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“Did you love my father?”
Kaiserin Hildegard von Mariendorf blinked, and stared across the room at her son. He flushed, but didn’t look away, eyes meeting hers with mingled embarrassment and determination. She finished refilling her glass of schnapps from the wet bar and paced back across the parlor, perching herself on a couch opposite her son. Alexander Siegfried von Lohengramm, Supreme Kaiser of the Universe, Großherzog of Odin, Großherzog of Fezzan, and Lord Protector of the Heinessen Republic. Today he had turned seventeen. One more year until her regency was over, and he took his place on the throne. It was past midnight—the grandfather clock on the wall ticking away methodically still—and it had been a long day of ceremony and celebration. They could still hear the fireworks in the distance, as Imperial subjects took advantage of the holiday to dance and drink all night. At last finished with the formalities and feasting, Alex and her had been having a simple nightcap before bed. Or so she had thought.
“That’s an……unusual question” she replied at last. “What’s brought it on?” He shrugged.
“Oh, you know” he said. “Everyone always talks about the great Kaiser. I mean, he’s everywhere.” He nodded to the portrait covering the far wall, Reinhard’s face staring out grimly over the room, like it did over so many rooms in the palace. “But nobody ever talks about the man. What he was really like, not just his policies or theories or all the battles he won.”
“It’s difficult” said Hildegard quietly. “There’s not many of us left who remember him. And even for us, it’s hard to separate the Kaiser from the human being after so long. And……we miss him.” It was a little shocking to look back and realize that she’d only known Reinhard for about four years. They loomed over the rest of her life like a tsunami.
“I understand” said Alexander, taking a sip of his wine. He looks like his father, thought Hildegard fondly. Golden hair and an aquiline face and emerald-green eyes. But she could see the differences. His hair was cut short like her own instead of flowing down his shoulders like a lion’s mane. And his face was……lighter, in some ineffable way. There was almost always a smile lurking in his eyes. She was proud of that.
“He was intense” she said suddenly. “That’s what I noticed the first time I met him, right before the Lippstadt War. I’d been ushered in for a five-minute meeting, but when he looked at you it was like he was focusing all of his attention on whatever you were saying. It could be quite intimidating but…..very flattering. He really listened, too. You could tell him something offhand and he’d remember it six months later.”
“Sounds like a useful skill for a Kaiser.”
“Oh, it was. But it was real too. That’s what made it so effective.” She shook her head. “It was so strange at first—seeing this child marching around with men twenty years his senior bowing and saluting—but it was impossible not to fall under the spell yourself. He just had to look at you and you’d do anything..….” She trailed off, then grinned suddenly. “But not always! We always forgot how young he was but sometimes……when he proposed to me the first time, he could barely get the words out he was so shy! Your grandfather had to play interpreter.” Alexander threw his head back and laughed.
“It’s hard to imagine the Goldener Löwe like that!”
“Oh, well, I was so scared myself I couldn’t appreciate it. I hid in the kitchen while my father talked to him.” She sighed and took another sip of schnapps. She certainly wasn’t going to tell him why they were both so nervous that morning! There were some topics she had no interest in discussing with her son. “We were so young” she said plaintively. Alexander snorted. To him, twenty-five still seemed ancient. “It’s funny—in public Reinhard could command a room with a single word. I don’t think I ever saw him falter or stumble. But in private he was so awkward! He never knew quite what to say or how to say it.”
“That must have quite disillusioning for you” said Alexander with a smirk. Hildegard gently cuffed the side of his head.
“Hush you! I found it quite endearing, actually. Proof that there was a real person beneath that uniform. I always thought—well, you know he joined the military so young. He was a captain by seventeen. I don’t think he had much experience outside that world of command and rule. And he never really had the time to learn it.”
“I never thought about it that way. In the history books or when Prime Minister Mittermeyer talks about him, Father always seems so…..so certain.”
“That’s how he wanted it. But that doesn’t mean it was true. I always took it as a great honor that he let me see beneath the imperial mask. There weren’t many of us he trusted so well.” Alexander nodded, and took another drink of his wine. Silence fell, broken only by the tick-tick-tick of the clock and the steady rumble of fireworks. Hildegard felt the eyes of the portrait watching her. Alexander frowned in sudden concentration.
