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Chapter 66

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

I sensed the danger before it came, but I was too slow to call out the ambush before the first arrow landed.

And it landed on one of the camouflaged rangers that had gotten too close to the ambushers. They had seen each other and the crossbow-wielding enemy had fired. My ranger\'s bear fur cloak, however, kept the arrow from digging in too deeply.

"AMBUSH!" I roared, and cranked up my [Intimidation] to the max. Immediately, the road became a skirmish field as ambushers popped out from far sides of the roads, even further than how my camouflaged rangers had been arrayed around us.

And it was a mistake, too, as my rangers, too far apart from each other, couldn\'t fight off against half a dozen and more ambushers when they rushed them.

"CLOSE RANKS!"

"HAH!" my rangers shouted back and immediately retreated to me.

"H-Hans?!"

I looked forward and saw John finally getting it together. I forgot that this was his second engagement, the first being him in his father\'s castle as it burned around him.

"Get off the horse!" I shouted as I pulled out my repeatable crossbow from my inventory as discreetly as I could. I did not notice, however, that Isabella had been too deep in whatever thought she\'d been in to even notice what the hell was going on. "ISABELLA!"

She finally snapped out of it just as an arrow came flying at her.

I didn\'t even bother trying to hide my strength and speed and slapped the offending projectile away.

Then I grabbed the second when she finally flinched.

"Get down and behind the horses! Toggenburg men, shields up and around your count!"

The volleys of arrows finally reasserted themselves and came down hard.

And I just cut them all down with two smaller but longer longswords instead of my big slab of metal.

I grunted as I brought the latest of my swings down, chopping four arrows at once. The road ahead was now blocked by the ambushers. Some wielding pitchforks but most had actual swords and spears.

Already, this group was not classified as bandits but another noble patsy. Peasants and bandits didn\'t have a lot of quality swords and I saw at least a dozen quality swords. If this was another attack planned by the Duke of Upper Bavaria, then I will tell the emperor to fuck off and go to war. And If the emperor tries to stop me, then I was going to go after his head as I went after the first three counts I\'ve met.

The convoy\'s left and right were also covered by the ambushers. The rear was also covered.

We were, as they say, surrounded.

Or…

"Men, it seems we are surrounded!" I shouted. They laughed as they pulled out their repeating crossbows, including the wounded rangers. The ambushers looked ready to rush in, and there was someone on top of a horse shouting for the ambushers to do just that.

I needed that one alive.

With a heave, I threw one of the two longswords not at the person but at the horse\'s head. The sword hissed through the air like a sawblade and sliced right through the horse\'s spine. There was a splatter of blood as the sword sailed over, but it had done its job. The horse just fell over as its brain disconnected from the rest of the body, and the horseman fell.

"FIRE!" I shouted, and my rangers began firing. Their repeatables fired with only minimal reloading. Each ranger fired a bolt every two seconds, which was about as fast as the average bowman and much faster than a crossbowman. The ambushers didn\'t expect it at all and began to get peppered by our bolts.

But that didn\'t dissuade some, and they charged at us.

I finally brought out my metal slab-sword and swung.

A bisected man\'s upper body flew while his wide eyes looked helplessly in shock at his falling legs.

The remaining longsword in my left hand struck like a lashing snake, blurring through air and taking the head off of a spearman who thought he was going to get lucky.

As the ambushers closed in, my rangers also ran out bolts in their magazines… which was why while half of them pulled out their swords to defend their comrades, the other half pulled out a spare magazine and loaded them in.

But even with their superior tactics and weapons, my men died at the end of the enemy speartips and flashing swords.

But it bought us enough time to fire more crossbows.

"Fire!" I roared as a cacophony of hissing bolts and screaming men.

When another two dozen men died at my men\'s bolts, they began to run.

I didn\'t care too much.

"Men, I only see bandits! Keep shooting!"

And keep shooting they did.

-VB-

Isabella

Her heart refused to return to normalcy. Though the danger had passed, her heart still thumped inside her chest loudly and harshly.

She had nearly died, this time from men looking to kill … someone.

She looked over at John. He was back on his horse, unlike she who had moved to sit in one of the covered carts. He looked shocked as well but carried that shock with the firmness of someone her soon-to-be husband had trained.

