Tyranny of Steel

Within the city of Graz, deep inside the belly of its Castle, was a young woman in the middle of her adolescent years. This girl was Adela von Graz the fiancée of the infamous Duke Berengar von Kufstein. While Berengar was beginning to introduce a series of legal reforms that would shock the European world, his fiancée was reading a letter written to her by her rival in love.

This rival was none other than Linde von Habsburg. With the arrival of Princess Honoria, Linde felt a significant threat to her position and thought it was necessary to inform Adela about the situation since Berengar had purposely neglected to mention the appearance of a new potential rival.

This letter did not openly entail the secret that Linde suspected this young woman from the east to be the lost Princess of the East. Instead, it merely introduced her as a young maiden lying about her identity and trying to get close to Berengar.

However, as Adela read the contents, her expression began to sink. She was well aware of the relationship between Berengar and Linde at this point; after all, it was common knowledge. She had even come to terms with the idea of Berengar taking a lover on the side and had convinced herself that great men were capable of doing such a thing.

However, news of a foreign beauty from the east who was potentially lying about her identity while trying to capture Berengar's attention was something Adela did not take lightly. Judging by the contents of the letter, Adela figured there was more to the story.

If Linde was worried about this new arrival to the point where she would write a letter to Adela, it was a fairly serious situation. Adela lay down upon her bed as she read the contents of the letter with a pouting face. She instantly voiced her discontent with the situation.

"Berengar, you dummy!"

Adela had a quick wit, and she instantly looked closer at the letter; perhaps something that she missed would explain Linde's worry more adequately. After studying the letter, Adela found it was written in code; if she could write down the first letter of every third word, it formed an expression of its own.

She quickly began to decipher the content, and after writing it down on a separate piece of paper, two words stuck out like a sore thumb.

"Princess Honoria"

Adela was not too familiar with the royal court of the Byzantine Empire, and as such, was utterly unaware of who Princess Honoria was. Still, the fact that this young maiden from the east had the title of Princess could only mean one thing. Adela's position as the primary wife was being threatened.

After all, if Berengar were to add a Princess to his collection of beautiful young women, then indeed it made sense for him to marry her instead, especially if she came from a powerful kingdom. With this news, the young girl was beginning to nibble on her thumbs in anxiety.

After careful consideration, she realized that her fourteenth birthday was around the corner, and she would have to have a conversation with Berengar about this when he finally arrived. As such, she wrote a letter to Linde thanking her for informing her of these matters and requesting her presence at her birthday so the two of them could confront Berengar about this issue together.

After writing the letter, Adela heard a knock on her door. As such, she quickly walked over to the door and opened it, revealing the voluptuous figure of her eldest sister Ava, who by now had a worrisome expression on her face.

Since Berengar's reconquest of Austria, Ava's husband Wolfgang had been deposed as count of Salzburg and replaced by his younger brother at Berengar's behest. Despite her and her husband's apologies for their actions while Berengar stayed in Graz, the man had gone through with his threat. He thoroughly removed Wolfgang from any position of authority, he did so while Conrad was still alive, and he was the Regent of Austria.

Since then, Wolfgang and Ava had permanently moved to Graz at the behest of the new Count of Salzburg; after all, the man could never forgive his older brother for forsaking their homeland and fleeing Steiermark while Salzburg was embroiled in warfare.

Since then, Ava and her husband had become humbled, and with Adela being the fiancée of the new Duke of Austria, Ava no longer found her for the daily conflict. Instead, she had begun to grovel at Adela's feet so that the young girl might convince her future husband to restore Wolfgang's position.

Thus after Adela saw Ava in her doorway, she began to sigh and shake her head as she asked Ava the question on her mind.

"What now, Ava? I am a little bit busy!"

Ava could tell that Adela was distressed, which was unusual for the little girl who was usually so full of life; as such, she instantly saw it as a way to curry favor with her younger sister. Thus Ava put on a worried façade and returned Adela's question with one of her own.

"Little Adela, is everything alright? You look quite upset…."

Though Adela knew what games Ava was playing, she honestly didn't care, as it would be nice to vent her frustrations to someone. As such, she opened the door all the way and allowed Ava into the room before she sat down on her bed and hugged her pillow.

"A Princess is visiting Berengar, and I am afraid he will try to marry her instead…."

Ava was quite shocked by this; when she had tried to seduce Berengar, he paid no attention to her natural charms. Thus she was also quite upset when she heard some other woman had begun to attempt to latch onto her little sister's beloved fiancé.

However, she hid her inner fury and tried to console Adela instead

"A princess, huh? What Princess? Do you know her name and what Kingdom she is from?"

Hearing this, Adela merely shook her head before responding to her sister as she stared at the floor.

"I have never heard of her before. Do you know who Princess Honoria is?"

Ava had to think about it for a few moments before a light sparkled in her eyes, and she remembered where she had heard the name.

"Where did you hear that Princess Honoria had visited Berengar? That should not be possible; as far as I know, there is only one Princess by that name, the Imperial Princess of the Byzantine Empire, supposedly she is quite the beauty.

However, she has been locked up in the palace her entire life and is restricted from interacting with outsiders. There is no possible way she has visited Kufstein to see Berengar, her father the Emperor wouldn't allow it!"

Hearing this, Adela's eyes lit up, and the dread she felt began to fade away; she might have been reading too much into the letter. Still, the odds of a hidden message like what she had found by pure coincidence were entirely non-existent.

As such, she decided to show Ava the letter, and after explaining to her how she found out about the Princess's name, a scowl formed on Ava's face as she tried to think through what this meant. Eventually, Ava came to a conclusion and began to suggest what she thought the message conveyed to her little sister.

"In the actual letter, it appears as if this girl is going by the name Valeria Zonara, and she claims she is from Antioch. However, Linde suspects she is lying about her identity. The hidden message might be the guess she has about her identity.

I highly doubt that it is princess Honoria, unless, of course, she ran away from home to visit Berengar, but that's impossible, right? I mean, how would she even know who Berengar is? Let alone how could she get to Kufstein by herself? This has to be some form of mistake."

Adela nodded at Ava's comment; it made sense. However, she also knew Linde's character well enough to know that she would never panic like this and send Adela an encrypted message with a suspected identity unless she was positive about her conclusion. Thus her sister's comments did little to calm Adela's nerves, despite the sound logic.

After a few moments of thinking things through, Adela realized there was no point worrying about such a thing. She would have to confront Berengar when he arrived for her birthday. It was not far away, and she could wait patiently for an answer until then.

Seeing Adela cheer up, Ava began to ask her the question that was actually on her mind.

"Now that you are in a better mood, can you ask your fiancé to restore Wolfgang's position for me!"

Hearing this, Adela merely rolled her eyes and began to push Ava out of her room.

"Get out of my room Ava!"

Despite Ava's protests, she eventually found herself on the other side of the door pouting. This was the thirteenth time she had asked Adela today, and as per usual, she was rejected. She would have to find some other way to convince the girl to talk to her fiance about the issue at hand.