You Who Come Demanding Proof: Let Your God Rebuild This Roof
Transcript of interview between Admiral Ulrich Kessler and Hildegarde von Mariendorf
6 July 1 N.I.C.
KESSLER I hope you’ll forgive this intrusion into your home, Fraulein Mariendorf.
MARIENDORF No, I understand completely. I’m glad we were able to meet here.
KESSLER His Majesty is generous that it is only house arrest.
MARIENDORF Yes. Please, take a seat.
KESSLER This is a private room?
MARIENDORF Of course. We won’t be interrupted unless I ring. (A pause.) Can I get you some tea, or anything to eat?
KESSLER No, thank you.
MARIENDORF I’m a little surprised you’re talking to me first, rather than my father. His duties as the Secretary of State are probably more important than my own.
KESSLER I’ll speak with him next. You were actually at the scene, so I’d like to get your view of the events first. I think that this will clarify some things for me.
MARIENDORF Of course. (A pause.) Please don’t misunderstand me— I’m very grateful that it’s you here, Admiral. This isn’t strictly a matter for the Military Police, so I’m just surprised. You’ll have to forgive me if I’m nervous.
KESSLER No, this kind of investigation would typically be handled through the National Security Agency. But His Majesty instructed that I, personally, came to get to the bottom of the matter.
MARIENDORF Herr Lang wouldn’t’ve come to interview me in my home.
KESSLER I’m sure he would have sent someone else. He’s a busy man.
MARIENDORF I’m sure.
KESSLER I don’t know which of our agencies will be responsible for investigating future threats to His Majesty’s wellbeing.
MARIENDORF I’ll flatter you by hoping that it remains the Military Police’s responsibility.
KESSLER There’s no need for that.
MARIENDORF Lang must be unhappy, given that— I hear that your investigation has a broader scope than just my cousin—
KESSLER I’d like to just discuss your cousin.
MARIENDORF Of course. (A pause.) I hope I can be of some help to you in your investigation.
KESSLER I appreciate your willingness.
MARIENDORF Of course.
KESSLER Let me first ask you— Baron Kummel, he was your relative— what was the exact relationship?
MARIENDORF My maternal cousin. My mother’s older brother was the last Baron Kummel; Heinrich was the only child.
KESSLER I was under the impression that he was a paternal relative. His Majesty told me that it was your father who petitioned for Him to visit the baron.
MARIENDORF No, but Heinrich and my father were very close.
KESSLER Why is that?
MARIENDORF You’d have to ask him.
KESSLER I’m asking you.
MARIENDORF We have a very small family. The Mariendorf line is small, and the Kummel line was smaller. He knew my uncle very well, before he died, and— I don’t know. He’s always cared for Heinrich— even when he was very young.
KESSLER Before he inherited his title?
MARIENDORF Yes— after my mother died.
KESSLER Is that a picture of your mother? On the wall?
MARIENDORF Yes.
KESSLER A family resemblance between her and Baron Kummel.
MARIENDORF Yes, I suppose. I don’t look much like him.
KESSLER You take after your father.
MARIENDORF In some ways.
KESSLER You say that your father cared for Baron Kummel— how so?
MARIENDORF Oh. I don’t know. Most of it was— I think we would have done the same for any cousin without other relatives, if we had any. He stayed in our house when he wasn’t at his school, that kind of thing. He was responsible for Heinrich’s education and health, when he was young— my uncle stipulated that in his will. (A pause.) The only thing I guess you could consider unusual— when my uncle died, my father petitioned Kaiser Friedrich on Heinrich’s behalf, so that he could inherit the title. But he didn’t have anyone else to do it for him, so it was natural that my father would.
KESSLER And why was that necessary? (A pause.) I’m asking for the sake of the record.
MARIENDORF I didn’t know you were recording.
KESSLER And why was it necessary to petition Kaiser Friedrich for his inheritance?
MARIENDORF Heinrich is— was— a very sick man. He had a genetic disorder, a degenerative muscle disease. The law under the last dynasty was that people like that couldn’t inherit titles without— well, the Kaiser could give a special disposition.
KESSLER When was this?
MARIENDORF I was thirteen— Heinrich must have been fifteen. Almost a decade ago.
KESSLER His father could have made the petition before he died, couldn’t he?
MARIENDORF I don’t know. Probably.
KESSLER Why didn’t he?
MARIENDORF I don’t know.
KESSLER What was that process like?
MARIENDORF What do you mean?
KESSLER Did your father need to make any promises or concessions to Kaiser Friedrich in order to secure his inheritance?
MARIENDORF I’m afraid I don’t understand why you’re asking.
KESSLER Fraulein Mariendorf—
MARIENDORF No, I don’t believe he did.
Hilde had been to the halls of Neue Sanssouci many times, but she had never before been allowed into an audience with the Kaiser. Even her father, with his high position in the Colonial Affairs office, rarely saw Kaiser Friederich, and this may have been the only time in his life that he requested a personal meeting. It was a somewhat informal affair by design, taking place after the Kaiser’s lunch, during his typical afternoon stroll through the gardens.
It was strange, in retrospect, Hilde thought, that she had been allowed to come with her father, but the actual subject of the petition had not come, hadn’t been taken out of his boarding school for the day. It was just her and her father, walking through the hedges and flowers. Hilde watched everything with a very keen eye, and didn’t need to be told to remain quiet and respectful in Neue Sanssouci’s halls and gardens. She was wearing a smart little sailor suit, navy blue with white piping, and as a child she had still worn her hair long, tied into a low ponytail with a red ribbon.
She was too tall at thirteen for her father to keep his hand on her shoulder, so instead she walked just a step behind him, a bright little shadow. Her father was deep in thought, even as they approached the pavilion where the Kaiser was standing, carefully cutting flowers from a rosebush with the intent of putting several in a vase on the table in the center of the pavilion.
