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-VB-

I did a lot of things while I waited for the response from the younger duke of Upper Bavaria and the arrival of Isabella\'s cousin. One of the minor changes included upgrading my one and only armor set. There was only a beaten iron chestplate, full-face covering iron mask, and a bear fur cloak. They were… serviceable. Isabella, however, suggested that I tried to improve upon it because it could be an insult to her cousin if I showed up and just acted like, as she put it, a knight-errant. She also pointed out how I didn\'t have a decent attire to meet someone of her cousin\'s standing.

The difference was … if I had to use my old life\'s example, then I would be the mayor of small rural town in Iowa with maybe two thousand people who would soon meet the mayor of New York City.

Of course, I knew that I was a wild card myself. My gemstone and precious metal exports, sugar trade, paper production in allied holdings, and the direct blessing of the Prince-Bishop of Chur made me a growing power.

And if that growing power didn\'t greet someone of higher status and lineage properly… then that was an insult, no matter what he may have intended.

So what did I do?

Partially.

See, as aggressively growing and slowly city-like Fluelaberg was becoming, it was still a hick town up in the mountains whose only purpose was hindering everyone\'s expansion in whatever direction they wanted to. Sure, it was better than most towns out there because one of the few things that I had been insistent upon as the town formed was the laying of sturdy cobblestone roads, but it was still a rural castle town.

This also meant that the closest tailor for the nobility was far away from where we were. With only a limited time for myself to get decked out, I could not go back and forth for the clothes.

Well, technically speaking, I could. I could run faster, farther, and longer than anyone, but someone still had to make the clothes, and the ones for the nobility took months, if not years, to be done up to standard.

So I made do what I could and asked the locals to put together something for me while Isabella supervised.

The end result was … it came very close to being that weird renaissance Italy clothing. I wasn\'t sure what it was called, but it came close. It was only at my insistence that I may need to work in the field if I ever encountered any trouble that the attire lost some of the fragile and downright unnecessary surface area. The modified attire was slimmer, which fit my taste just fine.

But still…

It looked very … uh … well, I\'m not sure. It\'s very flowy. And it came down to my knees, I had to wear separate pants, and the only thing keeping the top part from flying away in the high winds of the Alps was a belt.

At least I didn\'t have to do anything for my short hair.

"Finally, you look more like a noble that you are."

I turned around and found myself looking at Isabella, who had forgone her usual flowing dress of red and white for … was that Periment blue?

"Where did you get that color?" I asked her in surprise.

She grinned. "You told me I could use any dye you were experimenting with."

"... so you used the periment blue?" I thought she would try to use the striking red I had. That shade of red was the most expensive dye I had. Chemistry lab was something I was working on, though it resembled less a chemistry lab and more of a staining lab with how much everything was stained by pigments. Periment blue was a random combination of mineral and organic pigment combination I found after brute forcing through two dozen combinations. I called it periment blue because it came from a combination of a local flower called periwinkle and river rocks called talment. I was unfamiliar with either of them, so I didn\'t know their future science names. I said fuck it and just called the dye by combining their two names.

"Yes!" she giggled. "I mean, look at this! This blue is so deep! It\'s deeper than the color of the Mediterranean!"

She spun around and her periment blue dress\'s skirt did a small twirl. She came to a stop after only one spin and grinned at me. "Thank you, by the way, for letting me use them."

"No problem," I smiled before spying a small caravan heading our way from the Fluela Pass. Well, saying that it was a caravan would be misnomer, because half of that caravan was comprised of well-armed and armored knights, men-at-arms, and soldiers. It was my first view of a well-organized medieval military band. Compared to what the late baron, the bishop, or any of the counts had, that was an actual band of knights.

And at the head of them all was the margrave himself.

I couldn\'t see what he looked like, only the banner and the fact that they were well-armored and armed.

"Is that your cousin?" I asked her.

Isabella turned to look and squinted. "Huh. You can see that far, Hans?"

"Yes."

"Yes… That is the banner of my cousin, the Duke of Carinthia and Margrave of Carniola."

I nodded. "Well, let\'s go greet him."

-VB-

Chapter 53

-VB-

The guard detail that Henry brought with him was meant to be an intimidating show of force to a newly raised noble ruling over a small but strategically important valley that connected the Eastern Alps to the Swabian Alps.

So why was it that when he finally found himself staring down from atop his horse at that peasant lord, he was the one who felt threatened? As if the knights and men-at-arms he brought with him - men whose quality could not be matched anywhere else in the Christian world - and the additional soldiers were all nothing but irritating obstacles at best to this man in front of him.

If that wasn\'t all, he found himself glancing at the deep blue dress his dear beautiful cousin Isabella wore. It was a blue unlike any other blue he\'d seen before. It was unique. It was rare. Yet this peasant lord had one while he, a duke and margrave of the empire, did not. It grated on his nerve a little but not enough to skip the pleasantries to demand where the peasant lord - who his cousin was pursuing and demanded that he be "polite" to, at the very least - got the dye so that he may use it himself.

Well… there was one more thing that irritated him.

A peasant lord had a formidable fortress-town sitting across the width of a valley with walls sturdier than many of the stone walls of lesser barons, if they had a wall for their villages and towns.

How?

Things did not make sense. There was no logical explanation for the explosive growth he saw, and he knew the progress he\'d seen.

After all, he\'d crossed this very valley multiple times when he accompanied his father to battle.

… Standing before this man that had Isabella so infatuated felt very much like that day.

"Duke Henry," the peasant lord said and bowed halfway to his waist. "Welcome to Fluelaberg."

He looked at the thick lumber walls. "Yes. Fluelaberg. Thank you for your welcome, Baron Hans."

He got off his horse and stood on the cobblestone road. It was finer and smoother than his own castle town\'s central road.

How embarrassing. This small town\'s road was better than the one he had back home in his main residence.

"Henry," his cousin greeted him with a curtsy.

He made a face at her. "Ugh, stow that polite formality. That is unlike you."

She laughed and gave him a hug. "Welcome to Fluelaberg. What do you think?" she asked him as she stepped back to stand next to Hans. To Henry\'s surprise, Hans looked uncomfortable still with having Isabella next to him. If Henry hadn\'t been her cousin, then he would have seduced her to his marriage bed, damn the consequences of marrying a count\'s daughter. The fact that Hans still remained chaste with her was a great show of discipline, piety, or … simply different interest.

Isabella\'s letters had stated that Hans was simply not the kind of man to be focused on sex, but that alone was suspect in Henry\'s mind. What man does not want to wet his dick and hear the cries of a beautiful woman?

