Bruno sat in his office, not the one in his personal study back in Innsbruck, but the one he was gifted as the Chancellor of the German Reich in Berlin.
For the first time since he had accepted the position at the behest of Kaiser Wilhelm II, it was not the same familiar old Emperor seated before him. The man who had ruled through the strife of the Year of the Three Emperors, whom Bruno had served under his entire life was gone.
Not dead, but abdicated. In his stead, his son, the recently coronated Kaiser Wilhelm III sat reading over every document at a slower pace than his predecessor ever had.
Not because Wilhelm II was a slow reader or partially illiterate. But because Wilhelm II trusted Bruno with such steadfast faith that he simply signed whatever Bruno signed without a second of hesitation.
