Chapter 6
Brussels, capital of the Netherlands
September 11, 1636
They passed by the Palace of Coudenberg as they came in for a landing. Situated on a small hill, the palace provided an excellent view of the city of Brussels, and was an impressive structure in its own right. For Rebecca’s tastes, the extensive gardens adjoining the palace left something to be desired, since the designers had substituted quantity for quality. Still, it was quite a suitable residence and court for a dynasty that was one of the most prominent and powerful in Europe as well as the most recent.
The rest of the Netherlands’ capital city . . .
“Place is a dump,” pronounced Rebecca Abrabanel’s pilot, Lt. Laura Goss. “I admit, I’m prejudiced by the so-called ‘airport.’”
She was approaching the one and only runway that graced Brussels’ airport—and it wasn’t much of one. The authorities in Brussels had decided that since most of the air traffic in and out of the city would be flown by the Royal Dutch Airlines’ Jupiters, which were planes with air cushion landing gear, they’d make themselves a shallow lake instead. A lake that was fine for the Monsters, as the planes were called because of their size, but didn’t work at all well for other sorts of aircraft.
For planes such as the one that Laura and Rebecca were flying in, the “airport” didn’t really deserve the name. It was more in the way of an airstrip with two small open-sided sheds that made do as hangars and a control tower whose second story “tower” resembled an ironclad’s pilot turret more than it did anything that would be very useful in helping an aircraft to land.
It did have a radio, at least. “You are clear to land,” announced the air traffic controller.
“No kidding,” muttered Laura. “The only thing we’re sharing the sky with is a flock of geese about half a mile away.”
“Be nice,” said Rebecca, fighting down a smile.
“I am being nice, Boss. I didn’t say it over the radio.” She picked up the mike and spoke into it: “Coming in now.”
There was a stark contrast between the airport of the Netherlands’ capital city and that of Amsterdam, which was the nation’s largest city and a much more commercially active one. By now, Amsterdam was the second-largest industrial city in Europe, being surpassed in that regard only by Magdeburg and being equaled—perhaps—by Hamburg. Its airport was actually busier than Magdeburg’s, due to the priority the Netherlands’ monarchy had placed on developing aviation.
You couldn’t dismiss Brussels as a sleepy provincial town, though. It was not only the political center of gravity of the Netherlands, but it was also becoming a manufacturing city in its own right, albeit not on the scale of Amsterdam. In particular, the wool and textile industry was booming, having benefited from the introduction of steam power.
Rebecca was pretty sure that her pilot’s less-than-enthusiastic attitude toward Brussels had more to do with the capital’s culture than its commerce. Lieutenant Goss was what Americans referred to as a “party girl,” and the freewheeling spirit of Amsterdam suited her a lot more than the stuffy atmosphere that prevailed in Brussels.
Her way of putting it was: “Amsterdam’s got more saloons than you can count. Brussels? More nuns than you can count.”
But Rebecca made no criticism of her pilot’s habits. Whatever Laura Goss might do when she was off duty, she was always ready and on time—and sober—when Rebecca needed her services.
* * *
When the plane taxied to a halt in front of the control tower, Rebecca saw that a small delegation was there to greet her. Heading it were Pieter Paul Rubens and Alessandro Scaglia.
She was pleased to see them. Partly, that was because sending two of his handful of closest advisers was King Fernando’s way of making clear the importance he placed on her visit. Mostly, though, it was simply because she was looking forward to their company. She and Rubens had been on friendly terms—even close ones, in some respects—for several years now. And while she’d only met Scaglia briefly on two occasions, neither of which had allowed much time for conversation, the two of them shared an odd sort of companionship. Each of them was the author of one of the continent’s most currently famous political treatises, Scaglia’s Political Methods and the Laws of Nations and her own The Road Forward: A Call to Action. Perhaps more to the point, the two books had been written in large part in contention with each other.
Someone else might have been hostile to her ideological opponent, but Rebecca’s temperament was that of an intellectual. She found the debate stimulating, and given that Scaglia had maintained a polite tone in his public pronouncements, she’d seen no reason not to do the same. They weren’t what you could call “colleagues” without stretching the concept into a pretzel, but they weren’t exactly enemies, either.
“Frenemies,” the Americans call it. Thankfully, the grotesque term hadn’t made its way into the Amideutsch lexicon.