But now that he was here to look at this man\'s work in this "Fluelaberg," he understood that, just maybe, he just wasn\'t interested in the fairer sex as much as he might in other pursuits. Henry understood such passion; such men were often times more reliable than those whose entire focus was on their family, and thus liable to act only for the sake of their kin.

… But that also embarrassed him. Here was a man barely out of his boyhood having accomplished so much with his hands while Henry… He couldn\'t even get a proper wife despite the fact that he was duke.

(But then again, most of his peers did not wish to wed their daughters to him, a known producer of bastards.)

Hell, he had not even gained his duchy through his own accomplishment but because his elder sister was married to the previous emperor.

So maybe he felt a little threatened and brought so many men with him because of that. After all, this was a town that was right at the border of his lands at a prime crossing point for armies. On top of that, it was a fortified position that could and had withstood assaults from organized armies. His spies have reported that this town withstood at least one assault by an army of a thousand! For a wooden fortress, it was possible, but not with the number of people in it, because the same spy noted that the town recently grew to house maybe seven hundred people; this was after the town had grown to house some five hundred additional people in the past year.

An explosive growth, to be sure, but it also meant that the town had maybe two hundred people to fight off and win against an army of a thousand.

And kill the enemy commander.

The rumor was that it was Hans himself who\'d plowed through the soldiers on his own to attack the count who had been commanding from the back. Henry didn\'t believe that, but believed that the man was strong as were his personal guards, whoever they were.

Now.

Put all of those facts together. A peasant seemingly from nowhere important, noble armies decimated, a fort raised in weeks that should have taken months if not years, reorganization of the local fiefdoms into one consolidated power, the introduction of new trade goods…

None of this was possible.

\'Not unless there is a hidden backer who can benefit from the development of the Alps.\'

And Henry knew there were exactly four powers who would benefit by having a puppet king in the mountains: his rival Habsburgs, the Bavarian Wittelbachs, his uncle the Count of Gorizia, and, the most underappreciated of them all, the Lordship of Milan. Although one of their own allies were hurt in the chaos, the Habsburg would have a power bigger than their previous ally. The Wittelbachs would have a secure southeastern flank, giving them more strength to consolidate internally and expand in all other directions. His uncle\'s lands in his County of Tyrol would be safe if they had a secure western ally. Milanese would be happy to have a secure route through the mountains where they would act as the middleman between the Venetians and the southern imperial states.

All of them would have a stake here, but none of them rose up to take ownership. The Habsburgs were oddly silent. The Wittelbachs were seemingly split on hostility and manipulation. His uncle sent his cousin and no one else. Milan was completely absent.

So who was it? It couldn\'t be his uncle because he hadn\'t been in control from the start.

"This is a magnificent new town," Henry congratulated the baron.

"Thank you, Your Grace," the man smiled. "And I have a gift for you."

"Oh?"

Hans turned and gestured for one of his servants to walk up.

Henry nearly grimaced at the richly dyed robes that the servants all wore. A baron was richer than a duke! The envy that he was feeling weighed heavily.

And then he forgot all about it when his eyes landed on the covered object that the baron\'s servant brought out. The baron lifted the veil and -.

Henry\'s jaws dropped.

Was … was that porcelain?

"Our finest product, Your Grace," Baron Hans smiled.

Henry beheld a "cracked" and mended porcelain vase as big as his head decorated with striking green and blue waves that blended seamlessly into each other and didn\'t clash with the shining whites of the vase. And fixed with gold that made it look like there were veins of gold running through the vase. The gold veins did not clash with the patterns. It didn\'t depict any glorious battles or pious scenes yet the simple nature of the broken and mended waves mesmerized him nonetheless.

"This is…"

"A porcelain just like the ones from the Far East, Your Grace," the baron smiled. "But with a modification of my own using gold and a mineral called cobalt."

Henry glanced at his cousin, who merely smiled.

Henry gestured for his own servants to take the vase. If any of them damaged the vase, then he\'ll execute their three generations; it was worth more than a hundred of them.

"Thank you for your gift," he said with some genuine appreciation. This was the kind of gift that dukes and kings would exchange… not a baron.

It was also a trap, whether the baron meant it or not. If after he took this gift and acted even a little discourteously, then everyone would know that he was a graceless and ungrateful guest. He had to be perfect for the duration of his stay and not a single perceived disrespect could be even hinted at unless offered one first. If such a reputation got out, then he could forget about marrying a peer; he\'d probably have to ask his brother-in-law to legitimize one of his bastards (and none of them were good enough to be a baron, nevermind a duke)!

"Let us retire to my home, Your Grace. We have a small feast ready for you and your knights."

-VB-

When Henry retired that evening to his guest room, he laid down with a full belly and pondered about what had just happened.

The feast was…

It was a small feast as the baron had stated, but the dishes the baron had put out. He was normally not one for pastries at night, but the sweetness that flowed everywhere was …

It was exquisite and absurd.

It was also what he realized while eating.

The land was poor but the people and its baron were smart. They created things that no one else would consider, but that\'s perhaps because there was nothing else they could do but innovate to survive. They were simply being creative with what little things they had.

For example, the blue dye that had him burning with envy apparently came from periwinkle flower weed. A lot of what they did had to be related to similar desperate needs and wants.

But this also made him want to object to Isabella\'s desire to wed the baron. The baron was poor, and Isabella was from a dynasty with more land than most. Why should he allow his beautiful cousin to wallow in poverty?

He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

\'I\'ll think more about this tomorrow.\'

-VB-

Chapter 54

-VB-

Henry wasn\'t a bad guy at all.

He was also the typical man who did manly things like wrestling, contact sports, riding, and the like because that\'s just what he did to pass the time and had been taught to do. It was certainly better than whoring, drinking, and torturing.

… Unfortunately, those "manly" activities were the exact kind of things I wasn\'t into because I could do more stuff doing other things. I liked smithing, mining, faceting, strategizing, tactical analysis, brainstorming, and burrowing into my pillow fort on the occasional days I felt lazy.

We did, however, have one thing we liked in common.

Training.

"Are you sure about this?" Duke Henry asked me with some trepidation and worry in his eyes. He, a dozen of his knights, half a dozen of my own "professional" soldiers, and I stood around in training gear in my wooden castle\'s private training ground.

Our training gear was a simple tunic, pants, and a pair of well-padded shoes. Over the tunic was also a well-padded wool jacket that served to protect people from strikes.

