The Crown Prince's Illness
The tumultuous year of 1886 passed, and the calendar turned. Waldemar greeted the new year with a complicated heart, for he knew that this was the year his father's health would finally collapse into crisis. Friedrich's illness had been showing signs since the year before; the decline was only ever a matter of time. And yet his heart would not settle. Knowing a thing with the mind and accepting it with the heart were two different matters entirely.
Father.
Whenever Waldemar thought of Friedrich, a flood of feelings washed through him. To be fair, Friedrich III had not been a good parent to the older children — Wilhelm, Heinrich, Charlotte. But to Waldemar he had always been a warm and devoted father: a man who tried to listen, to take his side, to understand. Even if the Crown Princess's influence was at work, it was still genuine affection. Favor, even.
Whatever others may say, I owe Father my gratitude.
Waldemar had considered ways to cure his father's illness, but operating on a man's throat by the standards of this age carried a risk too grave to ignore. Even if the surgery succeeded, the chance of dying from complications — sepsis among them — could not be dismissed. He sank into troubled thought.
Is surgery truly out of the question?
He turned the problem over again and again, and each time he arrived at the same conclusion: with the technology of this era, saving Friedrich would be nearly impossible.
If only there were antibiotics.
Waldemar had already inquired with Bayer and BASF about sulfa drugs.
"We've managed to produce a topical hemostatic, but the sulfa compounds still need more research."
"Is that so?"
It seemed fortune was not on Friedrich III's side. Waldemar felt frustration and grief in equal measure. If that was how things stood, he decided, then he would see his father's face as often as he could.
He was just about to go find him when he came upon Princess Victoria clinging to the Crown Princess, pouring out her grievances.
"Mother, he isn't even a prince anymore. He's just an exile. So what does it matter for international relations?"
Alexander again.
Waldemar gave a wry smile at the sight of his sister still clinging to a hopeless love.
She needs to let go of this, and soon.
He considered how best to make her give it up. Should I just pair her with the man she married in the original timeline? The thought crossed his mind, but given the princess's stubbornness, it would likely only backfire. In that case—
Better to make Alexander fall out of love instead.
When it came to ending a love affair, few reasons worked quite so well as the beloved's change of heart. By settling the Victoria problem, Waldemar decided, he would ease the burden on a father already suffering from his health.
Waldemar had never been a man to linger over a decision. He met Schneider at the Royal Theatre. Schneider, head of the Playguy network, was dressed as an unremarkable bourgeois gentleman — the sort of man no one would look at twice. Waldemar exchanged greetings and delivered his instructions.
"Herr Schneider. I have a task for you, on behalf of the royal family."
"On behalf of the royal family?"
Waldemar explained his plan to lure Prince Alexander with a honey trap. Even in the original timeline, Alexander had married the opera singer Johanna Loisinger — the man had no prejudice against actresses.
"To seduce the prince, I'll need information on his tastes."
"That much is easy enough."
Waldemar had not been idle. He produced the materials he had gathered on Johanna Loisinger.
"She needs to resemble this woman in appearance, but younger and more beautiful."
"Ah — and she must not speak with a Russian accent."
Schneider looked slightly uncomfortable at the restriction.
"Can one really expect Russian models not to speak with a Russian accent?"
"If you can't find a suitable Russian, a German or an Austrian will do. Cost is no object."
"In that case, I shall look into it."
Schneider removed his hat in a gesture of respect.
A week later, Schneider reported that he had found a promising candidate.
"Who is she?"
"Maria Teresa. A girl with a provincial Austrian theatre company. She's considerably younger than Johanna Loisinger — barely eighteen."
Waldemar studied her photograph and was satisfied.
"Not bad."
"However, the girl wants certain guarantees for her future."
"What sort of guarantees?"
"Ten thousand marks if she succeeds in seducing the prince. Fifty thousand if it goes as far as marriage."
To an ordinary person it was a fortune. To Waldemar, the richest man in the world, it was pocket change he could earn in an hour.
"Pay her."
He had no intention of haggling over so trivial a sum. And that was the end of the conversation. Waldemar had no need to know the petty details of how the prince would be seduced. Hearing the result would be enough.
