After his arrival in London, Oskar was conveyed directly to Buckingham Palace, where a private suite had been prepared for him with the quiet precision Britain reserved for honoured rivals. Nothing was excessive, yet nothing had been neglected. The rooms were spacious, the curtains heavy, and the furniture dignified rather than inviting.
Several pieces, however, had plainly been altered for him.
The bed was broader and reinforced beneath the frame. The chairs and sofas had been strengthened until they resembled elegant pieces of bridgework, a silent acknowledgement that the German Acting Crown Prince did not fit comfortably within ordinary human proportions.
More curious was the privacy.
No British guards stood immediately outside his rooms, and the corridor remained strangely empty. Apart from foreign guests occupying distant suites, Oskar appeared to have been left alone with three personal maids who could be summoned at any hour.
He distrusted the arrangement immediately.
The first maid was a mature, full-figured blonde with a soft voice and a dignified but cheerful manner. She spoke for the others, smiling often and displaying the calm confidence of a woman accustomed to managing noble households. Her generous bosom strained the respectable lines of her uniform, making her difficult to overlook even when she attempted to fade politely into the background.
The second was a tall red-haired woman wearing spectacles. She was composed, restrained and thoroughly professional, answering only when necessary. Her expression revealed little, but her intelligent eyes moved constantly, recording far more than her silence suggested.
The third was younger and considerably smaller than the others—a petite blonde with a generous figure, sharp features and an unmistakably hostile edge beneath her obedience. She curtseyed correctly and followed every instruction, yet Oskar could feel her dislike almost at once. Whether it was directed at him personally, at Germany, or merely at the task she had been given remained unclear.
All three were beautiful.
All three were notably well endowed.
A warm, maternal blonde, a striking redhead and a small, fierce young woman with pale hair—it seemed far too carefully arranged to be coincidence. Someone had either studied Oskar's preferences or assembled what they imagined would distract a young prince known throughout Europe for his appetite.
The temptation was real.
So was the trap.
Oskar's largest travelling chest had been carried into the dressing room. It contained spare uniforms, evening clothes, boots, shoes and personal necessities, but remained nearly half empty. While the women unpacked, Oskar watched them whenever they believed his attention had wandered.
They examined everything.
Not openly enough to constitute searching, but too carefully for mere household service. Sleeves were checked before being folded. Boots were lifted and weighed in the hand. Empty compartments received unnecessary attention. The redhead glanced over labels and maker's marks, while the younger blonde studied the interior of the chest as though expecting to discover hidden papers beneath the lining.
They were not master spies.
They were servants who had been asked to observe.
Oskar decided to make their first report memorable.
The maids brought food and drink, arranged his clothes for the evening and began preparing a bath in the adjoining room. Steam soon filled the tiled chamber while soaps, razors, brushes and folded towels were placed around the copper tub with ceremonial care.
Oskar followed them inside and watched for a moment as they worked.
Then, with a streak of childish mischief he made no effort to resist, he began undressing in front of them.
They attempted to preserve their routine.
His coat, waistcoat and shirt came away first, exposing a body more often described in newspapers than seen at close range. He stood more than two metres tall, with immense shoulders, a heavy neck and a chest broad enough to resemble armour even before the muscle beneath it tightened. His arms were thicker than the waists of some women, while his abdomen, back and thighs carried the dense weight of a man trained for violence rather than appearance.
The three maids had undoubtedly expected him to be large.
They had not expected the reality.
One of them hurriedly offered him a towel when he removed the remainder of his clothing.
Oskar declined it.
He stood before them completely naked and entirely unashamed, allowing the full physical scale of him to settle over the room. Nothing was concealed—not the powerful breadth of his body, nor the immense male endowment hanging heavily between his thighs, its length and thickness comparable to a woman's forearm even in repose.
The mature blonde's cheerful dignity faltered first. Her lips parted, and for a moment she looked dangerously close to fainting.
The redhead became scarlet from the neckline upward. Her spectacles did nothing to hide where her eyes had gone before discipline forced them away.
The younger blonde tried to meet the sight with contempt.
She failed.
Her jaw tightened, her cheeks coloured and her gaze repeatedly returned despite every visible effort to control it.
Oskar behaved as though nothing unusual had occurred.