We were having a training session in here instead of outside the castle just in case someone might see something that might hurt the duke\'s reputation.

Of course, the duke probably thought that I was protecting myself.

"I am," I grinned. "I never train unless it\'s against at least four different people."

"Ho? Some kind of training regimen?" Henry looked intrigued as he picked out a wooden sword from one of the weapon racks lining the walls.

"... Yes," I replied as casually as I could while my soldiers shuddered. I walked over and grabbed a wooden training sword as well.

For just a second, I opened up my character status and glanced at my sword-related skills.

[Swordmanship] LvL. 69

Nice.

Anyways, this was an opportunity for me to compare exactly what my skills meant in comparison to well-trained knights and counts in a non-lethal setting.

I turned back around. I noticed how Henry\'s knights looked dismissive of me, probably thinking that I was going to get my ass handed to either them or their liege lord.

"Now, before we begin, I want everyone to understand that we are here to improve ourselves, not show off who\'s who," I spoke up. "We do that at tourneys."

Some of the knights looked like they agreed with me while others didn\'t. Henry did, and that\'s what really mattered here.

"That said, may I have the floor with my men, Your Grace?" I asked.

"Of course. This is your training ground."

"Thank you," I said with a smile before dropping it as I turned to my shivering soldiers. "You know the drill. All of you against me."

My words drew up short Henry and his knights, but before they could say something, my soldiers burst into action.

Initially bunched up among themselves at one corner of the training yard, they now quickly spread out and surrounded me. They kept an even distance among themselves and with me, and had intentionally chosen to alternate between spears and swords.

"Good, good! You learned from last time!" I barked out with a grin on my face. "Spearmen does well against someone who can\'t take a hit or aren\'t armored as a knight!"

My soldiers lunged forward without nary a yell. I parried the spear aimed at my back while dodging a thrust coming from my left and grabbing the shaft of the one from the right. I pushed the right spear away, and the soldier, a man weighing eight stones, stumbled backward despite trying to fight against my strength.

The other soldiers tried to attack me with their swords while I was distracted. I decided to dodge and weave between their attacks.

It made them look uncoordinated if it wasn\'t for the fact that my spearmen were attacking between strikes from the swordsmen.

The spears lunged in, drew back, swords swiped and sliced, drew back, and the cycle would repeat. They even set a decent rhythm. Lunge, back, swipe, back, lunge, back, stab, back. Instead of two people against one, it was six people against me. That one lunge was three lunges. That one swipe was three swords trying to find purchase on my skin.

Finally, my soldiers backed off, signaling that they were giving up … for now.

Then I heard clapping. Turning to Henry\'s side of the training yard, I saw how he looked amazed by the display of it all while the knights didn\'t look convinced.

"Brilliant. I didn\'t know a man your size could dance like that!" he laughed before turning to look at his knights and then back at me. "Say, do you want to try it against my knights?"

I was waiting for this.

"I\'d be honored to try," I replied with a grin. "But I may need to actually strike back at them. I don\'t think even I can keep up with twelve knights."

"Wonderful! Get on it, then! Show the baron that you twelve are exemplary knights of my realm."

-VB-

Henry winced when the fifth knight, Sir James, tumbled away after taking a good kick to the chest.

"He is strong, right?"

He glanced to his side and saw Isabella looking absolutely smitten with the baron. He would know what that looked like; he wasn\'t bragging but made quite a number of ladies smitten with himself.

His gaze was drawn back to the training yard when the sixth knight got pushed out of the ring after being used as a shield against his fellows. The remaining six knights, humiliated by being knocked around by a mere baron, redoubled their efforts to bring down the man.

"Maybe he is as special as you think he is if he can win against six knights by himself," Henry admitted with a grunted. "Seven," he corrected himself when the seventh knight got knocked out with a headbutt. "Hans is definitely … unique. Not enough unique to get me to completely agree with you on letting him have your hand in marriage."

She hummed. "He\'s not so foolish as to be fooled with my tits and face, though," she hummed. "Did you know that he let me command his servants?"

"Did he now? Even though you are not the lady of the house yet?"

"I think he\'s testing me. I actually asked him why he did, though, and he said for him to see what kind of a person I truly was, he needed to give me power and see what I did with it."

"A wise man for someone so young," he agreed. "And then what happened?"

"He let me keep ordering his servants and people around after I showed how absolutely trustworthy I am!"

Henry personally didn\'t agree that she was absolutely trustworthy. She was loyal and smart but was also batshit insane at times. He still remembered when he first met her. He thought she was cool and pretty, even if she was a girl. Then she completely flipped that opinion around by shoving bugs down his shirt. His father had laughed at him when he ran around like a headless chicken while the servants tried to get him to stand still so they can pull the giant bug out.

Isabella was unique, politicking at his level, long since used to advising her father on domestic matters, and driving Venetian merchant lords against each other when their employees upset her with their snide comments. Henry was sure that she would get herself hitched to the emperor or a king. Hell, even a duke would be within his expectations!

But a baron?

He didn\'t believe it. She had to be coerced. Now that he was here, he was starting to understand. A man capable of whisking the secrets of the far east, creating delicious pastries, and defeating seven- eight knights by himself was more than a match for Isabella.

He just … wasn\'t great at talking with people?

At least, Isabella thought so. He had a presence, she\'d written to him, and he could feel that now that he was here, but that presence was wasted on a man so focused on doing anything but using his charisma. Even he could tell that Hans just simply wasn\'t in ruling like he was. Actually, rather than a disinterest in ruling, Henry felt that Hans was simply interested in other things more. After all, a man who could bring this remote region of the empire to this standard surely had to possess at least decent leadership, no? And Henry could understand that after he saw the porcelain vase, the sweets, and a hundred other little things that were scattered throughout Fluelaberg.

… It was, in effect, perfect for Isabella. She would be able to act as she pleased (within reason), and Hans won\'t care as long as her actions had even a minor benefit to Fluelaberg, its people, and this Compact of his.

He was sure that Isabella knew exactly that.

Henry winced as the last of his knights collapsed to his knees after taking a hit to his padded head.

He gave Hans the clap he deserved.

"You are magnificent, aren\'t you?"

Hans looked at him, look around, and grinned. "I do a little bit of fighting." He didn\'t even look winded.

\'What a monster.\'

But he was a useful monster. Once he was married to his cousin, they would be bound by blood. An alliance would be easy to create, and he would serve as a bulwark against the Habsburgs and the worryingly enlarging Lordship of Milan.