Yet. Rebecca was fairly certain it was just a matter of time, though. The new part-German, partAmerican idiom that was becoming central Europe’s lingua franca was a veritable sponge when it came to vocabulary.
* * *
They rode into the city on a steam-powered vehicle whose type Rebecca had never seen before and so far as she knew did not exist in the USE. The best description of it she could think of was a cross between a small autobus with a total capacity for eight passengers along with a driver and engineer in a front compartment, and a low-slung tractor with very wide wheels. The reason for the second aspect of the vehicle was obvious: most of the streets of Brussels were still unpaved and while the main thoroughfares were cobblestoned, that would have made for a rough ride had the wheels not been so broad and coated with what she thought was some form of latex.
“It’s mostly for showing off our industrial progress,” Rubens admitted to her. “There are only three of them, all of which are reserved for official use.” He winced as the engineer enthusiastically blew the steam whistle for perhaps the twentieth time since the trip began. “Personally, I’d just as soon ride in a litter, but the king adores the things.”
A litter slung between horses probably would have been faster as well as more comfortable, but she found the trip more interesting this way. And there was this much to be said for the device—it had no difficulty making its way up the hill atop which the palace was situated. Of course, horses wouldn’t have had any trouble doing so, either.
* * *
The royal audience was held in one of the smaller chambers in the palace. Calling it an “audience” was more of a formality than anything else, since the seating arrangement was as casual as such things ever got in a court whose customs were still largely Spanish. The king and queen sat in chairs that were larger and more ornate that any of the others, but still fell quite short of what anyone would call “thrones.” To either side of them—the elderly archduchess to Maria Anna’s left and the Prince of Orange to Fernando’s right—sat Isabella and Frederik Hendrik, in chairs that were just a tad smaller and less decorated than those of the royal couple.
Those four chairs were positioned in a shallow arc. The “audience” faced them in chairs that were only slightly smaller and arranged in a straight line. Miguel de Manrique sat on the far left, facing the Prince of Orange; Alessandro Scaglia on the far right, across from the archduchess. Rebecca and Rubens had the two seats in the middle facing the king and queen.
After the initial pleasantries, King Fernando leaned forward and said: “I trust you have had time to consider the letter we sent you and Prime Minister Piazza.”
She would hardly have come to the Netherlands for this meeting if she hadn’t, of course. She and Ed Piazza and a number of other people had spent quite a bit of time discussing the matter before arriving at their decisions. One of those people, although her communication with him had been quite informal in nature—what up-timers (somewhat crudely, in her opinion) called “pillow talk”— had been with her husband Mike Stearns.
As a mere general in command of one of the USE’s army divisions, Stearns really had no business participating in such high matters of state. But that thought had never once crossed either her mind or her husband’s—nor, had they known of it, would it have occurred to the prime minister or, for that matter, Emperor Gustav II Adolf. Mike Stearns was the man often called “the Prince of Germany.” When it came to the realities of power as opposed to its public protocol, the seventeenth century was nothing if not practical.
But she simply responded with: “Yes, Your Majesty, we have considered your missive at length.”
She didn’t refer to it as “your proposal,” since technically no proposal had been contained in the letter although its intent had been obvious. In essence: What assurances can you give us that you won’t try to thwart our ambitions in the mid-Atlantic region of North America? And what would you want for such assurances?
“We are generally amenable to what seems to be your principal concerns,” she continued. “It has been one of the cornerstones of the foreign policy of the United States of Europe since my husband took office as our first prime minister to have as good relations as possible with the Netherlands”— some awkwardness needed to be glided over here—“once the political situation in the Low Countries stabilized.”
The slight quirks in the lips of both King Fernando and the Prince of Orange indicated that she’d successfully navigated that possible shoal. So, onward:
“That policy has the full support of Prime Minister Piazza as well.”
There was no need to make reference to the intervening regime of Wilhelm Wettin, since it was essentially irrelevant. For all practical purposes, Prime Minister Wettin had had no policy regarding the Netherlands because he’d been completely preoccupied throughout his term with the internal affairs of the USE.
“We believe an outright alliance between the USE and the Netherlands would be counterproductive,” she said, “given the complex”—that sounded much better than thorny—“relationship Your Majesty has with his brother the King of Spain.”
