THAT FATEFUL FORTNIGHT AT ZUM SCHWEDENKÖNIG

I was, while writing this segment, getting all worked up about Beauty and the Beast (2017) and the Satomi Hakkenden, and later on about Kirakira Pretty Cure à la Mode, reminded me that I had barely posted any Baratheon Saga --including those missing snippets I promised. This one is some serious Jaimienne: this takes place during WW1 during the journey to Potsdam. Emotional turmoil, gender confusion, and final Jaimienne and gender reveal. Also some Savitri imagery... There will also ultimately be, later on between assignment and assignment on this struggle with Terminology, some Renloras shenanigans in the same AU. Mostly involving Rainer's promotion to lieutenant, and their reaction to the outbreak of war. But for now it's Jaimienne, white lies, and realizations.
(This is a quote from 2017 ;) sorry for the delay 'cause a lot got in the way)...


THAT FATEFUL FORTNIGHT AT ZUM SCHWEDENKÖNIG

The inn is called Zum Schwedenkönig. A portrait of a clean-shaven, messy-haired Charles XII in blue uniform is hanging from the wooden sign against the darkening evening twilight. She would have preferred Gustavus Adolphus; anyway, Charles XII was the original loser, the Don Quixote of the North. As Brünnhilde has learned by heart even since her early childhood:

"His fate was consigned to a barren strand,
a petty fortress, and a dubious hand;
he left a name, at which the world grew pale,
to point a moral, or adorn a tale."

"Sein Schicksal endete an fremdem Strand
vor schwacher Feste und durch niedre Hand.
Einst machte jedes Herz sein Name höher schlagen,
jetzt ist er nur ein Stoff, an Lehren reich und Sagen."

What a stark contrast to Gustavus Adolphus reeling on horseback and falling upon the battlefield of Lützen, indeed! In fact, the demise of Charles XII in a muddy trench and his utter lack of facial hair are also too reminiscent of the present, of the Great War, of the War to End All Wars. Still, it would be better off there than in the freezing outdoors for a change. So she tucks the handkerchief she wears in between the legs of her worn though elegant trousers --those of a lieutenant's mess uniform-- to make it a little bit puffier and for none of these strangers to suspect. They will see a young man, tall, blond, and freckled, with short messy hair and dreamy azure eyes. Surely an aide-de-camp or a royal guard, given that most striplings of his rank and youth are currently on either the Eastern or Western Front and "he's" stayed behind at court or at High Command, only to be recently sent to the war front as a messenger. The little girls will skip right before the dashing officer, and the little lads with wooden swords will gasp at the sight of a real lieutenant and ask about the frontline, to receive a cold and indifferent, short reply. The maidens will swoon at the sight, like they've done in every village or roadside tavern "he" has entered before, and the older ladies --their mothers, guardians, chaperones-- will caution them about not getting too close to a man in uniform during wartime. Some curious, indiscrete childlike voice will ask "what is the name of the Herr Leutnant?" And he will reply "Siegmund von Tarth." Right before Rainer fell, she had already lost her father to what appeared to be a stroke or a heart condition, and thus, Brünnhilde's male persona, who, about a fortnight ago, fled the front in a lieutenant's mess uniform --Rainer's mess uniform-- took the name of her single parent to honour his memory and as an anchor to her childhood. As a child, staying in Stralsund during the cold seasons, she often climbed up the ramparts of Fort Charles XII, remembering when her provincial outpost of a native hometown was besieged on three fronts -by Danes, Prussians, and Saxons- and that mockery of a Schwedenkönig held the last stand for the empire he had mostly lost at Poltava. Like always for King Charles, it proved a failure, and thus he sailed up north, while the blood-red Dannebrog flew from the ramparts of the fort and from the church towers. Then he would find a death not unlike her countless friends', in a muddy trench, thanks to a sudden headshot in the middle of the night.
The reaction of the female innkeeper, a hefty peasant woman who introduces herself as Mascha and appears to the "lieutenant" as enough amiable not to be a Madame Thénardier at all, and that of the other guests, is exactly as she expected. "Well, Herr Leutnant, since you have come all the way from Potsdam... I hope you will be so kind by giving the latest news to the Herr Oberst, right?" Mascha and then "Siegmund" turn their gaze towards a lonely table by the southern window, where an ostensibly thirtyish officer in an even more worn, yet even higher-ranking mess uniform (colonel or at least lieutenant colonel, she can tell from the insignia on his shoulder pads) is sitting alone before a one-liter tankard. It's an unkempt, surely half-drunken, stubbled, long-haired, filthy shadow of his former self. Looks a bit like a fallen-on-hard-times Charles XII when he stayed in Stralsund, then a provincial outpost under Swedish reign, and later on when he was killed in that Scandinavian trench. Coming closer to the Herr Oberst to sit by his side, wincing at his strong musk laced with blood, liquor, and perspiration, she asks... "May a middling lieutenant have the honour to sit by your side?" He merely nods listlessly in reply; she notices the sorrowful and irate look, of despair, in his absinthe-green eyes, the dark patina laid upon his shoulder-length hair and stubbled face, the scabbard hanging on his right side (since left-handers have always been an unusual sight, yet she holds no prejudice against them)... and the fact that his right arm is hanging as an empty sleeve, like a ragdoll's. A good wash and a clean shave are all this beast, this soldier in a bear-skin, needs to become a man again, for the gold to surface from underneath the grime.
