The Neues Palais still blazed with celebration.
Music poured from its open doors into the lantern-lit gardens, where nobles, officers, diplomats, and foreign guests lingered beneath the warm September sky. Champagne continued to flow, couples turned beneath chandeliers, and laughter drifted upward from the terraces as though the wedding might continue until dawn.
Yet on the third floor, behind the guarded doors of Oskar's private family wing, the palace had fallen silent.
The children had been placed in the care of trusted servants. The public ceremonies were finished, the endless congratulations endured, and the last formal duties of the evening left behind.
In the adjoining bathroom, Oskar bathed alone. While in his bedchamber, his three wives waited for him.
Gundelinde sat at the center of the immense canopied bed, trying not to think about the fact that it seemed large enough to have been constructed for a giant.
Moonlight entered through the tall windows in pale silver columns, mingling with the amber glow of candles burning throughout the chamber. Their light softened the silk wall hangings and carved furniture, caught on discarded slippers, and moved warmly across the bed beneath them.
The room still carried the fragrance of their baths: lavender, rose oil, clean soap, and damp hair. Beneath those gentler scents lingered the unmistakable warmth of freshly washed skin.
Anna sat behind Gundelinde, slowly drawing a silver-backed brush through her hair. Tanya knelt before her with a small mirror and a stick of deep red lipstick, her brilliant blue eyes shining with far too much amusement.
"Keep still," Tanya murmured as she steadied Gundelinde's chin.
Gundelinde obeyed, though the warmth climbing into her cheeks made stillness difficult.
The two women had taken it upon themselves to prepare her. They seemed to understand that beneath the rings, applause, and political significance of the marriage lay something far more intimate.
Tonight, Gundelinde would no longer be merely Bavaria's youngest princess.
She would become Oskar's wife in every sense of the word.
The thought made her stomach tighten.
She had tried not to imagine the details, but imagination had proved disobedient. She knew Oskar's size. Everyone did. She had seen the width of his shoulders beneath his uniform, the strength in his hands, and the effortless way he lifted weights that required several ordinary men.
Tonight those hands would touch her without gloves, ceremony, or distance between them.
Anna and Tanya knew what that meant in a way Gundelinde did not. They knew his habits, his appetites, and the commanding warmth that entered his voice once the public doors were closed. They also knew the patience hidden beneath his strength and the surprising tenderness of hands capable of bending steel.
Their calm should have reassured her. Instead, it made everything feel more real.
They remained close as they worked, surrounding her with warmth. Anna's body rested softly against her back whenever she leaned forward with the brush, while Tanya knelt within arm's reach, the delicate fabric over her chest rising and falling with every breath.
Every sound seemed magnified in the quiet chamber: the whisper of cloth, the slow passage of the brush through Gundelinde's hair, the faint creak of the mattress, and the breath she released before quickly pretending it had not escaped her.
Their nightgowns had been selected from the same collection, though Gundelinde privately believed the word gown was excessively generous.
The pale material was as fine as a bridal veil and almost as transparent. It clung to every curve still warm from bathing, following breasts, waists, hips, thighs, and rounded backsides with scandalous honesty.
Whenever either woman shifted, the candlelight revealed something else the cloth had failed to conceal.
Gundelinde found it increasingly difficult to decide where she was permitted to look.
Tanya was the smallest of them, even slightly shorter than Gundelinde, but there was nothing fragile about her. Her body was compact, fit, and beautifully proportioned, shaped by work, riding, childbirth, and years spent keeping pace with Oskar's restless household.
Her shoulders were narrow and her waist remarkably tight, while her hips curved outward with enough strength and fullness to give her petite figure a sharp, feminine hourglass. Her breasts were high and generous for her size, pressing firmly against the thin material with each breath.
A faint dampness marked the fabric over one nipple, betraying the nursing child she had left in another woman's care for the evening.
Tanya appeared completely unconcerned.
She sat back upon her heels while examining her work, the position stretching the translucent gown tightly over the heart-shaped fullness of her backside. Loose golden hair framed a small, beautiful face that seemed created in equal measure for innocence and wickedness.
Her long lashes darkened bright blue eyes filled with mischief, while her red lips hovered between a playful smile and something far more knowing.
She looked, Gundelinde thought helplessly, like a goddess of desire who had chosen to disguise herself as a petite golden-haired woman.
Then Tanya leaned forward again, and the gown slipped from one pale shoulder.
Before Gundelinde could look away, one breast escaped entirely. It was milky white, full and warm, its small pink nipple already tightened by the cool air of the chamber.
