Chapter Two Thousand Seventy-Eight
28th July 1971
Mittelland Canal, Near Peine, Lower Saxony
After a somewhat contentious visit to Prague, it had come time to get back on the rivers and canals. Hopefully putting some distance between Kiki and her somewhat confused but well-meaning brother and sister-in-law.
The trouble was that Michael and Birdie didn’t really understand Kiki. Michael had tried to show respect to her accomplishments by doing what he always did with elaborate gestures and ceremonies, because he always loved the showmanship that was a part of his job as the King of Bohemia. Things that Kiki avoided like the plague. Kiki reconsidered that thought for a moment. As a Physician she would have a duty to treat a plague outbreak the same as any other epidemic. So, dealing with the plague would be far preferable to a public spectacle.
What that meant in practice was that Kiki had been inducted into the Order of Saint Wenceslaus as a Dame Commander and was now the Gräfin of Reichenberg inside Bohemia, an industrial city somewhere in the Northern part of the country that she assumed that she would need to visit some time in the near future. This was done entirely because Ernesto Guevara had written his own account of what had happened, and he had credited Kiki with leading them out of that mess which they had found themselves in. Michael had interpreted that as her saving the neck of a subordinate. Whenever the decision was made about Kiki’s future in the Medical Service, he wanted them to know his perspective on the matter when they opened her file and read the citation for the Commander’s Cross from the highest Service Order in Bohemia. Kiki had then made the mistake of pointing out that she wasn’t even Bohemian, he had rectified that by making her a Gräfin of his domain which was his right as King.
Getting out of there before Michael did anything else seemed like a good idea. With the heavy rains that had occurred over the previous weeks the Elbe had been running high, so the Meta had been pushed along by the current, giving them a speedy trip out of Bohemia and through the Sandstone Mountains of Saxon Switzerland. After an extended stops in Dresden and Magdeburg, they had finally entered the Mittelland Canal with the goal of either Vienna or the South of France. Kiki figured that she would flip a coin when it came time to decide which way to go. In the meantime, she had more mundane tasks to take care of as she followed Fianna and Steffi into the aft cabin where they could discuss matters with a bit of privacy and Kiki could take care of Nina. It was a pleasant summer afternoon and all the windows and hatches on the Meta were open, so even in the cabin they were in, there was a nice breeze blowing through.
“You were the same way” Fianna said to Kiki as she took off her shirt, “Growing fast with an appetite to match, your mother even compared you to a bottomless pit. Then God gave her twins a few years later. That I why you shouldn’t complain, you never know who’s listening.”
Kiki just shrugged before Fianna handed Nina to her. While she had her doubts about the existence of God, she knew that the process in which certain embryos split and eventually became identical twins like her sisters Rea and Vicky wasn’t really understood by Medical Science yet. Over the next few minutes, the conversation turned to other matters as Nina was no longer the topic of conversation.
“About this trip up a side canal to the city of Neumarkt in Bavaria that you have planned” Steffi asked, “That doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Is that a mistake?”
“No” Kiki replied, “That canal in considered obsolete with the Meta being the largest type of craft that can make it up to that city. The hope is that the resulting publicity of me going there will encourage recreational boating into areas like that which would otherwise fall into decay. Which I’m sure you think is a bit foolish.”
“Actually, that makes the most sense of anything to do with this trip” Steffi said, “Do think that we should call some of the newspapers and tip them off about where we will be ahead of time?”
“Why not just tell them?” Fianna asked.
“The newspapers always like to think they are pulling a sly one on me” Kiki replied, “The truth is that if they actually intruded when they were not wanted, I would probably disappear into here until they left.”
That was a reminder that this wasn’t just a pleasure cruise. Kiki was taking it because she wanted to popularize the concept. Plus, she was doing her job as the Princess Royal without actually doing anything. Which was always a welcome consideration. It was at that moment when the hatch from the wheelhouse opened, and Bram poked his head in.
“Ma’am, Herr Kirchhoff wanted to know…” Bram started to ask, and then he saw Kiki and he trailed off, his face went pale before he slammed the hatch shut.
“I swear that boy needs to get out more” Steffi said.
“Don’t be mean” Kiki replied, “He’s been very sheltered.”
“I grew up in a tenement in Dublin with seven brothers and sisters” Fianna said, “We were sheltered from many of the ills of the world but not like that, that is privilege. Know the difference.”