He could use this to his advantage.

-VB-

Chapter 55

-VB-

"Bandits?" Hans growled.

"Yes, milord!" the thin, graying messenger from Chur bowed while on one knee. "They have attacked and burned down parts of Churwalden! The Prince-Bishop requests your help in culling the lowlives!"

Henry glanced at his cousin and saw her frown. This must not be a usual occurrence.

"Do you need help, baron?" he asked Hans quietly.

Hans, who looked utterly incensed by the news, turned to him with a slightly calmed frown. "I do not," he replied before turning to one of the servants. "I will take care of this. Get to the armory and make sure that my kit is stocked. If not, inform me. I also need ten volunteers among my soldiers."

The man quickly ran off, and Hans turned to the messenger. "Rest, messenger. I will ensure one of my messengers gets to Chur with the message. I will help because this is why the Compact was made, was it not?"

The castle hall came alive with noise as the peasants and a few merchants who were allowed in for Henry\'s farewell feast murmured among themselves. The content of their talks, however, was not what Henry expected.

"How quickly do you think he will get rid of them?"

"It may take a few weeks."

"A few weeks? He stopped the Count of Zernez in under two!"

"Yeah, well, we knew where he\'s from, right? We don\'t know where these bandits have their hideout at."

"True, true."

"Do you think he\'ll go for a one-weapon campaign or a multi-weapon campaign?"

"I\'m curious as to whether he\'ll bring anyone else along."

"When he succeeds at this, the news of a bandit-less trade route might get us more trade."

"But it\'s close to winter. Will we get an uptick?"

"Not sure."

"Some of the soldiers need training. Maybe the baron will take some with him?"

"Possibly. We could ask."

It was almost … casual. The peasants and merchants didn\'t treat this as something serious, which they always did in his territory. To these people, the upcoming bandit extermination was a matter of time, not if. They were so sure about Hans\'s skills.

(Henry could understand that, considering he\'d seen Hans beat up a handful of knights by himself without taking a hit himself.)

But fighting in the yard was different from fighting in the real world.

"I still wish to help," he insisted.

He\'d already accepted the fact that his cousin was going to marry this man. While Hans\'s lands were poor and he didn\'t even own all of it, he would grow to be a formidable player in regional politics at the very least. He wasn\'t sure if his uncle would agree, though. He was very protective of Isabella but he also never went against what Isabella wanted.

Henry wanted to know what Hans was like in the field. If he truly was the master tactician and warrior, then he would tell his uncle that he approved. If not, then he wouldn\'t.

He won\'t let Isabella marry a man who can\'t protect her.

Hans looked at him after his insistence and then nodded. "Alright, Your Grace. However, I am the commander as this is my responsibility."

Brave and bold of him to stand up to him, a duke, and say straight to his face that he won\'t give up command regardless of rank.

"I will not usurp command," he agreed. "But if you perform reckless acts and hurt my men-at-arms, then I will have you answer to me."

"Understood." Then he turned to the rest of the feast participants. "It seems that I must take care of a business for the Compact. Please, enjoy the rest of the feast my staff has prepared for you, and thank you for coming."

Then he walked away, obviously heading toward his armory.

Now, Henry was curious. He\'d seen Hans fight. He\'d seen Hans\'s physique. He had yet to see what manner of arms and armor Hans favored. So he too left the feast, though he didn\'t urge his guards to follow him; Hans\'s castle was very safe.

Henry followed Hans out of the castle hall. Walking a bit behind the baron, Henry eventually stopped when Hans did in front of a double door not too far from the hall. Was this on purpose, putting the armory close to the hall? Did Hans expect there to be fighting that weapons sat close to where people ate food?

… Considering what he heard and read, that may just be the case. This Compact had been attacked multiple times during the Unruly Year.

Hans threw the doors open and stepped into the naturally lit - and well-lit at that - armory.

And Henry found himself blinking as he stared at rows upon rows of high-quality castle-forged steel weapons lining the walls and racks. His focus, however, came to a stop at the one weapon Hans bee-lined to.

It was a slab of steel with a blade as broad as a man\'s chest and tw-thirds as tall with a handle rounding out the last third of a man\'s height. It couldn\'t be called a sword. It was a … a lump of metal with two edges.

Hans gripped the sword by the handle with both hands and lifted it up like a child would pick up a stick.

He stood there, blinking in shock at Hans\'s strength.

How? Huh?

"Alright, let\'s go kill some bandits," Hans declared with the same casualness and lack of pomp one would talk about training in the yards.

What?

-VB-

The mysteries did not stop there.

Once he picked out a dozen men-at-arms, he and his men followed Hans where three wagons. These weren\'t traditional carts but tented wagons. With two horses pulling each tented wagon, not only did they travel quickly, but thanks to the road, they traveled without issue.

The armor that Hans\'s men brought out was also weird. Instead of brigandine and the like, Fluelaberg soldiers had some kind of leaf-covered multi-shaded green attire. They also wielded crossbows and shortswords only.

The road that Henry expected to end around Fluelaberg extended far beyond what he knew. It made travel easier, too. The travel itself was smooth. It took them less than an hour to reach the next town, Davos. At Hans\'s direction, they did not stop for long, picking up a few volunteers, and traveled northward. Here, the road continued and reached the next town! Again, they didn\'t stay except to pick up three volunteers and moved westward.

And the road still continued. This wasn\'t the Roman roads either. These roads were new.

They passed through three more town, each with their volunteers, and each with a road connecting them all.

And finally, they arrived at Chur itself on the road that seemed to connect all members of the Compact.

-VB-

"Your Grace," I bowed before the Bishop of Chur within his church.

Despite the fact that he was nominally lower on the hierarchy within the Compact as not only our former enemy but also as a new member of it, he was still the ecclesiarchal bishop in charge of the diocese of Chur, which included the Forest Cantons (my home), Habsburg homeland, and the City-state of Zurich.

So, by tradition, I bowed and he gave me his blessing. It was also my submission before the Lord and the church, which was symbolic.

Once the symbolism of it all was handled, we got to the meat of the matter.

The old bishop looked tired.

I wondered what it must be like to have his lands and people attacked year after year. I wondered if he prayed to God and how he saw all of these problems. Were they tests for him and his people? Were they simply sins of mankind showing up again and again?

He dismissed the priests and servants, leaving him alone with me.

"I did not expect to call upon your help so soon, but you know my situation."

