18 Der Luise

We boarded the ship called Luise, named after her Imperial Highness Viktoria Luise the Duchess of Brunswick and the only daughter of the Kaiser.

We were given new identities in order to avoid further dangers. I became Gisela, daughter of a nobleman and wealthy landowner from Austria while my brother was nicknames Max, short for Maximillian.

Uncle Willy was gracious enough to provide us with an entourage of 2 guards, one doctor and a nurse for Alexei and a servant girl for myself called Amelie.

It was the first time we were on a ship without my family. We used to travel a lot.. We used to do all things together.. How I missed my sisters.. how i missed Papa.. And Mama too even though we had our differences.

Amelie and I were almost the same age. Her mother was a cook at one of the Kaiser's summer residences. She was good looking and presentable for a maid.

As a daughter of the Tsar, we were brought up to learn different language since we were very little and that made us all fluent in English, Russian, German and Spanish.

Our entourage could were German speaking but it wasn't a problem since we were trained to be master many dialects for our duties to meet with other royals.

Alexei was fast asleep. He was so tired and weakened from all of the events preceding to this. He has a condition called Hemophilia or abnormal bleeding. A small wound would be fatal and he would bleed to death. This is one of the many reasons of my mother's paranoia and hysteria.

My brother was the youngest. He was conceived with great anxieties and expectations because Papa needed but Mama gave him and the empire 4 daughters.

Mama was in too much pressure to conceive a male child. That made her more fragile and emotionally unstable.

His sickness was a secret. No one outside the Imperial family knew about my brother's condition because it would made him and papa a walking target for overthrow for those who wished the throne for themselves.

My parents did everything to find cure for my brother but all the top doctors failed and that drove my mother to try these supernatural and spiritual methods until he learned of a self claimed holy man called Rasputin.

But Rasputin was never holy.. he was deluded and demented. A drunk pervert who manipulated Mama with promises of divine healing for Alexei.

Mama showered him with gifts and favours. My father was warned about the dangers of having that man in our lives but he was too gullible to stand up against his wife.

Even my great grandmother, the Queen Victoria of England expressed her concerns when he learned that Mama would become a Tsarina. She knew that she was not be suitable to be the wife of an Emperor and mother of a future ruler..

The late Queen was right..

I was breathing some fresh air in the balcony when I noticed a stranger staring at me..

Who was this stranger? Did he noticed me as the Grandduchess Maria Romanov? Was he a Russian spy? A Bolshevik?

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