CHAPTER IV

In July of that year Karl XII totally defeated the Saxon troops and forced the passage of the Dwina, near Riga, at a point where the river was nearly a mile wide, making use of specially built boats for the passage of his troops, and taking advantage of the direction of the wind to create a smoke-screen that concealed his crossing from the Saxons.

The battle was long and bloody, Courlande, Steinau, and Patkul fought with desperate bravery and considerable skill, but the victory of the great captain was complete; he passed on through Livonia, took Mitau, capital of Courland, and one after another all the towns of that duchy surrendered; the whole of Lithuania submitted.

At Birsen, where his enemies had so shortly before drawn up the league that they hoped was to be his ruin, he paused in his triumphal progress, taking his residence in the house occupied by Peter and Augustus.

He was now in an extraordinary position of greatness; he had been but little more than a year from Sweden and he had completely subdued his enemies, crushed the revolt in Livonia, consolidated his hold on the disputed provinces, and preserved his army in good health and perfect discipline with very little loss of life.

His fame had spread all over Europe, and Sweden occupied a sudden position of importance in the eyes of the West; the Czar’s glory was eclipsed, and it was not believed likely that he would ever recover from Narva sufficiently to again face the King of Sweden.

What the next actions of this hero, as yet not twenty and in a position so unique, were likely to be, neither his friends nor his enemies could guess.

He affected a deep reserve, and there was no one who could boast of being entirely in his confidence, not even his brother-in-law, the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, whom he had restored to his dominions and regarded with a certain affection, nor Count Piper, whom he kept near his person and trusted implicitly in political matters relating to the government of Sweden.

This latter, however, did not intend to remain so quietly in ignorance of his master’s designs; he viewed Karl very differently since he had observed his military genius and his obstinate pride and perfect self-control, but he had not yet entirely relinquished all hopes of guiding this strange character into the paths trod by Karl XI.

Sweden was ever uppermost in Count Piper’s thoughts; he believed that she occupied but a small place in those of the King; to the minister all the objects of the war had been now attained, and there remained but to make an honorable, durable, and glorious peace which should strengthen Sweden in position, commerce, and prestige.

And Count Piper felt that this was the moment, when Karl had the Baltic provinces under his feet and his enemies disordered and confused, to propose a set of terms, that however advantageous to Sweden, they would be in no position to refuse or even to dispute. As the King’s haughty and glacial reserve allowed no indication of his future plans to escape him, Count Piper resolved to directly approach him, and endeavor to discover if he did not himself consider this a favorable moment for triumphantly concluding the war.

He found occasion to approach Karl one day after his dinner; this meal, of the greatest simplicity, the King always took with his officers; he was seldom more than half an hour at table; he drank only water and ate the plainest of food, never had he faltered an instant in his rigid self-discipline; his life could not have been more hard, stern, and barren of all but duty; his one occasional amusement was to have portions of the old Scandinavian sagas read to him, but even of this he seemed slightly ashamed.

Count Piper found him now with his secretary in the room where Marpha had served Augustus and Peter with wine, and Mentchikoff had sung drunken chants for the amusement of the Saxon nobles.

Karl had had everything removed from the chamber but a table and a couple of chairs; on the walls were maps of Lithuania, Livonia, and Esthonia, and a large model of the globe in a black frame and roughly painted in bright colors, stood beneath. The King sat beneath one of the windows dictating to the secretary, a young Swedish officer, who sat at the table which was covered with neatly arranged papers.

Karl wore the costume he had not altered since he left Sweden; the dark blue cloth coat, the black satin cravat, the high boots, and buffle gloves which he held now across his knee; his fair hair had been cut short and he wore no peruke.

He was bare-headed and the summer sunshine was full on his face, inscrutable in expression, showing superb health and hardihood in line and color.

As Count Piper entered he was sitting silent, like one wrapt in dreams, and the secretary was waiting, in respectful silence, for him to continue the correspondence.

As soon as he observed the minister he roused himself from his reverie, and with a gesture dismissed the secretary who rose and offered his chair, the only one in the room, to Count Piper.

The King looked at the older man with the blue eyes that seemed to express nothing but a steady strength and an adamant courage, and spoke pleasantly.

“You had something serious to say to me, Count?” he asked.

