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The Hidden King

Gunnland

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Windhaven, Gunnland
"The Fisher King"​

Purpoole, Gunnland
60km southeast of St. Tears

Through the dawn mist, the wicker wheelchair and the split bamboo fly rod combined into the vague likeness of a metronome, slowly flicking back and forth to beat half a heart rate.

The professor's pulse quickened, as it always did wading through the muck here, when he saw his king's herringbone tweed coat slumped in the chair. Underneath, a green and blue kilt was folded sloppily over what used to be his legs and the other lower protuberances of the royal person.

A few minutes later a terse conversation, only as loud as necessary over the noise of the stream.

"Your son acquitted himself well in front of the Thing this morning, Majesty."
"No fits for his airplane?" (Both men chuckle bitterly at the irony.)​
"It's time to start publishing your writings."
"That's fine. It's better to be a dead king. Dead, I am counted prescient and unenviable."​
"Blackthorn won. Without stuffing ballot boxes. I did things I wish I hadn't to make that happen."
"I see. Remember that those pretties you trade in won't work on me, Robert."​

The double amputee looked down at the kilt-folds, while beneath the water, iridescent trout looked up land detected the falseness of the fly.
 
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Gunnland

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Windhaven, Gunnland
"Internal Medicine"​

Weissenfels, Eiffelland

"Fisher king? The king who fell out of the sky? A babe as king, a crone as queen?"

A withered husk of a woman's head was brown and wrinkled against taut white sheets. Ancient yellow eyes searched the Eiffellandian gastroenterologist's face for recognition. Observing the scene from two steps back, the young Gunnish doctor, Landry Gunn MacChrystal, felt his stomach turn in embarrassment. He had already had to explain that "Innere Medizin" was a translation error. Someone else's translation error, he made sure to say. What they really needed was a psychiatrist. The doctors stepped outside of the room, past the royal guards, to confer.

"As I said, I just took her case over from Dr. Blackthorn." (This the Eiffellandian doctor recognized as the new Gunnish leader, from his briefing a day before.) "Blackthorn says that she is repeating thousand-year old prophecies from our secret lawbook, the Book of Gunni, over and over. Most troubling, though, is that she thinks her son is alive, and that she sees him regularly." (At this, his Eiffellandian colleague raised his eyebrows. He did not need the brief to know that an airplane crash had killed King Josias a year before, setting politically backward Gunnland even further back.)

"This will require a psychiatric evaluation."​

From inside the room, there was a warbling scream. "My son is alive!" Landry shook his head sadly. "I know you're not a child psychologist," he said to the gastroenterologist, "but what would you do with a four year-old, whose parents died in an airplane crash, who will only play with airplanes?" The Eiffellandian doctor smiled.

"That would require a psychiatric evaluation."​
 
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Gunnland

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"Purgatory"​

Kretyn, Trivodnia

"What'll it be, Mac?" The doughfaced man, who would not be caught dead in a fedora, much less a trillby, put his homburg on the copper-plated bar. He winced at the familiarity of the strange greeting. "Glenwillie 21." "The 12 or 16?" The red-bearded bartender gestured to the top shelf. "Ah, then the 16." "Rocks?" A stony silence. "Guess not then." Fucking expats, the doughfaced man thought.

All Gunnishmen were criminals, this was something he often said but seldom thought. As an attorney, he knew that in Gunnland the lines between business and crime were uniquely blurry. But in Kretyn's "Little Gunnland," these banjo-playing stoop-sitting hilljacks, who refused to put on trousers for fear it would squeeze their balls dry and sand off their peckers, these were unmistakably criminals. Worse, probably MacLeishes.

He had wanted to go to seminary, but his mother insisted that Padraig become an attorney like his father. I could do her more good as a priest, where she is now, he thought with a pang of self-pity. And what purgatory was he in? A shithole Gunnish neighborhood in Trivodnia, waiting for some Yiddish mafioso heavy to tell him a yarn about Princess Julian. This whole imploding country was threatening to plunge Gallia into economic crisis and a global war.