Mascha returns; the Herr Oberst asks for some good strong Weinbrand ("Heavens know I am dying of thirst!"), while the younger Leutnant asks for the same kind of beer that the other officer had drunk. The expected question for news from Potsdam. Time to make up some white lies. "How fares Count Theibald von Lännister?" She's barely heard that name, saying he's all right and tending deftly to the affairs of war. "And how fares his daughter?" It's that question that turns "Siegmund von Tarth" off-kilter. He tucks his left forearm into his cleavage, struggles with opening the locket he has produced with awkward sinistral fingers, asks if the Herr Leutnant would be so kind to open it. The tokens of a beautiful lady come to view: on one half, a lock of shining golden hair that might be taken for thread of gold; on the other, a daguerreotype coloured with crayons of a noblewoman from right before the war, in corset and crinoline. Her eyes are coloured absinthe-green, just like the colonel's, and her hair is coloured golden blond. And he sighs as she shuts the locket and he tucks it back under his shirt.
"I have barely seen her, Herr Oberst. The duties of attending to the generals at High Command occupy most of my time nowadays..."
"So, the Herr Leutnant thus is not conveying any message of importance for a disgraced officer from Count Theibald or Countess Elisabeth von Lännister?"
As she innocently shakes her head, the older officer drains his cup of Weinbrand and falls reeling forwards on the table. Still breathing, yet feverishly, and his face is ablaze.
"We should bring the Herr Oberst to bed, and fetch the surgeon, or at least the wise crone!" At this point, that voice of command sounds like a real officer's. Everyone stares at the lieutenant and wonders why he would bring the drunken colonel to bed... "He's not only dead drunk... he's ill, with a bad fever indeed!" Seeing that not even the innkeeper herself seems willing to aid, Brünnhilde herself decides to spring into action, grabbing the unconscious man by the waist and trying to lift him up, feeling his arms lash against her sides. And then she realises that his right arm is missing from the elbow downwards. The pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place: the Herr Oberst, or so Hilde thinks, was betrothed to his beloved Elisabeth von Lännister, lost his right hand on the war front in one way or another, and, after convalescence, had to leave both the war and the engagement; now he's hoping for his bride or prospective father-in-law to reinstate his name and bring this tale of star-crossed lovers to a happy ever after, while he drowns his sorrows in a tavern in the middle of nowhere, as condemned as Charles XII. It's nice to see there is romanticism out there in this now heartless and disenchanted world. This would make a wonderful ballad, a feuilleton, or even an opera...
A deserter and a cripple, both of them wearing officers' uniforms as worn and bleached as their hearts, both worshipped by the locals and regarded by the military as outsiders. Wouldn't that make an even better opera? Finally, the innkeeper and some of the good countryfolk paid heed to the uniformed drunkard's real state. Now he lay tossing and writhing in a bed the Gasthaus had to offer, flared up, thirsty, drenched in perspiration, stark naked under the covers, his right stump having come to view. It was even suppurating, oozing pus or serum: the combination of filth and strong drink was allowing poison to enter his blood. This could be a deathbed scene as inglorious as that of Charles XII redivivus in her many frontline comrades; the heartrending climax of the feuilleton, the opera, or the ballad.
"Sissi!" he whispers, then he roars, every now and then. Commanding, giving orders for Sissi or for drink, or for both of them, every now and then. Eyes sometimes shut, sometimes wide open and blazing. So he loved the Countess von Lännister... The locket pendles on the cross-dresser's chest, right above her ambiguous bosom. They've sent for Kai Brunner, the local surgeon...  and thus, Hilde wonders whether the life of the febrile colonel will be saved. She pours a draught of berry lemonade (not beer, or brandy) down his parched throat, as he eagerly drinks it in, a deep draught. She touches his neck at the side of the throat that has risen and fallen with the welcome drink, feeling a throbbing, intense heartbeat like a roll of drums or a cavalry charge. This is a wavering heart, whose erratic pounding may suddenly be still when it's expected the least.
"Sissi...!!" he calls her. A loud gasp, glazed peridot eyes startled wide open before they wearily close again.
In his fever dream, he is standing in the middle of the vast throne room, staring at his own lovely reflection, left-handedly fingering and piecing together the answer to the riddle.
The throne room is made of gold, with emerald window-panes and scarlet tapestries dyed with the blood of the weak whom the strong have oppressed. A baroque golden throne stands empty behind the Oberst; the Queen has left her court and realm to inspire the souls of the generals and the high officers who are moving pieces of flesh and blood on their ominous chessboards.
"If you succeed in finding out the answer to the puzzle, I will give you the whole wide world finally at peace and a brand new right hand of solid gold."
Yet, no matter how much he combines the golden puzzle pieces in all different and most peculiar ways on the emerald floor, the answer has hitherto always eluded his grasp. Maybe because this puzzle was meant to be solved right-handed, which means that the Heartless Queen has always had a soft spot for paradox.
