After returning from Switzerland, Oskar resumed his duties, though one of his first evenings back was reserved for a private dinner with the imperial family at the Neues Palais.
The meal was arranged with all the expected courtly elegance. Crystal shone beneath the chandeliers, servants moved quietly between the chairs, and every place had been organised according to rank. Yet beneath the ceremony, it was simply a family gathering after many months apart.
Oskar sat beside Tanya, Anna, and Gundelinde in a specially reinforced chair large enough to accommodate him. Even seated, he towered over everyone else, eating with the appetite of several men while the rest of the family maintained the more restrained habits expected of German royalty.
His four available brothers were all present.
Eitel Friedrich, the eldest at twenty-six, attended with his wife, Sophie Charlotte. He had settled into married life at Villa Ingenheim and devoted himself increasingly to his military responsibilities with the Guards and his duties within the Order of Saint John.
Adalbert, twenty-five, remained unmarried and childless. His life revolved almost entirely around the Imperial Navy, Kiel, and Villa Seelust near the harbour. Most of his conversation concerned ships, gunnery exercises, torpedoes, and the difficulty of training officers quickly enough to keep pace with Germany's rapidly changing naval technology.
August Wilhelm was twenty-two and had recently married Alexandra Viktoria. They lived at Villa Liegnitz in Sanssouci Park, where August divided his time between military service, political studies, and gatherings of scholars and artists. Their marriage remained young, and they had no children yet.
Joachim, the youngest brother at eighteen, was still completing his military education. He was eager to be treated as an adult officer rather than the youngest boy of the family and spoke proudly of his progress in training, though his older brothers continued to tease him whenever he became too serious.
Louise, now seventeen, also joined them. She remained closely involved with Tanya in the development of children's clothing and toys, though her attention frequently wandered toward letters from Gustav Schwarzenegger, the wealthy former stable boy whom Oskar had sent away for cavalry training. Their attachment remained unofficial and largely secret, although by now several members of the family appeared to suspect the truth.
Eitel and August Wilhelm were the only brothers presently married, and neither marriage had yet produced children. Adalbert and Joachim had no wives or recognised partners.
Oskar alone had already created a dynasty large enough to require its own table.
His children sat nearby beneath the supervision of servants and Anna's three elder daughters from her first marriage. Greta, Lise, and Klara had become remarkably capable at managing the younger children. Greta maintained order with solemn authority, Lise relied upon coaxing and tickling, while Klara preferred simply removing troublesome toddlers from whatever disaster they were attempting to create.
The arrangement allowed Tanya, Anna, and Gundelinde to remain at the main table for parts of the meal, though none stayed seated for long. Cups overturned, spoons vanished, toys changed hands, and food travelled into pockets, beneath chairs, and occasionally across the table.
The disorder gradually stripped away the stiffness of the occasion.
The Empress watched her grandchildren with open delight. She had come to accept all three of Oskar's wives as genuine daughters-in-law and treated their children without distinction. Louise laughed whenever one of the toddlers escaped supervision, while even the Kaiser repeatedly failed to conceal his amusement behind his wineglass.
Wilhelm appeared proud of all his children.
Eitel had found purpose in marriage, the Guards, and religious service. Adalbert had the navy. August Wilhelm had his studies, public duties, and new household. Joachim was beginning his military career, while Louise had found interests extending beyond the narrow expectations traditionally placed upon an imperial princess.
Oskar, meanwhile, had transformed the Empire around them.
Germany's factories were expanding, its economy booming, its railways and industries growing more efficient, while new technologies continued appearing throughout civilian and military life. Even the political troubles that had once threatened to shake the government had passed more cleanly than they had in the history Oskar remembered.
There had still been arguments in Berlin—bitter ones. The growing Army and naval programmes demanded enormous sums, conservatives resisted new taxes, liberals demanded that the burden fall more heavily upon wealth and property, and for a time Bülow's government had appeared dangerously close to breaking apart beneath the dispute.
But it had not.
