Tyranny of Steel

King Aubry sat upon his throne as his sister Sibilla ranted to him about the current state of affairs for their Kingdom.

"I can't believe they betrayed you like this! Was this not a crusade to end the Saracen's control over the holy land? How could they do this? I am certain the Kaiser is behind this!"

Sibilla held an instinctive grudge towards the German Empire and its ruler due to the abuse she had suffered during her sentence to a labor camp. She felt she was unjustly accused and convicted. Though she had been a loose woman in her past, she never thought she would have to sell herself into prostitution in order to survive at any point in her life.

Aubry, on the other hand, knew his sister was not in her right mind, especially when misfortunes befell their household. Thus, it did not take him long to correct his sister's mindset.

"Are you daft? Why would the Crusader armies listen to the Kaiser? He is their mortal enemy. I was betrayed because an opportunity presented itself, and my rivals took advantage of it. I never should have sent my troops to the front lines.

It was my own carelessness, believing that these men had a single shred of honor. Who cares why it happened? What matters is how we proceed. My armies are destroyed, and I will have to empty out the fields to recruit more. Something I'm not willing to do.

Luckily, my enemies are more focused on their rivals in the middle east and Germany to dare advance into my lands. However, once they finally turn their sights on France, it will end poorly for the both of us. We have no allies, but we sure have a whole hell of a lot of enemies!"

Sibilla was flustered by her brother's thorough rebuking over her argument, but she did not dare yo continue insisting that Berengar was responsible for their current predicament. She wanted revenge after what had been done to her, but she lacked the means to achieve it. Every agent she had dispatched into the Reich had been discovered and executed for acts of espionage. Nobody left in her employment was willing to take such a massive risk.

All the woman could do was sulk, and grit her teeth in rage. However, the moment her brother, the King, made his next suggestion, she nearly strangled him.

"We have no choice... If the Catholic world wishes to make enemies of France, then we must side with their enemies. If I had known I would be forced to such a position, In ever would have attempted to seduce Berengar. The man clearly will not tolerate my advances, and was offended by yours as well. I must settle this dispute with Germany if our dynasty wishes to have a chance of survival."

The rage that Sibilla felt when she heard that her brother wanted to bow down to her tormentor could be seen in her eyes. She rapidly approached Aubry and slapped him across his pretty face.

"You incompetent faggot! Don't you dare go begging the Kaiser for protection? I swear to God, if you do such a shameful thing, I will do everything in my power to disrupt your negotiations! That bastard took a year away from my life... The things I had to do to survive... They are unspeakable!"

Aubry was not aware to the fullest extent of what Sibilla had suffered through, after all, she never spoke about it. Even to her brother, who was her closest confidant. However, he knew whatever she had endured must have been brutal, as she was not the same woman he once admired.

Upon returning to France, Sibilla had become paranoid, short-tempered, manic, and anxious. There was no telling what words would set her off, and cause her to lash out at her subordinates or her King like a wild beast. Aubry could not help but sigh, and forced the woman to talk about her troubles.

"Sibilla, what exactly happened to you during your imprisonment? You are not the same woman you once were. Now you are more like a loose collection of character defects than a person. You are broken, and I can't help put you back together if you won't speak about your problems!"

Sibilla wanted to gouge her brother's eyes out in that moment, however all she could do was break out into tears and cry into his arms, while screaming hostilities against him.

"I hate you! You sent me there! None of this ever would have happened if you had just succeeded in your seduction like you always do! This is your fault!"

Aubry felt pain deep within his chest upon hearing his sister shove the blame and responsibility onto him. It was true that the only reason Sibilla was dispatched to Kufstein was because he had failed to seduce the Kaiser. Perhaps in another life, if he was not so slutty, he could have succeeded in his attempts. After all, it appeared that Berengar was utterly disgusted by "loose women."

Sibilla sobbed for some time before uttering something cohesive.

"1247 men... I was ravaged by 1247 different men during my imprisonment. I had to. There were not enough supplies to go around. It was the only way I could survive. More often than not, multiple men at once. I was nothing but a sack of flesh for the enjoyment of the male prisoners... And this is when I was not engaging in backbreaking labor!"

Aubry was instantly stunned by this revelation. He did not know that his sister had resorted to prostitution in order to survive. The feminine King could not fathom how one woman could sleep with so many different men. He could not help but ask about his sister about the details.

"How did you survive?"

Sibilla sniffled as she wiped the tears from her eyes before stating the complete truth.

"Alcohol and drugs helped. The inmate who ran the prison from the inside was also responsible for smuggling drugs and alcohol into the camp. If I fucked three guys in one day, I could make enough scrip to buy a hot meal at night, along with a glass of fortified wine, and a hit of cannabis. The more guys I fucked, the more drugs and alcohol I could get my hands on."

Aubry could hardly believe his ears. Then again, this part was not surprising. As Sibilla had been reliant on cannabis imports from the Reich in order to get to sleep at night. She would smoke so much that she would just pass out on her bed and wake up from her daze twelve hours later. She was hardly productive these days, partially because of her mental state, but also because she had become addicted to drugs and alcohol.

Ultimately, Aubry sighed and nodded his head. If Sibilla was so terrified of the Reich, and what it had done to her, then he would not have an easy time convincing her to submit to the Kaiser. If that was the case, he needed allies who could deter the English and Burgundians from invading his lands.

However, this was easier said than done, as his enemies had already established alliances with all the other Catholic Kingdoms. As for those few realms that did not prescribe to the Catholic Faith they had aligned with Germany.

As it stood, there were only two paths to follow: align with the Reich, or ally with the Church. Since the Catholic Kingdoms had betrayed him in Jerusalem, they were no longer an option. Which meant he would either have to convince his sister to accept the idea of aligning with Germany, or rely on themselves for national defense.

King Aubry could only sigh heavily in defeat. If he could not align with either major faction in Europe, then he would have to become a wholly self-sufficient state. This was not an easy task, but if he could dispatch agents to the Reich and learn some of their older technology through espionage, then he might have a fighting chance.

Aubry kissed his sister's head as she cried into his chest and revealed everything she had endured during her time in a German Labor Camp. The more he heard, the more enraged he was at the Kaiser for treating his sister so poorly. It was simply inhumane. Where were his Christian ethics? He would ultimately write a strongly worded letter to Berengar about the ordeal Sibilla had gone through.

Naturally, Berengar was unaware of the corruption in the prison system. Nor the severe mistreatment of female prisoners. When Berengar had designed the Labor Camps as a system of punishment for hardened criminals, he had done so under the assumption that female prisoners would be few and far between.

There were certain protections established for the few female prisoners who existed in Germany, but the staff who were in charge of the camps often ignored these guidelines. After all, very little funding went towards the camps. The purpose behind the German prison system was not rehabilitation but punishment and deterrence. They were expected to be so brutal that any man who was released would think twice before engaging in crime once more.

When Berengar received Aubry's letter, he would thoroughly investigate the Labor Camps, and would be forced to draft laws to establish better protections for female inmates. The news of what Sibilla had suffered through made the Kaiser's skin crawl. As for the guards who facilitated the prostitution ring inside the camps, they would be tried and sentenced themselves.