Kaiser Friederich was not young, but he was only in his fifties. In Hilde’s youthful eyes, this was ancient, older than her father. The Kaiser was in fine health, though with an alcoholic flush in the upper part of his cheeks. He turned around to greet her father when the attendant announced his arrival, and both of them both bowed deeply before coming up the few stairs.
“Count Mariendorf,” the Kaiser said. “I had almost forgotten that you were coming to see me today.”
“I hope I’m not interrupting, Your Majesty.”
“No. The flowers neither toil nor spin— and they’ll wait for me. Please, take a seat.”
There were lavishly cushioned benches in a little nook extending out from the circular part of the pavilion, and this was where the three of them sat, facing each other. The tangle of roses that grew up along the side of the white-painted lattice that surrounded them had a pretension at being wild, and they pushed their flowery heads through the gaps in the wall, like eavesdroppers. The impression was one of shady privacy, dappled green shade falling across the Kaiser’s face, but there was no privacy in the court.
“It’s unusual for you to make any request of me, Count Mariendorf,” the Kaiser said. “And this isn’t some problem in the Colonial Affairs office?”
“No, Your Majesty,” her father said. “I wouldn’t take up your time with something like that.”
The Kaiser laughed. “No, that’s what I keep my troublesome Prime Minister around for— he takes care of everything like that.”
“Yes— and I hate to bother you.”
“No matter. What is it? Some kind of dispute I need to settle?”
There was no time for small talk or pleasantries— perhaps this was because the Kaiser’s mistress, who was more interested in the goings-on of the court, wasn’t there with him. Susanna von Benemunde hadn’t been seen at his side as often recently, at least according to the gossip that Hilde heard. She stared at the Kaiser’s face, watching the light reflect off the roses onto his cheeks and hair.
“No, Your Majesty,” Count Mariendorf said. “I’m not here on my own account.”
“Oh?”
“The Baron Joachim von Kummel recently died— he was my brother-in-law. I’m here to ask if you’ll allow my late wife’s nephew, Heinrich von Kummel, to inherit the Kummel Barony.”
“Is there an inheritance dispute?”
“A fifth cousin wants to claim it.”
“A fifth cousin?” the Kaiser asked. “Why?”
“Heinrich is—” Her father seemed to struggle to get the words out. “He’s a sick boy.”
The Kaiser looked directly at Hilde. “He looks fine. What’s wrong with him? He’s an idiot? Mentally deficient?”
Hilde flushed to the tips of her ears, and blurted out, “Take that back— Heinrich is very smart.”
“Hilde!” her father said. “I apologize, Your Majesty. He isn’t here— this is my daughter, Hildegarde.”
“I see.” The Kaiser tipped his head and studied Hilde more closely. “And will you be back here in twenty years to ask permission for her to inherit, as well?” There was a wry tone, almost cruel, in the Kaiser’s voice. “I should sign both papers at once, and save myself some time.”
“No, Your Majesty.”
“Still hoping to have a son?”
“I’m a widower.”
“You could remarry.”
“The Mariendorf title has passed to women before. It was granted originally to my great-great grandmother.”
Friederich smiled. “Of course. You’re a lucky girl.”
Hilde was still red with embarrassment, and she gave a jerky nod and looked away— it was all she could manage.
“Inheritance is always a delicate thing— I should know, since I wasn’t supposed to inherit. Herr Kummel’s fifth cousin will be sad that he won’t get the estate,” the Kaiser said. “Why should I take it from him?”
“Heinrich is— he’s a very sick boy,” her father said, repeating his earlier words. “If you’ll let me be practical, rather than sentimental, I don’t think he’ll be allowed his full three score and ten. His cousin will have it in due time.”
“That’s a pity.”
“But if Heinrich is granted the Barony, at least for what time he has, he’ll be taken care of. That’s what matters to me.”
“Hmm.” The Kaiser studied her father. “And what would happen to him if I did not grant him this? He would be left on the streets? Or is there money set aside for him somewhere?”
“I would take him into my house,” her father said, without hesitation.
“You’re going out of your way to provide for him,” the Kaiser said. “You must care for him, despite him being ill.”
“I love him like a son.”
The Kaiser’s gaze flicked to Hilde again. “I see.”
There was a moment of silence, and finally Hilde’s father spoke up, “It’s not a matter of money, Your Majesty.”
“Then what is it a matter of?”
“Dignity,” her father said. “He’s a smart enough boy to understand his own situation. I want him to be able to inherit— he deserves at the least to feel like a man, and part of his family line.”
“And you expect him to continue the line?”
There was a moment of silence. “Do you forbid it?”
“Why didn’t his father come here to ask this of me, before he died?”
Her father passed his hand across his face, the honesty tiring him. “He was hoping to have another son. He had a mistress.”
“I see.”
Again, there was a long stretch of silence.
“Will you allow it, Your Majesty?”
“Hm.” Friederich pulled on one of the roses that was sticking its head through the pavilion walls. From a chatelaine in his pocket, he pulled a slender pair of scissors, ones with a bird’s head and beak for blades, and snipped the rose off. A pocket knife removed the thorns, and then he twirled the stem between his fingers. “You say he’s not an idiot.”
“No,” her father said. “He could easily manage the estate without driving it into ruin.”
“That’s good. How old is he?”
“Fifteen, Your Majesty.”
“So, not of age to actually manage the estate.”
“His father hired a manager many years ago. He would be kept on, at least until Heinrich is of age.”
“Is he educated— the boy?”
“He attends a school for ill children.”
Friederich looked out towards the edge of the pavilion to where the attendants were waiting. “My own ancestors would be disgusted with me for allowing it. Kaiser Rudolph had his own son killed for being defective from birth, you know.” He laughed, a little darkly. “And I’m a result of that— like the children of the fifth cousin you’re trying to rob. All this dishonor I’ve been bringing to the Goldenbaum line.”