“Wait, you said ‘when he proposed to you the first time’? Did he do it more than once?”
“Oh, Freya, yes. He had to! I near enough had a nervous breakdown when he asked me.” She smiled sadly. “He was so earnest about it too—so scared that I was going to agree to something just because he was Kaiser or that he’d taken advantage of me. I ended up taking several weeks to think about it while he waited very patiently to make up my mind.”
“Huh” said Alexander. “You……never answered my question, you know.” Hildegard blinked. Taken by surprise, she said the first thing that came to mind.
“I think I must have.” Her son scowled in confusion.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Staring down at the engraved wood of the table, Hildegard thought about it, turning the keen, analytical mind that had guided the Galactic Empire through a constitutional reformation and nearly two decades of peace onto itself for once. It wasn’t love like the poets wrote of it—fire and passion and eternal devotion at first sight. She wasn’t sure if that was true for anyone, but it certainly didn’t describe her. She thought about Wolfgang Mittermeyer and his wife, Evangelin. They’d been quietly and contentedly married for decades now, but she’d still seen the Prime Minister’s face light up like a star when his wife entered a room. She couldn’t imagine a relationship with that kind of depth, like a well of love a hundred fathoms deep. She’d respected Reinhard. She’d admired him. She’d liked him. And she knew the same had been true for him. But…...her lips quirked, remembering how baffled Annerose had been when she first visited the Imperial Couple and discovered that her brother was addressing his new bride as ‘Fraulein Mariendorf’ and that she was still addressing him as ‘Your Majesty’. But that just seemed natural! He was the Kaiser, even if they were sleeping in the same bed. And more than that, he was Reinhard von Lohengramm, a force of nature and a colossus bestriding the universe. Even now, if not for their child sitting a few feet from her and tapping his fingers on the couch, she would have trouble believing that she’d actually married the Golden Lion himself. But she had. And she’d wanted to do it, of that she was sure.
“We complimented each other” she said at last, the words falling from her mouth slowly. “We……we fit together, in a way that I’m not sure either of us would with anyone else.” She remembered talking with him for hours sometimes, about politics, about history, about law, and strategy and the future and the past, Reinhard striding up and down their bedroom, golden hair flowing down his back as he gesticulated wildly, eyes glowing. “I remember Herr Mintz telling me once, at the funeral, I think, about his negotiations with Reinhard near the end of the war. And at the end of their first secession—they’d been talking about the possibility of constitutional reforms and Reinhard said something like: ‘You should discuss this with our wife instead of us, she’s far more adapt at politics than we are.’ And Herr Mintz said he later realized that that was the highest praise he could give.”
“How romantic” said Alexander drily.
“It was to me!” said Hildegard plaintively. “I know there was talk of him marrying one of Kaiser Friedrich IV’s cousins or into one of the Hochadel families to try and cement the new dynasty’s position but I think that would have driven him mad.” She blushed. “That sounds conceited, doesn’t it? But—”
“I understand,” said Alexander. “He wanted a partner, not some…..empty-headed aristocratic twit.” Hildegard tisked.
“Now you’re being conceited. Most nobles in my day were not as open-minded as your grandfather. The fact that few of them bothered to educate their daughters in politics or war is not a mark against them.”
“Sorry mother” muttered Alexander.
“I think he wanted someone he could trust” continued the Kaiserin. “Somebody that he could…..lower his guard around, I suppose.” She smiled wryly. “I was the only woman among his inner circle, so I suppose his choice was inevitable.”
“What did you want?” Hildegard shrugged.
“To be happy, I suppose? I had….assumed for a long time that I’d never find a husband, so I won’t pretend I’d thought about it beyond that. I certainly hadn’t imagined, well—”
“Ruling the Universe?”
“Precisely.” Alexander finished his wine, the tap of the glass on the tabletop loud in the midnight silence of the palace.
“Were you?” he said softly. “Happy, I mean.”