But when a man got a telegram signed "Steward," a man did what it said to do, without asking too many questions.
 
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Gunnland

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Windhaven, Gunnland
"Knockout"​

Salle des Fergusines
Windhaven, Gunnland


Spittle emitted from the face that was snapped back and twisted sideways, and the flecks shone brightly in the spotlights on the stage of the Windhaven opera house. Floyd's comic book cover WHAM! punch and the face of MacIntosh smushed into a Picasso grotesque took just a moment, but the papers froze it into boxing history for all eternity.

Good thing, too, since Robert, Jack, and Kate missed it. Instead, they watched a big silhouette walk up the aisle towards their seats. Coming into view was a rictus of laughter. Eyes comically wide, tongue nearly sticking out, a cigarette expertly balanced from the little gap between his big front teeth -- a healthy brand for which the doctor advertised -- you had to laugh. "Jack! I fucking zonked you, man! And that queen Stolmand!" Clown, thought Jack. Charisma, thought Robert. Our "Leader!" thought Kate.

"The vote was fixed is what it was!" (Jack's slow rural speech and odd syntax sounded extra plaintive.)
"No, this is a fix!" (The walking laugh jabbed a thumb back at the fight.) "You just got compensation. (And looked at Kate.) A real knockout too. Oh yeah, babe!" (He looked up, agape, and flapped his arms.)​

Kate blushed so deeply it could be seen in the dark, while Jack and Robert shook their heads and snorted out mirthless laughs at the surgeon-turned-politician's ridiculous antics. Blackthorn relished the stage, and throwing punches.
 
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Gunnland

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"Storm"​

Purpoole, Gunnland
60km southeast of St. Tears

Whenever a silent flash illuminated the dark room, towheaded Joachas ran to the upright piano and banged the left-hand keys of lowest pitch to supply the sound of thunder. Sometimes he'd say, in his non-rhotic way, "It's the sto-wom!" From the old house on the hill, shielded from the city lights of Ayr and St. Tears, they could indeed see a storm way out in the Sea of Rurik.

Gunni's brother, thought Josias, watching his four-year old son look out over those dark waters. (Gunnishmen tend to identify the Sea of Rurik and Rurikgrad not with Comrade Andrej Rurik, but a mythic Norseman related in some unclear way to Gunni.) I am possessed of the memories of my ancestors. "Speak to me, Gunns. Show us the old way."

The boy did not note this outburst from his royal father, lying legless against a desk overflowing with sheets of paper and sheets of LSD, with any apparent concern. By Robert the Steward's careful design, nobody capable of having serious concerns knew that King Josias, or parts of him anyway, survived the previous year's plane crash. Just a son too young, a mother too old, a half-dozen maids known to be unreliable, and a pair of lunatic priests. The only exception was a once-beautiful Cameron wife. Queen Deoridih was "too young" (she said) to live out her days with a crippled husband, half-insane with grief over the death of three of her five children, and now a mysterious figure in a villa on the other side of the world, under close watch and an alias.

If there was a silent storm engulfing the people of Gallia, now, the royal Gunns too could help compose the score in peace.
 

Rheinbund

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During the 1800s, many noble families lost their properties due to agrarian crises. These families had to look for other professions than owning land. Some of them started industrial firms, many became dynasties of diplomatic careers, many went into trade or banks, but there was also a group of nobles who grounded dynasties of lawyers and doctors. Most of these nobles grounded dynasties of surgeons, but some went into internal medicine.

