III
As one tale ended, a new life was about to begin. After restoring order to the fourteen sabotaged sites around the city, Kessler arrived at the hospital in his sooty uniform to wait outside the delivery room, praying that the child would be delivered safely.
Count von Mariendorf had already been notified and rushed to the hospital. After thanking Kessler for all he had done, the count was ushered into a special room to await the birth of his grandchild.
“Refreshments, Captain?”
Hilda’s dark-haired handmaiden, having noticed Kessler’s arrival, brought him a white porcelain cup filled with coffee.
“Thank you, Fräulein…?”
“My name’s Marika von Feuerbach. Sounds pretty impressive, right?”
She smiled, and it was like blue sky glimpsed through a gap in the clouds.
“What’s your name, Captain?”
“Kessler. Ulrich Kessler.”
Marika frowned slightly. The rediscovery of a memory brought immediate shock, and her mouth and eyes opened in three perfect Os.
“The Ulrich Kessler? Military police commissioner?! So you weren’t a captain after all…”
“I was once.”
“I’m so sorry. I guessed from your age that you’d be about commander rank, and thought it would be more polite to err on the high side, but I just ended up being rude instead. I have the most terrible memory. You’ve visited the kaiserin many times—I really should know your face by now…”
“It’s all right. I didn’t know your face either, Fräulein von Feuerbach.”
Kessler smiled, and Marika responded in kind.
“Thank you, sir. And…please call me Marika.”
As Marika was speaking the final vowel of her name, another sound—a powerful hymn of life—rang out on top of it. As Kessler and Marika watched, the doors to the delivery room swung open and a physician emerged, pulling the surgical mask from his flushed face.
“It’s a boy,” he declared, voice shaking. “A healthy baby boy. Her Majesty the kaiserin is also in perfect health. Long live the empire!”
It was 2250 on May 14, year 3 of the New Imperial Calendar, 801 SE, and the most celebrated infant in all of human society had just been born—the boy who would one day become the second kaiser of the Lohengramm Dynasty. Whether having Reinhard von Lohengramm as father would be a blessing or a curse was not, at this time, something anyone could predict.
✦ ✦ ✦
Hilda’s delivery had not been too painful, but given the shock and alarm that had preceded it, her usually well-ordered reason and memory inevitably succumbed to confusion. Events had proceeded at a dizzying pace, and she was still somewhat dazed as the most important moment in her life passed her by. When she had recovered enough to consider her surroundings, she found herself lying in a bed. She was no longer in the delivery room. This was a lavish bedchamber painted in a unified palette of green tones that soothed the optic nerve. The kaiser had prepared this room for his wife and child more than a hundred days earlier.
Hilda shifted her gaze and saw a face she recognized. It belonged to a ruddy, middle-aged nurse.
“Her Majesty the kaiserin has awakened,” the nurse called, and in response to this another figure entered Hilda’s field of vision. This time it was a beautiful woman with a cloud of golden hair. She had a white bandage on her right hand, and cradled an infant in her arms. For a moment, it seemed to Hilda that she was illuminated from behind by a disc of light.
“Annerose…”
“It’s a healthy baby boy, Kaiserin. Whichever parent he takes after, he’s sure to be a comely and wise child.”
Outside Hilda’s bedchamber, the mood was celebratory. And why not? The kaiserin had delivered her child. What was more, it was a boy—an heir to the throne! Who could resist joy under the circumstances?
“Long live the Prince!
“Long live the Kaiserin!”
Marika hugged Kessler, who was a head taller than her. As the man who was both military police commissioner and planetary defense commander spun the girl’s lithe form in his arms, a cheerful song of celebration began to crackle forth from the hospital’s public address system. Champagne corks were popped. When the girl laid her cheek against Kessler’s face in all the excitement, her faintly rosy complexion came away smudged with soot. She laughed aloud, dropped to her feet, then took Kessler’s hands in her own and began a sprightly dance.
As we may read in chapter 5 of Marshal Kessler: A Critical Biography, published many years later,
In this way, on the night that the second kaiser of the Lohengramm Dynasty was born, the stern and sober commander of planetary defenses danced with a girl more than twenty years his junior without even changing out of his uniform. Incidentally, the girl in question would become Mrs. Ulrich Kessler two years later.
The biographer went on to note that, in outward appearance, Kessler resembled not so much a military man as a talented barrister in the prime of his career.