Chapter 9 #2
"On one condition," Sarah held up a finger. "You learn to treat those chickens properly. I won't have anyone saying my son is teaching royalty bad farming habits."
Harald's smile could have lit up Stockholm. "I promise."
"Good." Sarah stood and began clearing bowls. "Now, who wants more soup?"
October 5, 1939
"Karl XII was defending Sweden's honor," Harald insisted, his finger tracing the battle lines on the old map. "Accepting Peter's terms would have been admitting weakness."
"Weakness?" Jakob's laugh was hard, personal. "One of my forefathers lost his leg at Poltava because your ancestor couldn't recognize a good deal when it was offered. That's not honor—that's pride."
"Sometimes principles matter more than expedience," Harald countered, color rising in his cheeks.
"Tell that to the widows of Poltava," Jakob shot back. "Peter offered to return everything except that swamp he called a city. Everything Sweden had fought for! And Karl threw it away because he wanted total victory."
"A king cannot show weakness to his enemies," Harald said, but there was a hint of uncertainty now.
"A king's first duty is to his people, not his ego," Jakob countered, leaning across the map, eyes blazing. "Marching into Russia in winter isn't strategy—it's mass suicide in fancy clothes."
Princess Sigrid paused in the doorway, watching her brother and this boy lean over the library table, their books spread out between them, both bending over the pages, faces inches apart as they argued.
She'd claimed a headache to escape some tedious luncheon their mother had arranged, but now she was glad she'd made the detour to Riddarhuset.
There was something compelling about watching her usually quiet and reserved brother so thoroughly engaged in debate — and getting so thoroughly trounced at it.
"But Karl XII was following a long tradition of Swedish military excellence," Harald pressed. "His grandfather had secured Sweden's place as a great power—"
"And he squandered it!" Jakob threw up his hands. "Do you know what happened to the men who survived Poltava? Thirteen years of captivity in Russia. Thirteen years! My ancestor came home with one leg and frost-bitten fingers that couldn't hold a plow anymore. The farm nearly failed."
"The historical records clearly show that Karl's strategy was—"
"Written by men who weren't there," Jakob interrupted. "Men who didn't have to eat their own boots during the march. Men who didn't watch their friends freeze to death in the snow."
Sigrid watched them from the doorway, fascinated.
She'd seen her brother at countless lessons in the Royal Children's shared school room, debating their school masters and tutors, and even Freddie on occasion.
But what she was seeing now was a totally different Harald.
His usual reserved mask had slipped, revealing genuine engagement rather than dutiful attention.
And the way he kept shifting closer to the other cadet, their hands almost touching as they both traced routes on the map...
"He's right, you know," Sigrid said, making both boys jump and straighten abruptly.
She glided into the room, enjoying how they shifted apart slightly.
"Even Great-grandfather admitted it in his private journals.
Karl's refusal of Peter the Great's peace terms was the beginning of the end of Sweden as a great power. "
Harald stared at his sister. "Grandfather wrote that? But in all our lessons—"
"Of course they don't teach you that in our history courses," Sigrid said with a wave of her hand.
"They teach you the glorious mythology, not the uncomfortable truth.
But I found his journals in the private library.
Karl could have secured Sweden's position as a great power for centuries.
Instead, he gambled it all away for... what did you call it? " She turned to Jakob.
"Pride disguised as principle, Your Highness." Jakob said quietly, eyes never leaving Harald's face.
"Oh, please don't stand on ceremony," Sigrid waved away Jakob's belated bow. "Anyone who can trounce my brother in an argument has earned the right to use my proper name. I'm Sigrid." She offered her hand, which the young man shook with a raging blush decorating his cheekbones. Sigrid smiled.
"Mother arranged some ghastly thing in Uppsala." She said, turning toward Hal. "So naturally I had to develop a terrible headache and seek refuge with my beloved brother." She peered at their work. "What assignment has you two so passionately disagreeing?"
"We're supposed to analyze Karl XII's strategic decisions and propose alternatives," Harald explained, still looking slightly stunned by his sister's revelation.
"And His Highness is pig-headedly defending the indefensible," Jakob added, then seemed to remember himself. .
"The thing about Karl," Sigrid said, perching on the edge of the table, "is that he was brilliant on the battlefield but disastrous in the war room. He couldn't see beyond the next victory."