There are no affairs of state to tend to at this court, neither any childish amusement such as a tea party for the clockwork figurines or a little maypole dance in the garden of emerald hedges. All there is is splendour, vastness, and serious fun, her searing kisses having scarred his throat, his lungs, his heart to the point that he is barely capable of feeling anything but thirst for the air she breathes and arousal when they enter one another, right here on her now empty throne.
The air is also suffocatingly hot, but the hard-hearted officer, scarred within and without, can barely feel this sensation. The throne room contains an ovoid island made out of a single polished emerald, on which he sits, dressed in a mess uniform of scarlet brocade, his face clean shaven with whiskers and his long hair tied backwards into a queue, like royals and high officers look in storybooks, with the empty baroque seat and the golden puzzle pieces, a scarlet gold-lined cloak concealing his half right arm. This emerald island is surrounded by an ovoid lake whose crimson currents swirl around dizzily and seethe like oil in a frying pan; only the Queen may cross it --she brought the colonel on piggyback to her throne--, and she calls it the Phlegethon, the best, the loveliest out of all currents.
Never has he seen anyone so lovely; she reminds him of his late mother, of his estranged sister, clever and piercing emerald orbs framed in cascades of golden light, ripe peach-bosoms and curving hips framed even more in her ballgown of absinthe-green brocade.
But what was this sudden deep draught of cool, fruity liquid that suddenly trickled down his throat? A test from the Queen... or something completely different? It floods his pores, his throat, his vitals,  coursing through his veins and knocking at his heart to quench the painful fire... and, at one sole deep draught, he is finally laid to rest.
Pleasure past and anguish past.
Is this death or is it life?
Life out of death.
A fiftyish gentleman, with a friendly grey-whiskered face and a doctor's bag, entered the sickroom where the one-handed man lay, tossing feverishly under the covers, by the watch of a young lieutenant and in the light of a kerosene lamp. Kai greeted the younger officer with a friendly smile and eyes full of kindness -he certainly meant no evil- before auscultating the wounded one's erratic heartbeat and breathing, and examining his purulent stump. The heart and arteries barely reply; the wounded officer does not even blink an eye in reaction. The mercury column he places through the parted lips of the one-handed colonel rises up to slightly over forty degrees Celsius.
"These field surgeons know little to nothing... how much haste they make during the wars; this amputation was not performed properly... in fact, the same would have happened if it had been severed one or two decades ago. The prospect looks certainly grim..."
All the while Hilde sat back, anxiously awaiting the outcome of this struggle between life and death now that the cavalry of science had arrived. Was there no hope left, even with the healing arts of the newborn century? She had seen some wounded men die and others survive... and the Herr Oberst was still young and strong...
Please, young man, bring me a ewer and a large tub, and clean cloth... So did Hilde, hoping that Kai should be able to save the one-handed officer's life. "And pass me the needle," he continued after daubing the patient's throbbing brow with cold water and washing his purulent stump, giving him to drink from a little glass vial (which was always drained at a deep draught) every now and then, which gradually made the tossing Oberst relax and fall peacefully asleep, though his breathing was still shallow and strained.
Plunging the hypodermic needle into another, shut little vial, the surgeon injected that crystalline liquid into a blue vein that surfaced on the inner side of the colonel's left elbow, as Hilde watched closely and was astonished by his incredible sang-froid. How concentrated Kai was throughout the night, how he cut through right arm flesh as rosy as raw chicken (due to blood loss) to expose and stitch the severed artery, how he sliced up and cleaned, poured icy water upon and stitched the stump, paying special attention to stanch the blood flow (the one-handed officer shuddered a little, and his lips quivered, in response to the cold water poured on his stump), and how he fixed a steel hook to the end of the patient's right humerus, caring thoroughly for the fact that the system would not treat the hook as a foreign object.
By the time the sun was rising, the surgeon was ready to leave. Yet he felt the young lieutenant tug at his coattails, wondering how such a skilful healer, far more efficient than any frontline surgeon, had wound up in the middle of nowhere.
"But first I would like to know about why you care so much for... is he your commanding officer?"
Of course "Siegmund" denied it. Just saying that "he" was good-natured and that kindness to a stranger was all that he was obliged.
And thus Kai replied that he had found a kindred spirit, equally good-natured and earnest; definitely some glad company for the next days, when he would frequent the King of Sweden Inn to check the convalescent's recovery, as his skin was washed fair and clean, the stubble shaved away --whiskers and all--, and the golden head-hair finally shimmering like Jason's Fleece, bereft of all the dark grime.
"Sissi!" he had gasped, opening his startled peridot eyes for an instant, before sinking peacefully back into the pillows, the first time he came to his senses.
During those days of convalescence, of cool spoonfuls of foxglove syrup, and later of cordial, put to parched lips and drained at deep draughts --the rising and falling throat being the only visible sign of life--; of old gauze unwrapped and new gauze wrapped around the stump; of feeling for breath and pulse, each day slightly steadier, in a pocket-watch while applying fingertips to the carotid... during that eventful fortnight at Zum Schwedenkönig, these three wayward strangers got to know each other and a friendship blossomed, a friendship that gradually, upon reaching the stage of full blossom, would burst into even more intense feelings and realizations of the truth.