In the weeks that followed, Waldemar visited his father to talk, and now and then ran into his sister and listened to her complaints.
"He must be truly despairing these days. His letters are coming less and less often. How can he do this to me?"
"Is that so?"
Waldemar had little desire to know the particulars of Alexander's seduction, but he supposed he ought to check on the progress. Schneider's report was concise. The honey trap was working. Maria Teresa had begun living with the prince.
A man who still harbors ambitions of returning to a throne, falling for a honey trap this easily? Then again...
Waldemar considered the current state of international affairs and recalled that Alexander I had almost no hope left. Russia was hostile to him. Germany had no intention of permitting a marriage to the princess. Britain offered nothing but empty words of support. Austria was about the only power offering meaningful backing, and even they were not in the best of circumstances. Considering that this was around the time he had begun his passionate affair with Johanna Loisinger in the original timeline, it was hardly strange that Alexander had fallen for the honey trap now.
Waldemar prepared photographs of the prince and Maria Teresa, then arranged for a servant to place them in Victoria's hands.
Victoria did not want to believe her lover had betrayed her. But she could not refuse to believe the photographs in her hands.
"I'm going to Vienna this instant. I'm going to ask Sasha who that girl is!"
She even shouted that she would rush to Vienna at once.
"Your Highness! Please, calm yourself! Your Highness!"
"Let go of me!"
For a time the Crown Prince's palace was in an uproar, the princess determined to race to Vienna and everyone else determined to stop her. The struggle did not end until nearly dawn.
It took Princess Victoria exactly one day to accept reality.
With a desolate expression, she stacked Alexander's letters in front of the fireplace. The light in her eyes was half gone. Without turning her head, she spoke as if to herself.
"Did he really change his heart?"
"Men always change."
At Waldemar's answer, Princess Victoria asked bitterly.
"You too?"
Waldemar decided to answer honestly.
"Me too."
Victoria did not look as though she believed him.
"Still. I envy Alix."
The princess pushed the letters into the fireplace with a lifeless hand. Sparks leapt each time she prodded them with the poker.
"Will I ever meet someone who loves me the way he did?"
"You'll meet someone better. And if it looks like you won't, I'll buy one and bring him to you."
He meant every word. It was also, in its way, Waldemar's apology for having meddled so freely in his sister's life. At his words, the princess smiled faintly.
"Thank you. Even if it's just words."
The rumor that Victoria had decided to give up Alexander spread quickly through the Crown Prince's palace. The conflict between the Crown Princess and Prince Wilhelm, who had been at odds over the matter, eased as a result.
"Kh— kh. Valdi. How is your sister?"
Friedrich III asked through a fit of coughing.
"She's all right. I've been buying her plenty of sweets, so she won't stay melancholy for long."
At Waldemar's answer, the Crown Prince tried to smile through his coughing.
"Good. You must look after your sisters. Willy only cares about politics, and Heinz finds it awkward to involve himself in their affairs. You're the only one who can take care of them."
"Yes, Father. You needn't worry."
"Good. Kh—"
The Crown Prince covered his mouth with a handkerchief.
"Father, shouldn't you at least have an examination?"
"Your mother has already arranged it. Don't worry yourself so."
At the mention of the English doctor the Crown Princess would summon, a chill ran down Waldemar's spine.
That man's a complete quack.
That was what he thought, but he could not disparage his mother's choice of physician in front of his father.
At least he should have one less thing to worry about now.
Watching the royal family, the government, and his own household split in two over his daughter's marriage must have put Father under enormous strain. Waldemar looked at his father's haggard face.
"Then get some rest. I'll come again tomorrow."
"All right."
The Crown Prince saw him off with a cough.
Waldemar felt, with growing certainty, that the warm days he had enjoyed were drawing to a close.
But I am not afraid.
Waldemar might lack political power, but money he had in abundance. And money, past a certain threshold, became a formidable power in its own right — influence itself. For the richest man in the world, that went without saying.
Waldemar stepped out of the warmth of the room and strode into the cold of the corridor. From the age of Friedrich into the age of Wilhelm. He prepared himself to take that step.