“Yes” she said simply. “You know, we were only together for seven months. And he was off campaigning for so much of it, and then he was so sick—I didn’t realize until later how short a time it was.” She tried to imagine growing old with Reinhard. Years and decades spent together, raising children, their lives intertwining like the branches of a tree. It was almost impossible. In her mind, Reinhard would always be young, golden, fiery, going, and gone. “I cannot imagine marrying anyone else” she said finally. “I don’t know if that’s love or not, but that’s what it is.” That was true enough. She’d had several lovers, since Reinhard’s death, quietly and discretely. Women, for the most part. That avoided more than one problem. They were all people she respected and liked and admired, bright young noblewomen or officers with wit and circumspection. She’d continued to correspond with more than one of them after their affairs had concluded. She couldn’t imagine spending the rest of her life with any of them.
“When people talk about it—you and….and the Kaiser, I mean—"
“Wait, people talk about us?” Alexander rolled his eyes in teenage exasperation. “Sorry, that was a foolish question. Continue.”
“As I was saying…..when they talk about you, they either make it sound like some sort of fairy-tale magic romance or like it was just some political machination. But it sounds……more complicated.”
“It’s always more complicated” assured Hildegard. “You never know how things are going to start or where they’re going to go, you make choices when you’re young and stupid and they follow you around for the rest of your life. You do things and then only later realize why you did them. It’s…..complicated. If I could live those years of my life over—I don’t know that I would have done the same. But I have few regrets, and none about the result.” She smiled at her son, who ducked his head in embarrassment.
“Do you think…..that my father loved you?” Hildegard lay her head against the back of the couch.
“He cared about me” she said carefully. “He wanted me as his partner, and his wife—he was always someone who rewarded loyalty with loyalty, and who fulfilled his oaths. That’s why so many people fell in love with him.” She smiled, a little sadly. “I always got the impression that he saw ‘wife’ as simply another post in his government—to be carefully filled by the best candidate.”
“That sounds……cold.”
“No, not cold, exactly. He could be very sweet sometimes, when he forgot himself. And he always wanted me to be happy. But he was Kaiser, first and foremost. You could never forget that. There weren’t many people he allowed himself to love, unconditionally and freely. Annerose was one.” She hesitated, but tonight was a night for openness and honestly. And frankly, it was hard to imagine caring anymore. “Siegfried Kircheis was the other, I think.” Alexander’s eyes widened.
“Are you saying that they—I mean, that they were—”
“I don’t know” she said bluntly. “There were stories—all kinds of rumors. Every variation under the suns. But I don’t know the truth of it. I only ever met Fleet Admiral Kircheis a few times. He died just before I received my appointment as Imperial Private Secretary. Let us just say that they clearly loved each other, and leave it at that.” She sighed. “He was a good man. Him also, I miss.”
“I always heard……that it was Aunt Annerose who had been in love with Kircheis.”
“I think she was” said Hildegard softly. “Lohengramm’s destiny was for greatness, not for happiness.”
“I see.” Hildegard frowned suddenly.
“Don’t go asking your aunt about any of this, mind you! She’s earned her peace and quiet.”
“Mother! I wasn’t going to!”
“Good, good.”
“I’m not stupid, you know”. Kaiserin Hildegard chuckled. She knew there were those in the Court and the Parliament who felt that the Großherzog von Grünewald should play a more active role in the Imperial Court, as benefited one of the few living members of the Lohengramm family. Hildegard had always quashed them. She owed her sister-in-law too much to disturb her from the life she wanted. For a young woman, almost still a child, entering into the upper ranks of the traditionally-patriarchal Imperial government, the firm, quiet support of Reinhard’s sister had been a godsend. And then later……the day her husband had died, she had stood by his bedside and spoken to the assembled Admirals and Ministers of his government in fiery tones, proclaiming continuity and strength, the perseverance of the Goldenlöwe Dynasty. One by one, she took their oaths of loyalty. Then, she returned to her bedchamber, handed her baby son to a nurse, and collapsed. It was Annerose who had caught her then, and held her as she wept. She shook her head, dispelling the memory. Reaching over, she slipped an arm around Alexander’s shoulders.
