Stahlherz
作者:© WebNovel
章 1: The arrangement
Under the cover of the sun and the drying breath of the desert, the beetle was lying there, waiting to start his daily routine whilst another cycle was about to meet its end, the sun was giving its last signals of activity and with the same gentleness with which it had come during the early morning, it departed without alert nor delay. It was the beginning of the beetle's journey. Finally, the darkness covered him from the imminent danger that represented having a colourful and shining jade green shell–which would attract both females and predators equally. At last, it was time to roam around and search for his dinner, or breakfast.
Slowly, stealthily he moved one leg, then the other one, giving small unaccelerated and rhythmical paces through the sand. He didn't want to bring unwanted attention, and he had all the time at his disposition, or at least all night to achieve his commitment; finding smaller or weaker insects to then devour them unceremoniously.
After crawling some tens of centimetres he found the ideal prey, a stick bug that was perfectly camouflaged, or so it thought it did until he made the fatal mistake of moving one small antler after perceiving the scarab's presence. In an instant, the beetle charged his victim and while he was holding it with one of his legs, for the terror of his already subdued adversary, the beetle's clamps opened up with impersonal cruelty and grew closer to the bug's neck and then closed making the crunchy noise that marked the achievement of his goal. The beetle was going to have a feast. The bug he had just killed was one of the largest preys of the last three days. For sure it had been a larger challenge than his previous snacks, but he prevailed on the trial of facing an opponent twice as large as him.
The banquet was abruptly interrupted. There were vibrations on the sand, each growing closer and stronger. The beetle wrongly discarded them as something not important, after all, he was confident in his skill and speed which could be used to flee or bury himself on the sand in the case that a predator came after him. Suddenly, the wheel of a carriage ran him over with the single crunch of his body being squashed and then getting stuck on the wheel itself. The carriage was going at full speed; as if the lives of the passengers were dependent on it, and in a certain way they were. The carriage was luxurious, with an oak shell with meticulously hand-carved details such as the coat of arms of the royal family. It also had marble ornaments on the top of the structure's vertices. It was one of the kingdom's official carriages that was notoriously travelling at unsafe and not ideal hours for the ones on the task, whatever it was.
It quickly came closer to a big house that could belong to one of the kingdom's high society members, like a nobleman or a member of the parliament, although this was more a fortress than a conventional house, with a sentinel guard posted in front of the big doors that represented the only access across the fortified walls that had guards on top of them. The carriage came to a stop in front of the sentinel and immediately another man, an officer, appeared and approached the carriage.
''Good evening, papers, please'' He talked in a forced friendly tone, even though a certain annoyance was noticeable in his voice. From the carriage, one extended hand came out holding out some papers that the officer took. After reading them with a raised eyebrow out of surprise he looked back at the face that belonged to the hand (or what little of it he could see in the darkness). The guard returned the papers to their owner and then raised his hand to signal the sentinel to open the gate.
The Royal Military Academy of Lilisburg resumed its daily routine the next morning. Starting with the sound of the cornet playing the wake-up call, so that all personnel started their daily preparations. Inside their dorms, the cadets got up, took a bath, then dressed on their blue uniforms and got out to the academy's courtyard (which once was just a big house) into their respective formations, to attend the first roll call of the day and then march into the dining room for breakfast. The house was at least a hundred years old and it had a significant strategic role during the hundred wars. It was at the outskirts of the kingdom, which once was enemy territory, obtained through force and subsequently colonized. Unlike the rest of the cities or forests and prairies, it was extremely dry, so very few people were interested in inhabiting it. That zone was known as "The road of the savages".
The house was around 400 square meters surrounded by tall fortified walls equipped with cannons on its bulwarks, that were used both practices with the cadets, and as a defensive weapon for the academy, which had the capacity to accommodate three hundred cadets, plus officers, and staff for servitude. The servitude would be in charge of the kitchen, and in a lesser way, cleaning of the house. Part of the discipline implies that the cadets had to become respectable officers of his majesty's army, to keep hygiene in both his dorms and classrooms.
