Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 863: What is Worth Fighting For

While Bruno still knelt within the pews, Heidi had gone off on her own with her family. They returned to the Palace, where the family gathered to share lunch, tea, and their time together as a family.

However, Heidi was silently absent from today’s gathering. She had her own thoughts to think about. For over forty years she had been attending mass with Bruno as his wife. The two of them had been inseparable in this life outside the confines of her husband’s duty.

Since she was but two years old, Bruno had been protecting her. It was a hard thing to believe, considering he was roughly three years her senior. And yet it was true.

If not for Bruno, she likely would have died at the hands of court politics and their inherent cruelty long before she ever reached the age of marriage.

She was all too thankful for the house they had built together, one where brothers did not turn against brothers, where sisters did not conspire to kill their mothers. And cousins knelt before the main line, yet were welcomed into the house all the same.

Bruno had set a remarkable example; despite having the wealth, power, fame, and looks to do so, he had taken no mistress. And his sons had done the same. Bruno and Heidi had raised men and women of conscience and faith.

And yet to get to the point where they stood out among the Reich’s royal and noble houses. They both had to stain their hands with blood.

Heidi knew her husband better than anyone in this life. It is why she never interrupted him at church. He was internally reflecting on his own sins, the price he had paid with his own soul for their families’ future, and the future of the fatherland.

It weighed heavily on the man, even if he pressed it to the back of his mind. And Heidi knew this because she felt the same inside.

Early on in their marriage she had not personally gotten her hands dirty, but she had made use of her family’s contacts, the side that wasn’t hostile to her that is, to dispatch Bruno’s enemies to the Lord’s judgement before they could ever lay a finger on him.

She had not wielded the blade, but without her call their blood would not have been spilled.

The quantity may not be as severe as the burden that Bruno bore. But it was all the same: lives taken in pursuit of their own protection, their own ambitions, their own duties.

Bruno, of course had put a stop to her dirtying her own hands, and she had spent a lifetime in atonement for her deeds. She went from being a spider to the Angel of Berlin. A woman whose charitable deeds had touched the lives of the sick, the elderly, the meek, the helpless, and the downtrodden.

She had saved more lives than she had taken. And yet she knew that would not save her soul when judgement came for her.

As the two of them grew older, Bruno and Heidi often reflected more on the cost of their victory. The price that had been paid to obtain peace for future generations.

Heidi could only take a deep sigh as she slowly unraveled the veil on her head, revealing her silver hair tied neatly beneath the lace covering.

She did not take off the crucifix around her neck while gazing in the mirror, merely adjusting its place before walking out the door to exit her solitude and rejoin her family who were no doubt celebrating another day lived.

—

Bruno arrived later that day, an hour or so after the rest of his family had returned home. When he walked through the door, he was not immediately welcomed by his wife, but by his granddaughters.

They were identical twins, and were the children of his second son, Josef, and his wife Sophie von Hohenburg.

The two girls bore a remarkable resemblance to both their mother and their paternal grandmother. Having the brunette complexion of their mother, but Heidi’s angelic features.

The twin teenage girls were quick to grab their grandfather’s hand and pull him inside, speaking completely in unison as they did so.

“Grandfather!”

“Grandfather!”

“You’re back!”

“You’re back!”

Bruno chuckled when he saw the two girls welcome him so warmly. He knew all too well exactly what they were going to try to do and entertained them nonetheless.

“Theresa, Maria, you two should know better than to greet an old man like me with such enthusiasm. Are you two trying to give your beloved grandfather a heart attack?”

The two girls quickly pouted and gazed sternly at Bruno, causing him to feign ignorance and confusion as the first of the two sisters pointed her finger in his face.

“Some beloved grandfathers are, you can’t even tell which of your adorable grandfathers is whom. I’m Mitzi, not Resi! Have you gone senile?”

Mitzi and Resi… the nicknames for Maria and Theresa, the twin daughters of Josef and Sophie. The girls had been named deliberately, and while Sophie never said so aloud, everyone knew and approved.

Bruno was about to apologize for “angering” his granddaughters until Sophie entered the scene, staring at the two errant girls with a gaze only a troubled mother could muster. It was so chilling that even Bruno felt the temperature drop around him for a second.

“Theresa! Maria! Apologize to your grandfather this instant! He’s been through a lot lately, and I’m sure he has no time for your childish attempts at humor!”

Maria and Theresa were quick to turn around with their heads lowered in shame; they were just about to formally apologize when Bruno waved it off.

“It’s fine Sophie, I appreciate the gesture, but it’s just a good bit of fun for the girls. Besides, I knew what they were up to the moment they approached me. You girls run along and have fun with your siblings and cousins. And don’t cause anymore trouble, or I won’t be able to protect you from your mother….”

The girls instantly nodded their heads and hugged Bruno before running off, thanking him for protecting them from their mother’s fury before scurrying out of the room like frightened rabbits.

It was only then that Bruno was face to face with his daughter-in-law, who seemed like she wanted to be angry, but couldn’t find it within herself to be so.

“You spoil them, you know that? You’re just like their father.”

Bruno chuckled, patting Sophie on the shoulder before walking by.

“Where do you think he learned it from? If you think that’s bad you should have seen the way I was with my own daughters. Josef is lucky he married a woman so strong-willed like his mother….”

Bruno then walked off, as Sophie found herself flushing red in embarrassment after she realized the potential implications of what Bruno had just said. Bruno’s tone was entirely innocent. Sophie’s thoughts were not.