Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 585: A Soldier’s Lament

Tyrol lay golden under a high alpine sun, the rolling meadows and forested slopes painted in hues that seemed almost too vivid to belong to Europe’s simmering century.

Here, far from Berlin’s choking foundries and the brittle intrigues of Saint Petersburg, the world felt deceptively simple.

Children laughed in courtyard gardens. Horses pulled gilded carriages to waiting pavilions. A family estate was just that; a home, not a headquarters.

Or so Bruno might have wished.

But necessity took precedence over his wishes. And his family estate was far more than just a mere home.

It was a palace so grand that Versailles would weep in its ashes over its opulence, and yet fortified to withstand a siege or even an aerial bombardment deep within its bones.

He stood before the full-length mirror in the master bedroom, frowning as Heidi smoothed the heavy dark wool of his tunic.

The uniform was a unique cut; somewhere between the tailored lines of an M35 Waffenrock and the more ornate tradition of the old 1871 parade coats.

Its breast glittered with the accumulated weight of decades. Perhaps in the entire history of the German Reich and the Kingdom of Prussia which preceded it, there had never been a General so decorated.

And that was why he alone wore the most striking of all decorations. On his shoulders were a pair the broad gold epaulettes; each crowned with a stylized Reichsadler clutching a pair of marshal’s batons in its talons, embroidery so fine it seemed alive in the morning light.

It was the insignia of a Reichsmarschall, older than the uniform itself, rooted in the dust of medieval courts yet sharper now than any blade. Revived in the modern era solely for his command.

Heidi’s hands lingered at his collar, fussing with the crimson piping that framed the gilded laurel leaves on either side of his throat.

She looked impossibly young still, though the lines around her eyes told a different story; laugh lines, yes, but also lines carved by decades of waiting at windows, of reading casualty lists that never included his name yet threatened to all the same.

“I hate wearing my work uniform at home,” Bruno muttered, voice pitched low, almost embarrassed by the admission.

“Damn thing feels like a coat of mail. This house is meant to be rid of such burdens.”

Heidi smiled faintly, smoothing the front of his tunic with deliberate, affectionate strokes.

“Your daughter only turns eighteen once. And she asked for this. Just play the part of the Grand Prince you are, and the Marshal of the Realm. Anna wants her guests to know precisely who her father is.”

He tried to scoff, but her hands slid up to rest on either side of his jaw, tilting his face down so she could look at him properly.

“You’ve spent so long being the architect of half the world, you forget that to Anna, you’re simply her father. Let her bask in your shadow a little longer before she must learn how cold the world is beyond it.”

For a moment he was quiet, studying her eyes; eyes he’d memorized across countless campaigns, across a thousand letters stained with wax and longing. Then he exhaled, resigned, the faintest ghost of a smile tracing the scar at his cheek. “Very well. For her.”

The estate’s grand hall was already filling when they emerged.

Banners in the family’s colors, deep Tyrolean reds and golds, hung from the carved beams.

Servants in livery moved deftly among arriving guests, offering flutes of chilled Riesling and delicate trays of sugared fruits.

Outside on the terrace, a string quartet sawed through a lively waltz that set the younger nobility laughing and practicing half-steps in polished shoes.

Anna was the center of it all, a blaze of white and crimson satin, tiara glittering above a cascade of strawberry-blonde curls.

When she caught sight of her parents, her face lit with open joy, and she nearly lost her composure trying not to sprint across the marble floor.

Bruno braced himself, only half-successfully, for the force of her embrace.

“My little star,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her temple. It did not matter that she was grown now; taller than her mother, clever as any diplomat.

In this moment, she was simply the child who used to hide in his study to scrawl pictures of knights and warhorses on important dispatches.

Anna pulled back just enough to beam up at him. “You look magnificent, father. Just as I wanted. They’ll all know today who stands at my back.”

The words carried a weight that was both sweet and sorrowful.

