1633

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 17 th -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 pi

"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.

Everything was in flux anyway, Mary knew. It would take months, no doubt-more likely a year or even more-for all the fine points to be settled. Even the names of the territories would have to be changed. The United States of old-that of which Grantville was the capital-would need to be distinguished from the new federation which had almost the same name. A federation of which it would become a mere province. True enough, the largest and most powerful province in the new nation, and its center of gravity-but still only a province. No longer enjoying semi-sovereignty, although more in the way of provincial power than the American states had retained in another universe. But still, formally at least, distinguished from all the others-except probably, the soon-to-be-created province of Magdeburg-only in the fact that when he entered it, the hereditary king of the United States would do so as the captain general.

Mike had insisted on that small formality. But Mary understood perfectly well that he had done so only to smooth the way for his own government to ratify the agreement he had made with Gustavus Adolphus. "My folks'll get stubborn if they can't keep claiming we're still a by-God republic," he'd told her, smiling crookedly.

She'd had her doubts, true. Personally, she thought the whole thing was a bit silly. The cranky quirks of hill people; almost superstition. But she'd said nothing, simply nodded. That much Mary had learned. She would not again make the mistake of second-guessing the judgment of a man whom she had concluded was Europe's shrewdest politician. Not least of all because, whatever her reservations about this or that detail of the settlement, she approved of the thing as a whole.

Once again, Mike Stearns had turned a stumble into a self-confident stride. Not for him, falling on broken glass. Forward, not down. Always forward.

For all practical purposes, Mike and Gustav had carved out a new and very real nation out of a goodly portion of the Confederated Principalities of Europe. A compromise, on both parts. It would remain a monarchy, whose king ruled as well as reigned-but only within constitutional limits. Being fairly well-versed in history, Mary thought of it as roughly equivalent to the situation in her own world's England in the late 18 th century. The Vasa dynasty would rule; but only within the limits set-and continually reshaped-by a new world's versions of Pitt and Burke.

A compromise, yes-but one with room to grow. Already, Wilhelm V had resolved to cast his own fate into that new mold. He would remain landgrave of Hesse-Kassel. But he had already summoned a constituent assembly-membership to be determined over the next few months-whose job it would be to provide the new province of Hesse-Kassel with a constitution. That new province of the United States of Europe would have a different structure than Grantville's province, of course. As would all of them, variations on a tune. But it would be subject to the same national laws, which set sharp limits to the power of princes-and gave major incentives to those princes shrewd enough to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.

Which Wilhelm V certainly was. So long, at least, as he kept listening to his wife Amalie and his close friend Wilhelm Wettin. He would certainly be shrewd enough to make sure that the coming constituent assembly would be dominated by Hesse-Kassel's productive classes.