Rather than entering the bath immediately, he lowered himself onto a small bathing stool and sat with his legs comfortably apart, presenting the maids with the choice between abandoning their duties or continuing under conditions that stripped away every layer of their prepared composure.
They continued.
His body was scrubbed and washed in stages, requiring more time and effort than attending to an ordinary man. Sponges disappeared against the width of his chest and back. The mature blonde worked across his shoulders with both hands, her soft voice growing increasingly uncertain whenever he answered her in the deep, husky tone that seemed to resonate through the tiled room.
The redhead maintained the greatest professionalism, though she remained red as an apple throughout. She cleaned his hair and upper body with measured movements, refusing to look downward except when necessity forced her to do so.
The intimate shaving was left to the smallest maid.
She accepted the razor with the expression of someone preparing for battle.
Her hostility survived for perhaps half a minute.
Working between Oskar's spread thighs required proximity no amount of training had prepared her for. She tried to remain brisk and impersonal, yet her hand slowed whenever she had to move him aside or stretch the skin beneath the blade. Her breathing grew shallower. She repeatedly bit her lower lip, and the tension in her legs became impossible to miss.
At one point she pressed her knees together and shifted where she knelt, rubbing her thighs as though attempting to suppress a physical reaction through sheer stubbornness.
Oskar noticed.
He pretended not to.
That was part of the game.
He offered no indecent command and made no direct advance. He merely remained unapologetically naked, calm and faintly amused while the three women struggled beneath the sheer physical fact of him.
By the time he finally entered the bath, their professional routine had been shattered. They continued washing him, but curiosity had replaced observation, and embarrassment had replaced whatever confidence their unseen superiors had expected them to possess.
Afterward, Oskar emerged dripping and again refused immediate cover.
He seated himself naked in the specially reinforced chair while they dried him, combed his pale hair and massaged the strain from his shoulders, arms and legs. Their hands moved over him with increasing wonder. What had begun as service acquired something almost reverent, as though they were touching a living monument rather than a young prince.
Even the hostile blonde had lost most of her edge.
The mature maid worked in a daze. The redhead remained flushed behind her spectacles. The youngest touched him with fierce concentration, apparently determined to prove that her trembling fingers meant nothing.
Oskar allowed the attention to continue until he had eaten, rested and recovered from the journey.
Then, still entirely naked in the oversized chair, he thanked them for their excellent service and dismissed them.
All three curtsied with what remained of their dignity and withdrew.
The doors closed.
For several seconds there was silence.
Then muffled voices erupted in the corridor.
The words were indistinct, but their meaning was obvious enough: startled breaths, scandalized whispers and repeated expressions of disbelief. One maid appeared to demand whether the others had truly seen what she had seen. Another attempted to quiet her. The youngest answered in a fierce whisper that carried far more agitation than anger.
Oskar leaned back in the reinforced chair and smiled.
Whoever had instructed the women to observe him would receive a report—assuming they could bring themselves to repeat everything they had witnessed.
Britain's first small test had been simple: isolate the young German prince, surround him with beautiful attendants and see what he revealed.
Oskar had answered by revealing nearly everything except the information they actually wanted.
As victories went, it was childish, ridiculous and deeply satisfying.
Before dinner, the German ambassador met privately with Oskar to review the questions already circulating through London.
British officials wanted to know why Kaiser Wilhelm had not attended the funeral personally, what authority Oskar carried in his absence, and how long the German delegation intended to remain. They also discussed practical arrangements for the men aboard Nassau: food, shore access, communication with the embassy and accommodation for officers. Oskar's Eternal Guard would remain near the port under British supervision, officially for public safety, though Oskar regarded the arrangement as polite containment.
The official explanation for the Kaiser's absence was urgent domestic business.
That was true, but incomplete.
Wilhelm had remained in Berlin because the Church of the New Dawn was undergoing reforms too large to be left entirely to ministers. The Church was becoming a major institution within German life, combining religion, education, medicine, welfare and family organization beneath one hierarchy.
Each church would function as both a place of worship and the household of its presiding priest. Within it, he would exercise broad authority over subordinate clergy, sisters, schools, charity and discipline, while answering to the wider Church leadership.
Young Arnold remained the formal administrative head, occupying a position similar to a supreme patriarch. Yet everyone understood that Oskar stood above him as founder, protector and living source of the faith. Arnold governed the organization; Oskar gave it meaning.