A startled sound left Gundelinde's throat.
Her hands moved before her thoughts did. She caught the fallen fabric and hurriedly pulled it back into place.
Tanya glanced down at herself, then raised her eyes slowly to Gundelinde's face, as a wicked smile curved across her painted lips.
At the same time Anna's quiet laughter warmed Gundelinde's back which made her turn crimson.
Neither woman appeared to share her embarrassment. Tanya, in particular, seemed incapable of understanding why women who were about to share a husband and a bed should pretend modesty before one another.
For her, this was familiar ground. The anticipation in her expression made that perfectly clear.
Anna's beauty was entirely different.
She sat close behind Gundelinde, slightly taller than both of them and fuller everywhere. Thick dark-brown hair fell in damp waves around a finely shaped face, with loose strands resting against cheeks still pink from the bath. Her lips were naturally full, and dark lashes framed large brown eyes filled with patience and affection.
There was something maternal in Anna's expression, something warm enough to make Gundelinde feel protected.
The body beneath her nightgown inspired a very different reaction.
Anna had worked hard for most of her life, and traces of that strength remained beneath her softness—in her back, arms, thighs, and the steady confidence of her movements. Motherhood, however, had deepened every curve she possessed.
Her waist remained defined, but it flowed into broad hips, heavy thighs, and a lush, rounded backside that settled deeply into the mattress. Her breasts were far larger than either Tanya's or Gundelinde's, full with milk and resting with natural weight against the pale cloth stretched over them.
Every slow breath lifted them visibly.
Whenever Anna leaned forward to gather another section of hair, the soft weight of her chest pressed against Gundelinde's back. Through the nearly transparent fabric, the firm points of her sensitive nipples brushed against Gundelinde's skin.
The first time it happened, Gundelinde stiffened. The second time, she attempted to pretend she had not noticed.
Anna noticed both, yet she said nothing. Her hands merely continued their slow, soothing work while a faint smile touched her lips.
Where Tanya was bright, fit, and dangerously mischievous, Anna was warm and profoundly womanly. She did not need to adjust her posture or display herself deliberately. Her body drew attention simply by existing.
To Gundelinde, she resembled some ancient goddess of fertility brought gently to life—soft, abundant, and calm in the certainty of her own beauty.
Between those two women sat Gundelinde.
She was trying desperately not to look as though someone had placed her in the wrong bed.
Her posture remained perfect. Her back was straight, her chin carefully raised, and her shoulders held in the elegant alignment drilled into her since childhood. Every lesson of the Bavarian court remained visible in the way she sat.
Her hands betrayed her completely.
Her fingers twisted together in her lap. She forced them still, only for them to begin again a moment later.
She was delicate rather than voluptuous, small but slightly taller than Tanya. Her face was softly heart-shaped, her skin fair and warm, and her lips had been painted a deep rose-red by Tanya's enthusiastic hand.
Her cornflower-blue eyes trembled whenever Tanya leaned close.
Their hair was similar in colour, though Gundelinde's honey-blonde was warmer and less brilliantly pale, threaded with amber beneath the candlelight. Anna brushed it until it fell in soft waves down her back.
The translucent gown followed Gundelinde's narrow waist before settling over gently rounded hips. Her breasts were smaller than those of the women beside her, soft and naturally shaped, their pink tips faintly visible through the clinging fabric. Her backside was modest but round, lifting neatly beneath the material whenever she shifted.
She looked sweet, graceful, almost painfully untouched.
Yet seated between Tanya and Anna, Gundelinde could not see those things as virtues.
She saw only what she lacked.
Before her knelt Tanya, golden-haired and blue-eyed, her tiny waist, fit thighs, full breasts, and compact curves displayed with shameless confidence. She looked like a goddess of lust wearing the smiling face of a seductress who already knew every secret Gundelinde had yet to discover.
Behind her sat Anna, dark-haired and broad-hipped, her generous chest, soft skin, and maternal abundance making her seem like fertility itself given human form.
Between them, Gundelinde felt almost ordinary. A little princess seated between two experienced goddesses.
Her gaze fell briefly to Tanya's breasts as they swayed before her.
Then, despite herself, her attention shifted to the fuller body pressed warmly against her back.
Finally, Gundelinde lowered her eyes to the modest curves beneath her transparent gown.
Her painted lips parted. She swallowed.
"He… he will not be much longer, will he?"
Her voice barely disturbed the candlelit silence.
Tanya glanced toward her, slow amusement curling across her red lips.
