There was barely a fortnight’s provisions in the Swedish army and not the least prospect of obtaining any more in the ravaged, frozen wastes.
Karl called a council of war in his rough tent amid the giant pines.
There was no fire, and, as the tent flap swayed on its cords in the icy wind, a few flakes of snow drifted in and melted on the frozen earthen floor.
Karl sat in a folding camp-chair, a mantle of rough blue cloth over his usual uniform, his hands, covered by the long elbow gloves, employed in turning over a few notes and maps on a plain pine table.
The arduous labors and unceasing fatigues of this last campaign had told even on his superb physique.
He was thinner and pale, under the brown of exposure; his blue eyes seemed slightly tired, but had lost nothing of their calm, courageous stare.
Near him sat Count Piper, looking ill and old, wrapped in a heavy cloak of marten skin, lined with scarlet and gold brocade, the spoil of war of some flying Russian Prince.
Only a few of Karl’s generals, such as Rehnsköld, Gyllenburg, and Wurtemberg, were present; it was his habit to confide his designs to as few as possible. Piper, whose forebodings had been silenced by the splendid success of the Swedish advance into Russia, had now begun to feel uneasy and to rediscover all his objections to the campaign. He thought that Karl should have accepted Peter’s offer to treat for peace; the barbarous country and the arctic climate told severely on his spirits; he was in poor health and homesick. Whatever sentiment he may have had left for his master had vanished when the cruel sentence on General Patkul was carried out, and he was broken on the wheel, suffering a death of frightful torture.
Piper had heard that Hélène D’Einsiedel had not lived to hear this news.
She had died in a Russian camp soon after her arrival there, and the messages Patkul had sent to her by the chaplain who attended him on the scaffold had been sent to one beyond the reach of comfort.