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I. Food
When Fredersdorf joins the army, daily rations for a Prussian soldier consist of 1029 grams rye bread, 227 grams fresh or salted meat, 32 grams of salt, 48 grams of butter, 57 mililtres liquor and 859 mililitres of beer. Ever since the Thirty-Years-War about a century ago, people starving is something that people in the German speaking territories have grown adjusted to, and since Prussian soldiers actually can rely on getting both rations and salary regularly, which isn’t true for most other European armies, this at first seems sheer luxury. Still, he takes it for granted that officers and the nobility eat very differently. One of the first things he finds out when becoming the Crown Prince’s valet is that the King believes in disciplining his son while putting him on army rations. Which means that once once Friedrich is at last free from Küstrin, given a regiment to supervise in Neuruppin and his own household far from paternal control in Berlin, he indulges in a food spree. This gives Fredersdorf practice in the hiring and firing of cooks, because beyond his own mother’s cooking, he has up to this point no experience outside the army in how to judge these things. Figuring out what the prince likes and how to organize it happens in tandem to finding out what he himself might like.
He starts with the very reliable chicken soup, which can’t be that hard to prepare, and then challenges the first cook he hires with pike and horseradish, because Friedrich had talked about this once. Unfortunately, said first cook overdoes it with the horseradish. This leaves Fredersdorf crying, and not from grief, but as it turns out Friedrich has a taste for his tongue getting almost burned and actually likes the dish. On the other hand, he does expect some sweetness afterwards, so it’s a good thing Fredersdorf has managed to buy some cherries from a farmer that day.
First extremely salty and then closing his eyes in ecstasy while rolling around a cherry in his mouth so it lasts a little longer: that’s Friedrich at age twenty for you.
II. Poetry
Music is what brought them first together, Fredersdorf and the Prince, and poetry is what almost divides them, because the Prince writes such a lot of it, all in French. Which Frederdorf can’t read or speak. „Lucky you“, says the Prince’s chamberlain in an indiscreet moment, because everyone else near Friedrich has to listen to him recite said poems sooner or later.
„You know,“ Friedrich says to Fredersdorf when they’ve finished playing another flute duet together, „you could learn French, easily. A smart fellow such as yourself. There are so many here who speak it and could teach it to you.“ For a moment, Fredersdorf thinks the Prince means he’ll play the teacher, but then he continues: „Just make sure it’s a true Frenchman, because I don’t want you to pick up some godawful accent.“
Now, French could of course be highly useful. Not just because the nobility speak it to each other constantly. But: learning a language takes effort and time, and Fredersdorf’s is already very much taken. Also, he knows the Prince will want to talk to him in French instead of German as soon as Fredersdorf can string a sentence together. And then they wouldn‘t be able to converse much at all. Fredersdorf would sound like a small child or an idiot at first, and Friedrich, who had been so surprised and delighted to discover a town piper’s son had been able to play flute concerts by Blavet and the divine Quantz, will see him in a very different light.
„I could,“ Fredersdorf therefore replies, „but then I couldn’t practice the sonata I’ve been meaning to suprise you with, or learn how to do bookkeeping, which strikes me as something I should do, because your steward has been spotted with a new carriage, and I don’t see how he could have afforded one on the salary your father pays him.“
Friedrich looks at him with an indescribable expression. It occurs to Frederdorf he hasn’t refused any request from the Prince so far.
„I could read my poetry to you, though“, Friedrich says slowly, „if you spoke French.“
Never mind the slight grimace on the face of the chamberlain; however good or bad the Prince’s poetry may be, Fredersdorf would gladly listen to it since it is clearly important to the Prince. Except. Except he still thinks he’s right in his original estimation. Friedrich likes people who are competent at what they do, especially when it comes to the arts, and French is something he hasn’t just high standards for, but something he deeply loves; just think of his pointing out Fredersdorf would need to learn it from a true Frenchman. If he had to listen to Fredersdorf stumbling through unfamiliar phrases, he’d come to feel disdain, contempt, even, and this, Frederdorf could not bear.
„You can still do that“, he offers. „I’ll understand the music of it, from the sound of your voice. Even better for not knowing the words.“
There is silence, and suddenly Fredersdorf wonders what he’ll do if Friedrich dismisses him from his service. His old regiment would probably take him back, so it’s not that he’d starve. But – he would miss the Prince. From the moment he’d seen him, miserable and tense, both the crown’s heir and its prisoner, he’d thought, disrespectful as it may have been: Someone ought to take care of you. And he’d decided that he would.
There’s a small sigh, almost not a noise at all but just a breath, and then Friedrich says: „You could be right. I’ll give it a try, maybe, later.“
He never asks Fredersdorf to learn French again.
III. Family
What Fredersdorf knew about the royal family before becoming Friedrich’s servant was almost nothing. He’d been aware that the King and Queen had a lot of children beside the Crown Prince and heir, of course, but that had been about it. Now that he’s in Friedrich’s service and Friedrich has to spend some of each winter in Berlin at his father’s court, this changes quickly.