"Oh, he will come," she said lightly. "Oskar simply enjoys making his women wait until they can think of nothing else."
"I am certain he only wishes to present himself properly for the newest member of our family," Anna added. "At this very moment, he is probably standing before the bathroom mirror, deciding upon the most dramatic way to enter."
Gundelinde managed a small smile, but it faded almost immediately.
"I only…" Her gaze dropped once more. "I do not want to disappoint him."
Anna's arms closed around her from behind without hesitation, drawing her back into a warm embrace.
"Do not say that," she murmured. "You could never disappoint him."
The certainty in her voice made Gundelinde look over her shoulder.
"But what if I am not enough?" Her fingers tightened around the nightgown gathered over her knees. "The two of you are so beautiful."
Tanya's expression changed at once. Not into sympathy. Into offended disbelief.
"Oh," she said. "That nonsense."
Before Gundelinde could ask what she meant, Tanya leaned close enough that their lips nearly touched. Her hand rose and settled boldly against the soft curve of Gundelinde's chest through the thin fabric.
Gundelinde gave a startled cry and seized Tanya by the shoulders.
"Tanya!"
Every lesson in royal composure abandoned her at once. Her face flooded crimson as Tanya gave the curve beneath her palm one playful, appraising squeeze, then pressed an affectionate kiss against the side of Gundelinde's neck.
"Perfectly lovely," Tanya declared with mock seriousness. "Soft, warm, and entirely deserving of admiration."
Anna stared at her for one astonished moment before swatting her hand away.
"Tanya, behave yourself."
"What?" Tanya asked, utterly unrepentant. "She was worried. I offered evidence."
"You ambushed her."
"I reassured her."
Anna moved around Gundelinde and reached for Tanya, but Tanya caught both her hands. A moment later the two women toppled sideways onto the bed in a tangle of pale gowns, loose hair, and breathless laughter.
Gundelinde stared at them.
Anna lay beneath Tanya with considerably less outrage than her expression suggested, their bodies pressed close as Tanya pinned both her wrists beside her head. Anna twisted once, more for dignity than escape, which only made their thin gowns slide and tangle around their legs.
"You cannot simply seize another woman's breast whenever the mood takes you," Anna protested.
Tanya raised one golden eyebrow.
"And why not?"
Her smirk widened. Before Anna could answer, Tanya brought one hand down in a sharp slap against the soft swell of her breast.
Anna squeaked.
"Tanya!"
The reprimand dissolved into a breathless moan when Tanya immediately cupped the same breast and squeezed it with slow, shameless possession.
"You yourself have never complained before," Tanya murmured.
"I am complaining now."
"Poorly."
Anna opened her mouth to retort, but Tanya silenced her with a kiss.
It was nothing like the modest kisses Gundelinde had seen exchanged beneath cathedral arches. This was slow, familiar, and thoroughly indecent—the kiss of two women who had long since learned every weakness the other possessed.
Their lips parted. Breaths mingled. Tanya pressed closer, her petite body fitting against Anna's softer curves as though they had practiced the arrangement a hundred times. Anna struggled beneath her for another moment, although the way her back arched and her lips answered Tanya's made the sincerity of that resistance increasingly doubtful.
Gundelindes hand rose instinctively to cover her mouth. She knew she ought to look away, yet she did not.
Anna finally managed to break the kiss, her cheeks flushed and her breathing uneven. Tanya remained above her, wearing the satisfied expression of a cat that had climbed onto a table and found the cream unattended.
"Gundelinde," Anna said, still pinned beneath her, "help me restrain this creature. She has completely lost her senses."
Gundelinde blinked.
"How am I supposed to do that?"
She had never wrestled anyone in her life. She could scarcely raise her voice without first considering whether it was appropriate.
Anna's gaze travelled meaningfully down Tanya's body.
Their struggle had sent Tanya's gown riding high over her hips, leaving the smooth, rounded curve of her bare backside presented rather invitingly to anyone standing behind her.
Anna's lips curved.
"Spank her."
Gundelindes eyes widened.
Tanya glanced back over her shoulder, blue eyes bright with challenge.
"She would never dare."
That decided it.
Gundelinde shifted closer on her knees. Her hand hovered uncertainly above the pale curve Tanya had so carelessly presented.
Then she brought it down. The slap cracked sharply through the room.
Tanya broke away from Anna with a startled gasp. For a heartbeat, all three women went still.
Anna was the first to recover.
"Again."
Gundelinde hesitated only a moment before striking Tanya a second time.