The New Dawn rejected clerical celibacy. Priests and sisters were expected to marry, form large households and produce many children as examples of fertility, order and family duty. A senior priest might have several wives among the sisters attached to his church, while subordinate priests could establish households of their own.
The churches were therefore intended to become living communities rather than empty ceremonial buildings—filled with clergy, wives, children, students, patients and dependants.
They would contain religious schools for the children of clergy and for outsiders accepted into the faith. Confessionals would also serve as places of counsel, where trained priests or sisters listened to grief, fear, addiction and family troubles before offering practical and spiritual guidance.
Larger churches would maintain infirmaries where patients could recover beneath the care of nursing sisters, medically trained priests and, where possible, qualified physicians. Prayer, music and ceremony would support treatment rather than replace it.
The Church would also distribute food and clothing, shelter the homeless, assist widows and orphans and guide the poor toward work or education. Most services would be free to members of the faith, supported through donations, a fixed religious contribution from believers and funding from the Oskar Industrial Group.
Its priests were not intended to be soft or helpless. They would remain physically trained and capable of defending their churches, families and congregations when necessary.
All of this required legislation.
Marriage law, inheritance, clerical authority, religious taxation, medical qualifications, property ownership and school recognition had to be settled. The government also had to decide how much power each priest would possess within his own church and how the New Dawn hierarchy would fit beneath the Kaiser's authority.
Germany's wider school system was being reformed along similar lines. Education would become more disciplined, national and openly religious, with clear expectations for boys and girls.
Boys would be prepared for work, military service, leadership, fatherhood and protection. Girls would be prepared for motherhood, household management, nursing, teaching and the raising of children. Both would study history, health, physical training, practical sciences and loyalty to God and Fatherland.
Uniforms, exercise and religious instruction were meant to strengthen collective identity and produce educated citizens who understood both their rights and their expected duties.
The Kaiser's presence in Berlin was therefore genuinely necessary.
Whether Britain believed the explanation was another matter.
Many British officials suspected that Wilhelm had stayed away because of the naval rivalry or resentment toward the British court. Others interpreted Oskar's attendance as a deliberate choice to present Germany through its younger, more popular and more unpredictable prince.
British opinion of him remained divided.
Some believed Oskar might be the only German capable of preventing war. Others considered him the man making Germany powerful enough to fight one. Parliament did not understand his Church, the military distrusted his secret industries, and the newspapers remained fascinated by his wives, children, wealth and growing influence.
Britain could measure ships, guns and trade.
It had greater difficulty measuring a prince who joined religion, welfare, education, industry and family policy into a single movement centred upon himself.
The ambassador departed after confirming the arrangements for the evening and sending fresh instructions to the German officers waiting aboard Nassau.
By then, darkness had settled over London.
Oskar finished dressing and left his rooms for the formal gathering below. Britain had received an explanation for the Kaiser's absence.
Whether anyone found it reassuring was doubtful.
That night, Prince George—king in fact, though the full ceremonies of accession and coronation still lay ahead—hosted a formal dinner for the royal and foreign guests who had travelled from across the world to mourn his father.
Buckingham Palace filled steadily as the last light disappeared from the windows.
Senior officers, ministers, peers, diplomats and society figures mingled beneath the chandeliers. Kings, princes, archdukes and foreign representatives passed through the same rooms, surrounded by medals, orders, mourning bands and carefully restrained grief.
The gathering was not a celebration.
It was a display.
Mourning dressed in silk and silver.
Etiquette worn like armour.
Even the candles seemed disciplined, their flames burning steadily as though they, too, had been instructed not to tremble.
Prince George remained for only a short while. Preparations for his father's funeral and the opening of his own reign consumed nearly every available hour. After perhaps half an hour, he withdrew with measured courtesy alongside several senior officials, Winston Churchill among them, leaving his eldest son nominally in his place.
Prince Edward was fifteen and plainly overwhelmed by the roomful of crowned heads, generals and statesmen.
To his considerable relief, however, the attention of the evening did not settle upon him.
It settled upon Oskar.
The German prince stood above nearly everyone present in the most literal sense.