The minister had not seated himself but remained standing, leaning against the back of the plain wooden chair; in his rather rich civilian attire, with his full peruke and fine appointments, he was in contrast to the camp-like simplicity of the room and the austere figure of the youthful soldier.

“I have come to ask your Majesty what you intend to do,” said the Count; he knew that it was useless to try diplomacy or even tact with the King who was offended with all but the bluntest of speeches.

“You have been wishing to ask me that for some while, have you not?” smiled Karl, he was no longer brooding or thoughtful, but alert and keen.

“I think that this is a decisive moment in your career, sire, therefore in that of the history of Europe.”

This was the kind of bold compliment that pleased the King.

“I believe so,” he said calmly.

“You have, sire, achieved more than anyone could have believed possible--there only remains for you to bless your country with a lasting peace.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Karl shortly, with his disagreeable laugh.

Count Piper faced him calmly.

“Is not that your Majesty’s intention?”

“My intention,” said Karl, with his stare of blank fortitude, “is to dethrone Augustus and Peter.”

The minister caught his breath; this was more than he had anticipated, even from the headstrong obstinacy of a youthful hero flushed with success.

“Did you imagine, Count,” asked the King, “that I should return to Sweden?”

“I hoped so,” said the minister gravely.

“Why?” demanded the King.

“Because I am anxious for the honor and safety of our country. Sire, Sweden will be better served by moderation than extremes--she does not need conquests but good government.”

“And you think that I should return home to govern?”

“Yes, sire.”

“Not yet,” replied Karl.

“What else does your Majesty propose to do?” asked the minister.

“I have told you.”

“But, sire--to conquer Poland, Saxony, and Russia----”

“Do you not think,” interrupted Karl, “that I am capable of executing this design?”

Count Piper was silent in sheer bewilderment; judging from the King’s recent actions he was capable of anything; on the other hand, the conquest proposed was so vast, the means so comparatively small that common sense refused to be convinced even by the genius of this extraordinary young man.

“Well?” said Karl.

The minister fastened on the aspect that was always nearest his heart--how his country would be affected.

“Sweden will never stand the strain!” he exclaimed.

Karl shrugged his shoulders.

“It can be done,” he said.

“Before God, sire, I do not think that it can.”

The King’s obstinate blue eyes did not falter; his lips were curved in a smile too indifferent for disdain but more freezing than contempt.

“Think, sire,” continued Count Piper energetically, “of the size and resources of these three countries--Saxony will have all the German States behind him--Russia is a continent.”

Karl’s face now betrayed where his principal hate lay.

“Peter is a savage commanding savages,” he replied; “the whip and not the sword is necessary to disperse his hordes.”

“You think of Narva,” said Count Piper, “but he will learn. He will train his men.”

“And if he does?” demanded Karl coldly, “what of the passage of the Dwina? Am I not able to resist veteran troops?”

The minister could not deny the truth of this; to all appearance Karl was invincible, yet the Count’s heart utterly misgave him at thought of the gigantic enterprise to which the King appeared to have pledged himself.

“It is purposeless, sire, and useless,” he said with vigor. “Sweden could never hold these conquests if she made them; Europe would not permit it, nor her own strength. You have made her secure and powerful, respected and feared; have the strength, sire, to stop. This is not the age for sheer conquest. War bars the progress of mankind. Sweden requires your Majesty’s genius for her internal reforms; you do not know yet your own country--your father, sire, knew it from end to end.”

If the King considered this speech too much of a reproof he did not say so nor show his resentment by the slightest sign.

“You think I should return to Stockholm, Count?” he asked.

“After you have secured a victorious peace--a peace that will leave the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp restored to his estate, you master of the Baltic Provinces, Denmark silenced, Saxony and Russia punished. Sire,” added the minister with a smile, “I think no young prince could desire greater glory than this.”

This hurt the secret pride of the King, which hid itself under such an aspect of stern modesty.

“I do not fight for glory,” he said haughtily, “but to dethrone these villains.”

Count Piper was silenced; in these words he read the wild dreams of unpractical youth, the mad schemes of a man who believed war the only profession for a prince, the only occupation worthy of a gentleman, and who would consider nothing beside his ambition.

“Sweden does not need this war,” he said, “nor can she afford it.”

But this argument was entirely lost on the King, who loved to achieve the impossible; the difficulty and magnitude of the enterprise were what gave it, in his eyes, its great attraction.