“We agree,” said Fernando, nodding his head firmly. “Please go on.”
“But short of that, we intend to maintain the friendliest possible stance toward the Low Countries, both diplomatically and commercially.” She was finally coming to the point of this meeting, so all the people listening to her leaned forward a bit, intent on her next words.
“Accordingly, with regard to the New World, we would like to assure Your Majesty that the USE has no desire to impede the progress of your colonies in the continent of North America.”
She put just enough emphasis on the continent of North America to make clear that the issue of the Caribbean and its many islands might need to be handled separately, depending on . . .
This and that, and this and that. There were a host of factors involved when it came to the Caribbean. She and Piazza had agreed that it would be premature to try to resolve any of those issues until the overall situation became less uncertain.
“Specifically, we offer the following. The United States of Europe will neither establish a colony nor sponsor any privately financed one on the continent of North America north of the thirty-fifth parallel and east of the Appalachian Mountains. We reserve the right to found colonies anywhere south of that parallel of latitude and west of the mountains.”
She stopped there, to allow her audience to absorb the statement. Some of them—Manrique, of course, as well as the king and the prince of Orange—obviously knew the geography involved well enough to immediately grasp what she was proposing. Others were just as obviously unclear on the matter.
The archduchess was frowning. Not in disagreement, simply from lack of knowledge. “Where . . . ”
Fernando looked to Scaglia. “Could you fetch us a map, Alessandro?”
“As it happens, I brought one with me.” The Savoyard reached down into a long valise he’d had resting next to his chair and drew forth a rolled-up map.
“Give me a hand, Miguel,” he said to Manrique. Between the two of them, they unrolled the map and stood up, displaying it to the other members of the royal party.
“The thirty-fifth parallel is . . . here,” said Scaglia, looking down and pointing to a line with his finger.
Isabella squinted at the map. Her eyesight was no longer very good, but the old lady was either too stubborn or too vain to make use of eyeglasses.
“It begins on the coast at Pamlico Sound and runs westward until it reaches the Mississippi River about . . . here.” His finger came to rest on a spot some distance south of the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. “If I recall correctly, the American city of Memphis—in the universe they came from—is located there.”
Rebecca wasn’t surprised by Scaglia’s detailed knowledge of the geography of her husband’s former nation. He was the sort of man for whom careful preparation was second nature. “Just a bit south of there,” she said. “The thirty-fifth parallel marked the boundary between the USA’s state of Tennessee and the states of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. Most of what they called North Carolina was north of the line; almost all of South Carolina was south of it—as well as Florida, of course.”
“This will place you in conflict with Spain,” Maria Anna pointed out.
Rebecca made a little shrugging gesture. “That ship has already sailed. There is no way any longer for us to avoid conflict with Spain in the New World.”
Which, of course, was one of the principal factors making an overt alliance between the USE and the Netherlands impossible, at least for the moment. There was already a great deal of tension between King Fernando and his older brother, Philip IV of Spain. So far, though, both of them had steered clear of open hostilities—and the king in the Low Countries was determined to maintain that state of affairs if at all possible.
It could be argued—plenty of courtiers at the Alcázar in Madrid had and continued to do so—that Philip’s younger brother had betrayed him after reconquering most of the Netherlands. Instead of turning over control to the king of Spain, Fernando—then known as the Cardinal-Infante—had declared himself the “King in the Netherlands” as part of his settlement with Frederik Hendrik.
The Spanish king’s more astute advisers, however—including his chief minister, the count-duke of Olivares—had viewed the situation differently. The Cardinal-Infante had been stymied when Amsterdam successfully withstood him and there had been no prospect for a quick end to the ensuing siege. The great victory of the USE over the League of Ostend’s forces at the battle of Arhensbök soon afterward would have made it impossible for Spanish troops to remain in the Low Countries. Torstensson’s triumphant army would have marched into Holland and reached Amsterdam within two weeks—three, at the outside—and Admiral Simpson’s ironclads would have reached the Zuider Zee even sooner, which would have completely broken the siege.
There had been no chance that Frederik Hendrik would have agreed to a settlement that restored direct Spanish control over the Netherlands. By making the deal he had with the Prince of Orange, the Cardinal-Infante had at least kept the Low Countries within the orbit of the Habsburg dynasty.
