"Three thousand?" echoed around the table. Chairs shifted uneasily. Startled glances were exchanged.
"We have calculating machines called 'computers' that help in their design," Eddie said. "And we have made some improvements lately in what we call 'software.' The new boats will be faster, and we should have a lot more of them."
"We have sent spies to Grantville," the king said, "and to the shipyards at Magdeburg. As far as we can tell, they are building very large ships with no sails at Magdeburg, nothing else. How can you explain that no one has seen any evidence of more deadly little boats anywhere?"
"They're… ah, in a building, hidden away," Eddie said. A drop of cold sweat rolled down his temple.
"Do you know this secret location?"
"Y-e-s," Eddie said, drawing the word out as he thought furiously.
"If we captured some of these 'engines,' " the king said, "could we build our own deadly little boats as well?"
"It wouldn't do you any good," Eddie said. "They require an energy source that you do not have, and anyway you would need what we would call a 'technician' to build, then service them." He gave the word in English.
The king pushed to his feet and loomed over Eddie. "Are you one of these 'technicians'?"
"No, I was just a pilot,' " Eddie said, "what I guess you would call a helmsman.' " The wine was potent, much stronger than any that he'd ever tried. He could feel it all the way down to his toes, even the ones that weren't there. He gazed morosely at his truncated leg, masked by the lame stocking they'd provided for him to wear under knee-length black trousers. He hoped the guys back in Grantville never got a gander at him dressed like this. "Or at least I was a pilot. Don't imagine I'd be good for much like this."
"You will mark for me a map!" Christian said. "Showing the location where these 'engines' of yours are built, so that we can send an expedition to acquire some for ourselves. And we will need to know more about this mysterious 'energy source.' "
"Sure, sure," Eddie said in English. "Whatever. It will be a waste of time, though. They will have moved the facility by now so that I can't give them away." The room was spinning again. The wine had gone to his head. He should have been more careful in his weakened condition. Well, what the hell. This was the best he'd felt since that terrible day in the bay. He upended the goblet and took another fortifying swig.
The king gave some commands in Danish that Eddie couldn't follow, then the ministers talked to one another in their native language.
At length, just when Eddie's eyelids were growing very heavy, Christian turned back to him and pushed a large map across the table. "Now, show us the location of these 'engines' at the time of your capture."
Eddie tried to make his eyes focus on the crude map of Grantville, with the high school and other major buildings indicated. "Right here," he said, trying not to slur his words. He stabbed his finger on the outskirts of town, pointing to the sketched-in square that he was pretty sure occupied the same space as Grantville's Value Mart in real life. It was a big retail building with a large area in the back for storage that wasn't accessible to customers. That might do the trick, unless the Danes could get a spy into the employees-only area.
An advisor made a careful X.
"And we will need at least one of your 'technicians,' " King Christian said, "who could construct and then operate one of these 'engines.' Give us a list of names."
A cold chill penetrated Eddie's increasingly hazy mind, then shivered down his back. He couldn't give them real names. Dimly, he was aware that he'd screwed up big-time. Jeez, couldn't he do anything right?
"Um, there's…" He tried to cudgel his useless brain to think. "Walt Disney and, ah, Harpo Marx. And Clint Eastwood. They're all pretty-you know-good at what they do."
One of the ministers scribbled down the names, asking Eddie for the details of the spelling. Christian looked satisfied, like an immense cat that had cornered a mouse. "It may not be necessary to actually infiltrate Grantville. Although ransom is usually paid in money, your king seems to value you highly for one of your rank. Perhaps he will be amenable to trading a 'technician' and one of these 'engines' along with its 'energy source' in order to ransom you."
Oh, yeah, Eddie thought as the room swooped around him in lazy circles, that was just so likely to happen.
Back in his room, once his head stopped spinning, Eddie was aghast at his stupidity. Eventually the king was going to find out there was no speed boat construction program. He'd think Eddie had made a fool out of him, and people who incurred the displeasure of monarchs didn't last long in this century. Outside, sleet rattled against the window and he shivered.
Lying on his bed, he folded his arms behind his head and wondered if they did that gruesome "draw and quarter" thing here in Denmark. In the movies, it always looked-
The door opened without preamble. Anne Cathrine peered in, then entered, wine-colored skirts rustling. "My papa was very pleased with your interview this morning."
Eddie struggled up into a sitting position. Even that was hard without two legs to push. "I'll bet," he muttered in English.
"He says, if you will give your parole, you may now have the freedom of the grounds." She stood before the fireplace, studying the guttering flames with a critical eye. "This is disgraceful. I will have it tended immediately."
"My 'parole,' " Eddie said. "What does that mean?"
"That you will not try to escape."
Eddie thought of trying to return to Grantville, one-legged, in the dead of winter, through hostile territory and without a single coin to his name. "Sure," he said, then added, "like I even had a prayer of getting away," in English.
"I so wish to learn your language!" She smiled and he saw that she had dimples. "They say you have books from the future in your city. If I knew this American tongue, I could perhaps read them one day." She pulled up a straight-backed chair and settled on it beside the bed. "It must be very wonderful, this future, with great clockwork birds you can ride through the sky."
"Airplanes," Eddie said and swung his foot over the side of the bed. "We call them airplanes."
Papa, it seemed, approved of Anne Cathrine learning English, or, as she termed it, American. Eddie suspected that she wasn't really supposed to spend time alone with him in his room, but so far no one had objected. Just to be on the safe side, though, he scheduled her language lessons down in the king's library.
Fortunately, she had tons of brothers and sisters so she wasn't exactly the center of attention. She'd explained to him that the king had fathered six children by his first marriage, including her half-brother, Prince Christian, who would inherit someday, and his younger brothers, the princes Frederik and Ulrik, also in line for the throne. Then there were twelve more children by Anne Cathrine's mother, Kirsten Munk, though several of those had been stillborn.
And now the king had a new mistress, some doe-eyed woman, not much older than Anne Cathrine, named Vibeke Kruse. The woman behaved abominably at every opportunity to all of Kirsten Munk's children, but especially to Anne Cathrine. The king, however, seemed infatuated with her.
Court politics were darned convoluted here at Rosenborg, and Eddie didn't think he would ever get all the pedigrees of the royal progeny straight. It was a little like one of those television soap operas his mom had used to watch, he decided, only a lot more complicated.
The ransom letter had been sent to Grantville. Eddie wanted to beat his head against the wall every time he thought about it. How could he have been such an idiot? Even though he doubted it, still there might have been some possibility folks back there could ransom him if he hadn't set up an impossible situation.
The whole thing was insane anyway. When that letter arrived, they were sure to think he'd lost his mind. And maybe he had. Being shut up in this Danish nuthouse, and one-legged on top of that, was enough to make anyone stir-crazy.