Hilde’s father didn’t seem to know how to take Friederich’s strange proclamation. “Your Majesty, is there anything I can do to let you allow it?”
Friederich stared him down. “He will be the end of the line. If you make sure of that, he can have the Barony for however long he can keep it. Or you may keep him in your house.”
Hilde glanced up at her father’s face, which had grown pale and tired. His voice was heavy, and he said, “Yes, I understand, Your Majesty.”
Friederich waved his hand, and that was a dismissal for the two of them. When they got up and bowed and walked away, Hilde kept glancing behind herself at the Kaiser, who was plucking the petals off the rose in his hand one by one, and rubbing them between his fingers.
In the carriage ride back out of Neue Sanssouci’s massive ground, her father pulled her against his side, stroking her hair, and she nestled against his shoulder.
KESSLER The former Kaiser was very generous to Baron Kummel, allowing him to inherit, especially without any stipulations. I’m surprised that he didn’t levy some kind of harsh inheritance tax on the estate.
MARIENDORF It was a kindness. I don’t have much to thank Kaiser Friederich for, but I did thank him for that.
KESSLER Did the baron have sympathy for the old order, then?
MARIENDORF No, I don’t believe so. He understood how tenuous his situation was in those days.
KESSLER But today, things are different. He was your relative— Kaiser Reinhard wouldn’t have taken his estate from him.
MARIENDORF No, I know that. I don’t think— not that I can know all of this dynasty’s policies before they’ve been written, but I don’t think— Kaiser Reinhard wouldn’t keep those Goldenbaum laws. I can’t imagine that He would.
KESSLER Did you tell him that?
MARIENDORF Tell Heinrich? No— I wouldn’t talk about things like that with anyone. I wouldn’t want to overstep my place and say something on His Majesty’s behalf.
KESSLER I understand. But not telling him that his position was secure might have made him nervous.
MARIENDORF Are you asking if it was loyalty to the old order that made him—
KESSLER Did that have any part in it?
MARIENDORF No, I don’t believe so.
KESSLER Please understand, Fraulein Mariendorf, nothing you say will reflect back on you, if you’re honest with me.
MARIENDORF I appreciate the reassurance.
KESSLER Do you have any idea what his motivations were?
MARIENDORF He was a sick man, and he knew he didn’t have long to live. I think— (A pause.) He never really got to grow up, in the way that other people do. He was always very childish.
KESSLER He was two years older than you?
MARIENDORF I admit I always thought of him as younger than I am. Immature. But I couldn’t blame him for that— he didn’t have life experience. He was always— I think he was jealous of me.
KESSLER And that’s a reason to try to assassinate Kaiser Reinhard, and yourself along with him?
MARIENDORF You’re a soldier, Admiral. How many men do you know who would rather go down in glory than die in their beds?
KESSLER I’m a JAG.
MARIENDORF Well. (A pause.) A soldier first, a lawyer always.
KESSLER A personal motivation can make people do many things, but this is a very extreme one. Ideology is usually what pushes people to assassination. Jealousy pushes people to suicide.
MARIENDORF It was a suicide.
KESSLER Please, Fraulein.
MARIENDORF I’m not trying to be difficult. I don’t know what you want me to say.
KESSLER I don’t want you to say anything unless it’s the truth. All I want is to make sure there will never be a repeat of this incident.
MARIENDORF I understand.
KESSLER So, you believe it was just jealousy? Of your position and power, or of His Majesty?
MARIENDORF I don’t know. What else could it have been?
The winter that Heinrich was seventeen, though he was the Baron Kummel in name, he remained at the school that his father had placed him in as a boy, and would until he was eighteen. It was just four months away, but there was one last winter to cross through.
Hilde and her father went to visit him, the week before the winter solstice. Usually, most of the children were sent home for their winter vacation, two weeks at home before returning to school, but the Mariendorfs would be gone during the holiday, going to spend time on their country estate. This meant that Heinrich would be remaining at school, and this would be their only chance to see him for a while.
The school was a dour, white building, and it sat low and long on the snowy hillside, a two-hour drive from the city. Even though the snow had melted off the roof, indicating that the building was quite warm inside, it gave the impression of being very cold, with its windows all tall and dark. Heinrich’s room was in the western wing of the building, and he paid enough to attend that he had a private room, and a private nursing staff. The less fortunate children were in the eastern wing, in long dormitories. All those who could sit up and move ate their meals together in the cavernous cafeteria, and Hilde didn’t know how the bedbound were fed.
She and her father had been to this school several times, but usually only to take Heinrich away, coming to visit him on his birthday and take him to a restaurant or to go see a play. Or, if Heinrich was desperately, dangerously ill, her father would often go to the school alone. Most of the other times she spent with him were when he visited their house, over the winter holiday or summer vacation. This was the first time that Hilde had been led through the building intentionally, her shoes clicking across the ceramic tiled floor.
One of the matrons in charge of the school gave her and her father a walk-around tour, showing them the medical wing, the dark classrooms lined with desks, the dining hall. Everywhere she led was carefully empty of children, despite this being a busy school. Hilde sometimes heard voices drifting down a hall, or coming out of an ajar door, but it seemed like the utmost effort was being taken to hide the sight of illness from someone like Count Mariendorf. It made the whole building feel like it was inhabited only by ghosts.
When they arrived at Heinrich’s room, it was just as white as the rest of the building. Blank walls and starched white sheets on his bed, and even the furniture, be it wood or metal, was painted the same purifying shade. Heinrich, sitting at his desk, was the same pale as his surroundings. There was little blood in his skin, and his hair was almost translucent, without any pigment to give it color. It picked up the hard blue light of the room. But he smiled when they came in, and stood up to greet them. In those days, he could still walk a little, though he used a walker now instead of just a cane.