It was two floors with narrow corridors along the perimeter, leaving a rectangular patio in the middle and where once was a fountain, but for purpose and space matters, had to be removed. Across the rooms that now were on their majority classrooms, there were arches supported by stone columns, with a squared base and similar support on top, between the column and the roof, whilst on the top floor, it had a half wall that served as a railing, with the same arches on top of it. On the opposite end of the entrance, on the north side, were the stairs that lead to the second floor, halfway through them there was a larger step in which the way was divided into two routes, one leading east and the other one to the west part of the house.
Inside one of the rooms on the top floor, the one centred behind the stairs, there was an extremely important and ''confidential'' conversation ongoing. It was the Royal Academy director-general's office, arranged with two bookshelves on the left side of the room, a large desk on the centre of the room made out of polished mahogany, and two file cabinets behind it. Next to the cabinets, there was a large window from which the north wall was on view. From the big olive-green chair from the other side of the desk was the Royal Academy's director-general listening with attention. His small narrowed eyes made it hard to tell if the man was paying any attention at all, in fact, it was easier to say that his eyes barely opened, and his brown big bushy eyebrows didn't help this at all
''That's the situation in a nutshell, as you can see this is an official affair and it's extremely delicate.''
''I see, by the way, how are our guests feeling? Is she comfortable here?'' The director-general replied to the other man, even though it didn't appear that the voice came from him, he didn't move his lips and his voice hardly made it out through his thick hairs that he had for a moustache, which covered most of his mouth, like a walrus'.
''Of course, your hospitality is much appreciated, but I think that it'd be good if you could give her a tour, make her familiar with the academy a little bit more, and most importantly all that's available to her.''
''I see what you mean and I think I might have just what you need.''
The man who was sitting in front of the director-general's desk stared at him with expectation, with his cold blue eyes, then he placed one of his rickety hands in his chin and the other one on his left knee, while he was moistening his small lips with his tongue. That man was the king's counsellor, only to him would be entrusted something as important, a task that might require precision and, on a larger scale, discretion.
The director-general stood from his seat. He opened one of the cabinets; searched through all of the documents and took out a pair of expedients, which he dropped on the desk without care. These expedients had important information about the cadets allocated in the Royal Academy; birth dates, birthplace, parents' names, academic performance, and some additional notes and observations such as various nationalities, nobility titles, and things like that. The counsellor browsed through all the expedients until one in particular caught his attention.
Upon opening it you could see the portrait of a boy, around sixteen years of age, light brown eyes and with a serious stare, which appeared mature for his age, dark hair parted to the left, thin frowning eyebrows and dressed in the characteristic blue uniform of the Royal Academy. He had a lot of observations annexed; high grades in fencing class, accurate sharpshooter, and with natural leadership, although it was highlighted that he had a dislike in having the responsibilities of a leader on him, thus concluding that he'd be a perfect fit for cavalry or artillery upon his graduation. On the expedient, it was notorious the name of Friedrich Stahlherz.
It was eleven in the morning, the cadets from the third and last year of the academy were just getting out of their combat tactics class into their lunch break. The majority of them went to the first floor to get a snack in the dining room, while some others stayed outside the classroom talking among them. Except for a single cadet that was simply leaning on the half wall, resting his head on his right fist, observing the lively scene of the academy's daily routine. In reality, he wasn't interested that much in it, he was just bored and his gaze wandered while he was waiting for the start of his next class. He turned his neck left and then right to liberate some of his neck's tension and during that movement, something caught his attention. He noticed three figures, out of which he only recognized one, the director-general, whom from his perspective was just a "blue dressed walking barrel with medals, moustache and eyebrows" but he didn't recognize the other two; one was a tall slender man, with white hair, dressed in a tails dress-coat and had an overall unfriendly look, the other was a young woman, with long blonde hair, blue eyes, she had slim complexion but had a lady's curves, which were guarded by a fancy dress, that was tight enough to show her figure. How old was she? Seventeen? Nineteen? And in any case, what was a girl like her doing at a military academy? She was surely one of those that like to see the cadets in their formations, the discipline with which they move from one place to the other, like looking to a circus' spectacle or an ant colony. How sickening, that's how most people who aren't aware of how the military works are.