I did. Chur had been one of two centers of the Unruly Year; the Compact had been the other center of the conflict. Having been attacked from the north and southwest against a tide of bodies outnumbering him three-to-one, he had lost much of the manpower he had when I had been a mercenary under the Baron of Vaz.

Though he had not revealed it explicitly last time he visited me, I would be surprised if he had more than one hundred men, levies and men-at-arms combined, to attack the bandits.

"I took upon this responsibility when I advocated for your acceptance into the Compact. As the nominal lord of the alliance as dictated by the emperor, it is my job to ensure your safety and justice."

He looked relieved that I wasn\'t going to extort him for finding him at his low point.

"God bless you, child."

I waited for him to tell me what I needed to know.

"The bandits… they came from the south."

"From Vaz?" I asked with a frown. Vaz should be within Chur\'s territory… No, I remembered that incorrectly. Vaz had been burned down. Churwalden had to be the furthest reach of the bishop\'s territory.

"No, further south. Churwalden had been attacked. The town lost two dozen men… and at least four young women had been kidnapped."

I didn\'t need to be told what the bandits wanted with women. I would be lucky if I found them still alive.

"Anyone spot which direction the bandits went off to?"

"South towards Albula."

"Understood."

-VB-

… And here too, Hans did not stay for long. He met with the Prince-Bishop and his knight commander, got the information on the bandits, received volunteers, and left within the day.

Henry found himself marveling at the thought of having traveled the entirety of the Compact, a region of mountains, in two days. He expected the travel alone to take half a week!

Again, Hans ordered the wagons to move out and within the same day as when they had left Chur, the now fifty-strong company found themselves entering the Albula region.

This … was not part of the Compact. Moreover, this was, as far as Henry learned from his sister, a lawless area.

The Unruly Year, as the locals called their little conflict, had left this region devastated, sacked and looted by a petty count to the west. It made sense that some of the people from this region might turn to banditry if they could not restart their livelihood.

"How will you find them?" Henry inquired as their company settled to camp for the night

"My men will scout tomorrow in their camouflage. I will, of course, search with them. However, you and all of the others that do not have clothes that help you blend in with the trees must stay and guard the camp."

"... Very well. I trust that you will find the bandits quickly."

-VB-

The next morning, Henry watched the oddly dressed men, including Hans himself, walk into the forest.

It took Henry only five seconds after the "camouflaged" men stepped into the forest to realize why Hans was using such attire.

Even though the men had walked into the surrounding forests at a sedate pace, he couldn\'t see them anymore. They couldn\'t be more than ten feet into the forest, but they\'d disappeared!

\'Dangerous. Very dangerous,\' he thought. If he couldn\'t see them within ten feet of the forest edge, then would he even know if a company of such men surrounded him?

No, and he would be a dead man.

Already, he dreaded ever coming into conflict with Hans. Give the man another year and he might even have this region pacified and added to his little alliance. Give him five and the regions further west might fall under his sway.

Having Hans allied to his family by blood would be beneficial. He could see it now. The innovation, the goods, the trade route, the regional position of power, the chilling advances in war, the raw strength of the man himself, and the blessing of a bishop…

Yes, all of it would be very beneficial for his expansion north. Perhaps he might even be able to beat back the Habsburgs in the Alps and kick them out of their own homeland. Henry felt a thrill at the thought of seeing the Duke of Austria fuming at losing his ancestral homeland and losing his valuable trade route and towns. He would grow stronger by minimally supporting Hans and Isabella.

-VB-

A/N: we hit 100k!

-VB-

Chapter 56

-VB-

Development.

It meant a lot of things to a lot of people.

Personally, I saw three levels of development: personal, communal, and societal. Personal development was what the Gamer was about, and I relished in the numbers going up on the screen and my own body doing things that it had no business doing.

(Jumping off a mountain top and surviving a thousand feet roll filled with rocks and ledges was impossible but I survived anyway).

Just look at my numbers. They gave me pumps of dopamine whenever I looked at them.

[Character Status]

Name: Hans von Fluelaberg

Age: 20

LvL: 40

HP: 900

MP: 400

ST: 450

STR: 90

END: 90

AGI: 69

DEX: 57

INT: 40

CHA: 24

I was nine times stronger, nine times healthier, nine times tougher, nearly seven times faster, nearly six times more nimble, four times smarter, and two and a half times more charismatic.

Just look at those beauties!

Now, I wasn\'t sure how hard the human skull was on the Mohs hardness scale and whatever else exists in the future to come. What I did know, however, was the fact that I was capable of headbutting steel and winning. I wasn\'t exactly sure how the END translated to toughness, but it did quite a bit if sharpened steel couldn\'t cut my skin.

So I wasn\'t too worried about the bandits.

Well, I was worried for my men.

The near-silent footsteps of my trained guerrilla soldiers began approaching me from my rear. I remained still in my own camo and waited. This ability to hear something so far away with such accuracy was one of my new skills that I have been developing: Owl Sense.

[Owl Sense] LvL. 3

Increases accuracy and precision of hearing

*ACTIVE: increases sensitivity of hearing by 1.5*LvL (-1 ST per minute)

*PASSIVE: pick up any mention about yourself spoken in open air within (LvL)*20 yards

Once the soldier was within six feet, I spoke up.

"Report." The soldier faltered, and I knew that he had been surprised by my ability to detect him. I was surprised that he was still surprised. Hell, should I even take a gander at exactly who he was despite the camo gear (for a lack of a better word) covering him head to toe? Hmm… The weight of the footfall was a little lighter than the others. "Daniel, report."

That really shook him out of his funk. "Y-Yes, sir. We have spotted the bandit camp."

I grinned savagely. "Good. Lead me to them."

Daniel was one of the local boys who\'d grown up and begged to be a soldier underneath me. At only seventeen years old, he would have been a high school student back … yeha, back in my old life. In this new life, he was a well-trained soldier. I wouldn\'t let him fight a knight, of course. No, that\'s stupid.

I would, however, give him a hundred bolts, a repeating crossbow, and tell him to shoot down my enemies or hunt down some animals for families in need.

It helped that he was small, which made the sneaky-beaky business easier for him overall.

(But then again, everyone was small in this age.)

I followed Daniel through the heavily wooded forests of the Alps, and after an hour of walking, we arrived near the edge of a clearing near the edge of the valley.

The bandits hung out on the far end of the clearing, cooking a meal with food no doubt stolen from the people of Chur. What concerned me, though, was the knight that was with them. The bishop hadn\'t mentioned any knight before. Could he be a hedge knight turned bandit?

"Any lookouts?" I asked.