“Uncle Franz! Hilde! I’m glad you’re here!” The ring in his voice was childish, but very obviously covering up the disappointment that this was the only visit he would be getting.
“Please, don’t exert yourself,” her father said.
“You shouldn’t have come all this way.”
“Hardly,” her father said. “It’s not that far. And I’m glad we got to see you before we left.”
The three of them sat down on the sitting room style chairs in the corner, Heinrich already exhausted by the effort of just crossing the room.
“You’re going off-planet?” he asked, though he already knew the answer.
“Yes, to visit the estate,” Hilde said. She stuck her sharp elbows into the thin stuffing of the chair. “We’ll be there for a while— a couple months, right?” She looked at her father for confirmation, who nodded.
“That’s a long time.”
“There’s some major infrastructure projects I have in the works there,” her father said. “I wanted to take the time to survey them properly, make sure everything is going well. It’s not something that should be done by half measures.”
“I completely understand,” Heinrich said. “It’s important work. I wouldn’t want to keep you from it.”
“I’d usually go alone on this kind of thing, but I suppose Hilde has been getting old enough to come with me.” He smiled at her.
“You don’t have school?”
“They won’t miss me.”
Her father laughed. “You’d be surprised, they might.”
“They won’t.”
“I’m sure you’ll get more of an education doing things in the real world than you will at school,” Heinrich said. “I wish I—”
“Maybe next time,” Hilde said. “We can go to the Kummel estate next year, maybe.”
“I’d like to.”
“Have you ever been?” Hilde asked.
“No, I’ve never been off planet. My father never took me.”
Hilde recognized that the tone in Heinrich’s voice was one of painful, undisguised jealousy. “It’s not that interesting,” Hilde said. “Space travel is slow and boring, and once you arrive— well, Odin is the best planet to live on.”
Heinrich nodded but said nothing.
“I’m sure the Colonial Affairs office will miss me more than you’ll miss school,” her father said. “But we’ll be stopping in various other country estates along the way, making some polite visits to remind people about their obligations to the crown, making sure that various affairs are in order.”
“Yes,” Hilde said. She straightened her back and smiled. “Of course, it’ll be good to see our estates, and get to know how they run, but seeing the whole country—”
“Are you going to go into colonial affairs when you’re older?” Heinrich asked.
“I don’t know,” Hilde said. “Maybe— I’d like to.” She glanced at her father.
“Who knows what the court will look like in ten years,” her father said. “Though I hope Kaiser Friedrich will live for a good long while yet. For all I know, I could end up out of a job— the next Kaiser might disband the office.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Some rulers hate a bureaucracy,” her father said. “Or they hate the idea of things moving by them that they can’t directly control. Kaiser Friedrich has had a very stable reign— but part of that is due to how much control he relinquishes to the Prime Minister, and everyone in his employ.”
“Is that a good thing?” Heinrich asked.
“It’s neither a good nor a bad thing,” her father said. “Other rulers at other times have had much worse results from having the same policy. It depends on the individuals involved.”
“What an unsatisfying answer,” Hilde said with a laugh. For some reason, in the grim room, all three of them were putting on a strange little show for each other. It did not feel at all like dinners they had at the Mariendorf house, in the bright and cheerful dining room. Every warm word they said here seemed to be swallowed up by the white paint.
“I’m sorry that I can’t satisfy you, my dear.”
“What planets are you going to go see on your grand tour?” Heinrich asked.
Her father listed them. It was very easy to fill up time talking about facts, and even though it was a bit of a dry subject, Heinrich paid close attention to her father’s description of lands and holdings and the workings of the court, and the various little petty tensions that sometimes sprung up between families and planets that had to be dealt with and smoothed over.
Eventually, there was a knock on the door, and her father stood up to answer it. It was one of the doctors, dressed in all white, and Heinrich looked away when he stood in the doorway.
“Count Mariendorf, I’m so glad you were able to come by. When I heard you were here, I ran to catch you before you left,” the doctor said. Hilde didn’t know him by face, but it seemed like her father did, since he shook the man’s hand with a stiff smile.
“We’re not in any hurry to leave,” he said. “I would have found you to talk before we headed out.”
“Excellent, excellent. Do you have time now? I have to do my dinner rounds in a minute, but if you have a second to talk—”
“Of course. If you’ll excuse me for just a minute—” her father said to Heinrich, who nodded mutely.
“I read the letter you sent me the other day— I agree with your thoughts completely,” the doctor said as he and Hilde’s father left the room, letting the door swing shut behind them both.
“What’s that about?” Hilde asked.
“Nothing,” Heinrich said. “Your father is in charge of my medical decisions. I need some surgery.”
“Oh— something serious?”
“No, not really.”
“That’s good,” Hilde said. “I really am sorry that you can’t come with us.”
“It’s fine.”
“I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”
“Sure.”
“Oh, Heinrich, I really am sorry.”
He wrinkled his nose and looked away from her. “How come you’re allowed to leave school?”
“It’s just a girls’ school,” she said dismissively. “My dad knows I’ll learn more with him.”
There was an awkward silence between them, one that was a little unusual.
“Have you been reading anything recently?” Hilde asked.
“Biographies,” Heinrich said. “I’m working my way through the musical canon right now. I just read one on Stravinsky.”
“Was it good?”
“It was alright. I need to ask your father to get me some new things to read— the library here only has childrens’ books.”
“Can’t you order them yourself?”
“I have to ask someone to do it for me.”
“How annoying,” Hilde said. “I’ll send you some before I leave.”
“Thank you.”
“How has school been with you?” Hilde asked.
