in those books presupposed the events in those books. Change one—and others change also. As I was saying, it is not possible to bring thousands of mercenary soldiers from the Continent without the risk of disease coming with them.”
The queen interjected her own comments. As usual, casting confusion onto muddle. “There was no mention of a plague in the books! None! Not this year! I read them also!”
“Of course not, Your Majesty. There was no sudden flood of mercenaries into the island in those books either. Coming from a continent awash in epidemics.”
Henrietta Maria glared at him. Nothing odd in that, of course. The queen of England disliked the earl of Strafford at the best of times. For the past week, since he’d refused to give another of her favorite courtiers a military post—as if the soldiers didn’t have enough grief on their hands as it was, trying to contain the unrest swirling throughout the island—the dislike had become open hostility.
“Nothing in the books!” she repeated. “I read them all!”