The 51 year old Gustav Graf von Bernrode was a descendant of internists. Next to his noble title, he had an academic title. He was a Ph.D. in Medicine, and he was close to the second academic promotion that was part of the Eiffellandian academic tradition: The Habilitation. This Habilitation was needed in Eiffelland to become Professor, and it was a kind of second Ph.D. thesis.
Strictly speaking, the specialism “Gastro-enterology” did not exist yet, but there were already internists who focussed on the gastro-intestinal tract, like there were already pulmonologists. As Leitender Oberarzt at the Universitaetsklinikum Weissenfels, Von Bernrode was one of the internists who focussed on the gastro-intestinal tract, and actually the leader of the Station III. Innere, the part of the Department of Internal Medicine that focussed on gastro-enterology. He was also the physician who treated the Queen-Dowager. Such a patient would not be treated by an assistant; such a patient was Chefsache.
And there was also another reason why this patient should be Chefsache. A 94 year old woman with an abodminal abcess was a difficult case. Such a patient could not be operated with the techniques of the 1950s. Dr. Von Bernrode had to treat the Qeen-Dowager with antibiotics. The treatment started to show success, but there was still a way to go.

Von Bernrode had also asked a psychiatrist to look at the Queen-Dowager for what he thought were delusions.
 

Gunnland

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"Fishbowl"​

Gunnland Swimming Olympic Complex
40km outside of Bremen, Eiffelland

A fish tank took up one wall of the room, casting the men in blue light. The doughfaced attorney wondered if he was in an aquarium. The expense! The chief and shipping magnate sprawled in a white chaise lounge, his white beard cropped close, a diadem on his bald head clashing absurdly with a swim coach's white sweatsuit. Behind him a woman swam by behind the class in a scuba mask and a bikini bathing suit. Mamma mia! thought Padraig, averting his gaze and instinctively reaching for the rosary in his pocket. When she was gone he looked back at the smiling "Merman."

"MacLeish men kidnapped the princess of the blood this summer, Chief."
"For the Church, Enqueter." (Padraig's eyes widened. He had expected a denial.)​
"She was nearly shot dead in Kretyn!"
(The merman-chief shrugged.) "Who talked?"​
"The Keith. He and the Gunn look like fools. Clan war, the people think, for no reason at all!"

Duncan MacLeish was quick to anger, but slow to realize a pious man like Smith could lie quickly. She would have stayed kidnapped if fucking Stolzenau weren't so easily frightened! Decades of clan secrets spilled out. And chiefs despise me, the solemn pricks! I, who should be Lord of the Isles! Dangerous secrets. Harlan Keith had killed a young son in anger. Chief Robert Gunn would have been elected king, not because he would not marry Deoiridh Cameron, but because a love-child had come too early. When he finished his tirade he shrugged, his sweatsuit and toothy grin fluorescent in the blue light. "Go home and wet your sgains with blood. Leave me to my fishies."
 
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Gunnland

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"Customizations"​

Seaguard, Gunnland

Not an ideal place for lunch. The static buzz of welding arcs. Shouts and clanging chains. Engines revving and stalling. Showers of sparks. It was all much more noisome than the men who, until a few weeks ago, grunted and dug down and down to cut the good turf on the peat bog here, as they had for centuries. Seaguard was changing. Ten new warehouses a week, Brendan Cameron MacGinley said, all Lloyd and MacLeish Maritime money. A thousand new workers a week, plus his brother David and the Integrity Party blueshirts brought in to handle security.

"Cameron soldiers?"
"And MacLeishes." (Walter whistled.) "Clansmen for muscle, broken men for labor."​
"I thought the ships were built in Anthene."
"Sure. Leon builds them. We make customizations and burn the blueprints."​

MacGinley ticked off a list of the anti-piracy customizations his shipyards made on the big L&G GMG ships. Double hulls to false triples. Containers for inflatable outboard fastboats. Gunwale mounts for machine guns.

"Funny, all that expense, now with the phratries cleared out on the Long Sea."
"Makes you wonder who the real pirates are!"​

Both men smiled, showing one another mouths full of tuna sandwich.
 

Gunnland

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"Julian"​

Robert Koch Universitat
Weissenfels, Eiffelland


So this is Eiffelland's Capitollium. The doughfaced attorney focused the university's newest student. "No Bremen. No swimming. No Helgoland sex parties." But more serious problems plagued the princess, who sat next to him on a park bench, her head in her hands. "Your Highness, your kidnappers in the Church, in the government, and in Clan MacLeish will be punished for what they have done. But we shall do this in complete silence." He believed not a word of this.

