Chapter 453: Banter and Bloodlines
Bruno sat in his office the day after the old flags of Portugal flew over Lisbon once more. A newspaper rested in his hands, and his eldest daughter sat across from him. She was practically an adult at this point.
Though how you defined such a thing was complicated.
Physically, she was fully grown. Mentally? Her brain had more or less completed its development — save perhaps the prefrontal cortex. Or maybe it had. There was no way to know for sure without a scan of the area, and that technology didn’t exist yet.
It was commonly misquoted that the prefrontal cortex didn’t fully develop until the age of twenty-five — but that was an average. In many cases, things like drug or alcohol abuse could delay its maturation. And in the case of the hyper-gifted? It could develop far earlier.
Legally, she wouldn’t be considered an adult in full until the age of twenty-one — such were the laws of the German Reich. But even so, that didn’t bar her from engaging in many of the activities typically associated with adulthood in Bruno’s past life.
Next year, she would be marrying the Prince of Prussia — the grandson of the Kaiser, and a man destined to inherit the throne once both his grandfather and father had passed... or relinquished their claims.
But Eva wasn’t thinking about Wilhelm right now. Her eyes were locked on her father, questioning — calculating. The girl wasn’t a fool. Quite the opposite. She had inherited Bruno’s brilliant mind and his passion for geopolitics.
She understood exactly what Portugal’s coup meant. The return of its monarch to a throne long left vacant by corrupt politicians elected through popularity contests and false promises. And, of course, the equally detestable bureaucrats who — in every republic — robbed the nation blind and sold its soul for the slightest chance to line their pockets, if no loaded gun was pressed to their backs.
Portugal was entering the fold. The military had sided with the exiled king — Manuel II — who had inherited the throne from his father after the man was assassinated in 1908. He had reigned for a mere two years before being overthrown by republican rebels and forced to flee the country of his birth.
Manuel had now been invited back by the military. The Republic was cracking at its foundations — foundations built on wet sand. The burden of its neighbors, and its neighbors’ neighbors, was too much for the small coastal country to bear.
To those with an older sense of virtue, bringing back the king — at a time when monarchies and empires flourished — was a natural step toward securing ties with Germany that would never have formed under a republican banner.
Eva knew all of this. She wore a smug smirk on her face as she watched her father sip his coffee and read the paper in silence. He was too quiet — and in the end; she grew impatient. Groaning, she demanded an answer from the man she knew was purposely triggering her.