It was a grimace that every single one of the rangers had, and it shocked her still to see their effectiveness. With time came realization, and she realized quickly that this ambush had not been an attack made by bandits looking for rich nobles to rob but a noble\'s army.

Too many well-trained men. Too many castle forged steel swords. Too many chainmail armor among them.

And with that realization came a delightful enlightenment.

Her husband\'s rangers fought off an army thrice their size and suffered a dozen deaths among them, all of whom died defending their comrades when they needed to reload their crossbows. There were twice that many wounded, yes, but to suffer no more than a third wounded and a third dead after killing twice their own numbers?

Each and every single one of these rangers would have been guarded jealously by her father and her cousin.

And the repeating crossbows.

Once, it was a cool toy her husband made and forced his men to use.

Now… now she stared at it for what it was: a brutal and efficient weapon of war. It turned a briefly trained commoner into men-at-arms slaying battering ram.

As for the man who claimed that he just "remade" it, he was over at the edge of the camp with only four rangers with the horseman whose horse he\'d nearly beheaded from almost half a hundred yards away. With a sword.

She shivered as she remembered the high-pitched hissing of the sword as it spun in the air so fast that its entire spin seemed to be made out of it with light flashing off of the bloodied sword a dozen times a second.

"John, come over here!"

John jolted in his seat and quickly made his horse trot forward and over to Hans. The two talked, and John became furious.The boy suddenly jumped off of his horse, drew his sword, and stabbed the horseman.

"What happened?" she asked. "Why did you get angry?" she asked Johmn

"That was the Count of Werdenberg. And he was here to try to kill John to prevent him from joining us," Hans answered.

She grimaced. This ambush had been an attempted political assassination. Even at the best of times with the most politically connected and wealthy individuals, this was not something that went ignored or dismissed.

And the Count of Sargans, as she knew, was not someone who was well liked anymore since the fiasco he was part of caused not only troubles here but also troubles outside. The effect wasn\'t seen until lately, but it was well known now throughout the neighboring lands that the sudden influx of refugees, loss of food, and trade happened because of Count of Toggenburg, Count of Werdenberg, Count of Zernez, Count of Sax-Misox, and even the Prince-Bishop of Chur.

And of course, the now dead Count of Sargans.

She only came to learn about this because the "Barony" of Fluelaberg had become a trade center that saw people from all around - as far as Constantinople! - come to buy, sell, exchange, and gossip. Peddlers and merchants from neighboring lands were the most vocal about how they felt about the Unruly Year.

The conflict led to this area becoming too dangerous to pass through, this led to increased time spent in just moving goods if the goods didn\'t perish from longer travel, some goods couldn\'t even be sold, fertilizers from Zernez over could no longer reach the fields around St. Gallens, Abbey of Disentis got raided by Count of Sax-Misox before his demise, so on and so on.

"... This is the only chance."

The two men turned to her.

She looked at them with her utmost seriousness. "Count of Sargans alienated everyone around him. This ambush was his way of ensuring that he wasn\'t completely surrounded by potential enemies and those who had a casus belli against him. It is very possible that he may thought your admission into the Compact would have given the Compact enough internal voices to move it against him. He betrayed his own alliance to attack the prince-bishop and your father was the leader of the alliance."

"If he thought that far," Hans noted. "This is the guy who attacked his own alliance member when he was already surrounded by those alliance members."

Speaking of which, the Count of Sax-Misox had died to Hans himself, the prince-bishop was a nominal equal but an actual vassal of Hans, and Toggenburg was now an equal to Hans… but emotionally and relationship-wise very much submissive to him.

Isabella glanced at him for a moment.

If she hadn\'t known the entire story about the Unruly Year, then this would have looked like Hans planned the subjugation of the entire valley as a peasant.

But that\'s impossible, right?

"What will you do, Hans?"

"The bastard attacked a member of the Compact," he grunted. "Of course, we\'re going to war."

She nodded. "Then-."

"Wait."

They turned to John, who looked shaken but still resolute despite his age and first combat.

"What is it, John?"

The boy looked at Hans and squared his shoulders amidst the bloodied field and road.

"I pledged to become the western gate for the Compact. An enemy at west has attacked the Compact. It is my duty to lead and fight this. Besides, I know that you will be busy with the Dukes of Bavaria."