"Why did they do it? Why does grandmother talk about father as if he's alive?"

Of course she has seen Cherra, Smith thought. He shrugged. "Half Gunnland is terrified of women's reform; the other half of a strong Gunn on the throne. So everyone is afraid of you, except a very old woman who has completely lost her mind." He believed every word of this.

Later he saw the queen dowager, shriveled and sleeping. Von Bernrode, expecting a stiffly formal high-powered attorney general, was surprised to watch the doughfaced man shuffle up, kiss her wispy hair, and produce a statuette of Saint Dymphna for her bedside. Over beers in the same cafe where Princes Lothar, Ludwig, and Matthias had toasted two years earlier, Padraig was surprised to learn from Dr.MacChrystal thought Cherra was not insane in the least. Perhaps he should have gone with Saint Timothy.
 
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Gunnland

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Top Secret

NSS 1957-10-1
re: Smith Investigation

The following is a summary of NSS activities related to Operation Thistle, monitoring domestic actors in Gunnland.

Enqueter [attorney general] Padraig Smith [clan Buchanan] made contact with members of a minor Yiddish crime syndicate in Kretyn, Trivodnia; then with Duncan MacLeish [clan chief, shipping magnate] near Bremen, Eiffelland; then Princess Julian [clan Gunn] in Weissenfels, Eiffelland. It is public information that P. Smith is building a case on behalf of Julian Gunn that the princess was not actually kidnapped this summer. Multiple intelligence sources suggest that this kidnapping did, in fact, happen, and MacLeish is involved somehow. Even so the young princess desires to exit public life and put the unpleasant events behind her.

Multiple well-connected Gunnish sources describe the influence of "the steward," a figure connected to a legend that King Josias (1893-1956) survived last year's plane crash, the causes of which are still not well understood. The probability that Josias lives is assigned as very low. But "the steward" seems to be an eminence grise or power-behind-the-throne figure even so. Possible candidates for "the steward:" The censor, Fr. Coemgein Gallagher, military commander Duke Robert Gunn, Professor Robert Wylie [clan Gunn], archbishop Henry Cardinal Stewart, and Smith himself. Agents are attempting to monitor the Smith-Gallagher circle to find more information.

Finally, multiple sources confirm that doctors are confused why queen dowager Cherra [clan Gunn] was airlifted to Weissenfels, Eiffelland last week. Her kidney disease does not appear to have taken a turn for the worse, and she has passed preliminary psychiatric evaluations. Clearly grief-stricken, she has repeatedly claimed her son King Josias is alive.

Sergius Brothers
NSS-Windhaven-01

 

Rheinbund

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“I can’t rule out dementia, but this is not Alzheimer,” psychiatrist Dr. Fergus McAllister said to Dr. von Bernrode. He was a psychiatrist with a practice in Bremen. The psychiatrists of the Psychiatric Department of the Universitaetsklinikum Weissenfels considered it too tricky to investigate the Queen-Dowager. Especially in psychiatry, the language was essential. The English of the psychiatrists at the Universitaetsklinikum Weissenfels was good enough for congresses and correspondence with colleagues abroad, but they considered themselves not familiar enough with Gunnish English to conduct a proper psychiatric evaluation of a Gunnish patient, especially of a Gunnish patient who apparently didn’t know where she was. Therefore, they contacted the Universitaetsklinikum Bremen, which referred them to Dr. Fergus McAllister. He was a member of the Gunnish diaspora. His parents were Gunnishmen, who moved to Bremen after Fergus’s birth. Fergus made use of the fact that education is free in Eiffelland, studied medicine in Bremen, and became one of the first people in Eiffelland who did not specialise as nerve doctor (a combination of a neurologist and a psychiatrist), but as a psychiatrist alone. After that, he settled himself as a psychiatrist with his own practise in Bremen. That was five years ago. Because he still spoke Gunnish English with his parents and siblings, he was perfectly bilingual in German and Gunnish English, and of course also spoke French and the kind of Pelasgian that was the official language of Pelasgia until last year’s switch to Demotic in that country.

