Albrecht never knew his parents, but growing up in a Reiklandish orphanage, he was told that his father was a courageous, honest and faithful soldier, and his mother was a virtuous, pious and hard-working homemaker, who had both fallen victim to a terrible accident. Fate would have it their son should live on, and so Albrecht was brought up to believe the reason he survived must have been to honour his parents' memory and make them proud. He was raised in strict accordance with Imperial values and views, and grew up to be an honest and pious young boy, who would always helped his friends, respected his elders and payed worship to the gods.
But then came the war, and wars are in the habit of persuading even the best of men into no longer caring very much about their ideals.
Along one day came a band of foragers belonging to a mercenary company, robbed the local community of their valuables, its virgins of their dignity and poor Albrecht of his innocence. Fate would now have it that he should learn a trade, see the world, and become rich and famous.
Through his adolescence he grew up to see the iconic status of the parent he never knew replaced with the mystifying and godlike persona of the Emperor, as frequently beaten into him by his new mentors. The image in his mind of the imperial soldier, represented by his father, as a faithful servant of the crown and the people was mercilessly shattered as he witnessed, and was made to take part in (and eventually finding himself enjoying) exercises shattering his image of the virtuous, unassailably moral woman, as represented by his image of his mother. Life would not be fair to litte Albrecht for the rest of his journey toward adulthood, and the world would not be nice. Often, he would curse the gods for tearing him up by the roots and tossing him into the starkly harsh realities of the world, but did so only in daylight, and kept on going, assuming that there must be a reason for them to treat him like that. And one must conclude there ought to have been several reasons, all of which are unlikely to become clear, but the reasons for Albrecht's sufferings were probably and chiefly for him to learn that life isn't fair, and the world isn't nice.
Fate changed its mind again one rainy and muddy afternoon, as the band of scrounging mercenaries that Albrecht was riding with met with a well deserved death, but for some reason it decided to spare him and his friend Rudolf. Since the crown were unlikely to neither realise they had survived, nor continue to pay them, they made up their minds to make their own fortune and fortunes.
And, as the story has been told thus far, they are well on their way.