For how long had he rested? Weeks, days, a whole season? The wounded officer's sense of time had sped away with his state of health, his head not ceasing to swim. It was then that those unquiet fever dreams, his constantly parched mouth, and the pain in a right wrist blown away time and again in searing pain, made him look backwards at what had brought him to this sickbed. All the way long before he and Sissi were born. There was a reason for all that had occurred.
In his youth, just like Napoleon Bonaparte, Theibald von Lännister had once been a cadet, a lieutenant, an army captain... and a socially awkward stripling who preferred perusing military history books to engaging in the "serious" pleasures of strong drink and playing cards. Charles Bonaparte had been an outlaw in Corsica and breathed his last in a cliffside cave; Titus Flavius and his wife Regina von Lännister had died, for being liberals and Bonapartists, in a dungeon in Küstrin Fortress: the man of a heart condition and the woman in bringing her fifth and youngest child Gerhard to the world. The five orphans were taken in by different local officers' families; and so it came to be that a lieutenant and his wife in their late twenties took in Gerda and Gerhard, an older captain adopted Konrad and Heinrich, and the colonel of the regiment, the commander of the local garrison, took the eldest of the disowned lordlings for himself and his childless wife, Frau von Tharbeck, seeing in the defiant look in his eyes that this boy was worth far more than a middling life as the child of a subaltern officer. Theibald von Lännister (or rather, Theibald von Tharbeck) had been a thoughtful child, reluctant to make friends, ambitious, stubborn, and drinking in every last sip of knowledge within his reach. As a stripling, he was sent to military academy in Magdeburg --for Lichterfelde had not been founded yet--, that self-same Magdeburg on the Elbe which the Catholic League had once overrun; yet found no friends among the cadets, furthermore he heard whispers behind his back about a lad born in jail, a traitor's bastard, who aimed to give and take orders for Crown and Country, and Heavens knew if that was his true purpose. These rumours, and the perceived hostility of even his roommates, barely affected the young Theibald (in spite of his surname change)... except for hardening his heart and his backbone. It was then that his fear of weakness began to manifest. And that he began to look up to the Corsican Monster, whom the teachers and history books he adored portrayed as the wicked enemy, as a role model. The life of Napoleon Bonaparte had begun to mirror his own... Not to mention the one of Gérard de Villefort, né Noirtier, another descendant of liberal revolutionaries forced by the absolute monarchy to distance himself utterly from the shadows of his parentage, by becoming as harsh and stern and ruthless and conservative as possible. In fact, Gérard de Villefort, né Noirtier, held up a far better mirror to a young Theibald (or so he would always see himself identified, a parallel that would gradually unfurl more and more with each and every lustrum). Theibald had even gone as far as to change his surname by force, just like his fictional role model. He had for once had the surname of the commandant of Küstrin, his guardian, as Theibald von Tharbeck, before they told him of his true parentage and his eyes were forced wide open. 
And de Villefort had married a young marquise, whom he loved not too well but wisely, to find his niche... while his Prussian counterpart did exactly the same.
He first met Johanna, from the leading right-wing branch of House von Lännister, during her summer holiday in his first provincial assignment. She was a Potsdam debutante, not as much his senior as Josephine had been to the Corsican; Johanna was merely five years older than Theibald and still unmarried, her lady mother concerned that she should die an old maid, and her suitor loved her, not passionately, but reasonably (all of which were, by chance, exactly the same circumstances of Gérard and Renée de Villefort!). The friendless, awkward lieutenant, flustered whenever she was near, was sure that she, a soon-to-be court lady, would be betrothed to a man of her own standing and completely out of his reach... It came as a surprise like right out of a dream --and Theibald von Lännister was wide awake and despised intoxicants-- that her parents accepted his suit, seeing that, though ill-reputed, reserved, and cold, he was of von Lännister blood at the end of the day. And, seeing the situation through his eyes, she was, for once and for all, the Madame Renée de Villefort in this real-life retelling of the saga. While the von Tharbecks had fallen on hard times, and lived retired in what was called Schloss Tharbeck, but was essentially a glorified fruit farm.
It was Johanna who, before and after their wedding, had encouraged him to make the right friends and gain a foothold in high society; to rise up through the ranks of the Prussian military and get assigned to the royal guard itself, to relocate to Potsdam; she had furthermore given him two lovely children, as bright as twin stars... Theibald would never speak of the kobold or of the profuse bleeding, when she brought it to light, that ended his lady's life... He simply gave the kobold away to a servant to sell to a freakshow, announced in public that it had been a stillbirth, and then mourned his beloved Johanna. Tears he shed few, rather few, but his heart bled as if they had stabbed him in the left side, yet he still concealed it behind a façade as hard and cold as a display of strength in a statesman can muster.