“What I do see, is a disorientation in time and place, narrowed or maybe even depressed consciousness, a very depressed mood and a delusional disorder.” McAllister used the German term “Wahnstoerung”. “The death of her son last year had a very deep impact. I don’t know how she was before that, but I do know that the loss of her son induced a depression, and that depression may have induced the delusion that her son is still alive. My diagnosis is a depression with psychotic characteristics.”
“Is there anything we can do, Dr. McAllister?” Von Bernrode asked.
“I know that Schwarzenberg is working on antidepressive medications, but they are not ready yet,” Dr. McAllister said. “I could prescribe anxiolytics, but that will depress her consciousness even more, so I hesitate about that. What I could try, is psychotherapy.”

OOC: Post changed on 03OCT2017 01:00 CET. Reference to Princess Julian removed; now the talking only takes place between Dr. McAllister and Dr. Von Bernrode. Reason: Dr. McAllister will never have used the clinical terms he used when talking to laymen.
 
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Gunnland

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"Webs"​

Nairn, Gunnland
20 km from Windhaven

Since the golf ban, the colonel liked to walk at dawn, following his early-rising daughter down cowpaths. Today she ran with Robert's son James, laughing and concocting a fairytale world. It was a good time to contemplate the wonder of it all, the sheer mystery why there is something rather than nothing. The dew shone on spider webs. It was also a good time for spotting traps.

"Politics drew you back in, Robert."
"Hell broke loose when I left. They almost killed Julian!"​
"Weren't the plotters your friends? The Smith-Gallagher circle? Red Bess Stoke?"
"Smith may have known. Gallagher and the Cardinal did. So did the MacLeish."​
(Stephen's eyes widened in surprise.) "Jake will control them. We can retire to our books."
"Jake Blackthorn needs more watching than anyone!"​

The laughter did not dispel the air of sadness. Blackthorn was about to take down Robert Gunn, and make Colonel Stephen MacAllister MacGarry, the mild-mannered "warrior-poet," commander of the armed forces. The brown-eyed, boyish-looking man was more liked than respected by the soldiery, a literature professor more than a soldier, but someone they could trust. It was a trap Stephen did not see.
 

Gunnland

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"Wilson"​

Weissenfels, Eiffelland

Great. A goddamned MacAllister. His white hair longish and messy, the Gunnish earl looked dispassionately at the Eiffellandian psychiatrist. The dark blues and greens of his Gunn great kilt, gathered casually into a brooch at his shoulder, looked out of place in the hospital where everything was white, modern, and neatly tucked. William Gunn Wilson was the rare scion of an ancient name that had four living sons. This was a near miracle: the boys had grown up in enemy territory, the western isles, seized from the MacLeishes in '45. Their father had the hardness of a man who ruled without much speaking. (He stuttered, anyway.)

"Ps-ps-psychotherapy. So you will just t-t-talk Aunt Cherra out of her madness?"
"It is the safest course, considering her depression."​
"I want letters from doctors s-saying sh-she must retire from public life."
"Well, for a woman her age..."​
"I want her back with her f-f-family. The W-Wilsons. I want you to help."

The young doctor-cum-translator, Landry Gunn MacChrystal, breathed a sigh of relief. Wilsons made him nervous. Hard men that filled the power vacuum in clan Gunn, they knew the burdens of earldoms and thingseats they earned themselves. So this was all his Wilson cousins wanted?
 
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Rheinbund

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Dr. Von Bernrode looked annoyed at the Gunnish nobleman. Not because of the latter’s clothing. He himself was a nobleman, so he understood perfectly the importance of the Gunnish nobleman’s clothing. He was annoyed because of something else. He considered Earl William Gunn Wilson’s request to move the Queen-Dowager to Gunnland an insult, as if the Gunnish Earl took his knowledge and skills into question. Von Bernrode was sporting enough to accept criticism, but he didn’t like unjustified criticism at al. In that case, he could become extremely unpleasant.