Hans stared at John without so much as a hint of emotion.

And then…

"... If you can stand after I glare at you, then I will let you."

Glare? What was a glare going to do -?

And then she nearly screamed.

In an instant, Hans became something so dangerous that she immediately recoiled away and wanted to flee. Her throat tightened up with a scream barely suppressed, legs coiled barely kept from jumping away, and her back already strained from having pulled herself away from Hans.

She knew that he was supernatural. She saw how easily he swung that slab of metal he called his sword. She saw him neatly slicing through a dozen arrows straight out of the air.

This? This was new.

Even the rangers near them buckled and a few just collapsed to their knees, gasping and clutching at their throats. One just straight up ran away.

John?

The boy… stood.Sweating profusely, fists clenched so tightly he bled, lips bleeding from biting, and eyes so wide and iris so pinpricked that it looked like everything that he was hurt… but he stood in place. It didn\'t matter whether he stood there out of fear or will, only that he did.

Then it stopped.

She gasped and fell to her knees.

She barely saw Hans put his hands on John\'s shoulders.

"You have my rangers here as my contribution to your war effort. Good luck."

John relaxed too and nodded. "I\'ll make you proud."

… She supposed that this was a wonderful bonding moment but her mind was more fixated on what the hell that was that Hans did.

One day, she was going to get a good answer - if not the entire answer - out of him.

-VB-

Chapter 67

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

The Count of Sargans\' sudden ambush aimed at John\'s life and John\'s decision to take the matter into his own hand was an issue I needed to take of when I had the time.

Because right now…

The emperor was here.

His arrival wasn\'t even noticed by anyone else. The man had traveled quickly across the empire. While his travel hadn\'t been covert, it had been quiet enough that I hadn\'t heard anything about it until he was right at my proverbial doorstep at Chur.

As the emperor\'s elaborately decorated and gilded carriage came to a stop, I nudged Bishop Siegfried.

"How do you think he\'ll respond to our latest issue?"

The old man sighed. He just seemed tired of it all. "Well, he was a belligerent of the last war, and he was caught and killed trying to kill his peer. So at the very least, he can\'t condemn us."

"That\'s good," I mumbled.

And then a herald stepped forth. Dressed in fineries that only the bishop and the richest merchant of the Compact might wear, he looked both imposing and lacking.

"Presenting His Majesty Albert, by the grace of God, the King of the Romans, the King of the Germans, the King of Italians, the Duke of Austria, the Duke of Styria, Count of Habsburg and Kyburg, and Langrave of Alsace!"

One of the servants opened the door to the carriage and a man walked out.

… and he was dressed in the silk dyed with my blue dyes.

The emperor showed off wealth beyond comparison simply by taking a step outside his carriage, and everyone saw it.

His short blonde hair tussled in the winds and around his chiseled jaws briefly before he focused his gaze on the bishop and myself.

I immediately knelt on one knee as was the custom.

The emperor walked over to us.

"Rise, Baron Fluelaberg."

I guessed that made my position unambiguous. He called me a baron and not a landholder or something like that. I rose in time to watch the emperor bow to the bishop and kiss the old man\'s ring. The emperor then straightened his back and looked at me.

"So you are the one who\'s been causing a ruckus in these mountains."

"... Perhaps, Your Majesty," I replied with a small bow. "Though I can assure you that I am not the one causing them."

He sniffed before nodding in acknowledgment. "Yes, I have heard plenty about the aggressors of the last war."

"And one of them, Your Majesty, has defied you no less than a week ago."

He narrowed his eyes. "Explain yourself."

"I will, Your Majesty. However, discussing the matters of state publicly is …"

He sniffed again. "You are no fool. Very well, show me the accommodations you have prepared for me."

-VB-

Emperor Albert I of Habsburg

This was his first time visiting the Prince-Bishopric of Chur. It was pitiful to see a prince-bishop of the realm consorting with peasants to stay relevant in the great game of the states, but knowing what he did about this place and the bishop himself, he was not too surprised. The bishop was known for being too kind. Too weak. And the Alps had no place for the weak.

That was why his house has been losing land, generation after generation, to the locals. Even an iota of attention pulled away from this place was a hundred pairs of gazes and mouths looking to take a bite out of his ancestral lands.