His thoughts were quickly interrupted with a loud palm hit in his back that made him jump out of surprise.
''Hey Fred, the hell are you doing standing there besides nothing? Let's go get some grub going, if we don't, I'll surely be in a bad mood during our next lesson and I won't be putting any attention into it just thinking about dinner and--'' He suddenly stopped talking, noticing that his partner was looking on a particular thing. Just out of involuntary curiosity he turned to see the direction of the three figures that had caught his friend's attention, especially the woman. He smiled like a big perverted idiot and mockingly said ''I see that you were already eating, and a good steak at that. She's really beautiful, don't you agree?''
Friedrich took the comment with a little annoyance but decided to let it pass and he just restricted himself to reply with a shrug.
''Whatever, women come, women go, Otto, you should know that you can't lose your head over a plain woman's pair of panties.''
Otto's eyes suddenly opened wide and his facial expression changed with a mixture of indignation, disbelief, and surprise as if his mother had been the one insulted, maligned, and dishonoured with his friend's commentary.
''How can you say such a thing about your highness Erika?!'' He said with a fist raised in the air, like a preacher reading aloud his favourite bible passage. ''She's probably, no, certainly the most beautiful woman in the entire kingdom!''
Otto kept talking faster on every sentence, but Friedrich stopped minding his ranting and got lost in his thoughts. Friedrich's reaction to Otto's sudden passion for the topic was a mixture of amusement, confusion, and surprise. His friend's behaviour when he took a certain topic seriously was always amusing, but he said something that caught Friedrich off guard. Did he just call her "Your highness"? Friedrich involuntarily asked aloud.
''Are you dumb?! Do you live under a rock or something?! Unbelievable! You are a goddamn soldier and you don't even know who your superiors are!'' He then let out a frustrated sigh and with his hand, he face palmed lowering his forehead to his chin and then closed it in a fist, then he placed himself on Friedrich's left side leaning on the half wall and with his right hand grabbed Friedrich's chin whilst with his left grabbed the top of his head. With the grip in Friedrich's head, he turned it to face the three figures. ''That man right there, the walking corpse is the royal counsellor; we could say that he's the second most powerful man in the whole kingdom. The woman is his majesty's only daughter, Erika, she is give or take one year younger than us, with eighteen years just turned, logically she's the only heir to the throne.''
Friedrich with just one move dropped his hand with all the weight of his shoulder concentrated on it hitting both of Otto's hands, freeing himself from his grip on the face, and then he started rubbing his cheeks to soften up the sensation of Otto's fingers squashing him.
''Right, but if she's such an important personality, why, of all places, is she here? Doesn't she have major responsibilities to attend to instead of doing tourism watching us like animals on a safari?''
Otto was clearly upset from Friedrich's sarcastic comment, but instead of arguing with him, he suddenly looked around him, as if someone was spying on them. He then closed the space between his face and Friedrich's.
''There are rumours…'' He said in a low voice, what he was about to say was most likely not going to be liked by someone. Friedrich could not think of anyone in specific, so he naturally got closer to Otto.
''Rumors? About what?'' Friedrich replied with intrigue, suddenly he pictured different extreme and unlikely scenarios in his head, are they getting a budget cut? Was the director-general going to be forced into retirement? Is the academy going to be closed and the cadets will have to become noblemen's personal secretaries or servants to then be exploited with a piss-poor salary?
''The king… it is said that his health has been decaying, it has gotten worse this last few months, and also that he'll be lucky if he manages to live half a year. Some say that he got cursed by a Kashke sorcerer during the last of the hundred wars, but I personally think he's just old and that's it.'' There was a noticeable disappointment in Friedrich's face; sure, these rumours could bring chaos to various parts of Lilisburg due to the uncertainty. ''But there's more, and I'm afraid that the counsellor and princess being here is enough to confirm my suspicions on the veracity of the rumour... I've heard that the king himself has been looking for an arranged marriage for his daughter, Erika, who would take the throne immediately after his death. For matters of this nature, he would only trust in the counsellor, who has been reportedly in the company of the princess visiting different families of noblemen, looking for the best candidate.''
