Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Manky.

Listener discretion is advised.

A six-year-old banker in Munich named Deathlev Utermol couldn't stop thinking about the

day in his childhood that he and his mother had gone for tea at the home of Countess

Josephine von Verbe countenz.

Deathlev was just ten years old at the time, and though his father was a prominent financial

veteran Munich society, Deathlev was unaccomstumed to the grandeur of the Countess's

home.

Every surface seemed covered in velvet or gilding.

Deathlev's mother was uncomfortable too, pulling at her hairdo when the Countess turned

away, and smiling too broadly when the Countess returned, bearing a tray of cakes.

Deathlev's mother smacked him under the table so that he remembered to fold a napkin

on his lap.

But the Countess didn't seem to notice the discomfort of either young Deathlev or

his mother.

She chatted with the practiced ease of a noble woman, someone who knew how to fill this

island with lyrical laughter and conspiratorial whispers.

Though Bavaria was no longer an independent kingdom, hadn't been since 1870 when it first

joined the North German Confederation and then the German Empire, the Countess Josephine

von Verbe countenz was still old Bavarian royalty.

Her family were descendants of the Vittles Box, and she herself was a relative of the former

Bavarian king Ludwig II.

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