"Yes, sir. They are all looking at a dirt road that leads into this place. There used to be a old house here, but the bandits used the last of the wooden structure for their fires."

I hummed. "And where are the rest of your comrades located?"

"All through the forest around the clearing. If you give us the signal, then we\'ll go start shooting."

The optimal distance for the repeating crossbows I have made and distributed to my men was 40 yards. At a glance, the clearing was just about that. On top of that, the bandits had carts on either side of their camp, which negated half of the attack venu es. On top of that, this was no small band of malnourished men but a full warband of nearly a hundred armored and armed solders.

I looked around and grimaced. The women that were taken were over there by the far corner, and from the blood around and on them, they were very, very dead.

"Have them retreat for now. We know where they are now. There\'s no need to unnecessarily risk ourselves when the duke wants to fight, too."

"As you command, sir."

Then he whistled like a bird. The bandits didn\'t notice at all, because the sound was exactly like that of the local rock thrushes but with a rhythm to it and repeated.

-VB-

"A knight?" Henry frowned and I nodded.

"Saw it myself," I replied. "They have nearly a hundred members."

"What about the women?"

"Dead and left to the side."

"Bastards."

I hummed. "What I am worried about is the fact that these men are armed and armored in ways I don\'t expect bandits to be."

Henry stared at me for a moment before narrowing his eyes.

"You think someone is setting them up. That these men are not bandits but mercenaries."

I nodded.

"I have been hearing from Bavarian merchants that they need to hire a lot of guards because there are way too many bandits between the Compact and Bavaria."

"So someone who is a rival of the duchies there? Upper Bavaria shouldn\'t have too many enemies who might risk the ire of the emperor…"

"I don\'t know too much about the politics of the empire, so I can\'t say."

"Don\'t worry about it. I will, however, look into this when I return home," he "reassured" me. I supposed that I did feel something small at the thought of having foreign-entity backed entities in what was essentially my backyard, but I also didn\'t like the way Henry was taking it up as his cause to act upon.

Whatever. Something to think about.

I stood up.

At the same time, I was happy about this "bandit" warband. It gave me something new to do, and after months of repetitive grinding, I was getting sick and tired of it.

"Okay then. We will attack soon. Have the soldiers ready; they\'ll be the distraction that allows my men to strike from behind."

-VB-

Henry watched Hans as he disappeared into the forest again. His bluttumhang (leaf-cloaks[?]) didn\'t come out of the forest with him, but they surely had to be out there.

It still freaked him out hours after he learned about them and their capabilities.

(Could he ask Hans to train some of his own men like that or send one of his bluttumhang to train his men?)

After a moment of contemplation, he stood up. Hans had given him instructions on how to approach the bandit camp, so he would do so.

"Men!" he turned around and called to his soldiers. "It seems like the good baron found the bandits!" There were murmurs as they started picking up their weapons. "We will go face them head on! The good baron has given us the privilege to show him and his people how real warriors and knights fight!"

That got a few cheers out of the knights among them.

"Besides, these are just bandits-"

---

"Why do these bandits have four knights?!" Henry hissed as the four bandit knights faced off against his. Though numerically outnumbered, he and his men were holding.

As Hans had told him to do so, he had taken his men and just walked up the path leading up to the bandit\'s clearing. This would attract the attention of the bandits and, seeing that he had less people, would surely come to attack him with their own heavily armored and armed "knights."

And as Hans said, they really were knights.

These knights had hung back and only charged into the fight after the bandits had surrounded them and attacked.

But the bandits hadn\'t accounted for Hans, who\'d struck them in the back with his rapidly firing crossbows.

The skirmish turned into a chaos, and Henry found himself fending off two particularly well-armed "bandits."

Bandits did not have a worn but well-cared for gambesons, maces, and shields. They did not have boots better than some of his own men.

No, these were mercenaries hired to act like bandits in the rural backwater that would have little to no way of reporting what they did or looked like.

"Cut them down!" he roared as he charged forth with his shield and bashed the face of the surprised mercenary to his left. He lashed out with his sword at the right, and got parried for his trouble. Instead of giving up, he whirled around, attempting another shield bash on the surviving mercenary but missed, but his sword came around and then caught the man\'s shoulder.

"AAHHH!!" the mercenary screamed as he lost his grip on the buckler.

Seeing his opportunity, Henry tackled him. The mercenary fell back with a scream, and Henry used this chance to bring his sword down and silence him forever.

Gasping with exertion after having killed his fifth men, Henry looked up and around. His knights were still fighting around him, but every men was essentially fighting their own battles with little to no organization…

Except for the baron\'s men.

Having struck the bandits in the back, Hans had stepped up to fight in the front while his bluttumhangs cotninued to fire their crossbows in a precise manner.

And, very briefly, Henry saw why Hans had managed to become the baron and leader of the Compact.

It wasn\'t every day that he got to see a fully armed mercenary with neckguard gambeson get beheaded and another more lightly armored mercenary-bandit get launched into the air, only to break his neck when he landed on his head.

Henry grimaced as another mercenary came at him.

Worse for him and his men was the nature of the battleground; the thick forest gave little to no room for wide maneuvers favored by commanders like himself. He couldn\'t see what was going on beyond a good dozen yards, if that.

The mercenary, a greybeard, tried to get a hit in with his weighty axe, but Henry just stepped back and then thrust his sword forward.

The mercenary too stepped back, tried to push his sword away with his kite shield.

Henry, knowing that he wouldn\'t be able to move around to find an opening, struck at the shield, trying to make the man let go. Instead, all he did was make the old mercenary grin as his shield took hit and after hit.

He stepped back and the mercenary waited for him.

Henry looked around. Fighting was dying down. He could wait for his men to surround the old mercenary…

But he wasn\'t into that.

He lightly tossed his sword up and then caught the blade with his armored and mailed hand.*

The mercenary immediately recognized what he was going for.

And then he struck.

This time, the shield began chunking away as the weighty end of the improvised mace broke pieces off with each strike.

The old man knew he was in trouble in both time and prospect.

… So he dropped his axe and shield and ran for it.

Too tired to give chase, Henry stopped and huffed, glaring at the back of-.

Thunk.

Of the old and dead mercenary whose head was decorated very recently by a crossbow bolt.

He turned back to his knights and saw that one of them was dead while they had killed all of the bandit knights.

And that was it.

A hundred bandit-mercenaries wiped out in the course of less than an hour.

He trudged his way over to where Hans was, checking up on a few of the more injured soldiers on his way, and came to stop close to the baron.