And even if one allowed that Philip’s younger brother had stabbed him in the back, at least he had—so far—refrained from twisting the knife in the wound.
“I notice that your proposal would allow you at some point in the future, should you so choose, to establish control over that area of the continent that Americans refer to as ‘the Deep South’—and which was the region where chattel slavery sank its deepest and most intractable roots.”
Rebecca looked at Scaglia. “Yes. If need be—we hope it won’t come to that—the USE will suppress slavery by the crudest and most far-reaching application of brute force. Which brings me to a discussion of the price we will ask for, in exchange for our assurances that we will not hamper your ambitions.”
“You want us to ban slavery and the slave trade,” said King Fernando. There was no trace of surprise in his tone of voice. Quite obviously, he and his close associates had discussed this matter at length also and had come to the correct conclusion.
“Yes,” she said again. “We want slavery and the slave trade banned—completely banned; we will accept no half measures—everywhere the authority of the king in the Low Countries holds sway.”
“Ah!” That exclamation came from Rubens. “That’s an interesting way of putting it. ‘Holds sway’ is a term that applies to actual as opposed to theoretical power.”
She now looked at him. “Prime Minister Piazza is not impractical and neither am I. And neither— although his limits are likely to be more stringent—is the Prince of Germany.”
Her use of her husband’s informal title was deliberate. Formalities be damned. Ever since his arrival in the Ring of Fire, Mike Stearns had been an elemental force in European politics. No one in their right mind—certainly no capable ruler—was likely to forget that.
Again, she made a little shrugging gesture. “We realize that Your Majesty’s control over much— perhaps most—of the Netherlands’ territory in the New World is . . . ” She smiled, rather sweetly. “A complex matter, shall we say?”
That elicited a little laugh in the room, joined in by everyone except Miguel de Manrique.
“The problem is the West India Company,” he said. “It is a troublesome reality that the West India Company—as well as the East India Company—possess far more influence and leverage than they ought, in their respective spheres of influence. They will not fail to see that the game board is changing.”
“That probably won’t matter at first,” said Rubens, “so long as the regions affected are on the continent. Slavery as practiced in New Amsterdam and New Orange is of little concern to the West India Company. In the islands of the Caribbean, however, the situation is quite different.”
“We are aware of that,” said Rebecca. “Still, the tail can only wag the dog for so long.”
“When it’s a very big tail and a small dog, it can wag for some time,” said Frederik Hendrik. “The awkward strategic reality is that most of our naval strength in the New World is in the hands of the West India Company, not Admiral Tromp. And what makes the situation still more awkward is that not all of the company’s men in the New World are . . . How to put it? As imbued with loyal sentiments—forget outright patriotism—as they should be.”
“What do you recommend?” asked Fernando.
“I suggest that in the case of the Company’s continental managers that our public explanation for their removal concentrate on their scandals and corruption.”
“Evidence for which can be easily furnished,” said Scaglia. “We don’t even have to fabricate any of it.”
The Prince of Orange flashed a quick grin. “The reason I make this suggestion is that it will not send a full alert to the masters of the far more valuable—and therefore, influential—properties in the Caribbean and the Pacific. They will not see an individual introduced as a ‘governor’ of the crown as a move toward a permanent reshuffling of power, just a local expedient—and in a locality to which most of them are indifferent because they have no personal interests at stake there. Hopefully, that will give us the time needed to make the rest of them—redundant.”
“Redundant?” Rubens echoed.
Frederik nodded. “As we speak, relations with both the native and enslaved peoples of the Caribbean are in the early stages of great change.”
“Yes,” Fernando agreed. “We have seen the reports.”
“Then you no doubt also have been apprised of how ferociously the representatives and factors of the Company are resisting them. To add the perception of yet another threat to their self-supposed mastery of those territories and peoples could have unfortunate results.”
“Are you suggesting they might revolt?”
“I am suggesting, Your Majesty, that they might seek to discuss the matter with the Spanish viceroys and governors in the region.”
“So . . . collaboration, not open revolt.”
“Such affairs invariably exist on a spectrum,” said Frederik Hendrik. “I merely suggest that we attempt to keep the hues dim until such time as we may clear the palette of them entirely.”
He looked at Rebecca. “Would that be acceptable to you? We can ban slavery quickly in the colonies on the continent, but we need to be more cautious elsewhere. I believe the American expression is ‘make haste slowly.’”
