NOVGO.NET Chapter 657: A New Era of Chivalry
Chapter 657: A New Era of Chivalry
Snow dusted the alpine roofs of Innsbruck like powdered sugar on a solemn cake, pristine, orderly, and indifferent.
High in the ballroom of Schloss Eberstein, the Grand Prince of Tyrol stood before a crowd of carefully selected elites, officers in parade dress, engineers with creased collars, professors in archaic robes, and businessmen whose medals gleamed with freshly purchased honor.
And Bruno hated every second of it.
It was not the ceremony itself that stirred his contempt; he had built this Order from scratch, after all.
The Order of Saint Michael the Archangel had formed from the convergence of several other orders of merit and chivalry that Bruno had created in the early years as a monarch.
He had consolidated his orders into two. One for men, and one for women.
The Order of Saint Michael wasn’t just a social club for the elites of Tyrolean society.
It had a genuine purpose: a knightly brotherhood for a modern age.
One whose laurels were earned through selfless service, scientific advancement, military excellence, or the betterment of the principality’s people.
What he hated was the performance. The pretending.
He loathed the schmoozing, the self-congratulatory handshakes, the champagne toasts.
What use were words when steel, blood, and discipline had shaped this realm?
Yet, once in a blue moon, even a warlord must entertain his nobles.
Bruno stood at the head of the great stone hall beneath banners of red and silver, his colors.
A stylized eagle of Tyrol glared down from the wall behind him, flanked by the crossed swords of Justice and Order, and a silver lily entwined with iron ivy, the symbol of Noblesse Obligé re-forged in a furnace of discipline.
“This is not a court of perfumed fools,” he had once told his aides. “If they are to wear my colors, they will serve them.”
And so they did.
The Orders had teeth.
Their ranks included rural surgeons who pioneered Tyrolean medical reform.
Police captains who rooted out corruption.
Factory owners who risked ruin modernizing worker safety.
Every knight present had done something to earn their place.
But still…
Bruno’s expression remained a cold, carved mask.
He raised a glass not out of joy, but because ritual demanded it.
“To those who serve Tyrol not with words, but with deeds,”
he said, voice clipped and strong. “May your honor be heavier than your titles.”
The crowd cheered, dutifully.
After the toast, as the orchestra began some forgettable Strauss waltz, Bruno retreated to a side chamber adjoining the ballroom.
The old hunting lounge, lined with carved boar heads and a fire that never burned hot enough, was reserved for such rare social necessities.
A few chosen confidants followed: his adjutant General Oberhauser, Minister of Internal Works Dr. Lenz, and a handful of decorated knights from the Order of Saint Michael the Archangel.
These men ran the Order’s charitable arm like a well-oiled machine.
Bruno tugged the collar of his dark parade uniform, more decorated than usual—and leaned against the fireplace mantel with a grimace.
“If I wanted to see this many peacocks in a room,” he muttered, “I’d have opened a zoo.”
Dr. Lenz smiled faintly.
“Peacocks they may be, but they still donate millions to hospitals and orphanages. Your strategy works, Your Highness… even if it offends your sensibilities.”
Bruno exhaled through his nose.
“Chivalry without action is just theater. If they forget that, this becomes a farce. The day someone accepts a knighthood in my court for doing nothing, strip me of my title and throw me in the Inn river.”
General Oberhauser chuckled.
“Wouldn’t be the first man you’ve drowned for being useless.”
Lenz cleared his throat with the caution of a bureaucrat navigating a minefield.
“To be fair, my Prince, the Orders have become a tool of elite galvanization, charity, civic unity, even a form of soft ideological control. The people see the knights as champions of their welfare. The nobles feel morally superior. Everyone wins.”
Bruno narrowed his eyes.
“So long as they serve. That is the price of noble privilege in Tyrol.”
He turned from the fire and poured himself a small glass of pear brandy from a crystal decanter.
He rarely drank at functions, but tonight, he allowed it.
A gesture to his human side… or perhaps just a silent tribute to how exhausting politics truly were.
Outside, laughter drifted from the ballroom. Somewhere, a new Knight of the Order was being pinned with a silver lily, an engineer who had revolutionized mountain tunnel construction.
Bruno had read his file. He deserved it.
And still… the Reichsmarschall of the German Empire felt more at ease on a battlefield than beneath chandeliers.
He sipped the brandy, eyes distant.
“The sword may shape a kingdom,” he said to no one in particular, “but it is the candle that keeps it from falling into darkness.”
Dr. Lenz bowed his head with both respect and deference.
“That is why your Orders shine so brightly, mein Prinz. They are lit by your fire… even if you forget it.”
Bruno gave no reply, only a slow nod.
The fire crackled low behind him, casting long shadows across the carved wood and stone of the old hunting lounge.
The laughter and orchestral waltz from the ballroom had faded into background noise, distant echoes of a world that still demanded masks and medals.
Bruno remained where he stood, hands clasped behind his back, gaze fixed not on any one thing, but on the invisible horizon beyond the walls of Tyrol.
Beyond titles and duties. Beyond even the Reich.
For so long, war had been the rhythm of his life.
The shaping force of his legend.
He had helped an empire survive in a war against fate through flame and will, but there would come a day when the sword must be laid to rest.
He thought of that day now, not with longing, nor fear, but with the quiet weight of inevitability.
He imagined Tyrol without uniforms, without funerals.
Fields sown for harvest, not for cover.
Children who read books before they ever held rifles.
A principality whose strength no longer needed to be proven through blood, only preserved through wisdom.
He would never be soft. The world would never allow it.
But perhaps, one day, he could be still.
Bruno closed his eyes.
And listened to the silence.