Another group of commoners to the west fought against the natural order of kings and men. It was one of the reasons why he was here. To see if this group of commoners would be another annoyance that would wear away at his control over the Swabian Alps.

"Ambushed, huh?" Albert muttered.

"Yes, Your Majesty," the baron of the rumors replied while bowing. "It happened in the lands surrounding the village of Maienfelds, a signatory of the Compact."

"Not only did he attack you, he attacked you in your own lands."

"Yes, imperator."

He paused and glanced at the baron.

Imperator was not a term used by most. It was an old term. A Latin word. It was also a title that was not used in these lands, despite their close proximity to Italy. Last he heard, only the King of Castile still used that term, though he didn\'t know everything. For all he knew, some petty tyrant in the eastern plains beyond Carpathia might use that title!

"Well? Continue."

"Count John of Toggenburg has seen to this backstabbing attack as casus belli to deprive the House of Werdenberg of the County of Sargans, the lords and men who attack bishops backed by a flimsy excuse and their neighbors for no reason."

"... No reason, you say?" Albert looked at the baron skeptically.

"Plenty of trade that benefited me passed through his land as well, Your Majesty," the baron replied. "In fact, he was poised to benefit more because he stood between us and Zurich, which is a much more prosperous city to sell to than the Imperial City of Lindau or the Abbey of Saint Gallen."

True enough. However…

"It is neither the privilege nor the right course of action for a count to simply decide on the fate of territories not his own."

"It is not, Your Majesty. I agree with you."

"Hoh?"

"It is might that determines it. The ambush at Maienfeld is a declaration of war, Your Majesty, and the Count of Toggenburg is a the aggrieved party. While it is true that it is not the count\'s right to dictate the future of the County of Sargans, it is his right to use his might to stake his claim."

Look at this peasant saying something like that. He was basically telling him, the emperor, to leave it be.

"And what if I decide to enforce the imperial peace?"

The baron dared to smile.

"You have already, Your Majesty."

"... What?"

"When you sent me that letter, you have enforced the imperial peace upon these valleys, and it was the Count of Sargans that broke your command." The baron then paused. "Unless you mean to force the victim, the target of assassination, a young count, to simply let this matter go?"

Albert decided he didn\'t like this baron.

"Watch your tone," he snapped. And then he remembered that the prince-bishop was in the room as well, and glanced to see the old bishop\'s reaction. When he didn\'t see anything overt, he quickly straightened his back and turned away. "It is the emperor\'s duty to see his vassals make peace."

"Yes, Your Majesty. You are absolutely correct," the baron smiled like he knew something Albert didn\'t. Albert did not like that smile. "However, will your other vassals accept this?"

He paused.

"This is a clear-cut case of assassination by a count upon another count. If there is to be peace without recompense, then would other vassals across the empire not feel safe? After all… It would imply that you were fine with Sargans killing his neighbors. And this would not be the first time he initiated such actions."

This baron could not be a commoner before. This was too eloquent. Too aware. Too clever.

"Then what would you do?"

"Let Sargans and Toggenburg fight. If Toggenburg wins, then the county that has caused conflict and strife year after year will cease to exist. If Sargans wins, then they have proven their right to exist by might. Though they would still be under your purview as to what punishment they should suffer for annoying Your Majesty."

The baron spoke too many truths.

"And in that vein, there is another that has caused problems," he added before producing a letter. "One that even the new troublemaker\'s neighbors have begun to notice."

Albert warily took the letter, opened it, and read it.

And read it again.

The seal was correct. This letter was real and not a flimsy attempt to gain casus belli.

"A duke sending his men-at-arms out, to dress and act as bandits, in harassing his neighbors," he grunted. "What a shameful lord."

"I agree, Your Majesty! And I have a solution."

"... Speak."

"Give me the chance to humiliate the dukes, whose house has been at competition with yours. You know of the Hungarians and their attempts to put one of the Wittelbachs upon their throne."

Who the hel-?

How does this peasant even know that?! That was not something whispered even among the ducal courts! In fact, Albert himself only learned of the Hungarian court\'s offer to Otto III of Lower Bavaria!

"How do you know this?"

The baron smiled.

It was that damnable smile.

"Trade is a wonderful thing, Your Majesty. It brings news from afar for even the highest of nobles are prone to gossiping carelessly in the presence of those who are their lessers."

