Chapter One Thousand Five Hundred Fifty
27th March 1963
Tempelhof, Berlin
As she had so often in the past, Kat found herself in the parlor trying to coax some answers out of Asia who had been looking a bit worse than usual over the prior months. There were also some things that had become increasingly obvious about Asia’s appearance that Kat had very gently brought up.
“Please don’t judge me too harshly” Was what Asia said after Kat finally got her to talk and she admitted what was going on.
For the last few years, since the mess in America, Asia had been having difficulty recovering from that incident. While she had been going grey for a long time, what had happened in the State Hospital had sped up that process considerably. When Kat had spoken with Douglas about it, he had observed that in Danvers they had run enough electricity through her to light up half of Boston and that had left an indelible mark. While Asia had had always been soft spoken, almost mute. These days it seemed like she didn’t speak unless she had to and even then, it seemed like words had to dragged from her.
While Asia had done nothing to jeopardize her appointment as Mistress of the Keys, she had been engaged in what Doctor Holz would have referred to as self-medicating with a mixture of alcohol and various pharmaceuticals. She had also engaged in other kinds of escapism. As it turned out there were consequences that would only serve to further complicate her life. When Asia had gotten sick over the winter, it had turned out not to a case of the flu, which was what she had told Kat weeks earlier. She might even have convinced herself of that at the time. At this point though, Asia could hardly deny matters any longer, not to Kat anyway. As unlikely as Kat may have considered it to have ever happened, Asia had somehow gotten herself pregnant.
“Have you ever known me to be a hypocrite?” Kat asked in reply, “I’ve been where you are a few times. Remember?”
Asia looked extremely relieved to hear that.
“Leni, Anne, Tilde, Ilse, Gerta, Helene, even me” Kat said, “Will be more than happy to fill your ears with horror stories about our own experiences.”
It was not as if Asia was without means, still the entire sisterhood would need to come to Asia’s aid in the coming months.
“But I’m not married” Asia said. Echoing Kat’s thoughts, Kat hid her annoyance with it as best she could. After all the dogma that Asia that rejected in her life, she still felt guilt over things that she shouldn’t have to. Doug and Ilse had described what it was like growing up in the Catholic Church and Erma Tangeman used to say that many of the problems that existed in the world could be traced back to the gaggle of elderly virgin men who infested the Vatican.
“Yes, about that” Kat replied, “Do you intend to? To the father?”
“He is not someone I would want to spend five more minutes with” Asia said, “Much less marrying him.”
Kat couldn’t help but noticing that Asia had said that with far more certainty than anything else she had said. The contradictions that made Asia who she was were very apparent here.
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“Please hold while we redirect your call, Sir” The Operator said to Ben as he waited to get through. The number that Kiki had given to him was to the Berlin Phone Exchange with an extension directly into her suite of rooms in the Winter Residence leaving no direct record of a call to the Hohenzollern Palace. After a minute, it started ringing again.
“What?” Kiki asked when she answered.
“Happy to hear from you too” Ben replied.
“Sorry Ben, I thought you were Zella, who was supposed to call me back” Kiki said, “She’s acting like a complete bitch again.”
“Isn’t that how she always is?”
“Don’t you start with that” Kiki said, Ben had never gotten along with Kiki’s dear friend. That was something that would probably never change.
“Hello Benjamin” Ben heard a voice say in the background, Aurora.
“Tell Aurora hello for me” Ben said.
“Ben said hello” Ben heard Kiki say before she got back on the phone. “Did you need anything?”
“I just wanted to hear from you how you were handling house arrest” Ben said.
Kiki made an exasperated noise. The First Foot had said that they had received a creditable death threat on her by the same merry band of terrorists who had ambushed her FSR team. Supposedly they wanted revenge for the loss of their five friends. This time they were taking no chances. Kiki had found herself stuck in the palace and with round the clock protection.
“They are talking about sending me to Swabia to play figurehead in the Hohenzollern Provence” Kiki said, “I have the castle, now all I need is dragon and I will be a real fairy tale princess.”
“I don’t think that your typical fairy tale princess would tell her Knight Errant to piss off because she can save herself” Ben said.
That got a bit of a laugh out of Kiki.
“Ah yes, that is why I love the Black Knight so much” Kiki said, “He at least tries to understand me.”
“It’s the least I can do” Ben said, “I could always visit you there and because you are the Lady of the Castle you could authorize it.”
“You would find the castle to be drafty and not particularly comfortable.”
“It didn’t seem too bad when I was there last winter.”
“It was because my father was there” Kiki said, “When he isn’t, the staff doesn’t put in as much effort.”
“You are saying that the Emperor tolerates his little girl freezing in the dark?” Ben asked jokingly.
“If it saves him a few Reichsmarks then he would cheerfully tell me to throw an extra blanket on my bed and call it good” Kiki replied, “I wonder what the press would do if they knew the lengths that he goes to save money.”
“You do know there is a reason why your family has been at the top of the heap for the last two hundred years?” Ben asked.
Before Kiki could answer the sound of something plastic hitting a hard surface was heard over the line. Ben thought he heard an all too familiar voice cursing.
“What was that?” Kiki asked.
