The Prussian Prince Preview, Chapter One: The Little Prince

Here is a preview of my latest novel, The Prussian Prince, due out February 4, 2024. There’s a pre-order special of only 99¢ for the Kindle version. It’ll be $4.99 once the book comes out. The paperback will be $12.99. The hardcover is still being decided.

This book is the fifth novel in the Long Century series. However, you don’t have to read the previous novels to enjoy this one. It picks up Carl’s story after Blood for Blood at Nashville. Carl returns home from the American Civil War to find that the wife he left behind has returned to her home to the Kingdom of Prussia. He goes to Germany as well to be reunited with her but gets tangled up in the Austro-Prussian War. The book covers that war with historically accurate depictions of the Battles of Trautenau and Königgrätz.

Here’s Chapter One.

Chapter One: The Little Prince

March 18, 1848: Berlin, The Kingdom of Prussia
  The Prussian soldier stood tall and rigid. His shako hat made him seem even taller. He held his bayonet at the ready. Across from him stood his fearsome enemy, a loathsome Imperial Guardsman in a bearskin hat, one of Napoleon’s finest.
  “Die, you French Bastard!” Klaus shouted as he smashed the two figurines together.
  “Klaus! Such language!” Ferne gasped, dropping her hairbrush to her lap. She eyed the little boy from the mirror of her vanity and shook her head in humorous disbelief. “Where did you learn that word? You don’t even know what it means!”
  “Sure I do!” Klaus stood up to address his cousin. His toy soldiers were still clasped tightly in his fists. “Papa says the French are a bunch of fatherless layabouts trying to spread heresy and socialism throughout the German Kingdoms.”
  “Tsk! Socialism! Such a big word for a little boy! And what do you think it means?” she asked, turning to him and laughing. Her big blue eyes, golden blonde hair, and generous smile suddenly stunned the boy into shyness. He looked down at his toy soldiers, blushing madly. “Go on then, what do you think socialism means…?” she prodded.
  He finally recovered and looked back up with new-found conviction. “It means no one works and the world comes undone.”
  Ferne blinked at him for a moment. She smiled with opened mouth incredulity, then shook her head and laughed, “Come here, my little prince! Let me squeeze this nonsense from your tiny little body!” Klaus dropped his toys and stumbled into her arms. She snatched him up and pressed him to her bosom, rocking him from side to side. “Oh, my sweet little boy, you should not let such talk from grumpy old men sour you!”
  Her floral scent and soft skin were overwhelming, causing his little body to go limp in her arms. Here in her bosom, he didn’t have to be strong. Here, there was warmth and safety from this world undone: a world full of rioting mobs, striking workers, Papists, Hapsburgs, French agitators, and all sorts of evil that he had heard his father and uncle speak of.
  In this brief moment of quiet comfort, he could hear them starting up again outside, the tramping of feet, the beating of drums, the chanting of slogans.
He pulled away and looked into her eyes. “I love you,” he said, straightening himself once again to summon all of his bravery. “I’m going to marry you when I grow up.”
  Ferne laughed again, “You can’t marry me, you silly little boy. We’re cousins!”
  “Papa says because your father has no sons, I shall be Reichsfreiherr someday, and when I am, I will keep you close to the title as my wife.”
  “The baron is far from….” she started with a laugh.
  “Reichsfreiherr!” Klaus interrupted to correct her with the proper German word.
  “Tsk, tsk…! I prefer the French title, little man,” she chided, shaking her head. “It’s more elegant.”
  “French is the language of dogs,” Klaus rejoined, crossing his arms.
Ferne let out a sigh, blowing her bangs to the side. “Whatever you want to call him, my father is far from dead and has plenty of time to have a son. Do not be so presumptuous, my little prince! Besides…one day we shall all be equal and titles won’t mean a thing.”

“Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt Euch!”

