THE
RELUCTANT PRINCE
CHAPTER TWO
Construction of the
castle at Bad Baden was begun in the
tenth century by the
original Prince Rupert, a man the Bad
Baden Castle Guidebook
referred to as "bold". By modern
standards he would
be described as a villainous, uncouth,
untrustworthy, shifty,
murdering psychopath.
He had come into his
holdings as a consequence of his
brigandage and strong-arm thuggery along the highways left by
the receding Roman
Empire, eventually amassing enough
treasure from unwary
travelers and extorting enough labor from
the local peasantry
to begin to build the Keep.
The keep was a huge cubelike structure of enormous
blocks of hewed stone.
It stood twenty meters high and was
twenty meters on each
side. The roof of the keep was flagged
stone set upon massive timber beams. This was so no Greek
fire launched from below could start the roof ablaze.
In addition the keep
occupied a high promontory and was
positioned so as to
be directly in the way of the only possible
route of attack. Inside
the keep Prince Rupert the First had dug
a well down into the
springs from which flowed the sulfur baths
for which the castle
and the town below were named. Though
foul-tasting, it and
the two years' supply in the granary
prevented besiegers
from starving the keep's residents into
submission. Waste disposal
was handled by the simple
expedient of dumping
it on the attackers' heads.
The keep had remained
invulnerable for ten centuries, but it
had taken three successive
Ruperts to get it built. Subsequent
Princes had built a
wall which enclosed the entire hilltop
behind the keep and
it was behind these walls that the palace
had eventually been
built six hundred years later. In all that time
there had always been
a Prince Rupert of Bad Baden in
residence.
Over the centuries
the Princes had been subject to the
various moderating
influences of their female relations, with the
result being that each
successive generation became more
prosperous and also
more civilized, marrying well and
producing heirs. It was the production of an heir which had
brought the Duchess
to Bad Baden on this April morning,
Prince Rupert's thirty-ninth birthday.
If Rupert the First
had been called Rupert the Bold, the
Duchess's nephew could
be best described as Rupert the
Reluctant. Throughout
his childhood, his schooling, and now
his oncoming middle
life he had been distinguished only by a
singular lack of passion
for any thing, activity, or person he
encountered.
"Well, he'll buck
up once he's in school," his father
Rupert had said.
"Oh, he'll come
out of his shell when he's in business and
develops a taste for
the boardroom brawl," had said his Uncle
Dieter, heartily gnashing
the teeth old Rupert One had
genetically bequeathed.
"He just needs
a woman to bring out the man inside," the
Duchess had mused.
But though he had graduated
(unremarkably) in the middle
of his form, and though
he attended his board meetings
regularly and on time,
and though he dutifully showed up at all
the cotillions, balls,
and soirees held each year for the purposes
of furthering various
lines and ambitions, Rupert kept himself to
himself.
He had been, when he
was a tyke, an avid model
railroad enthusiast.
One day, while he was playing with
his trains, his father
had asked what he thought he might like to
study in school.
"When I grow up,
I'd like to drive the train," had said
Rupert. His father
had laughed as if that were the funniest thing
he had ever heard.
Then he had patiently explained that when
Rupert was grown, he
would someday have to be the Prince.
"May I be the
Prince and also drive the train?" Rupert had
asked.
"I'm afraid not,
my little man. It is because you have
been chosen by fate
to be the Prince, and the people in the
town and on the farms
all around will depend on you to help
them and care for them.
And that will take all of your time.
You wouldn't want to
let them down, would you?"
"No, Papa,"
Rupert had said, and that afternoon he had
put his trains away.
to be continued
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