“So mein sohn, what’s brought on all these sudden questions, hmm?” Before he could answer she waggled a finger in his face. “The truth now! I’m still your Kaiserin, at least for another year.” He snorted, his lips curving upward briefly. Then he sighed, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
“That’s just it” he muttered. “One more year and then I’m supposed to be Kaiser. I’m—I’m not ready for that.”
“Of course you’re not.” said Hildegard. “Nobody ever is. Not for the important things. You simply have to do your best when the time comes. Do you think I was ‘ready’ when the Empire fell onto my shoulders?”
“Noooooo” said Alexander slowly. “But you’d already been father’s chief of staff and speechwriter for years by then. And by the time the Kaiser was my age he’d won half-a-dozen battles and been promoted four times!” He glared at the table. “It took him, what—four years?—to overthrow the old dynasty and crush the Lippstadt League and conquer the Free Planets Alliance and build a new government and defeat the—”
“Do you think that Reinhard spent his life wading through oceans of blood so that you could do the same?” Hildegard said coldly. Alexander opened his mouth, and then snapped it close. “Reinhard burned his life force up like a candle bringing peace to the Galaxy. We do not need another Reinhard. Pray to Odin we do not see his like again for ten generations.”
“Oh” said Alexander quietly. “I hadn’t thought of it like that.” Hildegard sniffed.
“Of course, you didn’t” she said. “You’re young. You think you’re going to live forever and that you have to save the Universe from the unimaginable stupidity of your elders.” She smiled, a little bit sadly. “I suppose it took a young man to guide us through those years of feuer und blut. Someone older wouldn’t have the audacity, the stupid self-confidence to look at the way the Universe had always worked and to go about changing it…..but someone older might not have been so quick to throw aside their life. Your father was a great man” she said softly. “But great men are only needed in terrible times. We need a different kind of greatness now.” Alexander raised an eyebrow.
“The kind with no real military experience and no idea what he’s doing?” Hildegard poked him in the side. “Ouch!”
“The kind who’s smart and clever and kind and cares so much about the Reich and all its billions and billions of people. The kind who’s spent his whole life training to be Kaiser, but who knows his limitations. The kind who understands his responsibilities but never thinks he’s better than anyone else.”
“If…..if you say so” muttered Alexander. Hildegard chucked and leaned over to kiss his forehead.
“You’ll see” she said serenely. “You’ll see someday. Now! Time for you to get to bed my young Kaiser. It’s getting late, and you’re scheduled to sit in on that Finance Committee meeting tomorrow morning.” Her son groaned theatrically, but rose to his feet.
“G’night mother” he said, bowing ironically. “And……thank you.” Hildegard shrugged.
“You’re going to be Kaiser soon” she said, answering his unasked question. “You’re old enough to know the truth, even it’s not always comfortable.” He nodded slowly.
“Thank you” he said, a little more seriously. And then he was gone, the ceremonial boots he’d never shed after the parade crack-crack-cracking down the hallway. Hildegard smiled, listening. Then she toasted the portrait that stared down at her.
“He’s a good man” she said softly. She met the bright green eyes that had once blazed with life, now just chips of emerald paint. “You’d be proud of him, though you might not understand his doubts.” She chucked. “You never doubted anything, eh? Well, the rest of us are different. And he’s going to be a good Kaiser, even if he doesn’t believe it yet. He’s got that Lohengramm fire burning down inside him, even if it’s blazing a little quieter. And he hasn’t had to grow up quite as fast as either of us. I think you’d be glad of that.” Reinhard didn’t reply, the light glistening off the painted buttons of his uniform. Golden hair flowed down his neck, and the artist had painted him in Classic Imperial style, facing forward boldly into the future, holding a Marshal’s Baton and a scroll of laws, while ships rose to the sky in serried ranks behind him. It was a good likeness though Hildegard, but he would’ve hated it. It was too stiff, too formal. It captured the Kaiser, not the man. “I wish you could’ve known him” she said finally. “Maybe…..maybe you could’ve found something else to love beyond victory.” With a swift, decisive motion she drained the schnapps. “Or maybe not.” Rising to her feet in a billow of silks, she strode to the door, leaving the empty parlor behind. Then, on the mantle she turned and looked back at the silent portrait.
“I miss you, meine liebe.”