"That's exactly it," Jakob said, shooting Harald a triumphant look. "He was thinking about battles, not about Sweden."
"And what would you have done differently?" Harald challenged, but his tone had shifted from defensive to genuinely curious.
Jakob's expression softened. "I would have taken the deal. Secured what was won, built up Sweden's strength, and waited. Peter wasn't going to live forever. His swamp city could have been taken later, or negotiated for, or simply made irrelevant through other alliances."
"Patient strategy instead of glorious last stands," Sigrid mused. "How very un-Swedish of you."
"I'm more interested in people surviving than in songs being written about their noble deaths," Jakob replied, his gaze still fixed on Harald.
Harald traced the fateful route to Poltava with his finger. "They taught us Karl was a hero," he said quietly.
"He was brave, and brilliant," Jakob conceded. "And I know you look up to him. But bravery without wisdom is just another way to die."
Sigrid watched her brother absorb this. Harald had always approached military history like a pageant of glorious deeds – heroes to be emulated, traditions to be upheld.
But Jakob talked about it like someone who had seen the human cost, who understood that behind every battle line on a map were thousands of real lives.
"You know what's truly interesting about Karl?" Sigrid said. "He never married, never had children. He proudly declared that he was married to Sweden and would have no other spouse. Some historians suggest he had... other interests." She glanced meaningfully between the two boys.
Harald's cheeks flushed. "Sisi, that's completely inappropriate—"
"Is it? I think it's rather relevant to understanding his psychology," she said innocently. "A king who rejected the most basic royal duty—securing the succession. Perhaps he felt trapped by expectations."
"Or perhaps he simply prioritized his military campaigns," Harald said stiffly.
"Perhaps," Sigrid agreed, watching how Jakob's eyes never left her brother's face. "But I've always wondered if there was more to the story. A man who would rather march to his death in Russia than accept a reasonable peace and return home to marry... it makes one wonder what he was running from."
"Not everyone wants the same things," Jakob said quietly. "Even kings."
Sigrid noted how her brother's eyes flickered to Jakob at those words, how he leaned slightly closer without seeming aware of it. She'd never seen him so responsive to someone else's presence.
"The real tragedy," Jakob continued, his voice softening, "isn't just that Karl lost the war. It's that he never seemed to understand what he was fighting for. Was it really about Sweden? Or was it about proving something to himself?"
"Sometimes those things are the same," Harald said, almost a whisper.
"And sometimes," Jakob replied, holding his gaze, "they're completely at odds."
Sigrid watched them watch each other, something warm and knowing blooming in her chest. She'd never seen anyone challenge her brother this way—not just his ideas, but his entire worldview.
And Harald wasn't retreating into royal hauteur as he usually did when challenged; he was engaging, questioning, thinking.
Watching the interplay between the two of them - and the longing looks she was sure neither knew she saw - was fascinating. Unfortunately, after a quarter hour, she stood to excuse herself.
"Harald, darling," she said finally, "I need to speak with you privately. Would you walk me to my car?"
Harald blinked, as if coming out of a trance. "Of course." He turned to Jakob. "I'll be back in a minute. Don't solve all of Karl's problems without me."
Jakob smiled. "I'll try to leave you something to fix."
Sigrid nodded politely to Jakob. "It was a pleasure meeting you properly. I hope we'll have more chances to discuss historical mistakes and their consequences."
As they walked away, she could feel Harald's curiosity burning. He wouldn't have to wait long. She had quite a few observations to share about his new friend.
Sigrid led Harald toward her waiting car. Once they were out of earshot of the main building, she glanced over her shoulder and lowered her voice.
"I didn't just come to escape Mother's luncheon," she said, reaching into her handbag. She withdrew a slim leather portfolio embossed with the royal seal. "Father wanted you to see these. They arrived this morning."
Harald took the portfolio, his stomach tightening. Diplomatic dispatches delivered directly, bypassing the usual channels—this couldn't be good news.
"What's happened?" he asked, already dreading the answer.
"It's Poland," Sigrid said, her voice tight. "Britain and France are... well, you should read it yourself."
Harald opened the portfolio and scanned the first document, a decoded cable from the Swedish embassy in London. The words seemed to blur before his eyes, but their meaning was unmistakable.