“Gentlemen,” said Rehnsköld, “I think he will do it.”
The King and Count Piper mounted and cantered along the lines of the resting army; Karl had taken no deliberations and held no councils. He considered that there was nothing to do but to give the order to attack; after a brief survey of his men he would be back with his staff under the great pine.
Count Piper, who was not a soldier but a true patriot, glanced several times at what the black hat and full fair curls allowed him to see of the King’s face.
He had been very eager to urge him into a defensive war, but he had never dreamed of these reckless projects, this complete absorption in war for war’s sake; he secretly suspected that all the cold but deep passion of the King’s nature was concentrated, not on the desire to better Sweden, but on the design of making for himself the reputation of an invincible captain; the main object of the war was achieved in the restoration of the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp to his dominions; but Karl had never said a word of returning to Stockholm, even for a visit, and the last advices from the Council of Regency in the capital he had thrust in his pocket without reading, and he had embarked on this desperate winter campaign, with no purpose that Count Piper could see but that of making the world stare.
“As long as these mad exploits are successful——” thought the statesman, “but his first failure will cost us all Gustavas Vasa gained!” He could not resist the endeavor to rouse Karl from his passive hardness.
“When your Majesty has beaten the Czar of Muscovy, will you be content?”
“There is still Augustus,” replied the King; he glanced up at the snow-filled air. “Look, the storm is blowing towards the enemy, we shall have it at our backs, they in their eyes—did I not say I was fortunate?”
Count Piper shivered; the weather was black and bitter enough to freeze a man’s soul; he wished Karl’s ardor for glory had stopped short of battle in midwinter at a latitude of 30 degrees Polar, with odds of a hundred to one.
“You are cold?” asked Karl. “I like the snow. I wish Peter was with his men. Surely he will return from Pskov.”
His blue eyes cast a bright glance over the precise ranks of his perfectly disciplined soldiers; men who had prayers twice a day and lived like athletes in training.