The soft flesh trembled beneath the blow. Tanya squirmed, half laughing and half protesting, while Anna held her securely in place.
Something unexpected began to stir inside Gundelinde, not cruelty, but confidence.
The impossible Tanya—fearless, experienced, shameless Tanya—was suddenly the one caught off guard. Gundelinde, who had spent the evening feeling small and inadequate, had made her gasp with one movement of her hand.
She struck her again, less awkwardly this time.
Tanya twisted around to look at her, golden hair disordered and mischief still blazing in her eyes.
"What is this?" she asked breathlessly. "I thought you had no experience."
Gundelinde's nervousness finally cracked. A laugh escaped her—quiet at first, then warmer when she saw Tanya's expression.
"I am a fast learner."
Anna smiled up at her with unmistakable approval.
For one fleeting moment, Gundelinde no longer felt like an uncertain princess seated with two goddesses. She felt welcomed—accepted not as a political bride or frightened girl, but as their sister.
Tanya tried to pull free.
"Very well," she said, breathless with false dignity. "The lesson has been learned. I yield."
"No, you do not," Anna replied, tightening her grip just enough to keep Tanya where she was. Her gaze shifted to Gundelinde. "Again."
Gundelinde hesitated only for a heartbeat.
Then she looked.
Tanya was flushed, pinned, and far too exposed for her own comfort, the pale fabric rucked high and the heat between her thighs no longer hidden. For one strange, exhilarating instant, Gundelinde felt something new move through her nerves. Something like, power.
Tanya—beautiful, sharp-tongued, adored Tanya—was suddenly not untouchable at all. She was vulnerable, breathless, and reacting.
A small smile touched Gundelindes mouth.
Then she moved. One hand slid to Tanya's hip, holding her steady. The other drifted lower between her legs with far more boldness than anyone, least of all Gundelinde herself, had expected.
The effect was immediate.
Tanya shuddered so hard her whole body jerked. A broken moan escaped her before she could swallow it back, and her back arched clean off the bed, breasts lifting with the motion as every scrap of smug control vanished from her face.
Even Anna blinked.
For perhaps the first time that evening, she looked genuinely scandalized.
"Gundelinde—" she began, though the warning came several seconds too late to mean very much.
Gundelinde snatched her hand back at once, blushing furiously, but the damage had already been done.
Tanya was left panting, golden hair in disarray, lips parted, and her usual wicked composure in ruins.
"Oh," she managed at last, her voice thin and unsteady and nothing at all like Tanya. "Well. That was extremely rude."
Anna stared at her for a beat.
"You deserved rude."
Tanya turned her head and fixed Gundelinde with a look that tried for accusation and landed somewhere much closer to fascination.
"You naughty little princess."
The silence held for half a second longer. Then all three of them dissolved into laughter.
The tension that had been tightening through the room finally cracked beneath the sheer ridiculousness of it—Tanya flushed and undone, Anna still half-shocked, and Gundelinde caught between triumph and embarrassment.
Then the double doors opened.
The sound cracked through the chamber with the finality of a cannon shot.
All three women turned in alarm, suddenly aware of how thoroughly disordered they had become. Their hair hung loose and tangled, their nightgowns were twisted high across their thighs, and the bedclothes lay in complete ruin beneath them.
Anna released Tanya's wrists at once.
Tanya's laughter vanished as she rolled away from Anna and hurried to Gundelindes right side, while Anna shifted to the left. Within seconds, the three of them were kneeling shoulder to shoulder upon the bed, attempting to recover some fragment of elegance despite their flushed faces, uneven breathing, and scandalously dishevelled clothing.
Then Oskar stepped fully into the room.
He wore nothing but a small white towel secured low around his waist.
His head nearly brushed the upper frame of the towering doors as he passed beneath them, each heavy step carrying him farther into the candlelight. The sight waiting upon the bed drew an immediate smirk across his face.
Three beautiful women knelt before him, breathless and untidy, trying unsuccessfully to look innocent.
Oskar swept one hand through his short, pale-blond hair, pushing the damp strands back from his forehead.
Water ran across a face whose severe beauty seemed carved rather than inherited. It followed the brutal line of his jaw, crossed the thick column of his neck, and divided over shoulders broad enough to make the doorway behind him appear narrow.
His body as always was absurd. There was no gentler word for it.
His chest rose like two shields of solid muscle, heavy and deeply cut, supported by arms thick enough to resemble the limbs of some ancient siege engine. Water travelled down the ridges of his stomach, tracing eight hard divisions of muscle that looked less like flesh than slabs of steel fitted together beneath his skin.