The prospect of being anywhere near the King, whose educational methods include having his oldest son’s beloved friend executed before his eyes, has been intimidating enough. Fredersdorf had assumed the mother – who after all is loved by the Prince and has supported him – and the siblings would be the easy part. This turns out to have been a somehwat naive assumption. The Princess Wilhelmine, Friedrich’s older and favourite sister, had been married the previous year, and had given birth already, but she is back during the first winter Fredersdorf is with the Prince in Berlin, and the Prince had been looking forward to seeing her again. Their initial embrace is easily the most comfortable part of the visit. The Queen then proceeds to chide her oldest daughter for having married a „beggarly margrave“, the next oldest girl chimes in with much of the same, and then they have a go at the princess Friedrich is by now engaged to, Elisabeth Christine. Now Friedrich has made no bones about his dislike of the marriage prospect, but he grows visibly more annoyed and irritated at the mockery from his mother and sister Charlotte.
Next, one of the youngest siblings, a girl, starts to climb on the stool of the cembalo that stands in the salon, and no sooner has she touched the keys that one of the middle girls wails: „Stop it, Amalie, stop it! Mama, make her stop it!“ Which the Queen ignores in favour of pouring out more mockery over the appearance and education of her future daughter-in-law. Just when Fredersdorf believes everyone’s faces can not be more miserable, the King is announced, at which point the universal awkwardness multiplies even more as he informs his oldest daughter her husband needs to become more of a man, someone who doesn‘t refuse to drink when his father-in-law tells him to, and asks Friedrich whether he’d truly sired a bastard on the wife of General Wreech.
„No“, Friedrich returns coldly.
„No need to lie“, the King exclaims. „I just hope you’ll do your wife the same service, once the marriage is over and done with.“
And then he sits down and pets the next oldest prince, who appears to be about ten years old, as if the boy was a dog.
At first, Fredersdorf does his best to fade into the wallpaper. Then he concludes he’d better figure out something to save Friedrich of having to spend the next few hours like this. After a few servants enter carrying bowls with half warm carrot soup and start to serve this to the royal family, Fredersdorf slips one of them a coin and an order when they exit. Just ten minutes later, the same man reenters to make a show of whispering a message to Fredersdorf, who proceeds to regretfully announce there has been a letter from Neuruppin requiring the Crown Prince’s immediate attention. Rarely has Fredersdorf seen Friedrich jump up faster.
„I hope your highness won’t mind“, Fredersdorf says once they are out of hearing business, „but there is no letter. However, I did take the liberty of ordering some hot spiced wine.“
Friedrich looks somewhere between grateful, amused and torn.
„I suppose there can’t be a second letter for Wilhelmine, from Bayreuth“, he says, wistfully. „That would be too obvious.“
„Indeed, Sir. However, I would not be surprised if the headache the Margravine evidently suffers from forced her to withdraw for the night. Should that be the case, I’ll see to it she’ll find her way to your rooms first.“
To this, Friedrich does not say anything, but he gives Fredersdorf one of those smiles which transformed his otherwise homely face into something intense and beautiful that makes you want to be a sculptor so you could carve it and take it with you, always. He puts his hand on Fredersdorf’s shoulder, and just for a moment, Fredersdorf thinks that if he turns his head, right now, and kissed Friedrich’s fingers, the Prince would let him. But then he tells himself not to be silly. However much the Prince might like him, Fredersdorf is a servant, and besides, if the Prince wanted to be kissed by anyone, it would be by the man who’d died at Küstrin, Lieutenant Katte.
He sticks to smiling back, and promises himself that once this evening is over, he’ll have a go at the spiced wine himself.
IV. Money
One of the things the late Lieutenant Katte was accused of by the King was steering the Crown Prince ever more into debts. Now that he’s serving Friedrich, Fredersdorf is in a position to know Friedrich doesn’t need any steering in this regard. Once the Prince hits on the idea of accepting money from various ambassadors for nebulous promises of future good will, it’s running through his hands like water. This is another reason why Fredersdorf trains himself in bookkeeping, and learns about trading opportunities. That, and he’s discovered he’s become fond of a certain amount of finery himself: clothing that includes soft velvet, exquisitely made instruments, soft, feathery beds, cooks that have been trained in palaces, not in the army.