"Find anything?" he asked.

Hans nodded and reached down to one of the mercenaries he\'d killed.

Henry briefly glanced around.

One of at least a dozen.

When Hans came back up, he held a ripped insignia.

Henry looked at it for a moment before shaking his head. "I don\'t know which house that belongs to. Either it\'s the shit\'s personal thing or something he stole from the Franks."

Hans grunted. "Well, I can ask the bishop if he knows," he said and then smiled. "Well, it seems like we\'ve done a good job, eh?"

Henry grinned with him.

"Oh, yes. We definitely did the empire a great service today."

And then it was time to split the loot.

-VB-

A/N: This technique is called mordhau for those unfamiliar with it.

-VB-

Chapter 57

-VB-

Rudolf I

Duke of Upper Bavaria

"What do you mean there was no one to meet you?" the Duke of Upper Bavaria, Rudolf the First of His Name, demanded.

His men had been hard at work trying to determine both the capabilities of the Compact of the Eight - because it used to be seven before the Prince-Bishop of Chur joined them - and the corruption of the merchant guilds. One of the evidence he needed to punish the guilds was finding their collaborator among the bandits.

"The bandits attacked the Prince-Bishop\'s lands," his spymaster replied. "Who then requested help from the military arm of the Compact."

"Fluelaberg."

"Yes, Your Grace. Fluelaberg quickly mobilized, receiving some help from the visiting Duke of Carinthia, and used the roads they built over the last two years to reach Chur and then the target bandit gang\'s area of operation within half a week."

Rudolf thought about that. That was impressive.

Crossing the Alps even during summer was no small endeavor. To cross it, however, small of a land through areas where he, a veteran commander, would hesitate to lead an army through?

This Baron Hans of Fluelaberg deserved respect.

"Did you get any information?" he asked instead.

"Yes. Duke of Carinthia and the Baron of Fluelaberg were in the process of splitting the loot of arms, armor, and other accessories."

"... And why is the Duke of Carinthia with the baron before I learned about it?"

"It seemed to have been a surprise visit, and with the low volume of trade and travel as people prepare for fall harvest…"

Rudolf sighed.

If it wasn\'t enough for him to contend with his younger brother, then he now had to contend with the Duke of Carinthia as well?

While the whole of Bavaria might be too much for the fringe territories of Carinthia and Carniola, Rudolf knew that he wasn\'t the duke of all Bavaria, "merely" Upper Bavaria. Upper Bavaria, as it was, was weaker in every measure compared to the combined might of Duke Henry, who ruled not only Carniola and Carinthia, thus giving him major military concessions that enabled him to fight the Slavs, but the man also ruled a huge chunk of the County of Tyrol, which was one of the major trade chokepoints that Bavaria relied on for trade to the Italian city-states and counties.

Damn. Other lords were starting to notice the Compact. That wasn\'t good for his own plans.

Worse, his brother was going to notice the Compact soon, if he hadn\'t already.

Growling, Rudolf stood up to leave the room. "I will be in my garden."

"Yes, Your Grace. I shall return later."

-VB-

Louis I

(the other) Duke of Upper Bavaria

Louis chuckled as he read through the reports coming in from his people in Chur, Rudolf\'s court, and other places.

Not only did Rudolf failed to get evidence to punish the guilds that were hounding him, he was now flailing to try to control the situation!

It was moments like this that he enjoyed mercilessly teasing and ribbing his brother. Oh, the next time they met, he was going to tell him about what he heard over from Chur. It\'ll piss him off to no end. After all, Rudolf did order his spymaster to insert his own into the Compact, but Louis countered that by having his own saboteurs create "accidents" in the roads near where the guilds\' "bandits" operated.

Of course, Rudolf didn\'t know! He was blind outside of Munich.

"What will you do?" he asked himself but it was more of a question directed at this new rising star and his brother. "You got rid of a bandit group, sure, but you now know that there is something odd going on. Intrigue and politics in your lands that isn\'t part of your people\'s. It will no doubt lead back to us if any of the bandits were dumb enough to keep anything even half important in their pockets."

If something so convenient did drop into Hans\'s lap, then the guilds of Munich would be implicated. Thus Rudolf, being the current ruler over Munich, would be implicated. Hans would no doubt try to get the emperor involved as he has no other way to counter the wealth, military, and influence that Rudolf has, even as a stuck-up duke with nary a social skill.

That said…

He also was not a fan of the Gorizian duke. That man was too strong. He had no enemies to his flank or rear. If he gained Fluelaberg as an ally, then he would have only one path of expansion: north.

And who was there?

He and his brother\'s Duchy of Upper Bavaria along with three other major duchies of similar strength and power.

Louis did not fancy becoming a vassal of a Gorizia of all people. If he lost to a man who fathered the most number of bastards known to the empire, then he wouldn\'t just be a loser; he would be a weak loser. He and his brother might be co-rulers, but the Duchy of Upper Bavaria was still a land based on fertile farmlands which was once the core of the long forgotten Stem Duchy of Bavaria. Losing to a "duchy" based out in the mountains with far less knights and levies?

No.

That would not do.

So what should he do?

He could try to assassinate any of the hill hicks.

Unlikely to work but he could try. And then pin the blame on his brother.

Oh my God, his genius brain.

That was perfect! A successful assassination meant his flank was safe, but an unsuccessful assassination meant his brother would take the blame and either get jailed or forced to leave his position, leaving him, Louis I, as the sole ruler of the Duchy of Upper Bavaria.

…

This was a genius plan.

Alright then, who was he going to kill?

… Actually, did he even need to kill the lords themselves? He heard from his men that Baron of Fluelaberg might have a love interest… who was also the cousin of Duke of Carinthia… and the daughter of Count of Gorizia.

Why not kill her?

Separate the three lords. Make them mistrust each other. Turn their blades not outwards but inwards.

Genius.

He liked this plan very much. Minimal cost to him as well.

-VB-

Chapter 58

-VB-

When we got back to Fluelaberg, I rummaged through the loot we gained to get some hint about who might have done sent mercenaries to raid my little mountain confederation.

Well, we found one.

"This is the sigil of the House of Wolfratshausen," Henry said as he showed me a coat of arms that had a black wolf with long limbs and a long red tongue sticking out from a wolf\'s head on top of a white background.

"I haven\'t heard of that place at all," I hummed while staring at the sigil.

"Well, there was a scandal a few years back where an innocent pilgrim was burnt at the stake," he replied. "The pope heard about it and made the man a saint."