Among Britain's tailored restraint, he appeared almost indecently physical—a pillar of living mass inside a palace built for elegant, human-sized rulers. His dark formal uniform stretched across shoulders broad enough to make decorated generals look narrow beside him. The high collar enclosed a neck thick with muscle, while gold insignia and a restrained line of decorations crossed a chest too large for ornament to diminish.
Other men disappeared beneath rank, ribbons and ceremony.
Oskar stood among them like a lion among carefully groomed sheep.
Whispers followed wherever he moved.
So did perfume.
The women came one after another.
The first to reach him, unexpectedly, was Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark—Alice of Battenberg.
Oskar had intended to greet the senior Greek delegation in the proper order. The Greek royal family was generally friendly toward Germany and connected by blood to half the dynasties in the room.
Alice gave him no opportunity.
She crossed the ballroom briskly, gathering her skirts just enough to keep them clear of passing shoes. At twenty-five, she was only four years older than Oskar and already the mother of two daughters.
She was striking.
Her dark-brown hair had been arranged high in the evening fashion, its controlled waves softening a strong and beautiful face. Blue-grey eyes lifted toward him beneath dark lashes, while the effort of moving through the crowded room had brought a warm flush to her cheeks.
Then Oskar's attention descended.
Her gown was elegant, expensive and cut low enough to display the most effective weapon polite society permitted women to carry openly.
Cleavage.
Alice possessed a generous bust, lifted and shaped by the structure of her bodice until modesty became largely theoretical. Resting upon the pale skin between those soft curves hung a small golden cross.
From a distance, it might have passed for an ordinary Christian pendant.
It was not.
At the point where the beams met, a tiny radiant heart caught the light—a spark enclosed within the cross, unmistakable to anyone who knew the symbol.
The Cross of the New Dawn.
Oskar stared longer than he intended, first at the pendant and then, despite himself, at the breasts framing it. They moved gently with her breathing and the final steps of her approach.
Alice noticed.
Far from taking offence, she smiled with quiet triumph.
"Your Imperial Highness," she said, extending one gloved hand, "since I appear to have secured your attention already, I believe the first dance should be mine."
It was not truly a request.
Oskar took her small hand while forcing his composure back into place.
"With pleasure, Your Royal Highness."
She led him toward the floor before anyone else could intervene.
The difference in their size drew attention immediately. Alice was not a small woman, yet beside Oskar she appeared almost delicately proportioned. The crown of her head reached only to his upper chest, and even with her hair dressed high she had to tilt her face sharply upward to meet his eyes.
They joined the dance.
Oskar shortened his stride instinctively. One hand enclosed hers; the other settled around her tightly corseted waist. His palm covered so much of her back that several observers stared openly.
Alice proved an accomplished dancer.
More importantly, she proved easy to speak with.
Her interest in Oskar was genuine, but it was not limited to his reputation or appearance. She had followed his medical work, read his books and studied the development of the New Dawn with far greater seriousness than he expected.
The pendant at her breast was no decoration.
Alice had begun embracing the faith in secret.
She did not yet speak of Oskar openly as its living saint or chosen figure, but the reverence was present in the way she watched him. She admired him not merely as a prince, but as the source of something she believed might transform the world.
"I have read your first-aid books," she told him as they turned. "Every volume."
"That may place you among the most medically educated princesses in Europe."
"I am serious."
"So am I."
Her expression softened.
She spoke of her interest in nursing and her hope of establishing a religious order devoted to practical medical service. She wanted women trained not merely to offer comfort at sickbeds, but to understand sanitation, fever, wounds, childbirth and organized hospital care.
Service, in her opinion, should possess discipline.
It should not remain a decorative occupation for aristocratic women seeking the appearance of virtue.
She wondered whether an order of New Dawn healers—priests, sisters and nurses—might eventually be established in Greece.
Oskar explained the broad purpose of the Church's medical programme: nursing sisters, medically trained clergy, infirmaries, shelters and places of counsel built directly into the churches.
Religion, he told her, had to do more than promise comfort in another world. It had to work in this one. Prayer mattered, but so did clean bandages, warm beds, trained hands and food placed before the hungry.
Faith that never touched suffering was little more than speech.
Alice's eyes brightened.
"You would truly place medical wards inside churches?"
"Why not?"
"Because churches are houses of worship."
"People worship more sincerely after someone has stopped them bleeding to death."