  The clear sound of someone shouting outside broke through the brief moment of silence between them. The sound of drums, clomping feet, and people chanting grew louder as the two cousins regarded each other.
  “Those dogs will never be my equal,” Klaus stated.
  Ferne blinked at him for a moment, then burst into laughter. “My goodness, where did my uncle find you, little man? Living in a mountain cave, you little troll?”
  “House Himmelswanderer descends from ancient mountain gods. That’s why we still make steel.”
  “Pft! We make steel because it makes us wealthy, you silly boy. My father has filled your head with fairy tales and delusions of grandeur!”Klaus stammered in frustration as he dug for a reply. A knock came from downstairs.
  “Huh!” Ferne gasped. The crowds outside were growing noisier, and now it seemed they were about to break through the door.
  Klaus clenched his fists again and turned toward the stairs, putting his little body between her and the world outside. “I’ll protect you.”
  Ferne burst into laughter as she got up “…and who’s going to protect me from having to protect you, you silly boy?” she said, tousling his mop of blond hair as she passed. She was cautious as she moved the white lace curtain aside to peer down at the front step.
  “Stefan!” she gasped with a squeal of delight. “Wait! I’m coming!” she called out to him, then quickly shuffled down the stairs. The heels of her ankle boots clattered against the wooden steps.
  “Uncle said no visitors!” Klaus called down after her from the landing.
  “Shush, little man! He’s a friend,” she said, then undid the lock and threw open the door.
  “Bonjour, citoyen!” the voice came from outside.
  “Bonjour, mon ami!” Ferne replied in French as well, opening her arms.
  Klaus bristled with rage as the tall, dark-haired man leaned into them and kissed both of her cheeks. The stranger’s dark, wavy locks fell lazily to the side of his face and bounced over his eye as he moved. Dark whiskers peppered his olive skin, giving him a handsome roguish look. His threadbare clothes assured Klaus that he was far too below his cousin’s station to be treating her so familiarly.
  “Why aren’t you in class or at work?” she asked, now in German, much to Klaus’s satisfaction.
  “The university is empty, so is your father’s factory! We are all marching on the palace. The king is going to address our demands at noon! You must come!”
  “I can’t. I’m watching my baby cousin. His mother is in labor at the moment.”
  “Bring him! This is a glorious day for the people! He will be a witness to history! The French have toppled their monarchy and brought back the republic! Now it’s our turn. Germany will be united as one! We’ll have a workers’ republic yet! Look..!” He dug out a rolled-up pamphlet from his jacket. “Freshly smuggled in from England,” he said, thrusting it into her hand.
  “Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei…?” she read the title in German.
  “Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels have given us the road map from their exile,” he said, smiling grandly, fire burning passionately in his green eyes. “All we have to do now is follow the path.”
  “I don’t know…” Ferne shook her head, “It’s too dangerous. People have died out there already. I can’t bring a child…”
  “He’ll be fine. Nothing’s going to happen. There’re too many of us now for the king to resist. Besides, we’re merely asking for basic civil rights at the moment. How can he say no? The workers’ revolt will have to come later. Today is only about the king giving us a little of the freedom we deserve.”
  Ferne blinked at him, then shook her head, “I don’t know…”
  “I promise,” he said warmly, shaking his head and squeezing her elbow, “I won’t let anything happen to you or the boy.”
  Ferne looked at the little boy at the top of the stairs who was glaring down at them. The sounds of chanting and marching feet began to fill her with excitement. She shouldn’t go, she thought. A warm breeze rolled in through the door. She could feel its tentacles wrapping around her, pulling her into the river of people marching outside. She could hear their voices forming as one, singing for liberty.
  Stefan smiled as if reading her thoughts. “Vox populi, vox Dei, the voice of the people is the voice of God,” he said with reverence.
  She looked back to him and blinked for a moment, then spoke, “Wait here. I’ll get my things.”
  “I don’t like him,” Klaus mumbled as she brushed past him at the top of the stairs, “He’s French!”
  “Shush, little man!” she chided as she grabbed her shawl, bonnet, and handbag. “He grew up here just like us. He’s as German as anyone. ”Klaus looked back down at the ragged man below.
  “Bonjour, petit homme!” Stefan smiled and waved to him.
  “Hmph!” Klaus crossed his arms tightly with a pout.

  King Friedrich Wilhelm IV lifted an eyebrow as he turned to the open window, then returned his attention to the rest of the men in the drawing room with a sigh. “They’re here, aren’t they…”
The indistinguishable mix of chanting, drums, and marching feet had drifted into the palace and was now filling the spaces in between the words spoken among his council.
  “I’m afraid so, Your Majesty,” one of his ministers said cautiously.
  “We should never have let them get this close to the palace, Your Majesty,” General Karl von Prittwitz said, sitting up in his chair. “Give the command and I’ll clear the streets of this filth.”
  “There’s been enough death already, General. I will not have my army fight my own people in the streets. They are my people, my children, ” the king told him.
  “Not fighting is why Louis-Philippe is no longer king of France, Your Majesty,” Prittwitz was quick to respond. “Sometimes a loving father must use his belt. We must not let these over-indulged brats dictate policy!”
  “Nor can we turn Berlin into a slaughterhouse. Imagine what the foreign papers would say,” the king replied.
  “Socialist scalawags, the lot of them,” the general mumbled to no one in particular as he looked off to the side.
  The king raised an eyebrow at his general’s lack of decorum in addressing him. He debated whether to make an issue of it before turning to the rest of his council with a sigh. “No, we stick to the plan. We give them what they want…” He stopped to glare at General von Prittwitz, who had thrown his hands up in the air and then dropped them on his lap with a groan while looking off again in disgust. The king cleared his throat, then continued, “…or at least what they think they want…but on our terms.”
  “…and if they don’t disperse, Your Majesty,” the general brought his eyes back to the king.
  “Oh, Karl, I’m so glad you managed to remember my title!” the king turned to him with great irony in his eyes.
  “My apologies, Your Majesty,” the general mumbled, dropping his eyes to the ground.
Satisfied, the king continued, “If they don’t disperse after that, then you may nudge them gently to behave, but with loving discretion. These are my children, after all.”

