Not so Heinrich. He regarded Gretchen's younger sister's infatuation with him exactly the way Annalise's grandmother did: silliness; unpractical; Heinrich was still too young to be married, much less a sixteen-year-old girl with no property.

Gretchen patted him on the cheek and passed by him into the radio room. "Poor Heinrich," she murmured. "Like a piglet being led to slaughter."

Inside the room, she found Rebecca sitting on a chair, holding a piece of paper in her hands and reading it by the light of an oil lamp. Seeing the slump in her shoulders, Gretchen was alarmed for an instant. Then, as Rebecca raised a smiling face toward her, she realized that the slump had been simply one of relief.

"All is well," Rebecca announced. "Although I so miss them. Bad enough to be absent from Michael. Not being able to see my little daughter every day is even worse."

Gretchen came over to her and laid a reassuring hand on Rebecca's shoulder. "Sephie will be fine. I raised little Willi in an army camp, and he did well enough. Children are much tougher than you think, as long as they don't become ill."

Rebecca stared up at her. Gretchen knew that Rebecca found her own calm attitude about leaving her and Jeff's children behind somewhat puzzling. But it was probably impossible to explain. Though she was a 17 th -century woman herself, Rebecca had been born and raised in a rather sheltered environment. Gretchen's had been also, in truth, until she was sixteen. Then… Tilly's soldiers arrived in their town, plundered their house, murdered their father, subjected her to gang rape-Annalise, thank God, had still been too young for that-and took what was left of the family to become camp followers. In the two years that followed, Gretchen had given birth to a son of her own and become the unofficial mother of a number of others. The experience, when it came to the subject of child-rearing, had left her with a very "stripped down" attitude on the subject. Feed them; care for them; above all, make sure they don't get sick. They'll survive anything else, well enough.

Suddenly, Rebecca's face looked a bit guilty and she glanced back at the paper in her hands. "Oh, I forgot. Michael asked me to tell you and Jeff that Willi and Joseph are doing well also. So is your grandmother. And Annalise."

Gretchen nodded. "Any other news?"

"Not really. Michael senses that something is-'in the air,' as he puts it. But neither he nor Gustav Adolf can quite determine what Richelieu is up to. He does say-this came from Axel Oxenstierna-that the Danes have been acting especially hostile lately. There have been some minor clashes in the Baltic."

By the time she finished, Rebecca was tense again. Gretchen turned her head and stared out the window. That window, as it happened, looked to the north. Denmark was somewhere beyond that horizon, and…

Increasing Danish hostility.

In the two years since she and her family had been rescued by the Americans, Gretchen's own political sophistication and knowledge of the world had grown rapidly. So she was almost as quick as Rebecca in making the connection.

"Oh, God," she hissed. "If Richelieu's managed-"

"I think he has," said Rebecca firmly. "It all makes sense, Gretchen. Everything fits together now. Except… I wonder why he didn't want us to see what sort of preparations the French ports are making?"

"But everyone knows the French and Dutch are preparing to fight the Spanish," Gretchen protested, less because she thought Rebecca was wrong than because she so badly wanted her to be. "Why should he try to hide that from us?"

"Of course everyone knows about the Dutch alliance," Rebecca agreed grimly. "And he's gone to some lengths to see to it that they do. But there had to be something he wanted to hide from us. Something besides the fact that he's impressing merchantmen."

"Everyone's impressing them, Becky."

"Yes," said Rebecca, nodding. In the 17 th century, during time of war, "navies" were mainly made up of armed merchantmen. Naval mobilization consisted largely of impressing the ships into military service and adding them to a core of vessels which had been specifically designed as warships. "But to what end?" She smiled with absolutely no humor. "I know we all thought we knew the answer to that question, but now…"

Gretchen went over to the window and pressed her nose against the pane. The glass, as was usually the case except in the richest homes, was not as clear as the glass she'd become accustomed to in Grantville. Leaving aside minor imperfections, the "flat" panes were almost always wavy, producing a certain distortion in the view. But it wouldn't have mattered, even if the glass had been perfect and it had still been daylight. There would have been nothing to see beyond the houses of The Hague, anyway, except Holland's flat terrain to the north. And then, beyond that, the Frisian islands and the North Sea and, eventually, Denmark.

"If the Danes have secretly allied with the French," she said softly, "which would make sense from their viewpoint, of course-"

She heard Rebecca's little murmur of agreement. For all that Denmark and Sweden were both Lutheran nations, they had been enemies for decades. As was usually the case in the Thirty Years War, political and dynastic ambitions overrode religious affiliation. Until Gustav Adolf's stunning victories at Breitenfeld and the Alte Veste, France had been the Swedes' principal supporter. Religion be damned. Catholic France had always been far more concerned about the ambitions of the Catholic Habsburg dynasty which ruled Austria and Spain than they were about heresy.

Since Gustav's power had grown so unexpectedly, largely due to his alliance with the newly arrived Americans, France had become hostile. So an alliance with the Danes was now quite logical. Still, that left Spain as France's traditional enemy. If the history of this universe remained true to that from which the Americans had come, France and Spain were "scheduled" to start a war in the year 1635.

That war would last for a quarter of a century, have no conclusive result, and leave both countries exhausted and Spain half-shattered. The Portuguese would revolt successfully in 1640, the Catalans unsuccessfully. Both revolts would be brought on by the stresses of the war and the exactions of the Spanish crown. The French would come out of it in somewhat better shape than Spain, but not much. They would gain a few piddling little territories-Artois, Gravelines, Roussillon and Cerdagne-at an enormous cost in blood and treasure.

"Richelieu's read the history books too," Gretchen murmured. "And the man is not stupid."

She turned to look at Rebecca, and saw in the vigorously nodding head a confirmation of her own thoughts.

"There is really no great reason for France and Spain to go to war," Rebecca stated firmly. "In-" Her left hand made that little vague motion which people often did when trying to indicate that other universe that would have been, or might be somewhere else. "In that universe, the war was brought on by nothing more than the usual stupid reasons. Petty dynastic quarrels over petty towns and statelets. And nothing came of it worth the cost."

"A grand alliance, then," said Gretchen. "France and Denmark and Spain-and that, in turn, will require the French to end their long support of the United Provinces. That would be the Spanish price." She hesitated. "But I still don't really see what France gets out of it, other than striking against us."

Rebecca's eyes seemed a bit unfocused, as they often did when she was thinking. "True. At first glance, at least. Richelieu can be subtle, though. And let us not forget how critical the Baltic is to any nation with maritime pretensions. Timber, pitch, iron, copper… the list is endless, all of it the sinews of naval power. The fact that Gustavus is poised to cut all of Europe off from those supplies-or, at least, to grant access solely on his own terms-gives him enormous additional influence. Indeed, over the next few years, Dutch foreign policy will-or would have-walked a careful line designed to play Swede off against Dane to insure that no one was ever in the position Gustavus now holds."