Heidi caught his eye over Anna’s shoulder, and for a brief instant they shared the same silent worry: that even this bright day would become one more brittle memory once war inevitably clawed back into their lives.

But for now, he would give his daughter her day.

He would stand as Reichsmarschall and Grand Prince, as the towering war-god of Berlin’s streets and Russia’s ice courts, so all her rivals and the watching families would remember exactly why the Zehntner daughters were never approached lightly.

That night, long after the final toast and the last carriage had rattled down the dark mountain roads, Bruno stood alone on the balcony outside their chambers.

The Tyrolean sky stretched black and endless above, scattered with indifferent stars. Below, the estate lay quiet, lanterns guttering out one by one.

Heidi slipped out to join him, wrapping an arm around his waist. For a while, they said nothing.

Finally, she leaned her head against his shoulder. “She will be alright, you know. Anna has your mind, and enough of my caution to temper it.”

Bruno’s gaze stayed on the horizon. “It isn’t Anna I fear for. It’s the world that must live with her once she learns to use all I’ve taught. She will be the Queen of Italy, and that fool of a man she’s marrying will have his hands full soon enough.”

Heidi gave a small, rueful laugh, pressing closer. “Then may the world brace itself. Our family has a habit of shaping it; whether it likes it or not.”

—

The sun was a smoldering iron over Aragon, baking the earth into cracked parchment that broke under a boot’s weight.

Canvas tents sagged between battered trucks, the entire forward operating camp wreathed in cigarette smoke and the drifting tang of machine oil.

Beyond the perimeter, distant pops of rifle fire rolled lazily across the scrub, like children throwing stones at tin sheets.

Erich sat at a makeshift table, a battered field radio crackling behind him with reports from recon patrols.

His Feldbluse was slung over the back of the chair, braces loose over a sweat-damp undershirt.

Dust clung to every seam. In his hand, a pen hovered uncertainly over fine stationery, so out of place here it seemed a relic of another century.

My dearest Erika,

The words looked fragile on the page. He stared at them a moment, feeling faintly foolish. It wasn’t the proper thing, writing to her like this.

Not through official channels, not with so much unsaid; she was, after all, the daughter of his grandfather’s closest comrade, the other Erich for whom he’d been named.

In another world, that connection might have been enough to keep things simple. But in this twisted tapestry of alliances and family ghosts, nothing was ever simple.

He found himself remembering the last time he’d seen her, that afternoon in his father’s study back in Tyrol.

In truth, he had never been told the reason for the girl’s visit. And if he knew the truth, he would be appalled at his own grandfather. But the girl seemed sullen, and he had instinctively comforted the young maiden in a time of the utmost grief.

Nevertheless, he had fallen head over heels for the lass at first glance, and now he couldn’t help but think of her as he was seeing war for the first time in his life. The way so many men did to keep their minds off the sheer brutality of combat.

I imagine by now you’ve heard the worst rumors; that we are all but storming across Spain at the tip of sabres, dragging Europe to the brink again.

It is only half true. Most days are spent waiting, sweating through these endless hours with nothing to show for them but more dust on the horizon.

Still… it feels close, Erika. Like something vast is breathing down all our necks, waiting for us to flinch.

He hesitated, pen poised, then wrote on.

I cannot say when I will return. Perhaps by Christmas, if the French finally bleed out here as Grandfather suspects. But I think often of Tyrol.

Of that study window. Of how you looked when I first spoke. Write me, if only to tell me the gardens have survived the summer better than I have.

He signed it simply — Erich. No titles, no ranks, no weight of the Zehntner name.

Outside, a dispatch rider barked for fuel, Spanish peasants led crates of vegetables past tired Feldgendarmes, and the war continued its slow, inevitable crawl across the dry plains.

Erich sealed the letter with practiced hands, then sat back, exhaling. Around him, the wind picked up, hot and restless, carrying the smell of gun oil and dying grass.

For a heartbeat, he let himself hope the letter might reach her before the next battle began.