  Klaus sat high on his cousin’s shoulders. They were surrounded by hundreds of chanting and shouting people who crowded on the grounds between the palace and the river. Elevated a head above the rest, Klaus could see a sea of black, red, and gold flags waving among the crowd. But even from this vantage, he still felt tiny below the newly built dome that sat on top of the enormous palace and towered over the masses.
  Looking up at it filled him with dizzying awe. From here radiated the power of the king. His noble strength came from the same German blood that pulsed through Klaus’s own heart. He imagined the king could throw back this mob of immigrants and traitors with a mere sweep of his hand. The very idea exhilarated him.
  He swept his gaze from the heights of the dome down the grand columns of the portico to the foot of the palace. There the king’s dragoons sat on their horses in their tall hats and blue jackets. They created a wall of men and horseflesh that barred the rabble from getting any closer to this temple of Prussian power. Behind them was a forest of steel bayonets and brass spiked helmets that contrasted with the blue uniforms of the infantrymen.
From his cousin’s shoulders, Klaus could imagine himself astride one of the horses. He flailed his invisible saber in the air, cutting down the ungrateful and unwashed rabble around him like wheat in the field.
  “Die, you miserable scum!” he shouted in triumph. His tiny voice blended in with the thousands of people who chanted and shouted at the palace.
  A pregnant couple behind watched and giggled in delight at his display of passion. “He’s so cute!” The woman popped up on her tiptoes and cupped her hands to speak into her husband’s ear over the noise. “He’s so taken by the crowd!”
  “A little revolutionary like our own!” The man smiled warmly at her, then patted her bulging tummy.
  A wave of excitement surged through the crowd as a man appeared on the balcony. Soon, people were hushing each other in exasperated anticipation of what would come next. The man held his head high, dignified and aloof, as he waited for the crowd to quiet.
  “Our dear Berliners…subjects of Prussia…Germans all!” the man called out in a powerful voice. The crowd swooned and cheered at being called Germans, then quickly quieted themselves to hear what would come next.
  “The king has heard your cries!” This brought another round of cheers. “Freedom of the press! Freedom of assembly! The right to vote for a representative parliament! A constitution!”  
  The crowd cheered with increasing fervor with each point until they were about to explode in ecstasy. The man waited for them to quiet before going further.
  “But before we can do any of that…” he said, putting his open hands out as if to tamp down the passions of the crowd. Then, after a short pause, he continued, “…we must unite all the German people as one!” The crowd erupted into cheers.
  Klaus plugged his ears in annoyance at the loud shouts and whistles that assailed him. All around him, black, red, and gold flags fluttered madly. Ferne jostled him with her jumping as she squealed in delight. His blood boiled over as Stefan wrapped his arm around her and kissed her cheek. Klaus tried to kick him, but the cad had moved out of range too quickly. Instead, Klaus glared at him as Stefan cupped his hands and shouted, “Long live the German workers!”
  The man on the balcony waited once more for quiet, then continued. “The king has recalled the United Diet. He has ordered them to explore how we can unite the kingdoms into a single nation of German people!”
  The crowd erupted in celebration, chanting and cheering passionately. Their fervor only increased when the king stepped out onto the steps of the palace. The sun peeked out from the clouds, glinted off his broad forehead, and bedazzled his large blond sideburns with golden light as he waved.
  The people began to sing as one. Tears rolled down Ferne’s cheeks as she sang along, “Deutschland Über Alles…” Even Klaus attempted to sing, mouthing the words he knew, mumbling those he didn’t.
  Satisfied, the king smiled grandly and gave one last wave. He nodded to his generals and ministers with a wink before stepping back into the safety of the palace.
  General von Prittwitz stepped forward, frowning as he scanned the crowd for troublemakers. Only his mustache could be seen under the shadow of his shiny black pickelhaube.
  “What about the army?!” somebody shouted from the crowd.
  “Yeah, you were supposed to remove the army from the city!” Stefan added.
  “It was one of our demands!” another shouted.
  “Away with the army!” someone yelled, and soon this became the chant as the crowd surged forward. Ferne stumbled as the mass of people behind her pushed her toward the palace.
  “Stefan, I’m scared…” She cringed, clutching his arm as she looked wildly about at the people who were shouting and crowding around her.
  “This is our time, brothers and sisters!” Stefan shouted, either not hearing her or ignoring her altogether. “We did it in France, we can do it here! Down with the king! Long live the workers!”
  “They can’t shoot us all!” another shouted nearby.
General von Prittwitz looked down from the steps and gave a nod to the commander of the dragoons who had been watching him intently from horseback. The man turned his eyes toward the crowd and shouted, “Sabers out!” A bugle called. Suddenly a wave of flashing steel rolled along the line of horsemen as they drew their swords and rested the back of the tips against their shoulders in a synchronized uniform motion.
  A screech of terror called out from the crowd. Many in the front were now turning back into the mob, trying to flee from this new threat. Ferne yelped at the sound of a musket. Soon, there were more as sulphuric smoke began to swirl around the masses. “We’ve got to get out of here…!” she gasped, pulling on Stefan’s arm.
  “Forward!” he shouted to those around him. “We must not let them intimidate us!”
More screams erupted from the crowd as soldiers rolled out the big guns and started stuffing them with grapeshot while others formed in lines and brought their muskets up to their shoulders. The king’s own brother, Prince Wilhelm, was among them.
  “Oh, shit…” Stefan gaped as the prince drew his saber and held it high.
  “Klaus, get down!” she gasped, slinging the boy to the ground. She then huddled over him like an umbrella.
  The prince dropped his sword with a dramatic swoosh.