His back narrowed into a powerful waist before widening again through hips and thighs built on the same impossible scale. His legs resembled tree trunks—vast, heavily muscled things that seemed capable of carrying him across mountains without fatigue.
Nothing about him had been made in moderation. Not his height. Not his strength. Not the arrogant ease with which he stood nearly naked before three waiting wives.
The towel concealed very little. It drew tightly across his hips, and the formidable outline beneath it left no doubt that the same excessive proportions governing the rest of his body continued there as well.
The women stared.
Gundelinde most of all. For this was the first time she had ever seen him without uniform, greatcoat, medals, or ceremonial distance.
At the altar, Oskar had been imposing. Here, he was overwhelming, intimidating, breathtaking.
The chamber itself seemed to shrink beneath his presence, the immense bed suddenly appearing far less immense than it had moments earlier.
Gundelinde forgot to breathe.
She was an educated woman. She had studied paintings of ancient warriors and examined statues of heroes whose bodies had been exaggerated to embody impossible ideals of masculine strength.
Oskar made those figures appear timid.
Nothing about him looked decorative. Every part of his body seemed designed for use—to lift, strike, endure, conquer, and impose his will upon whatever stood before him.
Even Tanya had fallen silent.
Anna's lips parted as she drew a slow breath. Her gaze descended openly over Oskar's body before returning to his face, and beneath the thin fabric of her gown, her thighs shifted closer together before slowly parting again.
Gundelinde could only stare.
The few nearly naked men she had ever glimpsed—from a great distance beside country lakes—had looked ordinary and vaguely embarrassing. The illustrations in her medical texts had been clean, restrained, and entirely lifeless.
Oskar resembled neither.
He hardly seemed comparable to her brothers or to any other man she had encountered.
His blue eyes travelled across the bed. Over Tanya's golden hair and wicked little smile. Over Anna's abundant curves and carefully composed submission.
Then over Gundelinde, who knelt between them with her hands folded too tightly in her lap and her entire face burning beneath his attention.
The smirk upon Oskar's mouth deepened.
"Well," he said, his voice low enough to seem to pass through the mattress beneath their knees, "I leave you alone for the duration of one bath and return to find an exceptionally sensual bedroom brawl underway."
His gaze moved deliberately over their tangled hair and displaced nightgowns.
"And all without me."
Tanya recovered first.
She straightened with perfect confidence and made no attempt to repair the gown hanging from one shoulder.
"Does my lord intend to stand there complaining," she asked, "or would he care to join us?"
One of Oskar's eyebrows rose. Then he smiled.
"Do not mind if I do."
He reached behind himself and pulled the double doors closed.
They slammed together with a deep report, sending a brief gust of air through the chamber. The candle flames trembled.
Silence fell, and a moment later, so did Oskar's towel, fall. It landed soundlessly upon the carpet.
All three women's gazes dropped.
Tanya bit her lower lip, the last of her mock innocence disappearing.
Anna's composure weakened visibly. Her fingers tightened in the bedclothes while her knees shifted farther apart beneath the thin gown.
Gundelinde looked down before modesty could save her. Her breath left her in a sharp, helpless rush.
Nothing in her careful education had prepared her for the sheer physical reality of him. The impossible scale that governed his shoulders, hands, chest, and strength continued through the rest of his naked body without the slightest apology.
Her eyes widened.
Her face became so hot that she felt certain the candles must appear pale beside it.
Tanya noticed her expression and smiled with open delight.
"Impressive, isn't he?"
"Tanya," Anna warned.
"What?" Tanya asked, still staring shamelessly. "She was going to discover it eventually."
"You will frighten her."
"I believe he has already managed that without my assistance."
Gundelinde tried to speak, yet nothing emerged.
She was not entirely certain how any of this was physically possible, and the thought must have shown plainly upon her face because Oskar's expression became unbearably amused.
He crossed the chamber.
Each deliberate step brought him closer until his shadow reached the edge of the bed and climbed over the three women. They raised their faces to him, expecting him to choose one of them, command them into position, or simply loom until one lost her nerve.
Instead, Oskar climbed onto the mattress.
"Move," he said.
The three women hurried aside.
Oskar settled himself at the centre of the great bed as though taking possession of a throne. He stretched out upon the ruined sheets, one enormous arm resting behind his head, perfectly relaxed beneath the stunned attention of his wives.
"Well?" he asked. "Are we going to continue staring at one another all night?"
None of them answered.
Oskar looked directly at Gundelinde.
