frightens you the most about Gretchen Richter and her malcontents is actually the thing which reassures me. Those people are not ignorant villagers, Axel, never think it. I've read their pamphlets and their broadsides. So have you, for that matter. Very thoughtful and learned, they are, for all the shrillness of their tone. And do they ever name me as their enemy?"
Oxenstierna tightened his jaws. "No," he admitted grudgingly. "Not yet, at any rate. But I've met the woman—so have you—and if you think for a moment she wouldn't just as soon—"
"Can you blame her?" grunted Gustav. "Tell me, nobleman—had you undergone her personal history, would you be filled with respect and admiration for your so-called 'betters'?"
Again, the swiveling beak. Accompanied, this time, by a laugh rather than a frown. "I think not! You would do well to remember, Chancellor, that the simple fact that a man—or woman—who has a grievance is of low birth does not make the grievance illegitimate. Nor—"
The frown returned. "Nor should you forget that God does not carry these distinctions all that far. Certainly not into Heaven, whatever He may decree on this earth."
Oxenstierna suppressed a sigh. His king was a pious man, and given to his own somewhat peculiar interpretation of Lutheranism. Or perhaps, that was just the legacy of his family's traditions. The Vasa dynasty had come to power in Sweden, as much as anything else, because the great founder of it—Gustav Vasa, the grandfather of the man standing next to him—had always been willing to side with the commoners against Sweden's aristocracy. Periodically, Gustavus Adolphus saw fit to remind all of his noblemen of that fact.
"Enough!" exclaimed Gustav. There was a little tone of jollity in the word. "I want to pay them a visit, Axel, and we will do so. Today."
He turned away from the window and began lumbering toward the door. "The more so since—you told me yourself, they're your spies—this 'Spartacus' fellow is now residing in the city. I may as well take his measure now. Your own spies tell us that he, more than Gretchen Richter, is really the leader of the pack."
"They don't have a proper 'leader,' " grumbled Axel, following after his king. "Richter is the most publicly visible and best known, but there are at least half a dozen others who are as important as she. Even if—"
The sourness came back to his voice, in full measure. The next words were spoken more like