Albert was going to watch what he said around his servants after he left this place.

"... You want to offer yourself up as a friend of my House."

"Yes. If I defeat your electoral rivals for your house\'s continued ascension upon the Roman Throne, then why, is that not a wonderful ally to have? And I am a man with … significant military experience."

He side-glared at the slimy baron before nodding.

"You have my permission. Should you fail, however, I will see you suffer for your arrogance for daring to think you were worthy of my house\'s attention."

"Of course…"

-VB-

Hans (after the meeting)

"God, I feel so slimy," I shuddered as the imperial procession left the Compact\'s lands. The carriage swayed a little, laden with gifts we offered to the emperor, who\'d "graciously" accepted the fine porcelain, deep blue-dyed bolts of cloth, and sweet snacks.

"You owe me for those snacks, by the way," the bishop grunted as he turned away.

"I\'ll make sure to send you over a lot."

"I want more of those orange and lemon-flavored ones," he pointed out over his shoulders.

I chuckled before glancing back at the emperor\'s carriage.

It was a surprise visit but one that had been long time coming and one that gave me what I needed.

A casus belli and permission to finally put down the Bavarian dukes in their places for daring to touch me and mine.

But before I went to actual war, I needed to fix something first.

-VB-

Hans (not von Fluelaberg)

Hans stood at attention along with the rest of the rangers because they all knew that they were all about to get a reaming for their failure at Maienfeld.

Because he and his four groups of five were supposed to be the guards that kept enemies from sneaking up on their lord, even if they knew about the ambush and wanted to take them down. There were only a few of them here today, though, because most had been loaned to Count John.

Most importantly, however, they failed that task so badly that a pair of arrows had nearly struck the lady-to-be.

He did not turn to look at their lord as he walked into the open field that they took up for the upcoming ass beating while they stayed the night at the town of Schiers.

"So," Lord Hans - officially recognized by the emperor himself - grunted once he stood at the head of their formation. "Does anyone have any explanation as to how close those arrows almost struck Lady Isabella or why they managed to ambush us before we were in position to counter-ambush them?"

Hans knew why but he was reluctant to speak up.

He tried not to glance around but did because he couldn\'t help it, and looked like the other rangers sort of knew the answer, too. He also realized that if there was no good explanation for their failure, then they might get punished anyway.

Or dismissed from service.

"Milord," he spoke up weakly. "I think there is an issue with our formation."

Instead of growing angry, his lord turned to him.

"Explain."

"... Since we wanted the ambush to enter close to the center of our formation, we had to intentionally open up a wide gap in our formation. Due to the unexpected size of the ambushers, however, we keep widening gap on the off chance that they might have flankers who might notice us if we stayed too close. By doing that, however, we ended up too far away to react or spring the ambush in time, and springing the trap before we were ready would have been detrimental as the last minute changes to our formation left us out of position to defense the caravan in sufficient numbers."

His lord stared at him and then turned to look around. "Is what he says the truth?"

There were murmurs of agreement. No one wanted to draw attention of the man who ripped someone in half with his bare hands.

"... It\'s my fault," the lord suddenly moaned.

"Milord?!" some of the men exclaimed in surprise.

"I miscalculated," he growled. "And that let the ambushers get too close."

Their lord had arranged the formation so that there were more rangers to deal with the ambushers and left less for the defense of the caravan.

\'No one can make the best adjustments without knowing the exact number of the enemy,\' Hans grimaced as he remembered the grueling forest training. He and his cohort of trainees had to survive and flee from their lord as he hunted them down one by one. A lack of knowledge was a killer, and it was very similar how not knowing the exact number of the hidden ambushers - found because some weren\'t hidden as well - was similar to how their lord hunted them down.

It struck true fear into them all about how really capable their lord was. In the forest, nothing could save you from Hans von Fluelaberg. He sees you and you will never see him unless he lets you.

But the core issue right here was that … their lord had miscalculated. For all of the help their forest capes and repeating crossbows gave them, they could not get into position in time.

Their lord drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Okay," he spoke up. "This … was my fault. The deaths of the rangers are on me. I will rectify this. For now, you can all return back to your duties."

