Bruno and his family were entrusted to a long-winded retelling of the ancient house of Habsburg and its astounding legacy and impact on Europe and, by extension, the world at large.
The tour through the Hofburg where they stopped at every portrait of every ruler over the dynastic history while enlightening someone like Bruno who appreciated history was nothing but dull for his wife and children.
Even so, they were forced to endure it, as to even make a statement about how dreadful they found it to be considered an insult of the highest caliber to such an ancient and lofty royal family.
By the time they were done with this historical lecture conducted in the form of a tour across the Estate and its massive grounds. Dinner had been prepared, and this was where the real entertainment began.
After all, in a bid to make sure that Bruno properly lived up to his promise, Princess Hedwig quickly took to the man’s left side, even after meeting the ire of Heidi’s homicidal gaze. She then began to plead with Bruno to regale her with the tales of his heroism on the battlefield. Something which Bruno had no qualms about reliving, as he, after all, found comfort in the weirdest of places.
Frankly speaking, Bruno did not exactly know how to tone down the violence that occurred, and retold the war as it was, catching the attention of his wife, as well as the Habsburgs who looked at the man as if he was mad.
Whether it was clearing houses, leading a charge through trenches, or personally taking command over the interrogation and execution of captured rebels. Bruno’s retelling of the campaigns he had fought and won was bone chilling.
But what was perhaps the most terrifying part of all is that he retold the story with the same lifeless expression he always seemed to have. Almost as if the horror he described had not phased the man in the slightest.
Hedwig of course listened to Bruno’s tales with a wide and gleeful eyes as if she was hearing what combat was actually all about for the first time in her life. Glory, heroism, victory? These were falsehoods spun to her by her father’s generals.
They were the same lies told to young men to inspire them to go out and die for the old men who sat in the Capital making war in the first place. Nobody ever mentioned the gruesome details of how artillery could blast a man’s limbs apart despite being in the immediate Kill-zone.
Or what it was like to stab your bayonet through a man’s rib cage, only to find it stuck inside, requiring you to fire a shot anyway in order to yank it out. Bruno, however, held nothing back when he spoke of war and its cruelty. For to do so would be to dishonor the men who had died, both beneath his command, and the enemies which he had slain in the trenches.
The explicit detail he spoke of in his retelling of the battles he had waged and won was so gruesome that even some of the men within the Habsburg line found themselves looking at their food as if they had suddenly lost their appetite to eat it.
But not Bruno. He ate the food he had been given, and drank his beer without complaint, and without expression. All the while he spoke of the trenches, where the rain poured over his head, and artillery pounded in the distance.
Heidi, of course, felt very differently than Bruno did after hearing all the harrowing details of the war that he had endured. She was by no means a fool, or naïve. She knew fully well that war wasn’t exactly something that was pretty or idealistic. And if she had it her way, Bruno would retire from the military altogether. After all, they had enough wealth that none of them ever needed to work.
But after hearing Bruno talk about the battlefield with such detail, Heidi realized that her husband would never step away from that life. As war had long since taken his mind and his soul. What remained when he came home to her was a mere revenant.
It was a rather depressing moment for the woman and was one of the reasons why Bruno had never mentioned these things to her in the past. After the meal was over, Hedwig thanked Bruno for his stories, having been enlightened to the true nature of combat, and not the bullshit she had been spun throughout her youth.
While Franz Joseph told Bruno they would speak the following morning about some more important matters. After all, he had come to learn of Bruno’s investment into the Serbian meat industry, and wanted to interrogate them and about his intentions.
Ultimately, Bruno would return to his room with his wife, where he would open up the window and smoke a cigarette. She was clearly in a sullen mood, and Bruno understood why, quickly apologizing to her for the things he said at dinner.
“I never wanted you to find out about those things… But royalty can be difficult to entertain, and refusing the request from a Habsburg, even one as young as Hedwig, is unwise. I’m sorry, I know it must have been disheartening for you to hear… I’m just glad the kids didn’t have to listen to me drivel on about the reality of my occupation.”
Heidi remained silent for some time, while Bruno let out a large puff of smoke from his lungs and outside the palace windows. Once he had done this, she finally turned to him with tear-stained eyes and asked a question which caught Bruno off guard.
“When is it going to end, Bruno? Will you only stop fighting these wars once death has taken you from me? Why must you make such risky choices in life!?! You are a general now, are you not?
Shouldn’t you sit in the rear where it is safe and sound? Why even continue with your military career? You have untold fortunes. Is killing really so appealing to you that you must put your life in jeopardy?”
Bruno did not say anything for a while, not until he had snuffed out his cigarette in the ashtray and closed the windows. His words could not be overheard by anyone after all. He quickly approached his wife, and hugged her, whispering in her ear not the words which she wanted to hear, but the honest truth.
“You mistake me Heidi, I am not the man of cruelty you think I am. In fact, your accusations truly wound me in ways which you cannot fathom. Do you really think that this is what I want out of life?
To spend my life on the battlefield as my mind slowly wastes away from the death and despair which I am subjected to witness? Should I have been given a choice in the matter, then I would have gladly chosen to live the peaceful life of a wealthy industrialist with you and our children by my side. You are, after all, the pride and joy of my life, Heidi.
But this is a burden to ensure that was not chosen by me, but by God above. I was destined to fight in this upcoming Great War, from the moment I was born into this world.
It is not a matter of choice, but rather a matter of duty. Duty unto you, my wife, and to that of my family firstly. Second to the Kaiser and to the Fatherland, and finally a matter of duty unto God in heaven.
Should my sanity be the ultimate price to pay for the sake of ensuring the survival of the German Reich, and a future for our children which we can be proud of, then I will gladly pay it a thousandfold.
As much as it may appear to be, it is not out of some gruesome bloodlust that compels me to return to the battlefield time and again. But rather, for the sake of you all, and for the future of our family. For without my guidance in this coming Great War, this entire world would be doomed to a ruinous future filled with despair.
Heidi was not entirely surprised by Bruno’s words. She was well connected after all, and with each passing day as the list of international crises piled up, it was starting to become more and more apparent that war between the Great Powers was inevitable, but she simply had to ask the question which kept her heart bitter towards this thought.
“But why? Why does it have to be you? Couldn’t anybody else fulfill this job?”
Bruno simply smiled bitterly as he shook his head, before caressing his wife’s chin, where he gently kissed her lips, before leaning in and whispering his thoughts aloud.
“Silly girl, it was always meant to be me. Had God not chosen me for this role, you and I would have never met, for I never would have been born in this world. Do not lament the fact that I must suffer to ensure the existence of a better world, for it was a burden chosen for me to bear from the start. Rather, you should rejoice that by virtue of my fate, I was destined to meet you, the love of my life.”
Bruno’s words, and the certainty in his statement, made it seem like he knew things he shouldn’t know. As if he was some kind of prophet chosen to alter the course of history in the favor of Germany.
Madness if uttered by any other man, to be sure. But when spoken by the man she loved and believed in more than anything, Heidi couldn’t help but believe perhaps Bruno was telling the truth.