''Then what are they doing here? We're not even officers yet, and the ones that are here are twice as old as her.''
''Many sons of noble families that have a high influence in the kingdom's economic affairs come to study here, even if both you and I aren't. I guess that it must be a whim from either the king or the princess that the candidate has to be in her age range'' He gave a big, stupid and malicious grin. ''In which we're included''
At that moment, without knowing why, Friedrich turned over to the direction of the princess, who apparently noticed his gaze and faced him directly in the eyes. The ambient was tense, the air dried up and the time stopped as if an arrow had struck the clock of the world itself. The two of them were immobile looking at each other, in a duel where they patiently waited for the weakest of the two to turn away, or the strongest one to break the stalemate that they had. The moment was interrupted by the director-general, saying something to the princess, who replied and then turned towards him. Friedrich didn't know what to think of that little scene, but he thought to have noticed something, a really tiny detail that was so small it was hard to really appreciate, had she just given him a little smile, even in a really teeny weeny remote way? No, there was no real reason to think about it, he was surely just imagining things. It was simply just one of those exaggerated anecdotes to brag about when the cadets were in the guard duty's accommodation, waiting to relieve the poor idiot that was freezing in the cold guarding the walls or the main gate.
Otto, who was completely unaware of what had happened just in front of him was about to tell Friedrich about how weird he was behaving, until the cornet made its distinctive call, indicating the end of the break and the return to the classrooms, so he just shrugged. Both of them returned to their seats.
During the afternoon they had their musket practice in the patio --despite that they weren't going to use live ammunition; to do that, they would've had to go earlier that day outside the fortified walls to an improvised shooting range-- however, their shooting skills had been put to test various times through the three years they had been there. This time, they were going to mechanize and optimize the musket loading times, just as they saw in class. Generally, there were two ways. The traditional way was the one where they had to use their powder flask, placing it on the tip of the cannon and gently giving it three taps. The secret of doing this technique quickly was knowing the right force required to load the exact amount of powder, giving maximum power to the shot and without giving it an overload; which could make the cannon explode and consequently break. Afterwards, they would insert the projectile and finally, they would use the ramming rod to compress everything into the back of the cannon, putting pressure into the powder. On the other hand, there were paper cartridges, which were a piece of paper rolled and sealed (mostly with saliva) containing the exact amount of powder on its inside (or a decent amount) and the projectile, kept on the tip of the cartridge with pressure. It was a peculiar method that many veterans adopted throughout the hundred wars, especially at the last ones, it was also a lot quicker since they just had to insert the cartridge to the cannon and then ram it. Having the advantage of storing both the projectiles and powder in a single compact space, however, it had major flaws; using paper often left more waste in the cannon to clean, reducing its reliability. On top of that, the cartridges were fragile; they could break easily and, unlike the powder stored in the flask, wasn't protected from water. Passing through rivers, or even a little exposure to the rain could drastically reduce the utility of the musket, making the affected cartridges useless.
For the practice they were using paper blanks, instead of having a projectile on the tip, they were just taped shut. The instructor was giving the order to load, aim, and fire. Each cadet had to do it at least four or five times to get familiarized and acquire the muscle memory to do it unconsciously and mechanically.
The practice was suddenly stopped when the director-general was walking down the stairs. The instructor gave him a military salute which he replied briefly, he then just stood there on the big step.
''Cadet Stahlherz.'' He called him with an authoritarian voice, like a father calling for his son after learning of his misbehaviour.
The silence reigned in the academy's patio. What did Friedrich do to make the director-general himself call him out? Was he in trouble?
''Here, director-general'' Friedrich answered the call while he was energetically running towards him, stopping at three steps distance --the regulatory distance that a subordinate had to maintain to his superior when addressed.
