Published at 10th of December 2025 9:44 am

Chapter 775: Quiet Hands of the Realm

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The Alps stood proudly above the world. A mark of its eternal beauty, and the Earth’s resilience against all forces, both of man and nature.

Time had no sway over these lands. The same spires had remained frosty and stretching towards the heavens since time immemorial.

It was here that many of history’s most important events had occurred. And it was here a kingdom of quiet brilliance had been formed beneath the world’s ever-piercing gaze.

Innsbruck, while smaller than cities in other major regions of the German Reich, was a beacon of both culture and technological prowess.

Smog was nonexistent, the lands were clean, almost impossibly so, and the air reflected the nature of that.

It was on warm spring mornings, like the one in 1941, that women like Heidi could hang their clothes on the line, and sit back with a cup of tea reading her favorite books.

Sure there were maids to perform such duties, but even as Heidi began to approach her sixtieth year, she had always aspired to share the burden of the house’s most foundational duties.

Luxury had never been an aspiration of hers, nor of her husband. In fact, Bruno generally saw it as a corrupting influence, one which he had only accepted as a necessity for his ever-increasing station in life.

Yet the two of them still tried their best to live, and raise their children, and their children’s children with an understanding of work ethic, and the value of material wealth.

The war currently being waged beyond the Reich’s borders. Just as in 1914, not a single hostile soldier stepped within the borders of the German Reich.

Yet, that did not mean Heidi’s days had been filled with peace. Bruno was the sword and shield that guarded the realm, and she was its healing hands.

She had been near exhausting herself looking after the logistical networks of charities and corresponding state apparatuses designed to mitigate the damage that wars caused in far more subtle ways.

Widows, orphans, returning soldiers filled with shell shock, and addiction, or worse, battle scars that limited their ability to perform the daily functions of life.

These were the aspects of Heidi’s domain. Today was just a rare moment in time where she allowed herself a break from overseeing the logistics behind everything.

Her daughter-in-law Alya, by now, had become an exemplary successor in waiting for taking over her charitable empire, and was thus put towards that purpose today.

As the sun began to reach its peak, and Heidi’s tea ran low, she realized the clothes were properly dry.

Raising from her seat beneath the shade of a simple parasol, Heidi removed the hanging clothes, and neatly tidied them into a wicker basket, hand woven by herself when she were a younger woman, and their family possessed far less material wealth, or manpower.

She then brought the clothes inside and began distributing them to the members of the house to whom they belonged, finely folding their creases and ensuring they were properly slotted in the wardrobes and compartments so as best to preserve their freshness.

In perhaps any other noble house, especially one of royal status like House von Zehntner, this would be unthinkable. But this was the way Bruno, Heidi, and all their children lived.

And though many mocked them in quiet spaces for the way they partook in common tasks, some with more wisdom and less ego, realized that this was perhaps the origin of the iron discipline that the House’s members seemed to personify.

Eventually, after distributing the clean and dried clothes, Heidi prepared a small lunch, carrying it on a tray upstairs to the door she was never allowed to force her way into without permission.

Heidi moved through the upper hallway, her steps soft against the polished wood. The manor was quiet at this hour, suspended in that strange peace between morning duties and afternoon obligations.

Sunlight filtered through tall windows, illuminating the portraits that lined the walls: children in academy uniforms, daughters in baptismal gowns, sons in their first officer tunics.

Generations of their family stared forward with the same determined, solemn eyes. She paused before one of the largest: a younger Bruno, barely twenty, standing tall in his cadet’s coat, jaw set, the weight of destiny already upon him.

Now he sat in the next room, the most powerful soldier in the world, and yet somehow still hers. A quiet ache pressed against her ribs.

So many of their sons and grandsons now walked into wars shaped by his decisions. So many daughters stood ready to hold families together if the men did not return.

She exhaled, steadying herself. Then, with the same practiced ritual she had followed since their earliest days of marriage, she raised her knuckles and rapped softly: a knock, not once, not twice, but thrice, in a certain pattern that had become muscle memory decades ago. And then, a single phrase.

"Come in."

Heidi opened the door and found Bruno brooding over papers. The way he so often did. She handed off the tray to the cleanest part of his desk and then took a seat in front of the man.

Picking up the beer stein, she took a sip from its frothy brew personally before handing it over to its real owner, who either seemed not to notice or was so accustomed to such games that he could no longer pretend to be outraged.

Instead, he took a drag, while his wife pouted in silence, until finally he was forced to notice. Snapping him out of his daze, Bruno looked up to see Heidi glaring daggers at him.

Causing him to sigh and shake his head as he forced the folder he was intently gazing at, and highlighting certain sections.

"I’m sorry... I was too focused on looking over the report of recent naval engagements in the Pacific. Do forgive me...."

Heidi said nothing, not at first, and when she finally did, she unfolded her arms and legs, and leaned forward, stealing another sip from the beer before handing it back to the man, along with a stern lecture.

"You would do well to remember that lunchtime is our time, and if you’re not prepared to take a moment off, then you should not accept my entry.... After all these years together, you would have thought a man of such acclaimed brilliance would have been able to beat such a lesson into his thick skull!"

The moment she said this Bruno looked genuinely offended, and Heidi took a glance at him, still appearing insulted herself. And then the two of them broke out in laughter.

The two of them eventually settled down as Bruno took a piece of the snack his wife had brought for him and devoured it before quickly turning to her.

"So... how has your day off been?"

Heidi quickly began to vent her frustrations in a way that couldn’t help but amuse her husband.

"Oh, do not even get me started... I tried to read a novel this morning, only to accurately predict exactly where it was headed within the first three Chapters. You know, while the laundry dried on the hanger outside. And then I went about finishing up my daily chores. Which I could have done after handling the daily affairs for the order. And now I’m sitting here, bringing you lunch, thinking how in God’s good world am I going to spend the rest of my day? I don’t think I’m suited to the retired life, love...."

Heidi cast Bruno a look that instantly told him exactly what she was hinting at, and he couldn’t help but chuckle and shake his head as he drank his beer.

Deflecting away from the subtle and hidden accusation against the woman’s prose. "Sounds like you need to find a hobby... you workaholic!"

Heidi damn near gasped in shock as she rolled up a nearby newspaper and threatened to strike Bruno with it, for which the man feigned a flinch, causing her to point it directly at his face instead.

"You... If you had such self-awareness, why not actually find yourself a hobby? Do you have any idea what I’ll do if you end up working yourself into an early grave? How would I go on without you? I’ll be dead and buried by your side within the year!"

Upon seeing that he had touched a far more severe nerve than he was attempting to, Bruno couldn’t help but sigh and lean back in his chair as his wife settled down, sitting back in her seat after placing the newspaper back where it belonged.

While she continued to look away and pout, Bruno couldn’t help but find himself sighing deeply.

"I told you... This is my last war... And after this, I guess I really will have to find a hobby, won’t I?"

Heidi shot Bruno a gaze through her peripheral vision that immediately pierced through his soul, and whatever barrier he thought he had erected to protect his thoughts.

"Politics are not a hobby Bruno... I swear to God, if you retire from the position of Reichsmarschall only to run for Chancellor I will personally drag you to hell myself! Do not test me!"

Then Heidi and Bruno once more broke out into laughter, knowing that it was exactly what Bruno intended to do, and she would never actually attempt to stop him.

The two of them then relaxed, the tension in the air dying on the spot, as they began to speak of their daily problems, reminisce about the past, and project the roadmap to their future, and that of their family.

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