“Feuer!”

  The cannons roared to life, punctuated by the crackle of muskets. A flurry of hot lead whizzed through the crowd, dropping several to the ground. People screamed as they turned to run. Clouds of smoke rolled into them, creating more confusion.
  “Come on, let’s go…!” Stefan said, grabbing for Ferne’s hand as he looked wildly about. A mass of people flooded past them. Ferne tumbled over and fell to the ground. “Come on! We don’t have time to be foolish!” he hissed. Only Klaus seemed to hear him. The little boy looked up and blinked at him in confusion. There was blood smeared on his face.
  Klaus turned to his cousin, who lay shuddering on the ground. Blood was beginning to pool around her. The little boy looked back up at him.
  Stefan stared at her for a moment, then turned his eyes back to the boy. Klaus’s big blue eyes were wide with confusion, blinking at him, pleading to be told what to do. “Damn it…!” Stefan hissed, shaking his head. He took one last look at her before he turned and ran, disappearing quickly into the crowd.
  Klaus looked back at his cousin. He reached out and touched her carefully, worried of somehow making it worse, “Come, cousin. We must go find you a doctor,” he said as the flow of people rushed past their little island on the ground.
  “Klaus…” she said weakly, “…I’m cold…”
  He let go of his fear and wrapped his little body around her. “I’ll keep you warm,” he told her.
  “Forward!” the commander of the dragoons shouted, pointing his saber toward the mass of people. The line of horsemen moved as one. This brought more screams of terror as the crowd fled.
  Klaus looked up to see the line of horsemen approaching in perfect order. The sight of the highly trained Prussian soldiers filled him with both pride and terror. He buried his head into his cousin’s bosom and clung to her tightly. He could hear the steady clop of hooves nearing. He clenched his eyes tight as he sensed their enormous forms passing by. He waited for the crushing weight of a horse to come crashing down on them. It never did. He looked up to see the line was moving away from them now, toward the fleeing mob.
  “Klaus…” he heard her whisper, “are you alright?”
  Klaus turned to her with great relief, “Yes, I’m fine. You must get up!” Her beautiful face was now turned toward the sky. He could see the reflection of the clouds passing across her glazed blue eyes. “Cousin, please…” he nudged her as he fought the urge to cry.
  “There will be one Germany…over all…” she said softly as her eyes went still.
  The tromp of boots snatched his attention. Now the infantrymen were moving forward in a mass of dark blue uniforms, bristling with bayonets. The brass spikes of their pickelhaube helmets sparkled as the sun moved out from the clouds once again.
  Klaus stood up. He balled his hands into fists and held them up as he placed himself between the approaching soldiers and his cousin. The first rank ignored him, making only a slight adjustment to their march to avoid the firm-standing little boy and the girl lying on the ground.
“Ooh!” a soldier in the next rank put his hand to his chest in feigned fright at the tough little boy, then laughed at his own joke, nudging the man next to him as Klaus glared.
  Another man, a little older than the rest, stopped and looked down at the two, examining them with harsh eyes. He carried a sword and stripes on his uniform denoting his authority. His frown turned into a bitter smile as his eyes softened under the shadow of his pickelhaube. He reached down and tousled Klaus’s hair.
  “You’re a good man, little one,” he said, shaking his head. “Lord knows we need more men like you.”
  Klaus watched as the man trotted back to his troops and started barking orders, using the back of his saber to prod them into straightening their line.

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