"You may take your time," he told her. "Look as long as you need. Become familiar with your husband."
Gundelinde stared at him as though she had been invited to approach one of the seven wonders of the world.
Then Oskar glanced toward the other two.
"Tanya. Anna."
They immediately turned their attention to him.
"Show our little princess that there is nothing to fear."
Tanya's smirk returned.
She lowered herself onto her hands and knees and began crawling down the length of Oskar's body with the slow, wicked grace of a cat approaching something it fully intended to claim. Her golden hair spilled over one shoulder, and the thin fabric of her nightgown drew tight across her breasts, waist, and rounded backside with every deliberate movement.
Her eyes never left him.
By the time she reached his hips, the playful arrogance in her expression had sharpened into open hunger. Her hands settled upon him with almost ceremonial reverence, exploring the formidable proof of his arousal—the part of him she privately called the Crown's sceptre, with the royal jewels resting heavily beneath.
For a moment, Tanya simply admired him.
Then she bent and pressed a slow, lingering kiss against him, lifting her bright blue eyes toward Oskar's face with a devotion made indecent by the wicked curve of her mouth.
Anna approached with far greater refinement.
She gathered the folds of her nightgown beneath her knees and moved toward Oskar's head, dark hair falling in loose waves around her flushed face. Yet the lowered lashes, parted lips, and graceful obedience in her posture left no doubt that she was every bit as eager as Tanya.
She leaned over him and kissed him slowly.
Oskar's arm closed around her at once.
One enormous hand seized the lush curve of her backside, kneading the soft flesh without restraint and pulling her firmly against him. Anna moaned into his mouth, all her practiced composure weakening beneath the authority of his grip.
He drew her closer still.
Her heavy breasts pressed against his chest and face as she bent over him, and Oskar buried himself in their warmth with unapologetic hunger. Anna gasped, then smiled down at him with dazed affection, cradling the back of his head while he enjoyed the full, maternal softness of her body.
His other hand travelled lower.
Anna's breath broke.
Her hips jerked as his touch found the heat between her thighs with the same absolute certainty he brought to every other act of conquest. Her back arched, her lips parting around a helpless cry as pleasure stripped away the final remnants of her restraint.
Tanya glanced toward her and laughed breathlessly.
"So refined," she teased. "So dignified."
Anna tried to answer, but Oskar's hand moved again and the words dissolved into a trembling moan.
Gundelinde remained kneeling between them.
She watched in stunned fascination, her face burning hotter with every passing second. The evening had already travelled far beyond anything her tutors, governesses, or carefully phrased bridal lessons could have prepared her to understand.
Yet fear was no longer the strongest feeling inside her.
Curiosity had begun to overwhelm it.
Tanya noticed.
She turned toward Gundelinde with a slow, wicked smile and beckoned her closer.
"Come here, little princess."
Gundelinde hesitated.
Then she moved.
She knelt beside Tanya, close enough to feel the heat rising from Oskar's body. Tanya guided her gently at first, showing her where to place her hands and how to read the subtle changes in Oskar's breathing.
There was teasing in Tanya's instructions, naturally, but also surprising patience.
"Do not treat him as though he is made of glass," she whispered. "Nothing about that man is fragile."
Oskar released a deep groan as Gundelindes tentative touch grew bolder.
The sound travelled straight through her.
Her eyes widened, and Tanya laughed softly beside her.
"There," she murmured. "You see? He approves."
Gundelinde glanced up.
Oskar watched her with an arrogant, satisfied smile, Anna still gathered against him and Tanya kneeling eagerly at his side.
That look gave Gundelinde courage.
She leaned closer.
Behind them, Anna's composure finally shattered. Her body tensed in Oskar's grasp, a cry escaping her as pleasure swept through her too quickly to contain. She clutched at his shoulders, trembling while he held her firmly through it.
Oskar watched all three women with undisguised satisfaction.
Tanya, shameless and hungry.
Anna, flushed and undone despite all her refinement.
Gundelinde, wide-eyed but learning quickly, her earlier fear transforming into trust beneath his gaze.
His smile never wavered.
This was the first night in which all three belonged beside him as wives, and Oskar intended to remember every moment of it.
The candles continued burning.
Soft laughter gave way to broken breaths, whispered instructions, muffled cries, and the creak of the great bed beneath four bodies tangled together. Silk slipped from shoulders. Golden hair mingled with dark waves across the sheets. Oskar's enormous hands moved from one woman to the next, claiming curves, holding trembling hips, and drawing each of them deeper into the heat of the night.