“Fine.” Heinrich gestured at his bedside table, where there was a short stack of textbooks. “My tutor keeps me occupied.”
“Tutor? You don’t go to the regular classrooms? We just toured them— so I guess I assumed—”
Heinrich almost laughed. “I used to, before my father died. Uncle Franz made sure I got a tutor.”
“Why? Are you too… you can’t stay awake during class?”
Heinrich just shook his head. “It’s better this way.”
“I wouldn’t want you to be lonely,” she said. “I’d be lonely.”
Though even as she said this, she wasn’t sure it was true. Days in her finishing school stretched long and dull. The subject matter— literature, mathematics, history, music, art, elocution, dancing— might have been interesting, but it felt like the classes acted like a pane of colored glass through which knowledge had to filter, and be tinged by as it passed through. A woman learned history to know family sagas and raise children with the knowledge of what they were inheriting; a woman learned to speak well to entertain at parties. None of her peers seemed to notice this, and she couldn’t express it except in a frustrated plea for knowledge for knowledge’s sake. But that wasn’t what she wanted either— she wanted to learn things to be put to good use. What use that was, she didn’t know, and she felt herself reaching for it and falling short.
He looked away from her. “It’s different for me than it is for you.”
“I don’t think it is,” Hilde said. She leaned froward towards him. “Can I tell you something?”
“Of course.”
“This is really awful.”
“What is it?” She had at least gotten his curiosity now, some life coming back into his voice, and he turned to look at her again.
“When I told the school that my dad was going to take me on a tour of the country for a couple months— you know what the headmistress said?”
“What?”
“She said, ‘He’s certainly making the right choice, taking you to look for a husband now. You might need the time.’” She had an accurate impression of the older woman’s voice. “It made me never want to go back there, ever.”
She had thought the anecdote would make Heinrich laugh, but instead he just turned away from her again.
“Is something the matter, Heinrich?” she asked.
“No.”
“You know better than to be a liar,” she said.
“You probably will get married.”
“Not because I’m being shown around like a prize racehorse,” Hilde said. “Don’t be jealous of that. And that’s not why I’m going, anyway. I’m going to learn about how to run the estate.”
“You’re lucky,” Heinrich said.
Hilde looked at him with a pitying gaze. “I know.”
“You’ll leave some kind of mark on the world,” he said.
“There’s lots of people in the world who want to have a legacy,” she pointed out. “Like my father said, who knows what will happen. I don’t—”
“You’ll at least pass on the Mariendorf line. That’s yours forever.”
“That’s not—” She shut her mouth, annoyed.
“And what can I do?” Heinrich asked after a second, plaintive.
“You can do whatever you want,” she said. “My father would help you. And you’ll be done with school in the spring, and you’ll be given your estate’s trust, and you’ll live in the city, and you can— whatever you like.”
“I will be done with this place,” he said.
“Do you like it here?” She looked around at the white room again. It seemed like it was a place built just for Heinrich, to match the pale shadows of his face, but she had never thought much about spending every day of her life in this room, in this school.
“I’ve never lived anywhere else,” Heinrich said, which didn’t answer the question.
KESSLER That’s what I want to find out from you.
MARIENDORF It wasn’t hatred. Heinrich— he genuinely respected Kaiser Reinhard. He idolized everyone I told him about. You could ask Admiral Mecklinger how—
KESSLER I will investigate who I investigate.
MARIENDORF I didn’t mean to imply anything. But Admiral Mecklinger came to visit him, and I think they had a genuine— anyone could see that Heinrich adored getting to meet him. I don’t think— what I mean is that there was no actual animosity between Heinrich and His Majesty.
KESSLER No animosity?
MARIENDORF He was a sick man, Admiral. I think he recognized something about himself in the Kaiser, or at least something he wanted.
KESSLER I’m afraid I don’t understand.
MARIENDORF How can I explain?
KESSLER Take your time.
MARIENDORF People see what they want to see in Kaiser Reinhard. You and I think of Him as someone capable, and a good ruler, someone we can follow. But Heinrich saw Him as someone who was making a mark on the world, whose name would outlast Him. He always was reading about great people, who would be talked about after they were dead. You can understand that— he didn’t have a choice except to think about his own mortality.
KESSLER There’s a logic to it.
MARIENDORF You don’t sound convinced.
KESSLER I’m not here for you to convince me— I’m here to gather facts. We can’t put a dead man on trial.
MARIENDORF He knew that Kaiser Reinhard was a man who came up from nothing, and who would leave a legacy behind. I think Heinrich believed, if he could steal that legacy, especially if he could do it before Kaiser Reinhard could secure the future of the dynasty by having a child—
KESSLER Fleet Admiral Oberstein told me that your father was interested in Kaiser Reinhard’s marriage prospects. (A pause.) Do you have anything to say about that?
MARIENDORF No, I don’t. Who the Kaiser marries is none of my business.
KESSLER That would be a position of significant power.
MARIENDORF And His Majesty is the only one who can decide who to entrust with it.
KESSLER You don’t want it for yourself?
MARIENDORF Admiral— if I was looking to marry His Majesty, the last thing I’d want to do is have a family member try to kill him. It seems a little beyond the scope of this investigation.
KESSLER I have already decided what the scope is. (A pause.) Herr Lang is the one who brought that matter to my attention.
“I hear that the Secretary of State was asking Kaiser Reinhard to pick a wife, earlier,” Mittermeyer said to Hilde as they walked out of Neue Sanssouci. It was late into the evening, and Mittermeyer and Hilde were leaving for the day together, both consummate workaholics headed to their separate houses. It was raining outside, and the tall windows that lined the palace hallways were dripping with water, washing the walls with puddles of shadow.
“And where did you hear that?” Hilde asked.
“The walls have ears.”
“Neue Sanssouci seems particularly prone to gossip,” Hilde intoned dryly. “But yes, he did bring it up.”