-VB-

A/N:

Random historical tidbit of the chapter: Eltz Castle near the city of Trier in Rhineland-Palatinate has been owned and lived in by the same family, the House of Eltz (nobles, yes, until the dissolution of the Second Reich), for over 800 years and over 33 generations and some (Kempenich Branch) still lives there to this day.

Lemons and oranges were grown in Italy as far back as the 9th century, and being very bitter fruits at the time, their dried forms weren\'t exactly expensive to import in Swabian Alps that was right next to Italy.

-VB-

Chapter 68

-VB-

Isabella von Gorizia

She knocked on the door and heard Hans telling her to come in. Opening the thick door with well-oiled hinges, she pushed it open with only a minor effort.

Inside his improved solar, Hans sat behind a large desk with a lot of papers. As she walked over to him, walking around the two "sofa" and a table between them, she noted that a lot of the papers were not administrative but rather maps.

"What are these for?" she asked him.

"That one is for property lines," he replied. "This one is for public grazing lots. This one here is for properties not for sale."

She stared at them before raising an eyebrow. "You are allowing the commoners to purchase a lot of land instead of lending them out."

"It gives them the incentive to manage it better," I replied. "If it isn\'t your land, then are you really going to care about how well it does as long as you get your fill?" I asked her. "Because I certainly wouldn\'t. Why put in the effort into a land that someone else is going to take from me sooner or later?"

"... I suppose not." She then cleared her throat. "I want to talk to you about something."

He paused and looked up at her. "Sure."

"I want to hold our wedding - and wedding night - before you leave to fight Bavaria."

He paused before pushing himself away from his desk. He stood up and stood in front of her.

"I\'m sorry."

She blinked. She didn\'t expect that kind of a reaction. She thought he was … Well, truth be told, she wasn\'t sure how he would respond. She knew that he would at the very least hear her out because he listened to everyone. What she did not expect was a sudden apology.

Her lips opened and closed in her befuddlement before she got herself back together.

"Why are you apologizing?"

"... We agreed to get married, but after one close call, I\'m already leaving again to fight another war," he replied sheepishly. "It\'s like I\'m intentionally avoiding our wedding. I\'m sorry if that made you upset."

"I\'m not upset," she quickly replied. "To be honest, now that I did get your attention and your agreement, I\'m not sure what I am supposed to be doing with myself. I have been doing the things ladies of the house are supposed to do, but all of your \'bureaucrats\' are too competent. I barely have to do anything."

He smiled. "That\'s great to hear."

She poked him in the chest indignantly. "No, it\'s not! The things I can do to feel good about doing something shrink every day! Are you doing that on purpose?!"

As he blustered and tried to give excuses, Isabella couldn\'t help but feel both relieved and happy.

What else was there to say? She found a wonderful man.

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

\'I guess I should be glad she\'s not unhappy with me.\'

A lot of things were happening all at once. Though I wouldn\'t call my current feelings for Isabella "love," I did like her enough that I agreed to marry her. I definitely treasured her for the help, attention, and love she was trying to show to me. However, this wasn\'t the only thing nipping at me for my attention. The Duke of Upper Bavaria was silent right now, but for all I know, this was just him getting ready to try and attack me again. I had a few rangers still helping out Toggenburg as he tried to subjugate Sargans. Internally, some of the less prosperous villages were now more openly grumbling about their membership and the new laws forcing them to provide manpower and tax to the Compact (never mind the fact that the manpower was less than two dozen for each village and the tax was less than what they used to pay per person). Within Fluelaberg itself, I found spies who tried to get into my fort proper but got caught. I also needed to redesign the training regime and tactical layout for all of the rangers, some of whom died because of my mistake in confusing my base abilities for basic human abilities.

There was a lot, but I also needed to take advantage of the permission I got from the emperor.

… Well, if I held a wedding while having high security and intensified training for my rangers and militiamen alike, then it wasn\'t like the duke was going to suspect anything if he had spies in my town, was he? That\'s two problems solved together.

Yes, I should solve problems one at a time.

Speaking of which, the wedding.

"So," I began. "How do nobles do their weddings?" I asked.

Isabella looked at me, not quite understanding what I just said before her eyes widened in realization. Yes, Isabella. I used to be a commoner and that class change only happened like two years ago.

"It is a public event like most weddings are," she began. "My father would hand me to you, and you would make declarations about inviting me into your household. Your wedding would reflect the best that you can provide at the time."