She laughed.
The sound was warm and unrestrained.
Oskar found himself liking her.
She did not speak to him as though he were an unexploded shell requiring delicate handling. Nor did she flatter him with the empty enthusiasm of someone repeating newspaper articles. She asked direct questions, listened closely and answered with thoughts of her own.
They continued turning through the ballroom, Oskar guiding her smoothly despite their difference in size.
Her cheeks grew increasingly pink.
At the height of one turn, Oskar tightened his arm around her waist and lifted.
Alice squeaked in delighted surprise as both feet left the floor.
For one improbable moment, the Greek princess seemed to fly. Her skirt swept outward in a circle of silk and lace while Oskar turned with her held effortlessly above the polished floor.
The surrounding dancers faltered.
Several stopped entirely.
Across the room, conversations broke off as guests stared, half convinced that Oskar was about to send a royal princess sailing into the orchestra.
Instead, he completed the turn and lowered her gently back onto her feet.
Alice landed neatly, then dissolved into helpless laughter, clutching his chest and upper arm for support.
"You cannot simply do that," she protested between breaths.
"I just did."
"You might have warned me."
"Then you might have been afraid."
"I was not afraid."
"Good."
She was still laughing when he escorted her from the floor.
Men watched with calculation, amusement and envy.
Prince Andrew of Greece watched most carefully of all.
His gaze lingered upon Oskar's hand at his wife's waist and upon the ease with which Alice leaned against him while recovering her breath. For a moment, his expression tightened.
Then another woman arrived and drew Oskar away.
Princess Alexandra had gathered enough courage to claim the next dance. Young, unmarried and visibly shy, she said little after the formal introduction. She moved through the steps correctly, but seemed overwhelmed by the man before her, repeatedly losing herself in his eyes before remembering to look away.
Oskar knew little about her beyond her name, rank and unmarried status. Her willingness to approach a man with three recognized wives was interesting, though hardly unique in that room.
Her intervention also appeared to reassure Prince Andrew that Alice had not received entirely exceptional treatment.
From the edge of the ballroom, Oskar heard someone among the Russian delegation murmur in Russian:
"If I were that large, I would conquer the world."
Oskar pretended not to understand.
Most of the men were thinking some variation of the same question.
How had so much wealth gathered around someone so young?
How had influence over industry, religion, the military and popular culture become concentrated inside a twenty-one-year-old prince?
How had Germany begun reshaping itself around a man who had survived an assassination and, according to increasingly extravagant accounts, crushed armed attackers with his bare hands despite being shot himself?
Officers studied him with professional curiosity. Their eyes measured his reach, balance, posture and movement as though trying to determine whether the Iron Prince was myth, madness or the first real warning of a century changing too quickly for its rulers to control.
Industrialists regarded him with something colder.
Their smiles seldom reached their eyes.
Their wives, daughters and female relatives continued to notice him.
Not only the younger princesses.
Older aristocratic women watched from behind fans. Ladies-in-waiting discovered reasons to cross his path and place gloved hands upon his arm, as though testing whether the body beneath the uniform was real. Interest became bolder by degrees: laughter arriving too easily, fingers lingering upon his sleeve, gazes held just long enough to become questions.
Some challenged him about religion.
Their hostility was polite but unmistakable. They questioned his marriages, his Church, the authority granted to its priests and the reverence with which followers increasingly regarded him.
Oskar answered without anger.
He spoke with a humility that seemed almost at odds with his appearance, offering clear explanations rather than sermons. He described faith as service, authority as responsibility and family as something measured by protection rather than convention.
People who approached prepared to mock him often found themselves listening instead.
Coming from an ordinary preacher, the words might have sounded idealistic. Coming from Oskar—vast, young and already surrounded by industries, soldiers, books, churches and children—they possessed an unsettling weight.
Gradually, even some of the sceptics began to understand how a faith might form around such a man.
It did not seem entirely unnatural.
Invitations to dance followed in greater numbers after that.
Each was phrased with faultless courtesy. Oskar accepted some, usually from women of exceptional rank or beauty whom refusing would create more difficulty than indulging.
Most he declined.
Alice returned later and asked for another.
That one he granted.
Between dances, Oskar moved among kings, princes, ministers and foreign representatives. Questions came rapidly.