''Come with me.'' He turned and started going up the stairs where he came from. He suddenly stopped and looked back at the multitude on the patio. ''Carry on with your activities''
In his office, the director-general had all the expedients piled up on top of the cabinet from where he took them. He'd have to eventually re-accommodate them into their respective place, or tell a junior officer to do it for him. Friedrich noticed them, and couldn't help but to feel curiosity, surely one of those was his. What could possibly be written on it? It was obviously his academic history through the last three years, but was there something else written in there? Praises, perhaps? Or maybe, even some type of secret note where it was suggested to keep him under close observation because he was some sort of menace for the kingdom?
Friedrich's thoughts were interrupted by the director-general; who had been thinking of the best way to express whatever he had to say.
''Do you like the academy?'' A mundane question that in any context would be completely valid, but not in the military scope, where everything had to be clear and precise, without any unnecessary rodeos that would hinder the communication of whatever topic was being discussed. Friedrich was very conscious of this, and deep inside knew that this triviality was a wasted effort from the director-general to soften up the metaphorical punch he was about to receive.
Friedrich was sitting right in front of him, with his hands on his legs. He tensed up his hands and swallowed some saliva, voluntarily taking the bait and following the useless conversation just to keep it going and get it over with as quickly as possible. He couldn't get beaten so easily, however, so, despite his uncertainty and consequent nervousness caused by it, he tried to appear as serene as possible, answering the question in a very calm manner.
''Yes, director-general, I've acquired many different abilities and learned many new things throughout the last three years, I think that the Royal Academy has opened many new doors for me, and has given me unique opportunities.''
''I see.'' The director-general just nodded. ''And have you thought about your future? After graduating?''
''Honestly, not really, director-general, I think I'll make the choices once I have them right in front of me.''
''And have you thought about things outside the military? You know, things like getting married, having a family, your own house, stuff like that.''
Friedrich didn't like the direction where this conversation was going, these were questions that were too personal in nature to discuss with an authoritarian figure that had little to no contact with him until that day.
''No, I haven't considered any of that.'' He answered in a way that made it clear that he didn't want to keep talking about those topics.
''Look, Friedrich'' Friedrich felt a knot tying up in his stomach with the sudden informality in which he was being referred to, it was crystal clear hypocrisy, the wolf dressed as sheep. ''I think that you realized about our honourable guests, her highness princess Erika has come all the way to the academy and the situation with her father, the king…'' He suddenly stopped, as if he was about to say something that he shouldn't ''he simply isn't in the best of health, and has the preoccupation that the princess gets married before something might happen to him, he also thinks that her partner should be in the same age range as her.''
''I get it, but why are you telling me this?'' Friedrich had a sharp mind and could figure out things perfectly at this point. He knew where this was going, so maybe his question was kind of redundant, yet he preferred to get to the bottom of this quickly.
''Well, she has been looking at the cadets for some time, and… well, it looks like she… Uh… well you stood out for her. What I'm getting at is that I've already arranged for you to marry her, the ceremony will be soon. I took the liberty to make all the necessary paperwork in his majesty's army, we just have to wait for the dates' confirmation.''
The news left Friedrich in complete shock, on the one side this was a golden opportunity that would make many men risk their lives or maybe even die for it, he was going to be envied, and that was a fact. On the other hand, the decision had been taken without his consent, without asking him first or taking into account his point of view, and without giving him any time to accept or decline it, the one who came to see animals in a safari ended up being a girl coming to a shelter to adopt a new pet.
''I understand that it is hard to process the situation, that's why we've arranged a dinner that only you two will attend to; you can get to know each other. Be at the dining room at eight.''
''Isn't it against the academy's regulation to wander outside the dorms after the curfew?''
''Technically the academy belongs to her father, and it'll soon belong to her. We can do the exception.'' He answered making clear that the conversation was over; any more questions at this point were a waste of time. The decision was made and going to be executed.
''Then I'll be off, director-general.'' Friedrich responded while getting up from his seat. He got out of the room, closing the door behind him; moving down to the first floor, towards the dorms. He cursed the fucking walrus that had sold him for a better paycheck.
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