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Epilogue


August 1637


“I confess that I am distressed by the sequence of events in Magdeburg,” Hedwig said to her brother after the Danish wedding. “In truth, though, less so than I would have been if there were even one young woman in the entire Hochadel who would be an ideal match for him right now. As things stand, any marriage I would have wished to arrange would have had to wait almost as long for its consummation as the match between Ulrik and Kristina.”

* * *

“Hah!” Duke Georg of Brunswick exclaimed, looking at Lennart Torstensson.

Torstensson looked back. Both of them were still mired in the apparently unending struggle on the Polish front. Sometimes, it seemed to him as if an eternity has passed since the “glorious victory” as the newspapers still referred to Ahrensbök.

The duke waved one of those offensive newspapers at him.

Die Richterin’s sister made off with my future son-in-law, did she? In addition to Gretchen’s making off with Saxony and Silesia. With Gustav’s connivance, of course.” He paused. “Well, no matter, I suppose. Things have changed so much that it’s unlikely he’ll be as favorable a match here as he would have been there. My little Sophie’s only nine, and by the time I married her off to Frederik in that up-time world, it was clear that his older brother would not have children and he was likely to succeed Christian as king of Denmark.

“Here and now, who knows?”


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Framed