Compromises were reached. Oskar's expanding economy produced revenues no government of the old timeline could have expected, while reforms to taxation spread the remaining burden widely enough that no single political faction felt completely defeated. Bülow survived the crisis, his government steadied, and Bethmann Hollweg remained an important figure within the administration rather than replacing him as Chancellor.
For once, German politics had stumbled toward the edge and then stepped back.
Wilhelm, unfortunately, remained Wilhelm.
No amount of economic growth could prevent the Kaiser from occasionally becoming his own greatest diplomatic enemy.
The infamous Daily Telegraph affair still happened.
During a conversation later published by the British newspaper, Wilhelm had spoken far too freely about foreign affairs, declaring himself personally friendly toward Britain while complaining that much of the German public was not, boasting about advice he claimed to have given the British during the Boer War and discussing sensitive diplomatic matters with the sort of confidence better suited to a private dinner than an international newspaper.
The result had been exactly the sort of catastrophe Oskar could not industrialise away.
Britain laughed, Germany erupted in embarrassment and anger, ministers scrambled to explain what the Kaiser had meant, and Wilhelm discovered once again that being technically misunderstood did very little to help once one's words had already been printed across Europe.
The scandal eventually faded, just as the taxation crisis had, and unlike the history Oskar remembered it did not bring down Bülow's government.
Yet the humiliation lingered around the court.
Britain continued watching German shipbuilding with suspicion, politicians remained wary whenever Wilhelm spoke without preparation, and beneath all the prosperity and imperial confidence Oskar could see that his father carried those embarrassments more heavily than he admitted.
The Empress seemed more tired as well.
Both of his parents were ageing, though Oskar had spent so much of the previous years thinking about armies, factories, Africa and politics that he had scarcely noticed it happening.
The evening's greatest revelation, however, came from his brothers.
Years earlier, Eitel, Adalbert, and August Wilhelm had viewed Oskar's elevation with resentment. He had been the fifth son, far below them in the succession, yet had been raised above them when the former Crown Prince collapsed. They had once seen him as an unfairly favoured younger brother who had seized a position that should have belonged to one of them.
That bitterness had faded.
As the children made a growing wreck of their smaller table, Oskar saw his brothers watching them with genuine warmth. Eitel appeared relaxed rather than resentful. Adalbert smiled as Imperiel attempted to organise the others. August Wilhelm and Alexandra exchanged quiet looks whenever Anna or Tanya lifted a sleepy child into their arms. Even Joachim allowed one of the toddlers to cling to his hand.
None of them appeared interested in challenging Oskar any longer.
They had found their own lives, careers, households, and ambitions. More importantly, they had watched Oskar carry responsibilities that none of them truly wanted. They had seen him survive assassination attempts, political crises, military campaigns, scandals, and the endless labour of transforming Germany.
Whatever they had once thought about the fairness of his elevation, they had seemingly accepted that Oskar was the strongest choice for the future Emperor.
They also appeared to have accepted the rest of him.
The enormous chair, the impossible appetite that let him eat like a horse, the three wives, the small army of children, and the strange reforms that followed wherever he went were no longer treated as temporary scandals. They were simply parts of Oskar—the Iron Prince, a man whom ordinary expectations had never successfully contained.
A final crash from the children's table destroyed what remained of the dinner's dignity. A porcelain bowl shattered, several children began protesting at once, and Oskar's wives rose with Anna's daughters to restore order.
Instead of anger, the room filled with laughter.
Watching his family smile warmly at the chaos he had created, Oskar realised that he was no longer sitting among suspicious rivals or frightened traditionalists.
He was sitting among people who had finally accepted him.
The dinner continued with stories, laughter, family news, military discussions, and repeated interruptions from the children. It was noisy, disorderly, and thoroughly unsuitable for an imperial household.
Oskar enjoyed every moment of it.
Later that evening, Oskar sat shirtless upon the edge of the enormous bed in his private family chambers, surrounded by the noise, warmth, and cheerful disorder of his household.
The floor had vanished beneath toys. Wooden soldiers lay scattered among dolls, picture books, building blocks, stuffed animals, and the broken remains of a railway whose tracks now led beneath three different pieces of furniture.