Rebecca frowned. She wasn’t intrinsically opposed to such a maneuver but . . .
“The Americans have an apt saying,” she said. “‘The devil is in the details.’ Making haste slowly can all too easily become no haste at all.”
The king leaned forward. “And how will you gauge that, if I might ask?”
“There are two aspects to that question, Your Majesty. The USE now has quite a few assets in the New World.” She didn’t specify the wife of your new governor since that was obvious, and she saw no reason to tell them that contact had been reestablished with the Chehab expedition. There was certainly no reason to inform them of the Louisiana project. “So I am confident—as is Prime Minister Piazza—that we will be able to monitor your progress when it comes to the eradication of slavery and the slave trade.”
She paused and drew in a deep, slow breath.
“And the second aspect is . . . ?” That came from Queen Maria Anna.
“The second aspect has to do with the person or persons who do the gauging. I may gauge things one way, and so might the prime minister. Another man . . . ”
She paused again. “I spoke with my husband shortly before I left, on this very subject. What he told me was that negotiations were my affair, and he did not presume to second-guess me. But he also asked me to convey to anyone who expressed an interest that in the world he came from his nation sacrificed the lives of more than six hundred thousand soldiers to put an end to slavery. In the battle of Gettysburg alone, the casualties were around fifty thousand—that is to say, more men than are even present in most battles of this era. He added that if his nation was prepared to kill that many of its own countrymen, people should consider how many foreigners they might be prepared to kill if it becomes necessary to do so in another world.”
She looked from one to the next, to the next. “Finally, he said this to me: ‘I am not involved in negotiating the issue of slavery and the slave trade any longer, nor do I intend to be again. I have a different profession now. I am simply biding my time.’”
* * *
The evening which followed was pleasant, in the way such formal diplomatic events often are when they are well managed. Toward the end of it, Rubens wound up in private conversation with his monarch.
“I did his portrait once,” he said. “Stearns, I mean.” Fernando looked surprised. “I’ve never seen it.”
“No one has, Your Majesty, except his wife. I did show it to Rebecca. Since then, I’ve had it stored away in one of my closets.”
“Why—?”
The artist shook his head. “I painted it during the siege of Amsterdam. Showing it publicly to anyone except her seemed inexpedient.”
“Even to me?”
Rubens’ lips quirked. “Perhaps especially to you, Your Majesty.”
“Well, I want to see it now.”
“Yes, I think now would be a good time. I will bring it to the palace tomorrow morning.”
* * *
The portrait was superb. No surprise, that—Rubens was recognized as a great artist in two separate universes. But King Fernando was struck by how unusual a portrait it was, for this particular artist. It was as if the man who was both one of his closest advisers as well as a genuine friend had become imbued with the spirit of a painter from an earlier era.
Hieronymus Bosch, perhaps.
The portrait showed Stearns reclining at his ease in a chair that was a bit too small—but just a bit—to be called a throne. His arms lay on the armrests with both hands open. Children, most of them infants, came spilling out of his left palm, growing in size as they neared the floor. From his right palm spilled out a stream of monsters of various kinds: demons, imps, gargoyles, manticores, dragons. A large gorgon had reached the floor first and was surging her way forward.
What was most striking, though, was the portrait of the face. The king recognized him easily, having spent a number of hours in Stearns’ presence. But the expression was nothing he’d ever seen before. In person, he’d found the USE former prime minister to be a lively and even friendly fellow. Here . . .
Nothing. There was no emotion at all on the man’s face. Just a sort of watchful readiness that could be transformed into any emotion. Kindness, fury, joy, rage—anything at all.
“What did you title it?” he asked Rubens. “The Choice.”
The king nodded. “A good title, I think. It’s still not suitable for public display, of course, but I’ll buy it from you. I think it would be wise for me to have it hung in my private quarters.”
* * *
Right about the same time Fernando made that decision, Rebecca met Laura Goss at the airport. “So how’d it go, Boss?” asked the captain, giving Rebecca a helping hand into the cockpit. “If that’s not a state secret, of course.”
“Well enough. I can’t discuss the details, I’m afraid. But . . . well enough.”
Laura grinned. “I hope you put the fear of God in ’em. These damn royals need it, you ask me.”
“God? No.”