Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 858: The Weight of Resemblance

Eva stood in the halls of the Kaiser’s palace, dressed in a lavish and luxurious gown. This had been her home since she married Wilhelm II’s grandson during her early twenties.

Now she was forty-one and looked not a day over thirty. By comparison her eldest son, named after father, commonly referred to as “Bruno the Younger” was barely twenty this year, and yet the war had caused him to mature so rapidly that standing next to his mother he looked less like her son and more like her younger brother.

Especially the way in which Eva fawned over the young war hero. From Sicily to Cuba. Bruno the Younger had seen his fair share of combat as a Gebirgsjäger, and while not as extensive or bloody as the experience that his cousins had endured, there was clearly a list of medals pinned above his heart that proved his worth as a soldier.

The young man’s expression was forcibly restrained, yet twitching as his mother became a bit too affectionate upon his return home.

“Look at my little man! All grown up, and so handsome at that! You look just like your grandfather did when I was a little girl and he would come home from war! Did you know that your Aunt Victoria-Louise was once quite taken with your grandfather? What do you say, Victoria, doesn’t my little Bruno just capture your heart?”

Victoria-Louise practically choked on her tea as she sat gracefully on the sofa where the family informally gathered. She was thankful her husband was nearby to hear Eva so shamelessly bring up her youthful indiscretions.

She eventually placed her head in her hands and rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to quell the headache she could already feel forming.

“Forty years…. It’s been forty years, and I must still live with the jokes about my adolescent fancies. Can we please stop talking about this?”

Bruno the younger could only feel sorry for his aunt; he knew his great-grandfather had never let go of the remarks about how good “Bruno and Victoria would have been together if fate hadn’t intervened.”

He also knew that Eva always compared him to his grandfather. Bruno the Younger was of a different house than the legendary Reichsmarschall, even if he was related through his maternal bloodline.

Because of this, he always felt distant from his namesake, even though his father’s line all shared a different name.

Still, he couldn’t help but notice his great aunt sneak glances at him, not romantically suggestive in any way, merely curious.

“He really does look like him….”

Eva didn’t seem bothered by Victoria-Louise’s initial comments, at least not after the Princess commented on her son’s appearance.

She was just about to say something else that both Victoria-Louise and Bruno the Younger would regret listening to, that is, if it weren’t for her husband interrupting her with his intrusion.

“Dear… Can I speak with you for a moment? His Imperial Majesty is requesting your presence.”

All of a sudden, it was as if Eva had become an entirely different person. Rather than a doting mother and an adoring daughter, she became as graceful as an empress. Placing her champagne glass down on a nearby coaster before shuffling off.

“Pardon me, but it would appear that I am requested elsewhere.”

Eva then chased after her husband, leaving her son to sigh in relief.

Victoria-Louise took a sip from her own wine glass before commenting on Eva’s near split personality.

“She has been that way for as long as I have known her. Your mother is almost like an entirely different person around her father and her children than she is with anyone else. It is truly a remarkable sight to witness.”

It’s not like Bruno the Younger wasn’t aware of his mother’s split personalities, but he had always figured that the way she acted around him and his siblings was her true self, and anything else was a performance for the courts.

However, his great aunt’s comments left some doubt within him.

“Isn’t it just an act? I mean we all behave differently in public don’t we?”

Victoria-Louise rolled her eyes before taking another sip from her glass.

“Except we’re not in public now, are we? You saw how quickly she shifted her tune the moment her husband came calling to her. Your mother is far more capable than she lets on; in truth she’s the one controlling my little nephew, not the other way around. And I’m sure that’s exactly how your grandfather planned it.”

His grandfather again. Whenever those words were mentioned, it seldom had to do with Crown Prince Wilhelm.

Bruno the Younger hesitated to speak, at least at first, picking up his mother’s glass and drinking her champagne before finally gaining the courage to do so.

“What was he like? When you knew him, I mean… I’ve heard stories about him my entire life, and I’ve met him at family gatherings. But the man I’ve met is so… different from the legends.”

Victoria-Louise scoffed when she heard Bruno the Younger’s words before lecturing him on the matter.

“That’s not surprising; you knew the man when he was resting between wars and at holidays. But I grew up in this palace, watching your grandfather come and go throughout the years. Truthfully, though I don’t remember it, the first time we met. It was, after all at my second birthday celebration. He entertained my father and his guests with a duel against some mediatized prince regarding his betrothed’s honor.”

Victoria-Louise paused and looked as if she was trying to conjure a memory her brain possessed but was locked so far behind a lifetime of other memories and thoughts that she could never quite reach it.

Eventually she appeared to give up as she took another sip of her glass before continuing.

“I don’t remember much from that night, if anything… But the way my father speaks of it, it was as if he was watching the last knight perform the final act of chivalry this world will ever see. After that, my father kept a close eye on Bruno’s academic career and even wrote him a letter of recommendation to Prussia’s top-rated officer academy.”

Bruno sat in silence, listening to a story about his grandfather he had only heard in bits and pieces, through rumors. All the while Victoria-Louise continued, not so much as if she were telling a story of the past, but actively reliving the memories at the moment.

“The next time I saw him I was already in my early adolescence. And there was something about him… It’s hard to explain with words… This might sound a bit much coming from a princess raised by an Emperor, but when I first saw your grandfather it was as if I was looking at true greatness, and this long before he had ever made his actual mark on the world.”

Victoria-Louise fell silent after this, only sipping from her drink at brief intervals as she sat there staring out into space.

Whatever was on her mind, only she knew. Bruno couldn’t guess, nor did he care to; he had his own internal thoughts on what she had said.

Ultimately, the awkward silence was broken between them, as Victoria-Louise spoke once more.

“Your mother is right though… You do look like him… It’s almost uncanny how similar the two of you are. I doubt his own son and grandson resemble him as much as you do now.”

Victoria-Louise noticed how her grandson’s shoulders seemed to sink inward, as if he was somehow ashamed of looking more like his maternal grandfather than his own paternal line.

This caused the woman to laugh softly as she made fun of her great-nephew.

“Trust me, that’s a good thing. I’m by no means saying that my brother or nephew are homely, but your grandfather was so strikingly handsome that he won the hearts of maidens fair across four imperial courts simply by being in the room. And he broke every last one of them…simply by never noticing they were there.”

The words lingered between them, heavy in a way Bruno the Younger had not expected.

For a moment, he found himself studying the room, not the people, but the portraits lining the walls, faces of past kings, princes, and emperors

He had walked these halls countless times, memorizing the faces and names in every frame.

At the end of the hallway was a photograph of Kaiser Wilhelm II when he was a younger man, and standing next to him was none other than Bruno von Zehntner. Before he became the Grand Prince of Tyrol, before he became the Reichsmarschall.

Gazing into the photo, he stared at his grandfather’s youthful appearance, which was captured for all eternity. Bruno the younger realized something unsettling… Neither his mother nor his aunt was lying. He really was the spitting image of his grandfather.

Victoria-Louise seemed to notice where her great-nephew’s thoughts were turning and was quick to interrupt him.

“You’re overthinking things. Nobody expects you to be the man your grandfather was. They just want you to be a man worthy of wearing the crown you will one day inherit….”