The rain over the Stenbock estate didn't just fall; it laid siege. Inside the ancestral halls, where the air usually smelled of beeswax and ancient pride, a different kind of storm was brewing. Greta Stenbock, twenty-one and vibrating with a restless, jagged energy, stood at the center of a family council that felt more like a court-martial.
Her father, Field Marshal Gustaf Otto Stenbock, was a man carved from Swedish granite. He paced the rug, his boots thudding with the rhythm of a war drum.
"This is the seventh, Greta!" his voice boomed, competing with the thunder rattling the windowpane. Seven suitors. Seven high-ranking officers and land-owning lords, all sent packing with bruised egos or, in the latest case, a face full of river water.
"He touched my hand without leave," Greta snapped, her 5'11" frame drawn taut like a longbow. "I merely helped him find the exit to the stream."
"She pushed him!" her elder brother Gustaf interjected, his face pale with secondhand embarrassment. "In public! The King himself has sent word, Father. The Stenbock name is becoming a punchline in the royal court."
The Field Marshal stopped. He didn't yell this time. He simply looked at her with an icy finality that chilled her more than the rain. "No more games. No more shame," her father said heavily as he walked out of the room. This time, it was a warning. But it didn't take long for her to push it over the line.
The autumn of 1671 didn't bring a harvest to the Stenbock estate; it brought a reckoning. The air was crisp, the scent of dying leaves mingling with the iron tang of impending rain. It was on such an evening that the household was rocked by a sight that would haunt the maids' whispers for years: Elder Gustaf, the heir to the Stenbock legacy, dragging his sister Greta through the mud by her collar.
Greta didn't look like a lady of the realm. She looked like a survivor of a trench skirmish. Her golden hair was a tangled mess of burrs and silt, her dress torn, and most notoriously, her knuckles were split and caked in drying blood. She had taken the "boisterous phase" far past the point of family tolerance—she had engaged in a full-scale brawl with the local boys, and she hadn't just participated; she had dominated.
"She took it too far," Gustaf snarled at the horrified maids as he shoved her toward them. "I've informed Father. He'll be home by night. For now, get this... this cat groomed."
As the maids dragged her toward the steaming copper tubs, Greta didn't weep. She pouted, her jaw set in a line of pure defiance.
"Mam, what in the right mind were you doing?" one maid lamented, scrubbing at a bruise on Greta's shoulder. "Brawling like a commoner? It's too pitiful!"
"Why?" Greta's voice cracked like a whip in the small room. "Men can fight as much as they want, and they call it 'valor.' But if I pick up a sword or use my fists, it's 'rebellious'? What is wrong with a woman who can fight back?"
The Field Marshal's return was signaled by a roar that seemed to shake the very foundations of the manor.
"To the convent with you!" Gustaf Otto Stenbock thundered. "The sisters at Vreta will beat piety into that stubborn skull!"
Greta was bundled into a carriage at dawn, the rutted roads a vibrating reminder of her exile. For two days, she endured the suffocating silence of the nuns, the rhythmic chanting, and the cold, unyielding stone of the convent. It was a cage of a different sort, and Greta Stenbock was not a creature meant for cages.
On the third night, she acted. With a knife pilfered from the kitchens, she committed the ultimate act of rebellion: she hacked her hair into a ragged, short bob. Standing 5'11", dressed in stolen trousers and a heavy cloak, she looked less like a noblewoman and more like a runaway soldier. With two daggers tucked into her belt, she vanished into the woods.
The escape was a desperate dash through mud and clawing branches. Disaster struck at a rain-swollen stream. The bank gave way, and Greta plummeted into the icy, churning current. She flailed, her silver signet ring glinting as she fought the weight of her wet cloak.
Then, a hand like a vice gripped her collar.
She was hauled upward, gasping and sputtering, onto the muddy bank. Standing over her was a man who looked like he had been forged in the salt spray of a frigate's deck. He was tall, broad-shouldered in a gold-braided naval coat, his black hair windswept and cropped close at the temples.
"Lost, boy?" he asked, his voice a low, wolfish rumble. "Or were you hunting kraken in a forest creek?"
Greta's response was instinctive. She didn't thank him; she threw a calloused fist.
THWACK.
The man recoiled, his hand flying to his nose. "What a wild cat! Look, man—I'm the one who just saved you. Show some respect!"
But as he wiped the blood from his lip, his gaze caught the glint of the ring on her finger. His eyes widened. He knew that crest. He'd seen it on the banners of the fleet maneuvers.
"Stenbock," he whispered. Then, looking at her ragged hair and defiant eyes, a realization dawned that made him bark with laughter. "You're a girl. You're Sir Otto's infamous tomboy. Margareta Stenbock, I presume?"
"Just Greta," she hissed, scrambling to her feet, dripping wet and shivering. "I'm going back alone. Don't touch me."
"I have a horse," the man—Captain Erik Larsson—remarked, ignoring her bite. He let out a sharp whistle.
A sturdy white pony, Tom, came trotting through the mist. Larsson offered a hand to help her mount, but Greta snubbed him, her pride still smarting from the near-drowning.
"So what are you going to do?" she sneered.
"Walk, obviously," Larsson replied. But before he could finish the sentence, Greta vaulted onto Tom's back and dug in her heels. The pony bolted. Larsson stood there, momentarily stunned, watching his own horse vanish into the dark road.
He didn't panic. He waited until she was almost out of sight, then let out a specialized, melodic whistle.
In the distance, the pony skidded to a halt, ears pricking up. Tom turned around, ignoring Greta's frantic tugs on his mane, and trotted back to his master with a smug air.
As she reached him, her face flushed with a mixture of rage and regret, Larsson teased, "Tom has been mine for most of my life. He's a bad boy—usually kicks people off if they try to have their way with him. You're lucky he likes the smell of sea salt."
"Who are you, anyway?" Greta asked, her voice finally dropping its jagged edge.
"Erik Larsson. Captain in the Navy."
"A naval brat," Greta mused, her eyes scanning his gold-braided wool. "That explains the arrogance. Fine, Captain. I'm drenched and freezing. Lead the way."
They reached the Stenbock manor gates as the first light of dawn grayed the sky. The scouts had already alerted the household. Elder Gustaf met them at the entrance, his hand on his saber, until he saw the face of the man leading the pony.
"No fucking way," Gustaf blurted out, his posture relaxing into a grin. "It's you, Larsson!"
"In the flesh," Erik replied, clapping the elder Stenbock on the shoulder.
"How?" Gustaf asked, gesturing to the bedraggled Greta as the maids rushed forward to wrap her in blankets.
"I crashed into her in a stream," Erik lied smoothly, pointing to his bruised nose. "She gave me a paycheck for my trouble, so we're even."
The two men walked into the guest room, leaving Greta to be dragged away for 'grooming.'
"You got punched by a girl?" Gustaf's laughter echoed through the hall. "Anyway, I have a message from Father... wait, what is this?" Gustaf held up the letter Erik had produced—a soggy, illegible mess of ink.
"Don't blame me," Erik shrugged, his eyes drifting toward the stairs where Greta had disappeared. "Blame your sister."
That night, as the hearth flames crackled and maps of the empire were unrolled on the mahogany tables, Greta watched from the shadows of the upper gallery. Her hair was still short, her spirit still wild, but for the first time, she wasn't looking for an exit. She was looking at the Captain.
The storm had met the gale, and the Baltic would never be the same.
(To be continued)