At the centre of the chaos were Oskar's children.
Imperiel, his firstborn son, had naturally appointed himself commander. Standing upon a cushion, he issued solemn instructions to siblings who followed them only when convenient.
Azarael preferred direct action. Brave, stubborn, and already inclined toward brawling, he charged every imagined enemy without considering whether a plan existed.
His twin, Liorael, was entirely different. Where Azarael attacked, Liorael plotted. He hid behind chairs, arranged ambushes, and persuaded other children to begin battles while carefully remaining beyond the reach of retaliation.
The girls possessed their own temperaments as well. Juniel tried to impose reason upon the boys, Lailael encouraged whatever promised the most excitement, and Mirael followed the larger children with fierce determination. The two youngest crawled through the confusion, collecting abandoned toys and protesting loudly whenever anyone attempted to reclaim them.
Anna's three elder daughters struggled to prevent the nursery war from becoming an actual one.
Greta, nearly twelve, was the most serious. With her mother's soft brown eyes, dark hair, and gentle features, she approached the younger children with the grave responsibility of a governess twice her age.
Lise, about eleven, shared Anna's colouring but possessed far more restless energy. She preferred persuasion, distraction, and sudden tickling attacks whenever a toddler's rage threatened to overwhelm diplomacy.
Nine-year-old Klara was the most direct. Small, brown-haired, and determined, she simply separated quarrelling children, removed dangerous objects, and carried the loudest offender elsewhere until calm returned.
During the honeymoon, it had been decided that the three girls would remain permanently at the palace, returning to their grandparents' farm only for visits. They were Anna's daughters and therefore part of Oskar's family. Their common birth would not be used as an excuse to keep them at a distance.
They had adapted quickly.
Greta remained shy around Oskar and tried very hard to behave like a proper young lady. Lise and Klara treated the palace as a vast unexplored kingdom filled with locked doors, old armour, hidden passages, and rooms containing objects they had been repeatedly warned not to touch.
Yet all three respected Oskar, and he had grown deeply fond of them.
Behind him, Anna worked her thumbs slowly into the heavy muscles of his shoulders. Her touch was calm and maternal, though every so often she leaned forward and rested against his back, as if reluctant to surrender his warmth so soon after their honeymoon.
Gundelinde sat close against his right side, both arms wrapped around one of his. Her posture remained graceful even here, though one hand occasionally drifted toward her stomach. There was nothing there yet—nothing either of them knew of—but she touched the place with the quiet hope of a new wife already imagining that one day a child of her own might grow beneath her heart.
Tanya was on the floor.
Only her golden head and bare feet were visible as she crawled beneath a heap of discarded blankets in search of Oskar's missing shirt.
Oskar watched Liorael direct Azarael toward another doomed assault against Imperiel's cushion fortress, then released a long breath.
"I must leave for German Works tomorrow morning."
Anna's hands slowed but did not stop. Gundelinde tightened her embrace around his arm. Tanya's head emerged from beneath the blankets.
Oskar continued before any of them could object.
"I must meet with Tirpitz to discuss the next stage of the naval programme. I should be away only a few days."
Gundelinde was the first to answer.
"Then you must go," she said quietly. "Your responsibilities did not disappear when you married us."
Her proper tone could not entirely conceal her disappointment.
"I shall miss you," she added, resting her cheek against his arm, "but I understand."
Anna bent forward and wrapped her arms around him from behind.
"We have tonight," she murmured. "I intend to enjoy every moment of it before duty steals you again."
Tanya finally found the shirt and rose, holding it triumphantly in one hand.
"Duty is becoming far too greedy," she declared. "It takes you to Africa, the army, factories, shipyards, and councils, then returns you exhausted and expects us to be grateful."
Oskar glanced at her.
"And what would satisfy you?"
Tanya's blue eyes brightened with immediate wickedness.
"A second bedding ceremony," she declared. "A great many kisses, absolutely no sleeping, and a solemn effort to ensure that more little feet begin appearing from all three of us before the year is out."
Oskar stared at her.
Tanya smiled sweetly.
