The silence in the Landsting chamber stretched for a full ten seconds, a vast, echoing void where polite applause should have been. It was finally broken by the President, who cleared his throat loudly, his face a mask of flustered disbelief.
"The… ah… the chair acknowledges the… passion of the new Count Eskildsen," he stammered, shuffling his papers. "As the Count's amendment is a substantial deviation from the matter at hand, it will be noted and referred to the appropriate committee for future study. We now return to the vote on the original emergency tax."
It was a classic political burial. The system, faced with a radical new idea, had reflexively entombed it in procedure. The tax motion passed, but the energy had gone out of the room. The members voted out of duty, their minds still reeling from the boy's verbal assault. The seed of doubt had been planted: what, exactly, were they paying for?
When the session was finally adjourned, the consequences began.
Count Ahlefeldt, his face flushed with a furious, crimson anger, marched directly toward Christian, cutting him off before he could leave his seat.
"How dare you," the old man hissed, his voice trembling with rage. "How dare you stand in that chamber, on the very day you take your father's seat, and dishonor his memory with such… such vulgarity!"
"Vulgarity, Count?" Christian replied, his voice unnervingly calm as he stood to face his father's old friend.
"To speak of our soldiers, our sacred motherland, in the language of a clerk! Of audits and foundries! It is an insult to every man who has ever died for that flag! Your father was a man of honor, and you speak like a merchant haggling over the price of fish!"
"My father's memory is dishonored by the incompetence that sent him to his death with an inferior rifle in his hands," Christian said, his words cold and precise. "I find I prefer the 'vulgarity' of victory to the 'honor' of a well-managed defeat. Perhaps if this body had concerned itself more with the price of steel and less with the poetry of sacrifice, my father would be alive to debate you himself."
Ahlefeldt stared, speechless and shaking, as if he had been slapped. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, turned on his heel, and stalked away. Christian had not just disagreed with him; he had rendered his entire worldview obsolete.
As the old count departed, another figure approached, moving with a quiet purpose that was very different from Ahlefeldt's bluster. He was a man in his forties, with sharp features and intelligent, assessing eyes, dressed in an impeccably tailored coat that spoke more of a London bank than a Danish estate. Christian recognized him from the dossiers: Baron Fievé, a titan of industry whose family fortune was built on shipping and manufacturing, not ancient land grants.
"Count Eskildsen," Fievé said, his voice a low, confidential murmur. "A bold speech. You've made a great many enemies today."
"Enemies are a sign that one has stood for something, Baron," Christian replied, meeting his gaze.
A flicker of a smile played on Fievé's lips. "Indeed. Though making the right enemies is its own art form. Your assessment of the government's industrial strategy—or lack thereof—was… accurate. Painfully so."
He glanced around the emptying chamber. "Your proposal for a committee has merit, but it will die in procedure. This dusty hall is a place for speeches, not for building foundries." He paused, his eyes locking with Christian's. "Copenhagen has parlors and boardrooms far more suitable for such practical discussions. I would be most interested to hear more of your thoughts in such a setting."
It was the opening Christian had hoped for. "I would be delighted, Baron. I will have my man send a card to your residence."
"I look forward to it," Fievé said with a curt nod, and then he was gone, melting back into the crowd of departing nobles.
Christian returned to his residence, his mind a whirlwind of strategic calculation. He had been tested. He had been confronted. And he had found his first potential ally. He had identified the two opposing forces that would define his political struggle: the old guard agrarians like Ahlefeldt, who clung to notions of honor, and the new-world industrialists like Fievé, who understood the language of capital and power.
He spent the rest of the day not resting, but working. He began drafting a detailed charter for his proposed National Armaments Committee. He outlined its powers, its potential budget sourced from targeted war bonds, and a list of men who could be convinced to support it—men whose businesses would, not coincidentally, benefit from a massive state investment in domestic industry.
He was no longer just a critic; he was an architect, a political organizer. The aftershocks of his speech were just the beginning. Now, the real campaign had to be fought.
Ahlefeldt and his kind saw politics as a matter of debate and tradition. Christian knew it for what it was: warfare by other means. And he had just begun to mobilize his forces.