He looked away again, and the desire to chuckle faded as his eyes rested once again on the slender, slight child riding so gracefully on the horse which stood almost twice her height at the shoulder. She was as much a little girl as any child he had ever met, and yet, there was something almost frightening about her intelligence.
Perhaps it was because she was a girl, he thought. He'd been exposed to enough up-time Americans since joining the king's personal staff to come to recognize the sheer, frightening capability of many of the American women. Quite a lot of men he knew were uncomfortable around such women. Some of them, in fact, felt considerably more strongly than that, and Ekstrom had heard a few muttered comments about the unnaturalness of it all. Of course, they were careful not to utter such thoughts anywhere around the Americans themselves. Or, probably with even more cause, around the king, who had made it perfectly clear that he was not prepared to tolerate any insults to his uncanny allies. And, come to that, no one but an idiot-and probably a suicidal one, at that-was even going to think about making any such comment where Julie Mackay might hear him!
But the point was that American women, and not just up-timers-he shuddered internally as he considered Gretchen Richter-considered themselves just as capable as any man and acted accordingly. Which might be all very well for them. In fact, the colonel was prepared to admit that however unsettling he might find the concept himself, the Americans were probably onto something. Certainly it didn't make any sense to tell someone who could shoot like Julie Mackay that her place was solely in the kitchen and the nursery! None too safe to try, for that matter.
But Princess Kristina wasn't an American, any more than Gustavus Adolphus was, "Captain Gars" or no. This little girl was going to grow up to become the queen of Sweden. And if her father succeeded in his plans-as he had a habit of doing, Ekstrom reflected with a certain complacency-she would also become empress of the Confederated Principalities of Europe. No doubt brilliance would be very useful to her in that case, but how prepared would her subjects-and especially her aristocracy-be to accept a brilliant queen and empress who'd been… contaminated by American modes of thought?
He didn't have an answer for that question. But one thing he did know, even on this short an acquaintance with the princess: the razor-sharp mind behind that child's eyes was not the sort to accept compromises or subterfuges which required it to pretend to be less than it was.
Which could have all sorts of… interesting consequences for the future of Europe.
Chapter 25
After she finished tightening the gauze mask over her face, Melissa took the spray gun handed to her by Darryl. She gripped the device much the way a devout Christian might grip a heathen fetish: on the one hand, with great and squeamish reluctance; on the other, very tightly-lest the horrid thing escape and inflict unknown havoc upon nearby innocent children.
Everyone in the room burst into laughter. After a moment, Melissa couldn't help smiling herself.
"God, do I feel stupid," she chuckled.
Darryl's laugh faded into a simple grin. "Hey, Melissa-I told ya. I'll be glad to do it myself. The stuff doesn't bother
Melissa sniffed. "All the more reason for you not
Darryl's eyes rolled. "Fer Chrissake," he muttered. "It's just DDT. You're acting like it's nerve gas or mustard gas, or sumthin'."
Melissa eyed the spray gun with distaste. "Besides, I'm by far the oldest person here. So whatever the foul stuff does to me it isn't likely-I suppose-to kill me off until I'm dead of old age anyway. And since I'm past menopause, there's no problem with effects on my offspring."
Now it was Rita's turn to roll her eyes. In the two years since the Ring of Fire, Mike Stearns' sister had devoted her energies to nursing and medical studies. Although she was no doctor-nor even a nurse, by the strict standards of a pre-Ring of Fire RN-she had far more medical expertise than anyone else in the U.S. delegation to England.
"Melissa," she said, almost sighing, "how many times do we have to go over this? The health hazards involved in using DDT are long-term, and have a lot to do with how frequently you get exposed to it. It's not likely to hurt any of us to spray it once in a while, especially if we take simple precautions like wearing a breathing block-" Here she nodded toward the gauze mask on Melissa's face. "-wash the clothes used afterward, keep the windows closed while spraying so it'll settle quickly. Hell, people have even been known to