He would never remarry and find a stepmother for the twins, knowing --after much meticulous pondering-- that the second Madame de Villefort, that poison snake called Heloïse, had been Gérard's downfall and that of the whole clan. It would have been far better if he had clung to the memory of Renée, never to have met his match. No. Maybe Gérard de Villefort, né Noirtier, had made that mistake; but Theibald von Lännister, formerly von Tharbeck, would never fall into that same pitfall. Or any other pitfall (or so he thought himself). The von Lännisters had to stick together, never to share the tragic fate of their fictional French counterparts the de Villeforts (which sounds ironic if we look forwards, considering that these tactics shoved them --not the de Villeforts, but the von Lännisters-- towards the opposite extreme, into equally drastic dysfunction and tragedy).
Jakob's father had been a detached parent, proud of his rank and gold, more concerned with affairs of state and the military than anything else. Yet the Count was quite harsh and stern on both the twins' shortcomings. For Sissi, it was maybe her tendency to pilfer liquor from the cupboard in the drawing room. For her brother, it was his left hand.
As a child, Jakob von Lännister was taught, or rather forced, to write with his left arm tied to his back.
He was far from the only sinistral to have been set right by their elders, but still one of those who took their new handedness most seriously.
"Really?" Brünnhilde asked, her eyes widening.
"They would smack me with a ruler quite frequently as well... I have always hated to read and write, preferring more physically active pursuits, because the letters danced before my eyes. I would have found it easier if I had been left-handed all life long... But of course my wrist was tied so tight that it hurt, and I had no other choice than to get it right, no matter how hard the task. Even though I, though born into privilege, have always been unlearned and only enjoyed literature if it was read out loud."
"It must have been hard for you to become an officer," the maiden and the surgeon sympathised. What had been quite easy for them had been a path of thorns for the wounded man due to his plight.
The Colonel sighed and sank once more into the pillows, as if his head were plunging into a cream cake, his bright green eyes firmly shut. He had always been ashamed of his left-handedness and, after he had been set right, of his strange way with the written word, of being unlearned in spite of the rank he held within society. But the warmth in those eyes and in those smiles above his feverish face was reassuring.
It was as if chance had chosen to sever his right hand for a good reason.
"I think I must have made friends among the officers of the regiment I led, if not such a lasting impression that they were ready to conspire to save my life; they were even wiping off their tears upon their sleeves. I will never know whether Count Theibald was unaware of it...  At the crack of dawn, as I was told to kneel and the black cloth was tied tightly before my eyes, my aide-de-camp tucked a sprig of larkspur into my buttonhole, and whispered in my ear to fall upon the ground forwards, face first, and hold my breath as soon as I heard the gunshot. I had also been told before to wear a watch in my breast pocket to stop the bullet. Left for dead before the firing squad, I would be quickly carried by Petite Curie to a fort, where I would remain as a friendly 'prisoner' under an assumed name until the close of the war. As an officer, of course I was unafraid to shed my blood upon the field of battle... but it is a very different thing to kneel, with bandaged eyes, and have a comrade aim at one's heart for disobedience of orders. I believe that my head began to swim, and then I was unconscious, for I remember nothing of falling, or being carried away, my first knowledge being that I was on my way to the fort... then this searing flame in my right wrist... When I came to, I was bedridden, my right hand gone, the stump well bandaged to stanch the blood flow, and the soldiers around me were strangers speaking Russian. The enemy had taken the fort, and, furthermore, my sword hand as well."
The closure of the wounded man's tale told without sugarcoating, of how he fled in spite of the Russian surgeon's recommendations, and his worries that his dear Sissi may have heard of his death either upon the battlefield or --far more inglorious-- by firing squad, brought tears to the eyes of the listeners.
"You were and are a brave warrior," Hilde sighed, playing with his now damp, newly washed locks. "To confront your old man, a more fearsome enemy than the French or the Russians, even if it meant to die an ignoble death, and to leave your post in such haste for a good cause... that takes real courage. You must have loved her dearly, as much as to have her to wife..."
Tears sprung up to his eyes. "I am doing all of this because of the weariness and the sheer absurdity of this bloody war. Think, poisoning our own men as well as the enemy, and maybe even innocents... As for my love life, I will never take up a wife..."
"Married to Prussia, right?" she asked, winking a blue right eye. He nodded listlessly, and she saw herself mirrored in his reply. She knew what it was like to admire someone beyond her reach with all her heart and soul. She would not even have taken Rainer to husband, only as her commanding officer. Married to Prussia as well.
The next day, his fever having cooled down, yet still pale and breathing shallowly, drenched in perspiration, the one-handed officer thought about the meaning of what had just happened, of the secret and cathartic events that he had told two people who were far less friends than strangers... yet somehow he had the gut feeling that they would keep the secret. The friendly surgeon and the stripling of a freckled lieutenant were trustworthy, they had been kind, they were nursing him back to health, to life, to hope. Hope that wavered like a flame in the storm, but still a strong flame at the end of the day.
Right after confronting his father and commander, and staging his own inglorious traitor's death, he had lost his right hand, the self-same right hand which he had been forced to use against his will, then accustomed to mechanically regard as the good one. He was now far more Jakob and far less von Lännister. He still kept the sinister hand, the sinister arm, those he had left were the good ones from the start, but the right --as with all the other things he had hitherto thought were right-- were dead and gone. Upon thinking of this twist of fate, the frog-woman's cards, before he left for the front, came to his mind's eye.
