“You—a girl—king?” was all that the astonished courier could stammer out. Then, as the real facts dawned upon him, he knelt at the feet of the young queen and presented his dispatches.
“Withdraw, sir!” said Christina, taking the papers from his hand with but the scant courtesy of a nod; “we will read these and return a suitable answer to your master.”
The courier withdrew, still dazed at this strange turn of affairs; and Christina, leaning carelessly against the council-table, opened the dispatches.
Suddenly she burst into a merry but scarcely lady-like laugh. “Ha, ha, ha! this is too rare a joke, Karl,” she cried. “Lord Chancellor, Mathias, Torstenson!” she exclaimed, as these members of her council entered the apartment, “what think you? Here come dispatches from the Emperor of Germany begging that you, my council, shall consider the wisdom of wedding me to his son and thereby closing the war! His son, indeed! Ferdinand the Craven!”
“And yet, Madam,” suggested the wise Oxenstiern, “it is a matter that should not lightly be cast aside. In time you must needs be married. The constitution of the kingdom doth oblige you to.”
“Oblige!” and the young girl turned upon the gray-headed chancellor almost savagely. “Oblige! and who, Sir Chancellor, upon earth shall OBLIGE me to do so, if I do it not of mine own will? Say not OBLIGE to me.”
This was vigorous language for a girl of scarce fourteen; but it was “Christina’s way,” one with which both the Council and the people soon grew familiar. It was the Vasa(1) nature in her, and it was always prominent in this spirited young girl—the last descendant of that masterful house.
(1) Vasa was the family name of her father and the ancient king of Sweden.
But now the young Prince Karl Gustavus had something to say.
“Ah, cousin mine,” and he laid a strong though boyish hand upon the young girl’s arm. “What need for couriers or dispatches that speak of suitors for your hand? Am not I to be your husband? From babyhood you have so promised me.”