"I believe those are very reasonable conditions."
Anna's massage stopped. Gundelinde froze against his arm. Greta looked up sharply from the children. Lise understood just enough to become uncomfortable, while Klara frowned as though Tanya had spoken in a foreign language.
The younger children continued their battle without noticing anything.
Oskar laughed.
"Tanya."
"What?" she asked innocently. "A wife must protect her interests."
Anna covered her face with one hand.
Gundelinde turned crimson.
Before Oskar could respond, Liorael launched his attack.
The boy emerged from behind a chair and hurled a stuffed skunk directly at Oskar's head.
Oskar caught it in one hand.
Every child stopped.
He examined the unfortunate animal, then slowly growled.
The room erupted.
Imperiel shouted orders and began organising a defence. Juniel and Lailael dragged cushions together into a barricade. Liorael vanished behind the bed before Oskar could identify the architect of the assault.
Azarael did the opposite.
With a battle cry, he charged Oskar head-on.
Oskar caught him beneath one arm.
Azarael kicked, laughed, and demanded to be released so that he could attack again.
Mirael rushed forward to rescue him and was captured beneath Oskar's other arm.
Imperiel pointed dramatically.
"Retreat!"
No one obeyed.
Greta immediately began gathering the smallest children toward the adjoining nursery. Lise chased a shrieking toddler around the bed, while Klara threw a blanket over another and carried the laughing bundle away.
Tanya abandoned Oskar's shirt upon a chair and joined the pursuit. Anna remained wrapped around his shoulders, laughing into his neck, while Gundelinde watched the confusion with an expression of wonder and growing affection.
Oskar shifted the children beneath his arms and laid one enormous hand gently over Gundelinde's stomach.
"Soon enough," he murmured, "you may add another little warrior to this army."
Her blush deepened, but she placed her hand over his.
"I would like that," she whispered.
Around them, the room dissolved into running feet, laughter, protests, and Imperiel's increasingly desperate attempts to restore military order.
For a moment, German Works, the navy, Britain, and the approaching shadow of war disappeared from Oskar's thoughts.
There was only his family, his wives, his children. Anna's daughters, who were now his daughters in every way that mattered.
He would leave in the morning because duty demanded it.
That night, however, belonged to them.
By sunrise, the disorder had been reduced to sleeping children, scattered blankets, and a household moving reluctantly toward another farewell.
Oskar stood dressed in the ash-black uniform of the future Eighth Army while his wives made final adjustments that were largely unnecessary.
Tanya stood upon a stool to fasten his collar, treating the task with the severe concentration of a valet preparing an emperor for war.
Anna adjusted his belt and smoothed the uniform across his waist, though she spent more time admiring him than correcting anything.
Gundelinde polished one of his buttons long after it had begun shining.
When he finally turned, the children were waiting.
Imperiel stood at their front as though commanding a parade. Azarael carried a wooden sword, while Liorael wore the suspiciously innocent expression of a boy already planning something.
"Papa looks like German Man!" one of the girls announced.
Imperiel raised a uniformed stuffed bear.
"Brave Animal Force!" he cried. "Attack the giant!"
Stuffed bears, rabbits, dolls, and the surviving skunk flew through the air.
Oskar caught two and allowed the others to bounce harmlessly from his chest. The children cheered as if they had achieved a military victory.
He knelt and kissed each of them goodbye.
He embraced Greta, Lise, and Klara as well, reminding them that they were no longer guests within the palace.
"This is your home now," he told them.
Greta nodded solemnly, blushing beneath his attention.
Lise and Klara hugged him with considerably less restraint, wrapping their arms around him and making a determined, though unsuccessful, attempt to squeeze the air from his lungs.
Then came his wives.
He kissed Tanya first. She seized his face and refused to let the farewell remain brief until a sharp swat to her backside made her release him with an indignant yelp.
Anna received a slower kiss and held him closely afterward, unwilling to surrender his warmth until the final possible moment.
Gundelinde rose onto her toes and kissed him with growing confidence. When she stepped back, Oskar smiled and gently disordered her carefully arranged hair.
