II
Stechpalme Schloß was a temporary imperial palace. Its name came from the holly trees planted on either side of the gate; a holly design was also carved above the front entrance. The Ministry of the Palace Interior had suggested altering this design to the Goldenlöwe, but Reinhard had let the matter go unaddressed, reasoning that it was only a temporary residence. Annerose had explained all this to Hilda with a laugh. “If you tell him you plan to renovate the house,” she added, “he’ll surely tell you not to waste your time on such things. But if you perform the renovations first and then tell him afterward, he’ll simply say ‘I see,’ and that will be the end of it. Reinhard has no interest in events below the light-year scale.”
In any case, as far as the Ministry of the Palace Interior was concerned, the building required at least some maintenance both inside and out. Work on the sprawling gardens was not yet complete.
On May 14, Stechpalme Schloß had a guest. Annerose was there to visit her sister-in-law.
Annerose herself had never experienced pregnancy and childbirth, but she had helped other women deliver their children several times, both before and after entering Friedrich IV’s inner palace. She had, therefore, assisted women of widely differing social rank, though all had been of basically the same physical and mental constitution. Hilda was disappointed that Reinhard would be absent for the birth, but her relief that Annerose would be present was stronger. Even if Reinhard had been by her side, he wouldn’t have been any use. It was precisely because his genius was a world apart from this universe that none could follow where it led.
Hilda half sat, half lay on the sofa in the second-floor library, with multiple cushions supporting her back. Annerose was just brewing her a cup of cream coffee when they heard a terrible commotion and overlapping cries from downstairs.
“What that can be?”
The two women looked at each other. Hilda, at least, should have been used to the fires of war. But space combat, excluding operations conducted within an enemy ship’s hull, occurs entirely without sound. As a result, Hilda’s instincts with respect to sound were not as honed as those with respect to light. Of course, being eight months pregnant, her agility was limited in any case.
The walnut door burst open. The disrespect of the act was unthinkable. Flung into the wall’s unwanted embrace, the door groaned its displeasure, even as a man appeared standing in the doorway.
He had a fanatic’s eyes; that much anyone could tell. The eyes through which he viewed reality were shrouded by a membrane of delusion. He held a blaster in one hand and was wearing a military uniform in the wrong size. The uniform was spattered with human blood, and the spots moved like red insects with every ragged breath he took.
Annerose rose silently to her feet, stepped between the man and her sister-in-law, and calmly spread her arms, permitting him no clear shot at Hilda.
“Take your leave at once,” she said. “You intrude upon the kaiserin of the Galactic Empire.”
It was a rather quiet voice for a rebuke, but not for nothing was this pristine, beautiful woman older sister to the galaxy’s conqueror. Hilda felt the truth of this in every centimeter of her body. The fanatic flinched, his eyes showing intimidation.
But only for a moment. In the next instant, the man opened his mouth wide and unleashed a most unmelodious cry as his finger curled around the trigger of his gun.
Just then, a bloodied military policeman appeared in the doorway.
A scream rang out.
Beams of light crisscrossed through the room, and one pierced the underside of the intruder’s jaw, going through his skull. Spinning about and spraying blood, he collapsed onto the floor. The military policeman came running forward, asking if Hilda and Annerose were all right, but then suddenly a beam of light bored through the side of his head too.
Annerose’s sense of smell was choked with the stink of blood. She covered the body of her very pregnant sister-in-law with her own. As she whispered words of encouragement, she noticed her vision becoming clouded. The intruders must have set a fire. It was later determined that the fanatics had meant to symbolically burn the kaiser’s wife and child at the stake—a pyre to purify their sins.