“I wouldn’t have, if I were him.”
“Neither would I— it’s not my place.”
“Then why did he?”
“Someone has to,” Hilde said. “I hope we’ll have peace in the galaxy for a while, but if we don’t— everything he’s built is vulnerable, if he doesn’t have an heir.” She paused, then sighed, looking out the windows at the water on the ground. “Everyone knows it, even if it’s only troublemakers in the Alliance who will be willing to talk about it, and act on it.”
“Did you tell your father to bring it up?” Mittermeyer’s voice was curious, rather than accusatory.
“No,” Hilde said.
“I’m glad he did.”
“Really?” Hilde asked. “Why?”
Mittermeyer glanced over at her with a wry smile. “Your father, who had a wife and has a child, is certainly a more qualified person to talk about the subject than Oberstein, or—” He cut himself off.
They walked in silence until they turned the next corner in the hallway and saw that it was empty, leaving enough space for them to talk in relative privacy. “It’s funny,” Hilde said. “Of Kaiser Reinhard, Fleet Admirals Oberstein and Reuenthal, and us— you’re the only one who’s married. You might be the best one to talk to him about his family line.”
She regretted the idle words as soon as she spoke them; a cloud passed over Mittermeyer’s usually warm face. “Like you said, it’s not my place.”
The kind of interpersonal warmth that was required from her, working for Kaiser Reinhard, did not come naturally to her. She liked advising him on factual matters: policy, money, military. It was only very recently, seeing the effort it took for Reinhard to forgive her for acting in her usual calculating way to save his life, that she had realized what her role for him going forward would have to be. There was a sense of loss that accompanied that realization; she hung up her uniform, and knew that she would not put it back on. Here with Mittermeyer, she felt that new responsibility land on her shoulders unexpectedly. She was confronted with something she had been blind to: Mittermeyer wanted a child— not out of duty— and did not have one. It was a thought that was so alien to her that it had been invisible until now.
“Maybe it will be, someday,” Hilde said, trying to be gentle.
Mittermeyer smiled at her, silently accepting the oblique apology for bringing up the subject. “Maybe. Certainly Oberstein won’t be continuing his family line.”
“Why not?” Hilde asked. “He could get married if he wanted to.”
“You don’t think, with his eyes…?” Mittermeyer asked. “Even if he can, I don’t know if he wants to.”
“I don’t know,” Hilde said, feeling faint and vaguely ill, thinking about her cousin. “I hope he— well— I don’t know.”
Mittermeyer was silent for a second. “He’s not someone who wants either of our pity— that, I know for sure.”
“There’s a difference between pity and understanding.”
“I doubt he cares about that, either.”
Talking about Oberstein had taken Mittermeyer’s mind off of her faux pas. “That may be true.” They were almost to the grand foyer of the office wing, where the doors were, and where there were cars out front waiting to take them both home. But Hilde paused before they reached there, and Mittermeyer stopped with her, in a little alcove with some potted ferns whispering against the windows. “Fleet Admiral Reuenthal will probably mock anyone who brings up the subject. Do you think the gossips hiding in Neue Sanssouci’s walls have told him my father asked?”
“He’ll probably hear about it eventually,” Mittermeyer said. “But he’ll laugh about it and let it go, I’m sure. It would be a different story if Kaiser Reinhard was planning to take your father’s advice.”
“Where is he today?” Hilde asked. “I usually see him on my way out.”
“Cavorting with his new mistress, I think. It’s the pleasure of being back on Odin— fresh company,” Mittermeyer said, his nose wrinkling in mild but obvious displeasure. “He’d tell you the same thing if you asked him, so don’t think I’m breaking his confidences. Not that I know anything about the woman. But—”
“The walls have ears.”
“They do.”
The change in subject offered Hilde an opportunity to muse aloud. “It’s not necessarily that His Majesty needs a wife— just a child. Any other Kaiser would take a mistress, if he didn’t want to get married.”
“Are you about to suggest that Reuenthal cajole him into finding one?” Mittermeyer asked with a laugh.
“Gods, no.”
“That would be a sight.”
Hilde’s smile was thin. “No— with his sister, anyone even trying to make him entertain the idea would be walking a dangerous path. And the fleet admiral doesn’t need to invite His Majesty’s displeasure.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“And neither do I,” Hilde said. “Not my place.”
Mittermeyer smiled at her. “He lives a lonely life— if it’s none of our places to offer advice.”
She stared out at the dripping rain. “Not that kind of advice, at least.”
“It’s good he has you, for the advice you can give him,” Mittermeyer said.
Hilde tried to smile. “Don’t try to flatter me, Fleet Admiral— he doesn’t need me.”
They were both silent for a moment. A car’s headlights twinkled through the rain and the glass, giving the impression of fragments and shards of it dancing on the wall. “He needs somebody,” Mittermeyer said. “Maybe a wife.”
It was a problem that no one could solve, least of all the two of them. She made a mental note, a resolution— in a few years, if Reinhard had not found a wife, she would go ask his sister for the names of suitable women. Maybe that was a burden that Annerose didn’t want, but it was one that someone would have to carry, if the dynasty was to survive. Hilde stepped out of the alcove, heading towards the foyer. “Isn’t yours waiting on you for dinner?”
Mittermeyer flushed. “I shouldn’t stay at work so late. But she understands. I hope.”
“I’m sure she does.”
MARIENDORF If Herr Lang heard that my father asked His Majesty about marriage, I hope he’d also know that none of the names on the list my father put together were even anyone I knew. I think half of them were Phezzani. And you’ll have to ask him about the subject. It has nothing to do with me.
KESSLER Alright. (A pause.) Please, continue, Fraulein Mariendorf.
MARIENDORF What other questions do you have?
