Chapter 77
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Upon returning to the mansion, Louise paced the room, unable to sit down. Her gaze remained fixed on the window.
Pauline, unable to hold it in, asked.
"Uh, ma'am. I don't really understand................... Is the idea of a reception so terrifying?"
"What?"
Louise repeated, not quite understanding at first.
Pauline repeated hesitantly.
"Well, Madame, you look so worried................... I thought the reception was a mere formality, that my master would simply see the Emperor and receive the title with ease................."
Pauline's voice trailed off, and then she added hastily.
"Oh, no, I'm sorry, I was being presumptuous..................."
Louise sighed heavily. She hadn't taken a breath in a while.
"You're right, Pauline."
She steeled herself to answer her maid.
"It's a formality. His Highness is ascending to his rightful place."
“So?"
Pauline barely managed to look relieved.
"Is it because you're sorry you couldn't come with him to the palace, then? You don't look very well..................."
She stammered, then added as if she had an idea.
"Madame, would you like to take a walk with me instead of doing this indoors?"
Louise nodded slowly.
No matter how things turned out, her time in Burg was running out.
She'd spent half a year in Burg, a place where she'd been a nobody with the enormous duties of a Countess.
She spent all of the cold fall and winter months in this sprawling castle that looked like a princess's dream home. If she had known her stay would be so short, she would have been more diligent in caring for the mansion.
To Louise, Burg was just another name for Caius.
If he failed, her life would be short, and if he succeeded, she would be dragged to him as a final gift and forced to fulfill her remaining usefulness.
It would not change the fact that their wedding vows were an outrageous lie, and parting with him would come anyway.
Louise looked back at Burg slowly, trying to collect her thoughts.
He was a man who, if he succeeded, would rise to the heavens. She must clear her heart so that she dare not love him, even alone.
***
The last day of May, before dawn.
In the Zagreb factory, angry workers walked out.
“They are filling their own stomachs with Galician black money!”
"Dissolve the parliament! Dismiss, dismiss!"
"Our union is loyal only to the imperial family!"
"Parliament, back off, back off, back off!"
It had been half a year since they started protesting.
The first few times they protested, they were beaten by the police. But as their numbers grew and grew and grew, Congress finally took notice.
Imagine their delight when the parliament invited the labor representatives to the imperial palace to meet with them and find a consensus. Some workers naively returned to their workplaces in advance.
However, during the meeting, the representative was charged with the felony of insulting the imperial family and was imprisoned. After returning home after a month, the representative limped off due to the hardships of imprisonment.
After that, the protests became even more heated, and now it was time to see the end.
The factories, which always smoked, were closed. Instead of working with hacksaws and crowbars in the hot steam, the workers took to the streets with torches.
"Hyreth belongs to Heidenberg! Prove the lineage of Prince Leopold!"
"Prove the lineage of the prince!"
"Prove it, prove it!"
Under the ruddy sunset, workers filled the streets and began to march.
The flickering torches made the protesters look like waves of fire, or a fire snake that would devour the empire.
“They are filling their own stomachs with Galician black money!”
"Dissolve! Dissolve, dissolve!"
A drummed-up voice woke the Parma morning.
"Our workers' union is loyal only to the imperial family!"
"Parliament, back off, back off, back off!"
The united fervor met comrades in the alleyways and rose higher with every corner.
Children just out of bed, women with babies in their arms, young men on their way to work, and even old men in gentlemen's hats walked silently into the torchlight.
"Hyreth belongs to Heidenberg!"
Everyone was needy and tired of pretending not to hear the cries of their poor neighbors. They were angry at the hypocrisy of the powerful and the indifference of the leadership.
The factory owners of Galicia, who had treated their workers as if they were no better than chains, had stirred them up, and Emperor Karl, who hid behind the council, had been the last to know.
"Prove the lineage of Prince Leopold!"
"Prove his lineage!"
"Prove it, prove it!"
What had begun as a protest by a few dozen laborers the previous summer had grown into a great mass of earth, a firestorm, marching toward the imperial castle.
For a better tomorrow, for a new owner of the empire.
***
The next day in the imperial palace.
A luxurious ceremonial carriage drawn by four beautiful white horses, with two horsemen bearing the Burg coat of arms, pulled up in front of the main gate.
Soon a young gentleman in a high hat stepped out of the carriage, carrying a squire.
The imperial chamberlain greeted him with a polite bow.
"Your Excellency, Count Burg, I know this is the day of your reception, but I was not expecting you to arrive so soon, even in the midst of the turmoil."
Caius echoed, as if he hadn't noticed.
"What do you mean, chaos? Is there something wrong with the capital? It was calm all the way from Burg."
The servant shook his head quickly, not wanting to make a scratchy mess.
"No, sir, I was just saying that I think it's quite remarkable that you've traveled so far and arrived before your appointed time."
Caius laughed nonchalantly, even though he'd been traveling since the crack of dawn from Trier, his waypoint, to arrive in the morning.
"I was in a hurry, didn’t want the emperor to wait.”
He held the expensive-looking jewelry box in front of his chest and stroked it carefully.
The imperial chamberlain looked from the ornate bronze jewelry box to the wooden chests the Burg’s servants were unloading from the carriages, and smiled.
"Thank you, but His Majesty has other plans for the morning and you will have to wait a bit. I will show you where you will be staying until the time of your first meeting, but I wonder if there is anything else you need?"
"Hmmm, in that case, could I see the priest? I have brought some of the things that belong to my ailing father, and I would like to ask for a blessing."
The kind servant turned red.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but it is the sole prerogative of the imperial family to have a private audience with the imperial priest. Why don't you ask for it when you see His Majesty face to face?"
The bait was baited, just in case there was a slightly easier way. Caius quickly gave up and corrected himself.
"I apologize if this is too much to ask. I'll take your advice and ask when I see His Majesty."
The servant nodded and led the way to the archway. As he ascended the stairs, he spoke softly to Caius, as if to gauge his mood.
"According to the records, I believe this is the Count’s first official visit."
"Not in the capacity of a Count. It's been many years since my father abdicated due to illness, so I've been quite busy."
The servant hesitated for a moment as Caius entered the room, refusing to remove his hat, but he could not afford to be impolite to the man who would become one of only four Margraves in the empire.
They reached the top floor, where the reception room was located.
Caius stopped dead in his tracks in the midst of the throng of servants, nobles, and imperial representatives, then abruptly removed his hat and dropped it at his feet.
"..................Your Excellency?"
The servant turned around, puzzled that Caius hadn't followed, and then froze in a strange sense of disbelief.
The face of the man he had to crane his head to look up at was somehow too familiar.
Caius did not answer the servant. Instead, he looked down the long corridor and raised his voice.
"Hear me, all."
His voice was low, not in the least bit booming, but it rang through the air with enough clarity to draw all eyes to him. Bright morning sunlight streamed through the wide skylight.
Heidenberg's black hair, golden eyes, and familiar features imprinted themselves in the minds of the onlookers.
"I, Caius Albrecht von Heidenberg, son of the late Emperor Wilhelm and rightful heir to this imperial throne."
He opened the jewelry box slowly in breathless silence.
When he finally pulled out the necklace and held it in his hand, the pearl at the end of the string shone like the world's tiniest sun.
"As proof of this heirloom Albrecht’s pearl, passed down through generations of first-borns, I demand proof of lineage now."
His imperial majesty finished the sentence in a leisurely manner. His voice was not loud, but it seemed to echo through the imperial castle.
***
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