The Prince spends the money on all of this and a lot of books, but he also does things like buying golden knobs for walking sticks as presents. It’s not that he can’t count. „When I’m King,“ he says, „and the money is my country’s, I’Il be as thrifty as the old miser himself. But I don’t see any reason not to spend the Emperor’s coin on some creature comforts until then, if his people are foolish enough to give it to me. Incidentally, feel free to accept any bribes offered to you, as long as you tell me about them. I’m curious what the current rate is, and it will tell us what everyone else really thinks of me behind their fine words.“
„If I take all bribes offered, they soon won’t offer anymore because they’ll figure I don’t have any real influence to sell and am desperate“, Fredersdorf points out. „Surely it would be more profitable to present myself as hard to bribe and thus get them willing to spend more in order to win me over.“
Friedrich squints. „Hm,“ he says. „There might be something to this.“
Shortly afterwards, the Crown Prince actually starts to decline some offers, though he still accepts extravagant sums from a more selected circle of envoys. Fredersdorf is fairly certain that if he had attempted to offer direct advice, it would have been declined; so much in Friedrich’s life is managed by his father that he needs to feel he’s able to follow only his own head in the few areas that are left. This said, they actually do exchange stories about the sums offered as bribes, and draw their conclusions from this. One man who had been willing to advance the Prince some money, but never as much as talked to Fredersdorf is the former envoy of Saxony, Suhm, who still finds excuses to show up in Berlin on the few occasions when the Prince does.
„That’s because he is my friend“, Friedrich says, sounding half proud, half chiding. „He doesn’t expect any favors.“
Not any political favors, at any rate, Fredersdorf thinks, because the noble Suhm, who is old enough to be the Prince’s father, practically has stars in his eyes when talking to the Prince. In French, of course. Now on the one hand, Fredersdorf should be glad that the Prince has a good friend drawn to him only by affection, who, since he’s not a Prussian citizen, isn’t in danger of being killed by the Prince’s father any time soon. But on the other, well, when Suhm is around, Friedrich spends a lot of time with him. An extraordinary amount of time, while Fredersdorf can only talk with him in haste doing his valet duties.
This is normal, he tells himself; you’re a servant, Suhm is a nobleman. What did you expect?
He still can’t help thinking about this. When he presents Friedrich with the monthly expenses, Friedrich says: „That’s less than I expected. Didn’t we buy the Racine edition?“
„With the French envoy’s money, yes“, Fredersdorf confirms.
„But I thought he is bribing you, not me these days“, Friedrich returns, and Fredersdorf shrugs.
„So he does. But seeing as receiving these books make you happy, I thought it was money well spent.“
Servants don’t make presents to their masters. Friends do, to each other. Fredersdorf keeps his face still, but his heart is hammering. Friedrich looks at him, and everything else in the room seems to fade away.
„Thank you,“ Friedrich murmurs. They play flute together again that afternoon, and soon afterwards, Suhm has to return to Saxony anyway.
V. Nightmares
The marriage doesn’t make as much difference as the Prince feared it would, not least because at first, he can leave the Princess Elisabeth Christine in Potsdam and Berlin with his parents while he’s with the regiment in Neuruppin more often than not. Fredersdorf has to make the arrangements with her household, including finding and appointing new people to said household, because the ones she brought from Brunswick have to return there within the year on the King’s orders. He finds the new Crown Princess shy, eager to please her new husband – for whose sake she wants to hire a teacher so she can improve on her meager French - , and in general as unthreatening as a mouse.
And yet: within a week of the marriage, Friedrich’s nightmares are back. He hadn’t had these in almost a year. Granted, he also has taken to sleeping less, but still. Naturally, the future royal couple doesn’t sleep in the same bed; only non-nobles do that, Fredersdorf has learned, and so Friedrich is as alone as ever when he wakes up screaming at three in the morning.
Fredersdorf sleeps in the next room, and he doesn’t bother getting dressed before entering. They’re both in nightshirts, and Friedrich’s clings to him. It’s soaked with sweat. This isn’t just because of the dream. Friedrich likes to keep his personal rooms warm, extraordinarily warm, even in the height of summer, which is is right now. They’re all to the south, and whichever one has a fireplace will also be additionally heated by burning wood. Fredersdorf hasn’t asked, but ever since visiting the King’s palace Wusterhausen for the first time, he suspects this is because the King believes in hardening his children by exposing them to cold temperatures as much as he can.
„I need…“ Friedrich begins, teeth chattering as if it was cold right now, not downright sweltering. „I need…“ He doesn’t finish the sentence.
„You need to get out of this wet shirt, for starters“, Fredersdorf says, eyeing it disapprovingly. And because it’s what a valet does, he reaches out to remove it from the prince’s body.
The Prince has gained weight since they first met each other; the thin figure of the prisoner at Küstrin has fleshed out by now. But you could still feel his shoulder blades, and his collarbone standing out, when you undressed him. His skin is drawing together under Fredersdorf’s touch.
Now, because of the heat, Fredersdorf has of course more than one night shirt for the Prince close at hand. The same goes for day shirts for all occasions. The lot of them are, in fact, just a few steps away. But he makes no attempt to get one of them for the Prince after disposing of the sweatsoaked rags, letting them fall on the chair next to the bed where he’ll pick them up later. Instead he keeps where he is, opposite of Friedrich on Friedrich’s bed, both of them kneeling.
„I need…“ Friedrich says for the third time, and something in Fredersdorf snaps.
„Take mine“, he says, and pulls it off, all the clothing that still separates them.
In the darkness, he feels Friedrich’s hands.