Then he looked sternly at Dr. McAllister, and said arrogantly and stiffly: “Herr Doktor McAllister, ich muss Sie darauf hinweisen, dass wir im Interesse der Patientin handeln müssen. Die Gesundheit der Königin-Mutter muss uns wichtiger sein als irgendeine Sippenfeindschaft.Dr. McAllister, I have to indicate that we must act in the patient’s interest. The Queen-Dowager’s health must be more important to us than some clan fights.


Von Bernrode didn’t know all the details, but he more or less knew that the situation in Gunnlandia was a bit delicate. He was afraid that the Queen-Dowager would not be safe in Gunnlandia. Therefore, he wanted to keep her in Weissenfels. He was her doctor now, so he was responsible for her health and well-being. And he would make that crystal clear. Good, as a Count, he was outranked by the Gunnish Earl, but he considered his academic position enough to equal that out.


Then he looked again at the Gunnish Earl. In the same arrogant and stiff manner, he said in English with a slight German accent: “Your Highness, at this moment, it is impossible to move the Queen-Dowager out of this hospital. Travelling to Gunnland, even by plane, will be too exhausting to her. Furthermore, she needs care that she can only get here.”


Like all Eiffellandians, he talked the English spoken in Engellex, although he had learned some Gunnish-English idioms during the past weeks.


When the Earl started to talk, Von Bernrode interrupted him, still talking in the same arrogant and stiff way: “And finally, you don’t have any responsibility regarding the Queen-Dowager. Only her direct family will have the final say in this. And with that I mean Princess Julian.”
 

Gunnland

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“Heimlich”​

The Militia Club
Windhaven, Gunnland


“Of course I know. Who do you think the cardinal asked to arrange it?”

Shocked, Padraig Smith started to choke on his haggis. Coemgein arranged Julian’s kidnapping? Normally he would be prepared for Fr. Gallagher, the air of cultivated flippancy (the milk mustache…!), the surprise of some cunning plot. The enqueter often met the censor at the homey Militia Club above the Sword and Ship pub. Here they discussed remaking their Gunnish Heimat after the fashion of Beira’s Civic Front and their Catholic corporatist heroes. Idle theorizing to prudent men like Wylie and Blackthorn, the doughfaced attorney thought bitterly. But Padraig was now choking violently and could not speak. Coemgein Gallagher, like some Jewish superhero with his broad shoulders and curly black hair, sprung up to give him the Heimlich. The uptempo ceilidh music droned to a stop and the fiddlers looked over in alarm to see a tall priest giving a chubby man violent abdominal thrusts. A morsel of haggis flew out, and Padraig managed to choke out his warning.

“Investigating. (He coughed.) Orders only signed ‘Steward.’”​
“Oh, that’s very bad.”

The jocose priest now looked worried and pensive. This made his milk mustache look even more ridiculous. Time to find out who “the steward” was, if indeed he was just one man. Still coughing, Padraig tried to assure the skeptical fiddlers that he was all right.
 

Gunnland

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“Scoop”​

MacArthur Gaol
Kinvarness, Isle of Mar, Gunnland

25km east of Mar
As the drone of the pipes faded, the snare drum’s staccato made a final crack-crack-crack. Then silence. Hardly able to breathe under the black wool hood, he moved his head wildly, as if to see something but the blackness. It will be blackness forever now. At the thought, he started to blubber pathetically. A strong hand forced his neck down onto the block. Why make a brave show of dying? For whom? Harlan Keith would bring the axe down at any moment.

Thunk.

Splitting wood. Yanking the hood from Stephen Lynn’s head, the smiling face of a priest with curly black hair was revealed. Not the Keith. The censor. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you, says the Lord.” The journalist fell to the floor, still sobbing, his chest so sore. Fr. Coemgein Gallagher chattered excitedly, like a child proud of having made a good joke that he had long rehearsed. He threw a packet of papers onto the weeping man. “You newspapermen are a nuisance. My plan was for Julian’s own good, anyway. But instead of scooping your brains off the floor, I am giving you a scoop: find the man they call the steward.”
 