Regarding wealth, naval construction and industrial power, he remained careful. He smiled without offering figures anyone could carry back to an embassy.
"Some matters," he said, "belong to the state."
On health, medicine and physical training, he spoke more freely.
He recommended better food, regular exercise, clean water, sufficient sleep and treating exhaustion before it became illness. To his surprise, many guests found this more interesting than battleships.
Several fathers wanted to know how their sons might grow as Oskar had grown.
The honest answer was that they could not.
Oskar was singular.
Yet with disciplined eating, exercise and years of consistent training, they might produce something similar in miniature—a stronger, healthier version of what inheritance had given them.
His books were mentioned repeatedly.
So was the newest literary scandal sweeping through Europe.
Twilight.
The novel had appeared beneath the pseudonym used by the Tolkien writing circle, yet nearly everyone suspected that Oskar had supplied the original concept. A Serbian healer caught between an immortal Romanian vampire prince and an Ottoman sultan cursed to become a werewolf had proven too strange, too political and too indecently fascinating to remain merely a book.
Several ladies praised it in whispers.
Several men condemned it loudly enough to reveal that they had read every page.
A bishop described it as spiritually dangerous to the young.
A duchess asked when the second volume would appear.
The Ottoman delegation appeared least amused. Whatever strength the fictional sultan possessed, portraying an Ottoman sovereign as a jealous, fur-covered beast had done little to improve relations with Constantinople.
It had, however, sold an extraordinary number of copies.
That mattered to Oskar.
He wisely kept the thought to himself.
In a room filled with men who spoke in circles, the German prince answered in straight lines. His directness drew almost as much fascination as his body.
Still, the attention gradually wore upon him.
His thoughts crossed the Channel again and again.
He missed Tanya's sharp voice, Anna's quiet warmth and Gundelinde's shy steadiness. He missed the children climbing across him like a small conquering army. He even missed the disorder of meals at Potsdam, where someone was always laughing, crying, arguing, nursing an infant or attempting to steal food from another plate.
Compared with that noisy, living warmth, the splendour of Buckingham Palace seemed distant.
Ornamental.
Impressive, certainly, but hollow in the way court life always became once the music was stripped away.
Most of all, he missed Karl.
His oldest friend and closest business partner would have navigated the evening's political currents with dry remarks, ruthless arithmetic and a glass of milk. Unfortunately, Karl had remained in Germany, where too many industries required attention for both men to leave at once.
As the evening deepened, Oskar began drifting toward the banquet tables, hoping food might provide a temporary defence against conversation.
Then something familiar cut through the polish.
A voice sounded behind him—warm, amused and unhurried, belonging to a man who needed no permission to speak plainly.
"Your Highness! Oskar, my man!"
Oskar turned with an immediate smile.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand approached with a wine glass in hand, carrying it almost as naturally as the decorations upon his uniform. He looked healthier than he had during their earlier meetings—still middle-aged and broad-faced beneath his neatly groomed moustache, but now visibly fitter, with stronger shoulders, a leaner waist and the relaxed confidence of a man who had discovered that exercise suited him.
"I envy you," Ferdinand said. "You have somehow become the centre of gravity for the entire banquet. I have already heard complaints from half the women here. Apparently, you are a tragic romantic—completely immune to subtle invitations."
His eyes narrowed with mock suspicion.
"And your English has become indecently precise. Do not tell me young Tolkien finally finished training you."
"Ronald did his part," Oskar replied, clasping the Archduke's forearm and drawing him closer. "Hilary helped. Edith corrected them both."
There was little need for ceremony between them.
Franz Ferdinand was the heir to Austria-Hungary, representative of Germany's most stubborn ally and, over time, something far rarer than an ally.
A friend.
They had not bonded through treaties or courtly obligation. They had bonded through defiance. Both had chosen women whom respectable society considered unsuitable. Both possessed religious faith without allowing priests to perform their thinking for them. And both hated the idea of war even while preparing for it with the discipline of men who understood that hatred alone would not prevent it.
Ferdinand glanced toward the surrounding diplomats and smiled.
"So the true secret weapon of Germany is not your fleet. It is three thin orphans armed with too many languages and a collection of pens."
"Do not underestimate pens," Oskar said. "They are cheaper than dreadnoughts and somehow more dangerous."