Death for change, the Hanged One for the world turned upside down and for self-sacrifice, the Five of Coins for destitution, the Four and the Nine of Swords for rest and despair respectively, most ominously the Tower for the fact that everything cherished would crumble... yet, at the end of the day, the Star for hope and the Queen of Swords for a broken, yet intelligent and freethinking woman. And now he had experienced change, spiritually died once if not twice, struggled to stay alive as he trudged through friendly and enemy country, and was right now confronting his demons and resting from the wounds of both his body and his spirit... the Tower of the Kaiserreich maybe struck down by lightning already, maybe reeling and falling apart as the German hosts wavered before the Allied counterattack... Who was the Queen of Swords? Not Sissi, that was for sure. Though completely unaware of his twin sister's fondness for Wenzel von Lännister and her cold utter disregard of her twin's alleged death on the field of battle, the Colonel could feel that she was worlds away. But did he know that the freckled stripling who assisted Doctor Kai was actually a maiden? So far, he had taken "Siegmund" being male for granted. Yet, as his recovery unfurled, he would soon discover the truth about her as well.
Yet the ice broke quite slowly and quite gradually. It was not until the bedridden officer could leave his sickbed that he discovered what lay between her legs, as he went down to quench his thirst from the village pond while she had a rudimentary wash.
She covered her muscle-like bosom with her right hand and her wispy blond bush with the left, like Botticelli's Venus; a mannish and awkward, flustered Venus, while he watched from among the brown bulrushes. And Hilde splashed him in the face, as if by reflex. That evening, she turned her blushing face away from both men.
"You know, I never had time for a wife," von Lännister said to himself with a sigh.
"I never had time for a wife either," Kai replied as he popped the customary mercury column through the convalescent's parted lips. "I never felt in love, never felt attracted... sexually. To men or women. I'm sure asexuality is a thing, Herr Oberst. This is, after all, a free country, even though I have been expelled from university after university. Humboldt, Leipzig, Jena, the Ruperto Carola, even Ingolstadt. Lovely fortress town, isn't it? They say the Baron von Frankenstein made his monster and brought him to life there... Ingolstadt, grave of Count Tilly and cradle of the Illuminati. Ironically, not even there could a degree be attained."
"And why?" both young people wonder.
"Because this thirst for knowledge, like Odin's, cannot be quenched. I sought the secret of life itself, the primeval reason why our lives unfurl as long as our systems function the right way, and why they fail beyond repair at the bitter end. Science has come a long way, and soon we will reach the adulthood of humankind, when everyone at least in Europe will be freethinkers. But there have always been powers that have barred this threshold. The Church, state authorities, right-wing in general. Some members of the intelligentsia spend too long looking at cells under their magnifying tubes for the establishment not to notice. Anyway, Wallenstein was a university dropout and still grew into a remarkable scholar by simply garnering real-life experience... Likewise, these wartime years as a regimental surgeon may give me the experience needed to carry out my research."
As a man of action rather than an intellectual, the Count of Lännister is at first unable to understand this revelation. It is the cross-dressing maiden who chimes in and breaks the heavy silence:
"We are outsiders, all three. Each in their own special way. A mannish girl under the flags, a high officer missing his sword hand, and a researcher whose quest led to the fact that a degree is still beyond his reach."
"Siegmund is right," the one-handed count replies as the surgeon takes the thermometer out of his mouth. "Siegmund... or rather..."
"Brünnhilde," she finally replies in a sincere contralto, neither looking away nor blushing, feeling completely unabashed.
"Like the leader of the valkyries." Looking down on his right stump, the Count feels a strange surge of emotions swirling through him: hope and shock and elation and impatience throbbing all at once.
"Thirty-eight degrees, Herr Oberst. Your system, though still recovering, is on the right path..."
Taking his right stump, all wrapped in freshly-changed gauze, she has slightly bent forwards and kissed it.
As both their healing hearts skip a beat. Though his non-existant wrist hurt again, the convalescent did not even wince, putting on a brave face as he counted the freckles in his new friend's face. She was, in turn, so flustered that it had made her thirsty, and asked for a glass of lemonade. "Make it two," the bedridden one replied. They clinked their cups, both held in the left hand, before draining them at one fell swoop.
Now there's no longer any need for cross-dressing at least for now, Hilde thinks. I am what I am, and it was not in vain that I crossed the paths of both of these men. I may not be a proper lady, but I am someone at the end of the day. Heart upon my sleeve. No longer reserved and shy.
It's hard to be left-handed if you have been set right from childhood, the Oberst, the Count... no, Jakob von Lännister the man has thought to himself. To learn to write anew, to wield a sword or a tennis racket (though this was neither the time nor the place for rackets) anew... with Brünnhilde tutoring him, like a young child worlds away from striplinghood would be by the best of governesses. But soon all of those weeks of training gave fruit; his pen danced deftly upon a snow-white sheet to write "Liebste Elisabeth!", and the letters no longer scrambled before his eyes.