KESSLER You have presented your cousin as a man operating only with personal motivations. But it would be difficult for him to fill his house with explosives on his own.
MARIENDORF It’s not difficult to acquire zephyr gas. It has plenty of industrial applications— even household ones, in certain types of buildings. It’s used for emergency power generation.
KESSLER But he would need someone to install it.
MARIENDORF He was always very careful to hire servants that he trusted. That’s a very necessary thing when you’re a vulnerable person. He paid very well, and they probably all had some personal loyalty to him. He was a kind man— people who knew him liked him, and trusted him.
KESSLER All his servants that we interviewed were members of the Earth Church.
MARIENDORF That doesn’t surprise me.
KESSLER Why not?
MARIENDORF It would make sense to hire members of his faith to work for him. Trust, as I said. (A pause.) Admiral, I’m not going to make wild speculations about political motivations. I know who my cousin was as a person— I don’t know anything about religion.
KESSLER You were aware he was a member of the Earth Church before all of this?
MARIENDORF Yes. I’ve known for several years. It wasn’t a secret.
KESSLER His parents weren’t religious, were they?
MARIENDORF My uncle? No. I think Heinrich became religious after he took over the Kummel Barony.
KESSLER Is it a popular religion on his lands?
MARIENDORF Not that I’m aware.
KESSLER Do you know how he came to believe in it?
MARIENDORF No. After he turned eighteen, both of us became a lot busier, and I rarely saw him. I was running the Mariendorf estate for my father— I wasn’t on Odin very often. I didn’t come back to Odin permanently until just before the Civil War, and he was already a member of the Earth Church by then.
KESSLER Did he ever talk to you about it?
MARIENDORF Only in passing.
Hilde came to Heinrich’s estate after the ships arrived in the sky above Odin, during the Civil War. The capital city had remained relatively untouched, even as soldiers streamed through the streets, heading to Neue Sanssouci and the private residences of the Litchtenlade family. Ordinary civilians, the Mariendorf family still included in that number, were allowed to pass through the city unmolested.
The sky was strange and muted grey on the day that Hilde came to visit Heinrich, the clouds faintly tinged with yellow, like a thunderstorm was impending. But it was late September, and so thunderstorms would have been unseasonal. Perhaps it was the air pollution brought by all the military vessels descending en masse through the atmosphere, stirring up and agitating the clouds, seeding them with the overheated particles that evaporated off of ships’ skins as they descended through the upper layers of the sky, all titanium alloys and chains of carbon.
Heinrich was in his bedroom, the balcony doors thrown open so that he could look out at the wind and sky from his bed. Audible from miles away, from Neue Sanssouci, announcements sang out of crackling speakers, carrying over the tops of buildings like the rumble of distant thunder. Hilde swept in, her still-dry raincoat draped over her arm. She hadn’t even handed it to the servants to put in the coat closet; she could only stay for a minute.
“I got your message,” Hilde said as she came in. “I know you said it wasn’t urgent, but I thought I should come talk to you now— isn’t this exciting? You know everything that’s happening, right?”
Heinrich was propped up on pillows, and he held out his hand towards the bedside armchair when she came in.
“You’re making your mark on the world,” he said.
“Hardly. This is all Count Lohengramm’s doing.” With a wry smile, she added, “Knowing how to predict the future well enough to save my own family isn’t much.” She sat down in the bedside chair, suddenly feeling exhausted. “And you don’t need to ask— the Kummel Barony is just as secure as the Mariendorf estate.”
“I didn’t think anyone would bother courting the favor of a sick man.”
“That’s why I slipped your name on my list without asking you for any money. You got quite the deal.”
“I’m lucky to know you,” Heinrich said. “You wouldn’t do that for anyone else.”
“No, I wouldn’t.” She looked out the window. “I drive too hard of a bargain, most of the time. Certainly I made every other family I talked to settle for much less favorable terms.”
“It’s a positive quality.”
“Is it?”
“I lack it— so I have to think it’s a good one.”
“Heinrich.” Condescending admonishment. But she sighed and looked out the window. “Did I tell you what my father told me, when I first proposed our alliance with Count Lohengramm?”
“No, I don’t think you mentioned it.”
“He said that I should be using the Mariendorf legacy as a tool for myself, not the other way around.” She laughed a little. “I think he’s given up on me carrying on the family in a meaningful way.”
Heinrich turned his face towards her, though she was still looking out the window. “Is that a bad thing?”
“It’s all been very exciting,” Hilde said, which didn’t answer the question at all. “But what was it that you wanted to talk about— in your letter you said that you wanted me to ask Count Lohengramm for something?”
“It’s not for me,” Heinrich said.
“I can’t be doing favors for every artist who wanders into your house,” Hilde said. “I don’t even think Count Lohengramm likes art.”
“It’s not about that,” Heinrich said. “My bishop would like to speak with him at some point— I was wondering if you could arrange a meeting, when he gets back to Odin.”
“Your bishop? The one from Earth?”
“He’s not from Earth— he’s from Odin.”
“Oh. What does he want?” She paused. “And, more importantly, why is he asking you to get it?”
“He’s not asking me— this is me asking you— I’d just like to make things easier for him.”
“Hmm. What does he want?”
“He’ll want to introduce himself to the new government. That’s all.”
“He can ask for himself,” Hilde said. “I don’t think you need to get yourself involved.”
“I’d like to be involved.”
“Religion, Heinrich?”
“You don’t have to understand it.”
“I really don’t. I think focusing on art will serve you better. If you work on making a good collection, you can donate it to a museum— that will be a real permanent way of shaping Odin’s culture.”
“Maybe.”
They were both silent for a second. “You’ll have to sit me down sometime, when I’m not so busy, and tell me what it is you see in it,” Hilde said. “But for now— do you really believe in what they say, or is this just a political avenue for you?”
