Hesse-Kassel spread his hands and then slapped them on his thighs. It was a forceful gesture…

Not very forcefully done. "What would you have me do, wife?" he grumbled. Casting a somewhat unfriendly glance at the man seated next to him: "Fine for Wilhelm to be so cozy with the Americans. If I did the same-"

Now, Wilhelm decided, it was time to be direct. "There is no need to be 'cozy,' as you put it, with the Americans. But what you must do-and no 'cozy' about it-is weld yourself to the emperor. Weld yourself, Landgrave! Gustavus Adolphus now faces what is probably the greatest crisis of his life. You know the man. Do you think they call him the Lion of the North-even, in Italy, the Golden King-for no reason?"

Saxe-Weimar felt too strongly about the matter to remain seated. He rose and began pacing about, using short and abrupt gestures. "He will not cave in, Landgrave. Never think it. He will do whatever he must to defeat his enemies. And if that means-as it surely will, given continued aristocratic foot-dragging-that he has no choice but to weld himself to the Americans, he will do so. Yes, he will hesitate. But not for very long. Not when he has the enemy at the gates. And then-"

Saxe-Weimar ceased his pacing, almost spinning around to face Hesse-Kassel. "Have you considered what will happen then?"

He pointed a stiff finger at the eastern wall of the salon. Somewhere beyond that wall lay the still-unfinished imperial palace where the Chamber of Princes would resume their meeting the next day. The salon wall was covered with a tapestry, to disguise the rough wall of the new and still-unfinished building which Hesse-Kassel had rented for his own quarters during his stay in Magdeburg. Crude, rough, unfinished-like everything in Magdeburg. But only a fool-or an aristocrat lost in reverie-could fail to sense the new strength coiling beneath the surface.

"Those peacocks! They are assuming, all of them-John George of Saxony most of all-that Richelieu and his Ostenders will hammer the Swede into a pulp. Leaving just enough of a 'Confederated Principalities' for Saxony and Brandenburg and their pack of carrion-eaters to pick over the remains and recreate things to their liking."

He paused, a bit dramatically. "But what if they don't, Landgrave? What if-not for the first time in his life!-the Swede leaves his enemies bleeding and broken on the battlefield. What then?When his victory came entirely from his own strength and the stalwart allegiance of the Americans-and the Committees of Correspondence which you can now find springing up all over Germany? You have noticed, I trust, that the recruiting stations for these so-called 'volunteer brigades' have begun operating here in Magdeburg, not just in the United States."

"There's at least one in Leipzig too," commented Amalie. "I heard about it yesterday. Also in Nьrnberg and Frankfurt, it's said."

"Meanwhile," Saxe-Weimar continued remorselessly, "Gustav Adolf finds that the back of his legs and his heels are bruised black-and-blue from the blows landed on them from behind by the 'princes' who also swore allegiance to him, but betrayed him-in fact if not in name-in his darkest hour. What then, Landgrave?"

The landgrave looked away, studying yet another tapestry. That one, as it happened, depicted a lion devouring a deer. Hesse-Kassel grimaced.

"Oh, indeed!" half-laughed his wife. "Oh, indeed!"

"What do you propose, Wilhelm?" asked the landgrave softly. "Concretely, mind you." He smiled thinly. "Your rhetoric is excellent. But rhetoric is not policy."

Saxe-Weimar had prepared for this moment. The words came flowing quickly and easily.

"You must announce that you are forming a new political league. Other than Saxony and Brandenburg, Hesse-Kassel is the largest and most powerful of the principalities within Gustav's Confederation. Many-not all, not even most-but many of the small princes will follow you." He nodded toward Amalie. "Sommersburg for a certainty, and I can guarantee all of the Ernestine Wettins. A number of the free cities, the Reichsstaedte, will certainly do the same. I can guarantee that Nьrnburg and Frankfurt will. I've been in touch with their notables."

"Regensburg too, of course," chimed in Amalie quickly. "All reports are agreed that when Gustav's General Banйr drove Maximilian's troops out of the city-just last month-the populace went wild with jubilation. Right on the border with Bavaria and Austria, as they are, the Regensburgers will certainly want to cement themselves to the Swedes." She fluffed her hair. "And they're saying also that Gustav Adolf will appoint Wilhelm's brother Ernst as the administrator for the entire Oberpfalz. Consider what that might mean."

Hesse-Kassel glanced at Wilhelm for confirmation. Saxe-Weimar nodded. "That's what Ernst tells me, anyway. I got a letter from him recently. He was with Banйr, you know, when they entered Regensburg. With Frederick V now dead, and his widow Elizabeth and their children almost certainly in Spanish captivity, the whole question of the Upper Palatinate is back up in the air."

"Just what it needed," muttered Hesse-Kassel, sighing. The Thirty Years War had been triggered off in the first place when Elector Frederick V of the Palatine had chosen to accept the offer of the Bohemians to be their new king. Since that would have upset the balance of power in the Holy Roman Empire, Ferdinand II of Austria and Maximilian of Bavaria had invaded Bohemia. At the Battle of the White Mountain in 1618, Tilly's Catholic army had smashed the Protestant forces. Then, for good measure, the imperials and the Bavarians had invaded the Palatinate and seized that from Frederick as well.

"The Winter King," he'd been called thereafter, for the only season he'd enjoyed his crown, as he and his wife Elizabeth-sister of King Charles of England-had been forced to flee from one court of exile to another in the years which followed. Frederick had finally died of disease in 1632, but the status of the Palatinate was still one of the most hotly contested issues of European politics.

Today, of course, most of the area was back in Protestant hands. To be precise, in Swedish hands. But…

The official heir, Karl Ludwig V, was only fifteen years old-and now, at least according to rumor, held by the Spanish after they overran the Netherlands where Elizabeth had been in current exile. So how would Gustav Adolf choose to resolve the situation?

The landgrave glanced again at the man sitting next to him. Wilhelm of Saxe-Weimar. A duke deprived of his duchy who had decided to abdicate in order to strive for power as a commoner in a new republic. But still a man who was very close to the emperor, and now one whose younger brother seemed likely to become the administrator of one of the most important regions in the CPE. The Oberpfalz portion of it, at least-which, perhaps not by coincidence, happened to be one of the great centers of German mining and manufacture.

A commoner now, yes. Out of power? With no influence?

Hardly.

"Until the rightful heir returns, no doubt," grumbled Hesse-Kassel. "But by the time that happens-if it happens-what might have been transformed in the meanwhile? And transformed permanently."

Saxe-Weimar shrugged. "So it is, Wilhelm. Whether we like it or not, it is a new world."

The landgrave grunted. "And the policies of this new league?"

"Everything the emperor has asked for. Every last thing. And not simply the emergency measures he proposed yesterday, but everything else he and Oxenstierna have advanced since the Confederation was formed last autumn. Free navigation of all waters, drastic reduction in tolls, elimination of all medieval vestiges of forced labor-every shred of serfdom gone-a commission empowered to begin implementing a rationalization of all these idiotic little local practices which interfere with commerce…" He hesitated.