He could read without any complications.
No longer would literature --whether prose, poetry, drama, or essay-- feel like a strange land to his eyes, no longer would he be feel unlearned.
She reassuringly held his stump and gave it now a kiss, now a warm caress, as a sign of warts-and-all acceptance. He lost himself not in those large azure eyes like summer lakes, but in the freckles that so often had been concealed by make-up during society events: he could see the North Star, the Seven Sisters, Cassiopeia... Those freckles never danced before his eyes either. And the severed wrist hurt no longer. The pain, the thirst, the fever dreams... all of that had faded away as well.
During all this time, he had forgotten that he had been a royal guard, a count, a colonel, and even right-handed.
While Hilde had reconciled herself with her awkward femininity and found constellations within those freckles which the world had hated, yet her father had called sunspots in an affectionate tone. Rainer Baratheon had not even breathed a word about that, in such cool and wistful tones that he was known for, and she had wondered why. Let him love another, let the storm of war claim him, for the right one is mine at last. We are ourselves, two lost souls who have found one another and who have found hope along the way we share.
In late August, the shire hosts a harvest ball. It is then that Hilde receives the folk-dress.
No breeches or cravat. Not sky blue to fit her bright eyes and fair skin... but rather the colours she hates the most.
Warm colours, shades that go from peach to scarlet through various shades of pink: the puffy-sleeved blouse is a very faint shade of peach, the waistcoat or corset bright scarlet, the apron a light shade of pink over a skirt just like a peony in shape and colour, underneath pale pink petticoats. A sharp, stark contrast to those sharp features and those rippling limbs that had enticed her to wear trousers since she reached puberty.
Still the local tailor, invited by Kai, had taken the unusual measurements and sewn it by hand especially for Brünnhilde von Tarth. Even if it's not the way she expected it.
Corsets and petticoats!
Now she stands in front of the bathroom mirror, completing the ensemble with a peony-pink shawl over her muscular shoulders and a matching flower-embroidered headdress in the same shade.
The constraints of the headdress, the corset, the petticoats make her long for the freedom of the uniform, of having a free waist and both legs free range.
Her face is freckleless in the mirror, as peony-pink as if it had been meant to suit the ensemble. She's so tall that the dress does not reach her ankles; in fact, it scarcely covers her knees. The pressure against the sides of her ribcage is stifling.
"Good afternoon, my valkyrie," the colonel says with sparkles in his peridot eyes, a wistfulness in his voice that sounds far more mature than Rainer Baratheon's. This is not a boy, not a stripling, but a grown man making a sharp remark.
She laughs heartily. Even at being called a "valkyrie" while wearing this awkward pink posy. Of course she had been called that, especially as a child, but Rainer had always seen her as a male friend and never said "valkyrie" to her in that manner.
While he will wear not his grimy bloodstained uniform, but the matching male ensemble, which mixes elements of the military --the brightly-coloured military of yore-- and those of peasants' holiday best: clad in lederhosen and a cream double-breasted doublet under a snow-white shirt, a fine silken scarlet cravat perfectly tied, his golden locks crowned with a fox-tailed top hat (decorated with the real tail of a red fox), and wearing shiny low shoes with shiny buckles instead of his worn Wellingtons.
If she were wearing that uniform as well... what would they say?
Deftly and courteously entwining her right arm in his left, both head to the shade of the village linden, where all the young people clad in similar attire have been waiting for the strangers, for the dance to begin.
His left arm in her right.
Both of them flustered with excitement and with awkwardness at the same time.
They will never forget that polka.
A band in the same regional attire playing a lively polka, and every man taking a maiden up to dance.
Even though they felt a tad strange, what with a missing right arm and an oversized, muscled frame in frills (in a skirt and petticoats that scarcely reach her knees), they had to dance as well.
"I have always had two left feet," she sighs, as his left arm wraps around her suffocating, corsetted waist. The light in those green eyes is warm, reassuring, as he smiles painfully to her alone.
"Thirsty?" he asks. She nods. "Lemonade... or something stronger?"
Lemonade is just fine. She has no need for liquid courage. And yet he's poured some brandy into her cup as well, without her knowing it. It tastes a bit odd and sears her throat. The better; though putting up a front, her face is still as pink as that frilly dress, erasing every single freckle.
Like a peony in full bloom.
And soon she's all flustered as the first movement, of the three every polka consists of, begins. Every man seizes his girl by the hands and vice versa, Hilde feeling the stump awkwardly resting on her left palm as he leads her, eyes wide shut, lightly tripping and skipping. Slightly bowing as the dance partner's leg advances forth towards one's own. Hopping on one leg and then on another. Left right left, briskly and brightly, but not to a military tread. She thought she was too heavy, and feeling all eyes upon her was something that definitely had never put her in the best of moods. That was the reason why she admired the unabashed Rainer Baratheon.
It was ages ago he swept her off her feet at that waltz at the engagement ball, a waltz far gentler and less lively than this folk polka. The rhythm is cheerful and carries anyone away, drunk or sober, no matter if it's a one-handed veteran or a mannish girl who looks ridiculous in pink. "Hopsasa! Watch out when you're about to swing! Hopsasa! Watch out when you're about to swing!"
