Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 584: Threads of Iron

Berlin lay under a heavy cloak of early autumn, the air dense with the scent of coal smoke, iron shavings, and cold rain waiting to fall.

To lesser men, it might have seemed oppressive; a sprawling industrial colossus grinding its own bones.

But to Bruno, it was the living lung of an empire, breathing in raw ore and ambition, exhaling steel and soldiers.

The armored train from Lisbon rolled into the Hauptbahnhof under the watchful eyes of security detachments and feldgendarmerie.

Eva and Prince Wilhelm disembarked just ahead of him, their own children fussing in the crisp air, tended by nurses and footmen draped in Hohenzollern liveries.

Eva moved with practiced elegance, her ivory-gloved hand resting lightly on Wilhelm’s arm, a sovereign calm in the set of her chin that no petty court intrigue could breach.

Wilhelm, grandson of the Kaiser, heir to a future that grew more complicated by the year, smiled politely, but his eyes were sharp, already calculating what Berlin’s mood might mean for their faction within the family.

Bruno took it all in with quiet satisfaction. Heidi had departed earlier with the younger children for Tyrol, to see to estates that needed the personal hand of their Princess.

Elsa and Alexei had returned directly to Saint Petersburg, swept east under the twin banners of the eagle and the Romanov bear.

His family sprawled across Europe now, tangled into half a dozen royal lines; a lattice of blood and treaty that was either the final safeguard of peace or the prelude to a cataclysm that would devour them all.

By the time his staff car reached the Kaiserhof, the sun was little more than a sullen copper coin sinking behind soot-streaked rooftops.

Berlin pulsed below with restless energy: columns of troops on exercise, convoys of new Panzers moving south on armored trains toward Alsace, throngs of civilians bustling with wary pride through streets draped in imperial banners.

The empire had won its war in the East, humiliated Japan, bound Russia closer through Elsa’s marriage; yet the continent trembled still, more brittle for all its triumphs.

Inside the palace, the Kaiser waited with his generals and foreign ministers, a court grown older and more lined around the eyes since the days when Bismarck’s ghost seemed to stride the hallways at night.

“Bruno!” Wilhelm II exclaimed as he stepped forward, cane rapping the marble with impatient eagerness. “By God, you are a sight for sore eyes. We’ve been chasing phantoms in Spain, and I would have none but your hand at this tiller.”

Bruno inclined his head, offering the barest hint of a smile. “Sire, I trust Portugal was made clear in my absence. They stand firm, grateful for assurances that their colonial skeleton will remain intact; and more importantly, that their ports will not be our next staging ground should France press beyond reason.”

The Kaiser gave a brittle laugh, clapping a hand on Bruno’s shoulder. “And yet while you played chess in Lisbon, France has been moving regiments across the Pyrenees. Alfonso’s forces stagger under the weight, and the Republicans grow drunk on foreign guns and money.”

Bruno was all too aware of the movements made by de Gaulle. His ability to communicate with his own staff was a feat made possible only by modern engineering.

He stepped forward with a confident stride and moved to the great map table without waiting to be asked, studying the neat pins and inked arrows that tracked divisions from Zaragoza to Bilbao.

“They are overextending. Even with British logistics behind them, even with American dollars sweetening the arsenals, they cannot sustain these lines through the winter without bleeding themselves thin.”

The foreign minister shifted uneasily.

“That may be, Generalfeldmarschall, but it is no longer simply France. British reconnaissance squadrons are flying over Basque territory under the fiction of ’maritime insurance patrols.’ And American advisors, civilian contractors, they claim, have been seen inspecting Spanish rail lines. We believe Washington is more deeply entwined than we’d dared estimate.”

Bruno looked up, eyes narrowing to cold slits. “We do not ’estimate,’ gentlemen. We know.”

From inside his tunic he withdrew a slim leather folio, laying it flat. Inside were sheaves of paper in precise German script, each page topped with official White House or War Department letterheads, copied down line by line from conversations half a world away.

The Kaiser leaned over with a sharp intake of breath. “Are these…?”

“Verbatim,” Bruno said, voice flat as polished steel.