Gunnland

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“Pricks”​

Weissenfels, Eiffelland

Pricks. Usually he liked doctors. They, too, were men who knew the body, life and death, and tough decisions. Only they always decided to leave people alive. Not William. The condescension of the Eiffellandian count, however, rankled the earl. These southerners found it easy to treat Gunnishmen like brainless, hairy savages. William ignored Von Bernrode and, turning to McAllister, said just audibly,

“But for y-your foolish pantaloons, I w-would say there w-were only w-w-women in this country.”

And he was out the door. In l’espirit d’escalier, he thought he should have said that the only position of women in Gunnland was on their backs or on their knees. But he silently reproached himself for the thought. Gentleman didn’t talk that way, even if they thought so. Besides, sex in the Burgundian style was a sin. Banishing the thought of a nasty and clever riposte from his head, William thought about whether to find some MacLeish gunslinger in Bremen to cut the doctor down, provoke a diplomatic crisis, or simply let the issue go. As the pricking pains of a fast heart rate slowed to a calm, the last two options or a compromise between them seemed most likely.
 

Rheinbund

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Weissenfels, Eiffelland


Dr. McAllister was a bit shocked about the confrontation between him, Dr. Von Bernrode and the Gunnish Earl. He himself agreed with Von Bernrode that the Queen-Dowager could not be transported at the moment, but that could have been said in a friendlier way. Furthermore, Von Bernrode’s remark to him was a cranking of his professional honour according to him. He also considered it wise to make his colleague clear with which kind of people he was dealing.


“Dr. Von Bernrode, let it be clear that I judge the Queen-Dowager untransportable as well. I did introduce the Earl to you, but I did not intend to back him. My intention was that we both would make him clear that the Queen-Dowager must stay here for the moment, but then in such a way that the Earl would understand it,” he said.


Von Bernrode looked at McAllister. “That was not clear to me,” he said in a much friendlier way than before. “Maybe it would have been better if you would have contacted me beforehand. Then I would have known what was happening.”


“You are right with that. I will do so next time,” McAllister said. He took a pause, and then continued.


”I think it would also be wise if I inform you about the kind of people we are dealing with. You know that the situation in Gunnlandia is a bit … violent. One of the reasons for that violence is the fact that honour is very important in Gunnlandia. Not much is needed to let a Gunnishman feel that his honour is violated, and then the only thought he knows is revenge. That can be in the form of an immediate nasty remark, but the craving for revenge can continue for a long time. There are no full-blown clanwars any more, but individual killings still happen. And now you made a proud Gunnishman very angry. You yourself must understand how it feels when someone violates your honour,” he said. “Indeed, you are completely right, the Queen-Dowager must stay here, but that could have been said in a different way.”
 

Gunnland

FTR
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
Messages
2,035
Location
Virginia, USA
Capital
Windhaven, Gunnland
“Low Profile”​

Ayr, Gunnland

Plate glass windows on the tenth floor look into a gray sky, rough seas, and craggy green hills in the distance. Definitely Gunnland. Closer, however, are streamlined art deco buildings from the past three decades, sleek chrome and vitriolite products of the airplane age. They look as if the city of Ayr were ready to take off from its highland shores, and join Europe and international civilization.

The bald man with rimless glasses, his uncle, wore a business suit -- with pants. He looked tired from a lifetime of running Lloyd and MacLeish professionally, chasing out the more gangsterish MacLeishes, cleaning up the books, making sure the shipping company ran a profit. And keeping Janice MacLeish happy at home, the hardest job of all. The company vice president almost looked as tired as the doughfaced attorney.

“Drug smuggling and woman stealing are the focus of our continued investigation of the company.”
“We employ whole cities. Can’t you see honest work has to be our future?”​
“I hate to do it, Uncle Mark. Especially if I take the MacLeish down, I'll lose you as a relative.”