And Count Piper now began to experience the force of the King’s extraordinary qualities, his hard obstinacy, his blind fortitude.

The King rose, and crushed his gloves in his strong white hands.

“I would as soon,” he said, with as much violence and impatience as he ever showed, “be in my coffin as in Stockholm. I should feel as confined in one as in the other.”

“Does your Majesty never intend to see your capital again?” asked Count Piper sorrowfully.

The King stared at him; the good of Sweden or any interest in her was far from the mind that was full of dreams of the conquest of Russia and the subjugation of Poland and Saxony.

Karl had completely abandoned the government of his country to the Council of Regency; he hardly troubled to acquaint himself with their proceedings, and often left unread the home dispatches.

Patriotism did not touch his dreams of the cold greatness he had conceived for himself. “I told my people,” he said, looking, not at his minister, but out of the window at the summer sunshine on the dusty road, “that I would never make an unjust war nor abandon a just one, without the punishment of the offenders.”

“Are not these same offenders already sufficiently punished?” demanded Piper quickly.

“No,” replied the King, and now his strange eyes showed a faint but fierce fire like those of a noble animal roused from slumber to anger. “Not unless they are dethroned.”

“Is it your Majesty’s ambition to wear these crowns?”

The King laughed shortly.

“I want nothing but to punish my enemies,” he replied. “What are crowns to me?”

Boastful as the words sounded, Count Piper believed they were sincere; he had already seen how, in the defeat of Denmark, Karl had astonished the world by demanding nothing for himself, and he could credit that Karl was capable of exhausting his country and spending himself in the effort to gain countries only to give them away when he had conquered them; he did not want Russia, only the pleasure of dethroning the Czar; he had no desire to reign over Poland, only the wish to seize that country from Saxony.

“I think your Majesty is wrong,” said the minister. “As one who was your father’s friend and is the friend of Sweden, forgive me if I say so, sire, if you stop now you are safe and glorious, if you go on, it may be to disaster.”

The King winced at the sound of that word which no one had ever dared to utter to him before.

“When I have humbled these two kings and punished one other we may talk of peace,” he said curtly. “I speak of John Rheinhold Patkul.”

His fair face, so beautiful in line, but so devoid of expression as to lack all attraction, hardened into an aspect of sheer cruelty new to Count Piper; the King whose first act had been to abolish judicial torture from his statute books had hitherto been considered as of a merciful disposition, nor had his campaigns been stained even by the usual excesses of war; yet his look as he spoke of the Livonian was one of fierce hate and cruelty.

“Before I return to Stockholm,” he added, “Patkul must----”

He paused abruptly; it was evident that his cold magnanimity did not extend to the man whom he regarded as a rebel and a traitor.

“Both Peter and Augustus are pledged to defend Patkul,” said Piper; “it is not likely that he will be taken by your Majesty--he is too wary and skilful.”

“I will force Augustus to deliver him to me,” said Karl, still with that ugly look on his face.

“Your Majesty would make that one of the terms of peace?” asked Count Piper in a curious voice.

“The first condition. And, Count, it is useless for us to converse further. I have never liked talking. And my mind is made up about the future. And I was always tolerably resolute in my decisions nor likely to be moved in any way from my resolves.”

It was the end between King and minister; these words were as a dismissal to Count Piper; he saw that Karl was set upon a path entirely different to that followed by his father; his aim was the pursuit of fantastic dreams of purposeless and costly conquest--he would make war neither for the defense nor the aggrandizement of his country, but merely to suit his own ideas of kingly occupation, his own secret ideals of ambition and glory; he would probably ruin his country and might do considerable harm to mankind, but he could not be stopped from the mad use of the power which he held in his hands; at that moment Piper disliked him; he was alienated by this cold obstinacy and by the look and manner of Karl when he had spoken of Patkul; the minister would almost rather have served Peter whose aims were progressive, not obstructive, and whose madnesses were never without an object, and whose cruelties were never cold-blooded but the result of inflamed passions.

He turned away and took a brief leave.

“An extraordinary man,” he said to himself, as he left the King’s presence, “but there is no true greatness in him.”

Karl, on his part, was equally disgusted with Count Piper.

“I want no politicians about my camp,” he told his brother-in-law that evening. “We are soldiers with soldiers’ work to do,” and he began to discuss his plans for an advance on Cracovia and Varsovia.