“The Oval Office, the Pentagon, the private conference chambers of Westminster. I have read the confidences of four American presidents. Hoover gnashes his teeth at rumors we meddle in his elections, and Franklin Roosevelt already plots a reshaped navy to break the Reich’s Atlantic lock; all while oblivious that half the men manufacturing their shells answer ultimately to boards I appoint.”

Silence gripped the council. One of the generals muttered something half-audible about the devil’s own cunning.

Wilhelm slowly straightened, lips curling into something between a smile and a grimace.

“So they stand naked before us. Their industry hums because we have chosen not to halt it. Their armies drill with rifles forged from ore we allowed them to keep mining. My God, Bruno… this is a power Bismarck himself could scarcely imagine.”

Bruno did not smile.

“Power is nothing if not applied at the right moment. Force their hand too soon, and the Anglos will bind themselves to France in terror. Better to let them wallow in false security, even as they entangle further with French ambitions. When the break comes, it will be clean, and final.”

Later, the Kaiser drew Bruno aside to a window that overlooked Berlin’s broad avenues. The streetlamps below threw long golden shadows over marching companies, banners of black, white and red snapping in the sharp wind.

“It is a strange empire we stand atop,” Wilhelm said quietly. “A realm of steel and treaties, of bloodlines knotted from here to Saint Petersburg… and all of it resting on ledgers and secrets you have spun out over decades. Tell me, Bruno; does it not ever trouble you how brittle it all might be?”

Bruno’s gaze was remote, fixed somewhere past the bright shopfronts and drill yards.

“Steel rusts, Sire. Flesh falters. But secrets… secrets endure, so long as none dare drag them into the sun. And if we are wise, that day will come only once we are ready to show the world what stands behind the curtain.”

Wilhelm exhaled slowly. “So be it. Then let us pray the world remains too frightened to look behind it for a while yet.”

Bruno was just about to reach for the door when the Kaiser spoke up once more, holding a small jewel case in his hands.

Looking down at it, as if the weight of such a tiny thing might drown him, and his ancient dynasty with it.

“By the way, Bruno, I’ve been meaning to give this to you…”

The aging Emperor handed the case over to Bruno who opened it and found an unusual accessory contained within.

The symbols were similar enough to those he had known from the coming era during his past life. But they were distinctive. Dual batons held in the clutches of a Reichsadler pinned to the top of gold knotted piping. Itself bolted onto epaulettes of a classical design.

Accompanied with it was a matching pair of collar insignia. Gilded crossed marshal batons, on a red background with golden laurel embroidery at the edges. Its dimensions otherwise identical to the current Generalfeldmarschall ones he sported.

Bruno didn’t speak, only gazed at the unique decoration, knowing entirely what it meant, even if he didn’t say it aloud.

Luckily for him, the Kaiser appeared bemused by his expression and confirmed it regardless.

“You seem to already have a hint of what those mean. With the way things are going, I likely won’t live long enough to see this coming war through to its end. Hell, I might not even witness its beginning at this rate. And while I trust my son and heir to be a fair ruler, I wanted to ensure the Reich had its proper guardian’s authority; unchallenged by whatever changing of the guard follows my death. Consider yourself given a promotion, Reichsmarschall…”

Bruno remained silent as he raised a solemn salute to the aging Emperor he had followed for the entirety of his adult life. No words needed to be exchanged between the two; the expression alone was respect enough.

When Bruno finally left the palace, night had fully fallen, Berlin aglow with arc lamps and the deep red lanterns of military convoys.

Somewhere in Tyrol, Heidi was settling into old familiar rooms, the echoes of Anna and Erika’s laughter softening the ancient stones.

In Saint Petersburg, Elsa wore a diadem beneath the gilded domes, her hand resting on Alexei’s arm, the next Chapter of their tangled dynasty already begun.

And here, in the capital of an empire that spanned from the Rhine to the Urals, Bruno prepared to step once more into the breach.

The architect of a machine so vast that even he could no longer claim to control all its moving parts.

If war must come again, then let it come under his watch. Better that he wield the knife than leave it to the fumbling hands of lesser men.

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