I blinked as did a few others.

Isabella, who\'d been by my right, clapped her hands once with a look of realization. "Oh, I heard about that! Wolfratshausen is that town?"

"Yes," Henry muttered. "The town is under the rule of the House of Sallern, who as barons are pledged to the Duke of Upper Bavaria."

"... This seems more and more like that the pesky dukes up there are trying to force the Compact under their thumb," I hummed. "But they are going about it in a horrible way."

Henry and Isabella looked at me with obvious confusion and with cues asking me to elaborate.

I shrugged. "Let\'s say that you, Henry, wanted my lands."

"Okay…?"

"How would you go about it?"

He frowned and closed his eyes. Obviously, he had seen much more of my land than some random duke over a hundred miles away. He\'s personally been here before, he mentioned that, and was applying what he learned during his stay in my court and our brief bandit extermination excursion.

And then I just asked him how he would go about usurping me. It was a bold move, one that can be taken as an offense. He might not want to respond as well, because if he was truly thinking about attacking me, then answering my question would reveal things that I might improve to defend myself.

He took a deep breath in and turned to me but didn\'t say anything for a moment.

I wondered what he was thinking about. Would he think that I would look down on him for thinking of contingencies?

… Maybe. Probably not, depending on what he was thinking about.

"You care for your people."

"Yes."

"Then since you are the biggest threat when it comes to the Compact, I will go out of my way to hurt you when you can\'t hurt me back. It\'ll be in peace times. I\'ll cut off trade in and out of the valleys. That only will do significant damage to the point where you might not be able to keep enough of your people fed."

I nodded. "That was one of the first things I thought up."

Trade was important to the people here because as much as I helped the people, I couldn\'t overcome the simple fact that we lived in a resource-poor and arable land-poor Alps. A lot of what people traded here was wool for food with coins involved in the middle. If trade were to be cut off…

At the lowest estimate, I might see a tenth of the people starve and half of them die. Another tenth might immigrate to find their livelihood elsewhere. Our major food import was from none other than Werdenberg, one of our enemies from the Unruly Year. It wouldn\'t take too much poking for them to stop trading. Henry was also my neighbor to the west, who could direct any trade coming through Fluela Pass to Innsbruck instead, and merchants would go directly to Munich.

Trade from the south would pass by Chur, but why pass by there when they could go a little further west and reach Zurich instead?

In essence, the trade route I held was, at best, an accessory. It was important, yes, but it was neither the primary nor even the second choice.

But.

There was a but.

"No one would go for it," I smiled.

He smiled back. "No. Unless I directly controlled all of the lands surrounding your Compact, everyone would come to trade for the porcelain, fine jewelry, and sugar."

I had managed to make the Compact just that much important to trade, and a lot of the merchants that used to ignore our little corner of the Alps redirected their focus in hopes of getting themselves a tidy profit. Oh, I also made it well known that our supplies were limited, and thus the merchants were always on each other\'s necks, instead of hounding me and my people to sell more.

More than that, I had gifted quite a number of lords to the west, northwest, and south. Henry was simply the latest lord to have received a gift from me.

That\'s what I have been doing silently over the last half year. I have been training volunteer militia into elite rangers, making connections with lords beyond the Alps, especially in the Po Valley, and luring the other local powers to join the Compact. Three such powers were the Lordship of Belmont, the Lord of Misox, and the Abbey of Disentis. If those three joined me, then I would have secured a passage to one of the more well-traveled trade routes between Swabia and Northern Italy. Critically speaking, Disentis and Belmont were very keen on joining after being told that they would be given special trade rights to purchase my goods at low cost. If they joined the Compact, then the Compact would be right up against Uri and my birth town of Erstfeld.

(I wondered how mother would look like once she learns that the new up and coming regional power was headed by me of all people.)

All of it had been done on the down low after I got that letter from the chancellor of Upper Bavaria. I\'ve been distracted a little bit lately, especially since nothing came out of that letter exchange (I assumed that the chancellor got the hint that perhaps he shouldn\'t poke the bear that was the current emperor).

I, of course, wasn\'t about to reveal that to Henry, though.

"The point," I began. "Is that this kind of attack seems to be too … rough. Too straightforward. All it would take is half a dozen coat of arms stripped from the dead, and I would have the evidence necessary to ask the emperor to act against him. I don\'t even need to be successful to have the duke isolated. He isn\'t, after all, the only ruler of Upper Bavaria."

Isabella hummed as she looked out of the glass window. The glass window in question wasn\'t perfectly clear or consistent like the ones I had in my previous life, but it served to keep the heat in and give a clear view of the outside.

"Regardless, you now have the means to pursue something if you want to," she added.

"And what could I pursue?" I asked. "Because honestly, I don\'t think I can do anything that won\'t backfire horribly not against me but the people of the Compact."

"In my opinion," Henry snorted. "You need to start caring less about the peasants. You think too much like a peasant. Worry about your position, family, and land before anything else, because without those, you are nothing."

It was the same thing Isabella kept saying, and if I was just a regular joe with no power, I would have agreed and acted as such.

But… I wasn\'t a regular joe, was I?

Or was it a regular Schmidt?

I looked at the two of them and smiled. It was obvious to them what caring meant but they didn\'t know how to use it against someone. Perhaps they simply hadn\'t thought of it. Or was it because it was a sin, one of the Ten Commandments?

"No, for someone like me, you turn my friends and family against me."

The two of them looked at me in surprise that I was even sharing this. I was sharing this, though, because I was confident in my place in the hearts and minds of the Compact\'s people. After all, what were the words of weary and dirty travelers compared to that of the local bishops, priests, town mayors, village chiefs, and the very man who fought by your side?

I didn\'t elaborate further.

"Well, for now, it seems that I have a letter to write."

"To whom?" Isabella asked as she and her cousin watched me rise up.

"Who but the emperor? Would he want to know who broke his peace? After all, he should have received my gift by now, so he would have me firmly in his memory."

What was a jar of porcelain to me, aside from the cost of production and transportation, when I could have the ears of the emperor whose eyes would be blinded by the rare "Far East" porcelain?

\'I haven\'t been silent these past months, merely quiet, for inevitabilities like these,\' I thought to myself while wondering just how badly I could paint the Dukes of Upper Bavaria without outright condemning their actions.

Because I\'m mad.

I\'m fucking pissed.

It\'s one to hear about bandits hitting merchants passing through, it\'s another when my people gets hit.

And if worst comes to worst, it wouldn\'t be too hard for me to … silence some nobles.