“You’d respect me more if I said it was the latter.”
“I’d tell you that I could find a place for you in Count Lohengramm’s new government,” she said.
“I don’t want you to do me a favor like that,” he said.
“No, you just want to use me for something that feels like your own ends.” She laughed. “Heinrich— I don’t mind you trying to manipulate me, but I can see right through you.”
“I really believe in it,” he said.
Hilde bit her lip and gave him a strange smile. “Well, I’d prefer you put your energy towards something real.”
“It is.”
He no longer could walk— and his heart was starting to give out. Beneath his white shirt was a scar that stretched up from bellybutton to clavicle, where his ribs had been peeled apart, to put new valves and machines to keep his blood moving. His days probably did not number even in the ten-thousands, and it wouldn’t have surprised her if they numbered mere hundreds. She couldn’t blame him for wanting, but she didn’t know what to say about it.
Gently, she said again, “You will have to tell me about it, someday.”
“Not today,” he said.
“No. I have to go— there’s some reassurances I have to go give. People in the city are spooked like horses, even when everything is going well. I just wanted to stop in and see you— you were on the way.” She held up her raincoat.
“Good luck.”
“Oh, I can handle it,” she said with a laugh. “I don’t need luck.” She stood, but at the door, she turned back around and looked at him on the bed. “Heinrich— you’d like Count Lohengramm. I’ll see if I can introduce the two of you, sometime.”
“I’d like that.”
KESSLER There were no political motivations?
MARIENDORF Not that I was aware of. He sincerely believed in their religious vision— I think he was just searching for anything that would allow him to feel like his life was stretching out beyond just the reach of his hands. He couldn’t reach very far.
KESSLER Could you tell me any names he mentioned in connection with his religion?
MARIENDORF Just his bishop. Von Meck or Von Marek or something like that.
KESSLER No other people in his social circle who believed in it?
MARIENDORF He didn’t have much of a circle.
KESSLER I would appreciate any names you can give me.
MARIENDORF I’m afraid I don’t have any to give you. (A pause.) May I ask you a question, Admiral?
KESSLER Yes.
MARIENDORF Are you trying to find another culprit, for the sake of exonerating my family?
KESSLER I am here to find out the truth.
MARIENDORF And what will happen if the Earth Church takes the blame? (A pause.) Do people really need a demonstration of the Kaiser’s power? Haven’t we had enough? I think the Alliance already understands what will happen if they oppose Him.
KESSLER If I might give you a word of advice, Fraulein Mariendorf—
MARIENDORF Please.
KESSLER You have received far more grace than anyone else would receive in your position. You have given Him plenty of a demonstration of your power, taking His admirals to Heinessen without Him, and your cousin just tried to kill Him. I don’t suggest opposing His policy.
MARIENDORF I—
KESSLER The Earth Church.
MARIENDORF Maybe it was political for them. I don’t know. (A pause.) What is He going to do?
KESSLER I believe He’ll make a decision in a few days.
MARIENDORF And then—
They buried Heinrich on a windy day, the heavy, dark clouds sweeping across that part of Odin. Earlier that morning, ships had launched from the capital, headed off to Earth. That had been a ceremony, well attended by rows upon rows of black-uniformed men. This burial, on the Mariendorf family property, well away from the stately and proper Imperial graveyards where traitors could not be buried, was attended only by two mourners, and the landscaping crew who had dug the grave. There was no priest, and the stone had only a name and dates.
Neither Hilde nor her father cried when they watched the coffin be lowered into the grave. Heinrich’s body, when they closed the lid, looked smaller than a child’s— he weighed less than eighty pounds. He had seemed larger when he was sitting up in a chair, animated with life. It always was going to end like this, a weightless corpse barely filling the box, but in some other world there would have been mourners.
“Should I thank His Majesty for letting us have his body?” Count Mariendorf asked aloud.
“No,” Hilde said. “I don’t think he’ll want you to mention it.”
Her father nodded and was silent for a long time as the landscaping crew lowered the box down, the ropes crumbling the dirt at the edge of the hole. The body, the grave, even the freedom of the two of them, felt like a small consolation. Heinrich was dead, and would not live again, no matter what his beliefs about it had been. If his frail body was immortalized, it was in the flashbulb light of history and the afterglow of memory, and nothing more. The flesh did not live on.
“The end of the Kummel line,” her father said.
Hilde didn’t say anything for a long time. “He’s good at ending things like that.”
“You can’t blame this on His Majesty.”
“No, I don’t.” She passed her hand over her eyes. “There’s no one who deserves to be blamed for it.”
“I should have stopped it,” her father said. “There were things I could have done, or done differently— years ago.”
Hilde shook her head.
The coffin hit the bottom of the grave, and the workers tossed the ends of the ropes in. There was a small excavator waiting to shovel dirt over the grave, but Count Mariendorf waved the workers away so that he and Hilde could stand at the coffin before they covered it over.
“Heinrich came to your mother’s funeral,” her father said. “Do you remember that?”
“No,” she said. But the difference between imagination and memory was slight, and she could picture the tiny boy, sitting with his cane on his lap because it took too much effort for him to stand, looking across at her, across the distance of the grave.
Her father nodded silently.
“It’s funny,” Hilde said, though her throat was choked up, and there was nothing funny at all about it.
“What is?”
“Kaiser Lohengramm might be the last of his own line, too.”
“He’s good at ending things,” her father said, echoing what she had said earlier. “But that’s another thing to never mention to him again.”
They were alone now, the workers having gone away to smoke under some distant trees. No one could hear anything they said. Hilde leaned on her father’s arm, pressing her head against his shoulder. “And if I’m the last of the Mariendorf line?”
Her father pulled her close, and ran his hand over her hair. “Then it ends, like everything else.”