He turned toward the door, then paused.
The chamber behind him remained crowded with women, children, blankets, toys, and all the beautiful disorder of the first true home he had possessed in either of his lives.
Leaving it felt heavier than it should have.
Yet everything awaiting him beyond those doors—the ships, armies, factories, and plans for the future—existed to protect what stood behind him.
Oskar gave his family one final farewell and left the palace beneath the escort of the Eternal Guard.
His A-class Muscle Motors automobile carried him through Potsdam toward the railway station, where Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz waited beside their private train. The admiral stood beneath the platform canopy in an immaculate uniform, his great beard and moustache as carefully ordered as any regiment, though the impatience in his eyes betrayed him completely.
"You are cutting matters rather close," Tirpitz remarked as they shook hands.
"I have eleven children to escape from," Oskar replied.
Tirpitz frowned. "Eleven? You had eight before Switzerland."
"Anna's three elder daughters now live with us."
The admiral considered the burden of three wives, eleven children, an empire's industries, and half the German military establishment.
"My condolences."
Oskar laughed, and together they boarded.
Once the doors had closed and the train began gathering speed, Tirpitz leaned across the polished table between them.
"Now," he said, lowering his voice, "tell me about the secret weapon."
"No."
Tirpitz stared at him.
"No?"
"Not yet. You will see it soon enough."
The admiral leaned back with a frustrated laugh.
"You take an unreasonable amount of pleasure in keeping men waiting."
"Not only men."
That earned a reluctant snort from Tirpitz, though the impatience remained.
Oskar dismissed the matter with a wave.
"Tell me about sailing."
The sudden change of subject caught the admiral off guard.
"Sailing?"
"Proper sailing. A small vessel, wind, rigging, and no crew terrified that I might interfere with their duties. You are said to be rather devoted to it."
"I am," Tirpitz answered. "But surely you have sailed before."
"Not that I remember."
"That is impossible. Your father sails. Prince Heinrich sails. Half your family behaves as though the Baltic were a private lake."
Oskar merely shrugged. Whatever the original Prince Oskar might have experienced as a child belonged to memories Zhang-Ge had never inherited.
"I may have been aboard a yacht," he said. "That is not the same as understanding one."
On that point Tirpitz agreed.
A man might study hull forms, armour distribution, engines, and naval doctrine for years and still know very little about the sea itself. Charts explained currents, but they did not teach balance beneath one's feet. Drawings showed sail plans, but they did not reveal how a vessel warned its crew through strain, vibration, and sound.
"The sea argues with every design," Tirpitz told him. "A good sailor learns to listen before it raises its voice."
"Then I ought to let it correct me."
The conversation remained easy for a time. Tirpitz spoke of Baltic winds, shifting currents, sail balance, and the difference between commanding a ship and feeling one move beneath his own hands. Oskar listened with genuine interest. He knew what navies would eventually become, but Tirpitz understood the living sea upon which those navies still depended.
Tea arrived before noon.
The attendant placed a silver pot between them and announced that it contained Yorkshire tea, imported from Britain and examined by the Eternal Guard before serving.
Oskar breathed in the aroma and took an approving sip.
Tirpitz regarded the cup darkly.
"British tea."
"Good British tea," Oskar corrected.
The word Britain pulled the admiral's thoughts back toward less pleasant matters.
Their embassy and agents in London had been reporting increasingly frantic naval activity. British politicians demanded more dreadnoughts, newspapers warned of German construction, and the shipyards responded as though war had already begun. Men were being driven through punishing shifts in mines, foundries, armour works, and dockyards while the government searched for enough revenue to support both naval expansion and domestic reform.
"They are exhausting themselves to maintain the lead," Tirpitz said. "Yet they are maintaining it."
Germany had built rapidly, but Britain continued answering every German ship with more of its own. Tirpitz feared that the Royal Navy's numbers would eventually become so overwhelming that superior German guns, armour, and engines would no longer matter.
He therefore proposed a further expansion.
More dockyards. More slips. More workers. Foreign labour if necessary. Additional loans could accelerate construction, while Oskar's industries might provide the revenue needed to carry the burden.