Tanya's taunts became pleas.
Anna's quiet dignity dissolved into open surrender.
Gundelindes uncertainty slowly gave way beneath the patient guidance of the other women and the unwavering dominance of her husband.
For hours, their voices echoed faintly beyond the closed doors, long after the rest of the palace had settled into silence.
Inside, there was only heat, sweat, laughter, and the possessive strength of Oskar gathering his wives around him as though the entire world had narrowed to the four of them.
Until morning, the world beyond those doors had no claim upon any of them.
Following the wedding and the long, fiery night that completed it, Oskar and his wives departed Berlin almost immediately for their honeymoon.
The journey was not so much an escape as a controlled withdrawal—a pause carved by force from the immense machine Oskar had constructed around himself.
The children accompanied them, naturally.
All of them.
Anna's three older daughters came as well, slipping easily into the roles of patient elder sisters as the family's considerable procession travelled south from Berlin, passed through Bavaria, and entered Switzerland.
The Alps received them in late summer.
They lacked the merciless perfection of winter. There were no blinding white fields or cutting winds, but the gentler season offered another kind of beauty. Green slopes folded endlessly into one another, broken by stone ridges and forests of dark pine. Lakes rested between the mountains like enormous sheets of polished glass, while waterfalls descended from distant heights in pale, shining threads.
The air was cool, thin, and extraordinarily clean. It smelled of pine, wet stone, and cold water.
The children were astonished.
The younger ones spent the first days staring constantly through carriage and automobile windows, mouths open whenever another mountain appeared around a bend. Waterfalls provoked shrieks of delight. Echoes became games. Every goat was treated as a discovery of scientific importance.
The older girls managed the smaller children with practiced patience. They counted heads whenever the family stopped, caught small hands before they reached dangerous ledges, and taught the younger ones the names of lakes and mountains as though geography were another game invented solely for their entertainment.
For two weeks, Switzerland became something nearly unknown in Oskar's life:
A place where the world did not demand an answer from him every hour.
He still worked, because Oskar always worked.
Several discreet meetings had been arranged before his arrival. The first were with senior representatives of the Catholic Church in Switzerland—men old enough to remember earlier crises and experienced enough to recognize a new one when it entered the room.
Bishop Jakob Stammler of Basel met with him first.
Bishop Joseph Deruaz of Lausanne and Geneva followed.
Both men listened carefully. They measured every phrase, watched every expression, and tested Oskar's arguments as cautiously as merchants weighing unfamiliar coins.
To his private irritation, Oskar found himself explaining his household and religious convictions yet again.
He did so without hostility.
He made clear that he remained a Christian, but that his faith leaned heavily toward the Old Testament. He valued covenant, law, order, judgment, and responsibility more than abstract declarations of gentleness. He had no interest in provoking the Catholic Church merely for amusement, nor did he demand that it encourage other men to imitate him.
He asked for only one thing. Acceptance of reality.
Tanya and Anna had already shared his household for years. His children already existed. Gundelinde had entered the marriage knowingly and with her family's blessing. Condemnation would not dissolve the household; it would only turn responsibility into scandal and place innocent children beneath a permanent shadow.
In the end, the bishops gave him what he requested. Not approval, and certainly not endorsement, but acceptance.
His marriage would be regarded as unique—a political, personal, and religious irregularity that could be managed but must never be treated as a general model. It established no universal precedent and granted no automatic permission to anyone else.
The bishops never openly admitted that Oskar's physical presence influenced their caution.
Nor did they mention the children.
But Oskar saw the uncertainty in their eyes whenever the eight platinum blonde, nearly silver-haired, violet-eyed children crossed the estate grounds.
They were living proof that the man before them was not ordinary, and neither was his bloodline.
The old clergymen did not understand what they were seeing, and they possessed no desire to challenge it unnecessarily.
Once the religious discussions concluded, politics took their place.
Oskar met with the President and Vice-President of the Swiss Confederation. Both appeared genuinely pleased that he had agreed to receive them.
Switzerland survived through banking, specialised manufacturing, commerce, and careful neutrality. It competed rather than conquered. Yet the enormous rise of the Oskar Industrial Group had begun cutting deeply into Swiss exports to Germany.
German factories now produced goods that once would have been imported. German precision machinery was improving. German chemicals, tools, instruments, and household products were becoming cheaper and more plentiful.
The Swiss wanted reassurance.
They wanted investment, access, and some guarantee that Oskar did not intend to smother their industries beneath German production.
What he gave them was something adjacent to what they requested.