Padraig smiled blandly. Honest work! Cousin Gregor has only learned to love the girls of Eiffelland and the sportscars of Bourgogne! Neither man took the bluff too seriously. Duncan MacLeish was untouchable. Mark Buchanan Smith might be his tanistear, but would not become the MacLeish for many more years, probably, if the MacLeish fine allowed this. A man who could negotiate with the Wilsons, though! And Mark didn’t want to be chief. He couldn’t understand his nephews, Padraig and Robert Wylie, who wore the kilt, lived in Windhaven, and involved themselves in the country’s backward politics. Like the curved buildings of glass and tile, he wanted to keep a low profile, and move into the future.
 
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Rheinbund

Established Nation
Joined
Oct 30, 2006
Messages
11,806
Location
Rotterdam, Netherlands
Capital
Fehrbellin
Weissenfels, Eiffelland

Eiffellandian people generally paid quite a lot of attention to their looks, but Prince Ludwig went further than the average Eiffellandian. Nicknamed “the angel of the Royal Family” because of his half‑long light blonde hair, his sapphire-blue eyes and the fact that he looked more like 18 than like 24, he always made sure that his hair was perfectly dressed and that his clothes were in perfect shape. Even at the end of the day, there was not a single crank in his shirt, not even at the back. All that combined with his athletic body made him a person who drew much attention.

Weissenfels was a city with many old buildings. The Weissenfelser Stadtschloss, the Hofkirche, the Semperoper and the the Zwinger were baroque buildings, and there were many more buildings from the days of the baroque. Even the University Hospital, altough very modern inside the buildings, consisted of many pavillions in baroque style, although in this case it was neobaroque. Furthermore, the quarters on the Felshang (Loschwitz, Weisser Hirsch, Rochwitz, Bühlau and Oberbühlau) were very beautiful villa quarters, with many villas from the late 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Loschwitz was also the quarter of the Weissenfelser Standseilbahn (a short funicular railway from which you had a very beautiful view on Loschwitz) and the Weissenfelser Schwebebahn (a suspension railway in the neighbourhood of the Standseilbahn). Both were constructed during the end of the 19th century, and both were tourist attractions, although they were also part of the Weissenfelser public transport system.

During the last two weeks, the weather had been relatively bad. The temperature was still 18 degrees celsius (which was normal for mid october in Weissenfels), but it was windy and rainy, and that made the weather feel chilly.

“But that is barbaric,” Prince Ludwig said in his normal slightly feminine way to Princess Julia, after she told about her kidnapping. He knew that Gunnlandia was not really women-friendly, but the whole story about Princess Julian’s kidnapping shocked him. Especially the reason for it.

Three weeks ago, at the beginning of the academic year, Ludwig and Julian met each other in the canteen of the law faculty. They immediately liked each other, although Ludwig considered it a friendship and nothing more. Now they were sitting in a bar in the city centre of Weissenfels. It was the same bar as where Ludwig toasted on student life with Matthias von Luckenwalde, his cousin Lothar and many other people. It was also the same bar as where Padraig Smith had talked to Dr. MacChrystal.

Ludwig and Julian talked for a couple of hours in the bar, until Julian realised that the last tram to Loschwitz had passed. And that was a problem. Trier did have night buses, but Weissenfels only had them on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

“I will take you home. Where do you live?” Ludwig asked.

“I live in the Plattleite, in Loschwitz”, Julian said.

“My goodness, then you have to travel a lot each day,” Ludwig said.

“Yes, but it’s also a very beautiful part of the city, and the city centre is a bit too hectic to me at the moment. Maybe I will move to a place closer to the city centre later on, but not now yet,” Julian said.

“I understand,” Ludwig said.

They first went to Ludwig’s house to get his car (a five-year old Borschel). Then they drove to Julian’s house on the other side of the river. When Ludwig stopped in front of Julian’s house, Julian gave Ludwig a kiss on the cheek. Totally not expecting that, he frightened up. Julian noticed that reaction, initially didn’t understand, and then was disappointed.

“Sorry, Julian. It’s not you. It’s me. I cannot take up that role for a woman,” Ludwig said.
 
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