"You have always found money when Germany required it," Tirpitz observed. "A new factory, a machine, a book, some product no one knew they needed until you sold a million of them. Perhaps it is time to perform that miracle for the navy."
Oskar set down his cup.
"You worry too much."
"I worry precisely as much as my office and Germany require."
"I do not say your concern is unjustified," Oskar replied. "I say concern is useful only until it becomes a decision."
Tirpitz waited.
"If a danger lies within our power, then we answer it. If it does not, worrying about it merely wastes the strength needed elsewhere. Anxiety is not strategy, Admiral. Strategy identifies what can be changed and changes it."
"There are things we can change," Tirpitz insisted. "We can build more."
"We can," Oskar agreed. "And where greater capacity is sensible, we shall. But we will not cripple Germany attempting to defeat Britain in the contest Britain was built to win."
Britain possessed more yards, more experienced naval labour, more overseas bases, and the financial machinery of a maritime empire. A direct race in hulls would force Germany to spend itself into exhaustion while Britain drew upon resources accumulated across generations.
Germany needed powerful capital ships. It needed heavier guns, superior engines, concentrated armour, and crews trained beyond British expectations.
But Oskar understood that quality alone would not solve the problem any more than quantity would.
"The mistake," he said, "is believing that naval warfare consists only of large ships firing at one another across open water."
Tirpitz's gaze sharpened.
"Battleships remain necessary," Oskar continued. "They hold the North Sea, threaten any British approach, and force the Royal Navy to respect the possibility of a decisive engagement. But the future sea will not be fought upon one surface."
"What do you mean?"
"War above the water. War upon it. War beneath it."
Tirpitz became still.
Oskar leaned back, the faintest smile appearing upon his face.
"The British expect a battle line facing another battle line. They expect blockade squadrons, cruisers, and guns. That is the contest their fleet was constructed to dominate."
"And you do not intend to give it to them."
"No."
Inside Oskar's mind, the future sea was already crowded.
Submarines slipped beneath blockade lines and hunted merchant traffic without ever presenting a proper target. Mines closed channels and turned familiar waters into traps. Aircraft searched beyond the horizon, then eventually rose from long, flat decks built to carry air power across oceans. Missiles and machines not yet imaginable would one day strike ships from distances at which their crews could not even see the enemy.
Naval power was not a line of battleships.
It was control of every dimension surrounding them.
"Britain's strength depends upon more than its warships," Oskar said. "It depends upon the trade those warships protect—food, fuel, ore, cotton, rubber, nitrates, colonial wealth, and men moving across the oceans. Threaten the system from enough directions and the size of the fleet becomes a burden as well as an advantage."
Tirpitz studied him closely.
"You have planned for this."
"I have planned the beginning of it."
"And this weapon we are travelling to see?"
"Is one part of that beginning."
The admiral's impatience returned at once.
"What part?"
Oskar reached for the teapot.
"You will see."
Tirpitz grumbled into his cup, took a reluctant sip, and paused.
"At least Yorkshire produces acceptable tea."
"On that," Oskar said, "Germany and Britain may remain at peace."
The train continued north.
By the time they entered the flatter coastal country surrounding Danzig, Tirpitz's earlier gloom had given way to intense curiosity. He no longer attempted to extract details. Instead, he sat with his notebook open, recording fragments concerning shipyard capacity, multidimensional warfare, commerce routes, mines, aircraft, and whatever Oskar continued refusing to name.
The locomotive finally slowed beneath a cloud of steam and coal smoke.
Beyond the station waited a line of dark Muscle Motors automobiles, along with the guards and engineers who would escort them to the German Works shipyards.
Oskar rose and adjusted his coat.
Tirpitz was already standing.
"Admiral," Oskar said, "are you prepared to be amazed?"
Tirpitz's great moustache lifted with his smile.
"Your Highness, I have been prepared since Potsdam."
They stepped onto the platform as the Eternal Guard formed around them.
Beyond Danzig, hidden behind guarded doors and painted windows, the future of German naval warfare was waiting.