Oskar had no interest in transforming Switzerland into another immense industrial engine. Attempting to compete with the Ruhr, Berlin, or the expanding Imperial Weapons Works would force the Swiss into a contest they were unlikely to win.
Industry at that scale was not Switzerland's natural strength. Its mountains were.
Thus Oskar spoke instead about tourism.
He described improved railway access through the Alps, clean and reliable stations, modern hotels, protected lakes, mountain resorts, health retreats, climbing routes, and winter recreation. Germany's middle class was growing rapidly, and those people would increasingly possess both money and leisure.
They would want somewhere to spend them.
Switzerland could offer Germans something that industrial cities could not: silence, clean air, mountains, and the comforting illusion of a landscape untouched by modern life.
Germany, Oskar promised, would come to Switzerland.
German tourists would fill Swiss hotels, dine in Swiss restaurants, purchase Swiss watches, hire Swiss guides, and travel upon Swiss railways.
In return, Switzerland would remain recognisably itself.
The proposal satisfied the Swiss leaders more than another factory agreement would have. It promised prosperity without requiring their country to surrender its character.
With business completed, Oskar returned to doing remarkably little.
For him, doing little meant swimming in glacial lakes, climbing mountain paths with his children, rowing across still water, and standing upon high ridges without immediately calculating their military or economic value.
The family stayed at a private mountain estate large enough to protect them from crowds but modest enough to feel genuine. It possessed broad balconies, warm wooden rooms, and windows looking toward snow-touched peaks.
The days moved slowly, and the nights were quiet.
Oskar's wives spent much of the first week pleasantly exhausted. Tanya complained theatrically about being expected to walk uphill after the wedding night and the evenings that followed it. Anna laughed at her while moving almost as cautiously herself.
Gundelinde blushed whenever the subject arose. She had also began smiling far more often.
The fearful young woman who had waited between Tanya and Anna in Berlin slowly relaxed beneath their protection. She learned the habits of the household, discovered that Oskar's intensity did not consume every hour of the day, and became particularly devoted to the care of the children.
Oskar made no attempt to hide while in Switzerland.
He swam openly in the lakes, broad shoulders and bare chest rising from water cold enough to drive most men back to shore within seconds. He climbed openly, sometimes with children hanging from his arms or shoulders. He laughed in public and permitted photographers nearer than his guards preferred.
Switzerland noticed.
Newspapers printed photographs of the enormous German prince standing waist-deep in alpine water with three beautiful women nearby. Other images showed him upon a ridge, his wives and children gathered below.
One particularly popular photograph captured Oskar lifting a protesting sheep against his chest as though it weighed nothing. He grinned toward the camera while the children cheered and the animal appeared deeply offended by imperial attention.
The photographs travelled quickly.
They presented a different Oskar from the Iron prince appearing in military reports and political cartoons. Here was a husband, father, swimmer, climber, and absurdly powerful man enjoying himself among his family.
Public opinion softened.
Even those who found the marriage strange struggled to treat the household as monstrous when confronted with images of laughing children, three visibly content wives, and a prince carrying toddlers, luggage, and occasionally livestock with equal ease.
People reached a simple conclusion.
A man such as Oskar could never have been ordinary. Perhaps it had been foolish to expect his household to be ordinary either. And perhaps one ordinary woman truly would not have been enough.
Two weeks later, the family returned to Potsdam.
Oskar did not leave Switzerland because he wished to. He left because the wider world had begun demanding him again.
Reports from the Ottoman Empire had accumulated during the honeymoon. Kurdish unrest was spreading. The Zaranjīq rebellion and the Hauran Druze uprising had become small but persistent fires. Individually, none threatened to overturn the Empire.
Together, they revealed strain.
The international situation was tightening once more, with each disturbance pulling upon threads connected to something larger.
The navy was also waiting, along with Tirpitz.
Oskar knew that the great Balkan conflict should still be several years away, provided history continued along the path he remembered.
Yet history had already demonstrated that it did not always behave.
His presence had altered decisions, accelerated industries, displaced people, and changed the calculations of governments from Berlin to Constantinople. Every reform sent ripples outward, and there was no guarantee that the future would continue respecting the dates he had once known.
The A-class Muscle Motors automobile passed through the palace gates and rolled along the familiar drive.
As Potsdam closed around him again, Oskar felt the old weight settle across his shoulders.
Switzerland's lakes and mountains receded into memory. The quiet mornings, private laughter, and evenings behind locked doors belonged to a pause that had already ended.
The honeymoon was over, and the future was knocking.