Ferdinand laughed, and Oskar looked him over with the satisfaction of a man inspecting the result of his own relentless advice.
"Well, shit. You have grown again."
The Archduke raised an eyebrow.
"Better food, more protein and five proper training sessions each week," Oskar continued. "You finally listened. You look good, man."
"Your advice has been transformative. My wife is delighted." Ferdinand leaned closer, lowering his voice with the conspiratorial pride of a husband revealing a state secret. "She has begun training as well. I had no idea a woman could develop such magnificent architecture."
Oskar barked a laugh.
"Careful. Talk like that in front of her and she may challenge you to a sparring match."
"She already has."
"And?"
"I remain alive."
"Then she was being gentle."
Ferdinand dismissed the insult with a grin, though his tone became more sincere.
"Your gyms, your programmes and your general madness have done wonders for my family, my officers and a surprising number of old men who previously sounded as though their joints were declaring independence. For that, you have my thanks."
Once, Germany and Austria-Hungary had been bound together largely by pressure—surrounded, constrained and forced into alignment by hostile powers.
Now the relationship ran deeper. Among younger officers, nobles and ordinary people, the alliance was becoming something more than necessity drawn across a map.
The two men moved toward the buffet and filled their plates without shame. Conversation settled quickly into the easy rhythm it always found when neither of them felt required to perform.
Oskar soon asked about the internal unity of Austria-Hungary.
Ferdinand answered plainly. There had been considerable resistance to Oskar's companies employing German-speaking Christians almost exclusively, but prosperity had done what speeches could not. German books, games, manuals and schools had made the language necessary for employment and advancement. People had learned because learning improved their lives.
"Most of the Empire now speaks at least some German," Ferdinand said. "Not equally and not always willingly, but enough to work, trade and argue with one another."
"And the old hostility?"
"Still there. Language does not erase hatred. It merely gives everyone a common tongue in which to express it."
Oskar's shoulders eased slightly.
Hearing that from Ferdinand mattered more than another stack of reports.
They carried their food to a quieter table and ate with the concentration of men who regarded meals as nourishment rather than decoration.
After several minutes, Ferdinand leaned closer and directed Oskar's attention across the room.
The Russian Foreign Minister stood with the French delegation.
The Italians had joined them.
Italy remained flexible enough to praise Germany in the morning, court France in the afternoon and drink British wine by evening without considering any of it contradictory. The gathering meant nothing definite, but it was enough to sharpen both men's instincts.
"You are being sensitive," Oskar said lightly. "Perhaps they simply enjoy the wine."
Ferdinand smiled, knowing perfectly well that Oskar distrusted the scene as much as he did.
They let the matter rest.
The conversation wandered, and more wine appeared. Ferdinand drank rather more than he should have. Before long, he was speaking at length about hunting, forests, open fields and his occasional desire to abandon the Empire altogether.
He imagined vanishing with his wife and children to some distant island where no minister could reach him. There, he declared, he would fish, smell flowers and watch the sun move across an empty sky.
Oskar told him he would last three days before reorganizing the island.
Ferdinand conceded that a small government might be necessary.
"A benevolent island despot," he decided.
"You are already an imperial archduke," Oskar replied. "That would be a demotion."
"Perhaps that is what appeals to me."
More than twenty years separated them in age.
It had never mattered.
Then their conversation ended without warning.
Two soft hands settled upon Oskar's shoulders and began working confidently across the dense muscle of his neck. The touch was skilled, familiar and far too intimate for an accidental encounter.
So was the perfume.
A sweet voice whispered beside his ear.
"Long time no see, big boy."
Oskar went still.
He did not need to turn.
Princess Patricia of Connaught.
Bold, beautiful and, judging by the warmth of her breath and the confidence of her hands, just drunk enough to become dangerous.
Franz Ferdinand leaned back, suddenly fascinated by his wine.
"Well," he murmured, amusement glittering in his eyes, "do not let me interrupt. Who is this, Oskar? Another one of your secret arrangements?"
Oskar exhaled slowly through his nose.
The drunken Archduke found himself far more amusing than Oskar did.
Patricia pressed closer. The soft weight of her full breasts settled against his shoulder while her hands continued kneading the muscle beneath his collar.
Some opponents, Oskar reflected grimly, were considerably harder to refuse than others.