The first and second movements pass thus swiftly by.
Now the last movement has come at last: all young men form a circle, clapping hands, while the maidens twirl around. "Rija faderija faderija faderallala, trallala!" When this movement is over, all men will turn around and each one will pick a girl for the next polka as dancing partner.
It hurts Jakob von Lännister and the boy on his right, a stripling spared the draft because of his slightly hunched back, that the stump gets in the way of their clapping. But it's how things are, he whispers to himself with a smirk and a smile of content. Hoping that she -the tallest girl, with the dress down to her knees and short messy wheaten hair, the valkyrie- will be the one closest to his back.
In the meantime, Brünnhilde von Tarth towers above all the other girls. She decides to stop behind the Colonel -after all, most of the other men, or rather blighters, are drunk and look really fierce. Best to take a safe choice of partner, one who cares for her, who can defend her. Though all eyes are upon her, she finally has found her center, the confident mood that she admired so much in her commanding officer.
"Rija faderija faderija faderallala, trallala! Uh, hopsasa!" At this "hopsasa!", when all the gentlemen turn around and all the maidens stop in their dance, standing right behind Jakob, he is as positively surprised upon seeing Hilde as she is at her choice of partner. Somehow, they have been able to read one another's minds.
They dance another polka, then a third, then it's the Count who gets thirsty and his valkyrie who goes forth for a tankard of Radler, ie lemonade-laced beer, to put into his left hand; hoping he will drink a deep draught and she is to reply smiling as honestly as she can.
It is then that the bear tamer of the fête troupe and his pet join the fun. The bear tamer is a foreigner, or a Romany, with a sharp Balkan accent and a sharp moustache and goatee. The female Ursus arctos, who answers to the name of Kaiserin, is two meters tall and of a respectable age, her fur the colour of chocolate. She had been taught to dance the polka by the fortunately discontinuated and cruel method of chaining her with hot steel beneath her feet (we are so lucky that few plantigrades are given this torture nowadays!) as the goateed man, Vladislav, played polka tunes on his accordion.
The sight of the one-handed man and the "valkyrie" caught his eye as well, and he resolved to put on a show... Smirking as he produced a flask of rakija, he strode towards the officer --for, though he was dressed in civilian attire, the thirtyish fellow wiping the perspiration from his forehead left-handed had the dignified air of an officer--, waving his flask and addressing the blond in German laced with a strong Slavic accent.
His throat parched with thirst, yet his eyes fixed on those sinister piercing black eyes, von Lännister stands transfixed in doubt. It is then that the valkyrie appears with a tankard of lemonade-laced lager. The performer asks her if she is thirsty as well, as she looks shyly away. As the Count puts the tankard to his lips to refresh himself, the Slav, pretending to trip, pours a generous dose of rakija in. "Excuse me," he then says with a low bow, as Hilde leaves the stand to bring more lemonade lager, looking over her shoulder upon leaving her partner on his own.
Raillery from that goateed fellow about his missing arm and about his choice of sweetheart, encouraging a toast to the end of the war, his own throat feeling dry and irritated... in the end, the officer drinks a deep draught and feels the foreign liquor searing, burning the inside of his chest as it goes down. Never had von Lännister drunk rakija before, and the strong draught storms into his bloodstream to take over completely from within.
"Whatever...?" he steels himself, his head beginning to swim, his consciousness struggling not to drown in rakija. The dark-haired fellow has, in the meantime, swept down to clasp his valkyrie in pink and frills.
Though she struggles herself to break free from Vladislav's cufflike wrists, she is caught in a vice grip and forced to dance with this violent stranger against her will. Left right left, but now it's more of a military pace, kicking his shins in rage while he has not even winced. Seeing her real partner stagger into the dancefloor --weary as a sleepy child--, Hilde gulps hard and steels herself as well: at the third movement of the polka, she will be able to break free and find Jakob von Lännister once more. No matter if he has been drugged: the effect will wear off sooner or later.
When finally the men close the circle and the maidens twirl around it once more, but the Colonel is feeling far too drowsy to join the dance... it is then that the bear enters the scene.
Kaiserin, set free by the troupe to enjoy the polka in the meantime, stands on her hind legs and dances among the maidens as awkwardly as a circus bear can  -and believe me, dear readers, it is really awkward-.
The paths of the valkyrie and the plantigrade have crossed quite unexpectedly.
....
(the count suddenly sobers up in seeing this scene; the "bear and the maiden fair" scene ensues)
....
"Wounds are for the desperate, blows are for the strong, balm and oil for weary hearts..." The verses pour like honey, deep and dark contralto honey, from her throat into his ears.
 "all cut and bruised with wrong..." he replies, choking back the tears. Though the author is British, this pair of lines is lovely. Somehow, those verses mirror their own feelings, earnest and open-hearted at last.
At last the day has broken, and the shadows and the creatures of the night are too light-shy to dare come out, even though the cruel storm of war still rages.
This is their rightful place. Their haven, their Eden, where both young lovers have found hope, rest, and respite.