exchanged I with with the royal we. It's pretty hard to keep track of it...but it's necessairy....

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Part 1

The day after tomorrow 9 o'clock.

The little maid woke Heidi up. She sat down onto the canopy bed.

Heidi's feet showed bare spots of skin from beneath the blanket. The little maid began tickling the empress' toes.

One leg tried to scare the imaginary fly away but it always landed on one of the two legs.

After the third landing the empress' legs vanished under the blanket.

The next landing areal was her ear. A hand appeared and tried to scare it away, but the fly was stubborn.

After the second landing the eyes opened a bit.

The little maid cried out:

"Up, up you rabbits don't you hear the hunter's trumpets?"

Heidi turned around so she didn't have to face the nuisance.

A grumpy voice stated:

"Little maid, you are annoying."

The little maid answered:

"Besides: It doesn't fit an empress to sleep this long on a Sunday."

"Yeah, yeah church we know, we know."

Every emperor has to go to church. It is tradition and a duty because normally the pope crowns an emperor. This means the emperor has to do this for the Catholic Church.

Heidi opened her eyes and looked at the chubby girl besides her on the bed.

Heidi remembered: At 10 o'clock her aunt wanted to show her the might of her house.

What will she show her? She remembered the exchange between the aunt and the man. She looked at the smiling face of the little maid and asked:

"Little maid, what will you do if it's true and we all have maggots in our brain?"

The little maid made a disgusted face.

"It would be pretty disgusting, but on the other hand: better maggots than straw."

Heidi showed a tired smile when she heard the bad joke.

"No.... jokes aside, what I really think is that I would get scared if I knew that not only you would have control but everyone from your family."

Heidi had heard stories about her relatives but not every story was a good one. She knew that some of them were quite frightening figures.

"You know little maid: If our aunt didn't pull our leg we'll handle it with our  family once we turn 20, but now we"ll only tell our aunt and uncle. So they won't give you hypnotic orders."

The little maid gave Heidi a hug and said. "That would be wonderful."

A smile appeared

"Let's get up otherwise you won't get any breakfast!"

Part 2

Church was boring. Heidi knitted different kinds of knots into the ribbons of the singing book or played with her white dress. Although her mother always warned her that she would go straight to hell if she would do something like this.

But Heidi didn't fear hell. Better an eternity tortured with good company than to live for an eternity with idiots.

4 people sat in a row: the aunt, Heidi, the gardener's boy and the little maid. They were in the front row of the half full church.

The divine service came to a closure. The priest was referring to different management topics and then something unexpected happened:

"Now the aunt of the house Habsburg wants to share some words with you:"

The aunt stood up and with light steps she ascended the pulpit. When she arrived at the top, she looked in the round.

Then she opened her mouth. No words came out. Only clicking sounds.

Suddenly everyone present stood up, bowed their heads and put their right hand to their breast.

They didn't face the aunt but Heidi.

One man came out of the many rows. He stood before the front bench where the young girl was sitting. She had a sure and unmoving expression. Her posture was straight.  She put her chest out. A posture fitting for royalty.

The man was the same one as they have seen the day before yesterday. He bent his knee in front of her, bowed his head and said:

"My empress."

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*Silence*

A warm smile appeared on the empress' features.

"What is it our beloved subject?"

"Your honored aunt told me before the service began that you had doubts about my loyalty.

I remember that I was lost the day before. I remember the burden to get a visa in Austria and the uncertainty if I had to go back to my country.

All this changed with the words your aunt told me here today. Every burden fell off my shoulders, because only one thought crossed my mind: How to serve you in the best way possible.

Please give me a chance to clarify my devotion towards you."

With these words he pulled out a pocket knife.

With a *click* it sprung open.

He cut his black shirt open.

Slowly he moved the blade towards his breast. It touched the skin where the bones of the ribcage started. The pressure on the blade became stronger; a thin red line ran to the floor.

The knife moved towards the right side. It stopped when the wound was 10 cm wide.

Then he let the knife fall onto the floor. A sound louder than every word that had been spoken until this moment was heard.

Onto holy ground red blood sprinkled.

The first blood under Heidi's reign.

The man approached with his right hand the bleeding wound.

He forced it into himself.

He cried.

No tears were seen on his face.

He grasped something. He slowly breathed out knowing what will happen. He said with a sure voice:

"I will gladly give my heart to my empress...... For the monarchy!"

He tore. In his hands a red moving muscle. Red blood splattered onto the white dress of the empress.

He presented his life to his ruler. The eyes of the young child met with his own. A warm smile was seen on her features.

"My knight, I will never forget your sacrifice as long as I live."

Her little hands closed tenderly around the still pumping heart. She didn't mind the blood trenching her white robe red. The only important thing was the person offering her his most precious possession.

The man had a smile on his face. He was content seeing this face of the empress.

All the life left in his body vanished. He fell to the floor. The only still living thing was the pumping heart in the hands of the little girl.

Part 3

Every other person hadn’t changed the position the slightest during this whole event. The only ones whose faces visibly became white were the gardener's boy and the little maid.

Their eyes were widened and locked onto the spectacle before them.

The aunt still on the pulpit said with clicking in the background:

"The empress will now take a leave. You on the other hand will forget that we were here and as soon as we leave this place you will perform your duties towards the Empire."

With these words the aunt came down. She took her purse from the front row and a medal appeared from the insides. The front showed the family crest. She laid it on the forehead of the dead. Heidi still in the now red dress with the pumping heart in her hands was pulled by her aunt to the exit. The little maid and the gardener's boy followed them.

In front of the church a limousine parked. Everyone jumped in. The driver started the car.

They heard loud screams from the inside. The people came back from their hypnotic state.

Without minding them Heidi asked:

"Was this real devotion or was it the maggot?"

Her aunt looked at the blood drenched girl. She had a serious expression on her lips.

"When your people get infected the maggot becomes indistinguishable from them. They are the maggots and the maggots are them.

So this was real devotion towards you."

Heidi looked at the heart in her hands and said quietly:

"Aunt, please teach us. We want the whole world to give us its heart."

The eyes of Heidi shined dangerously.

This attitude pleased the aunt. She said:

"My empress I will teach you everything I know. I will help you fulfill your dream."

With this they went home.

1.