\'So it\'s not that different from a well-to-do merchant\'s wedding,\' I thought to myself while nodding along with her explanation. \'Or even a commoner\'s wedding.\'

"I see. I suspect that there is more, however?"

"Yes," she replied. "Politics."

I chuckled. "It\'s everywhere."

"It really is. For someone of our standing, it wouldn\'t do for a simple village friar or priest to hold the ceremony, especially for someone like you. You might want to write a letter to the bishop if he is willing to hold the ceremony for us."

… Drats, I could have asked him when I was there.

"I will," I replied. "But it would mean that our wedding would take some time before it happens."

"As all good things should!" she harrumphed. "I will be cross with you if you rush this."

I raised my hands up. "I won\'t. I promise."

"Good." Then she looked crestfallen. "It\'ll have to be after you win against the Duke of Bavaria, right?"

"... Probably, yes."

She understood my position. I was happy about that.

After a few moments of silence, she nodded to herself, looked up, gave me a kiss on the cheek, and smiled. "Then I\'ll be waiting for you, so you better end it quickly, alright? I know you can with that ridiculousness you exude like it\'s perfectly normal."

I laughed. "Sure. I\'ll try my best."

-VB-

Rudolf von Wittelsbach

Duke of Upper Bavaria

Munich

… It had been a month since he sent those heads and a letter he personally penned to the baron.

Yet he had not received a response, not even from his trusted knight who personally took charge of the delivery.

With the perpetrators of those bandits gone, Rudolf didn\'t know why he hadn\'t received a response yet. The baron couldn\'t be … ignoring him, right?

There must be some issue with travel. A month should have been more than enough for travel from Munich to this new fort called Fluelaberg if the information he took from the executed guild masters were true. Perhaps there was an avalanche? In the middle of summer? A rockslide? Actual bandits? More wars?

He sighed impotently before turning to look at the paperwork on his desk.

The execution of seven guild masters led to some … rather tense situation within the city. The artisan and guild members didn\'t fucking care that their former masters have been found guilty of treason. Sure, some of them were happy to replace the old masters as the new masters, but most of them were "upset" at the "violation" of their "rights."

He just wanted to punch them all so bad…

Part of the paperwork in front of him was a result of this. Some of the guilds started becoming rebellious and began supporting his brother over him.

The bastards.

Oh, they couldn\'t openly revolt without risking their positions within the city but they could make life harder for him.

Which they did.

"Nothing is going right for me," he sighed as he started working.

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Duke Louis of Upper Bavaria

"It\'s done?"

"Yes, Your Grace. The messenger has been killed and all remains have been burned to ashes."

"Good. Now, have an actor deliver this letter to him. He will be … very upset that a baron has the gall to make demands of him, a duke."

-VB-

Summary:

Isabella and Hans talk, Rudolf suffers, and Louis plots.

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Nice

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Chapter 69

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Duke Rudolf of Upper Bavaria

Munich

When he received a letter from the Baron of Fluelaberg, he expected it to be a letter of acquiescence. After all, he went so far as to send the baron the heads of all of the guild masters responsible for the heinous and greedy crimes they\'ve committed here in his duchy and in the baron\'s lands.

What he got, however, was not a letter of acquiescence but of demands.

"\'... and so, I regret to inform you that this is simply not enough to satisfy the damages done onto my lands. It is your failure to perform the duties of a duke which led to this situation, and so the punishment and proof of the criminals cannot be the end of this affair. For the damages wrought onto my lands, I will not be satisfied with anything under -\' IS THIS MAN MAD?!"

A guild master was not just a man in charge of a guild of artisans. A guildmaster was a politician with connections to merchant families in and out of the city, someone who knew the inner workings of the city\'s commerce, and had direct control over a portion of the economy in and around the city! He executed seven such guild masters in the name of justice, and the petty baron was demanding more?!

Rudolf took a deep breath in and let it out slowly.

"Is this the only letter that arrived?" he asked his steward.

"Yes, Your Grace," the elderly man, who has been in service of the House of Wittelsbach for as long as he had been alive, replied. "The baron sent nothing else and continued on with his affairs with nary a change."

He leaned back into his chair and tapped on his table.

Had this been a baron directly under him, then he would have gone over right now and executed the bastard, damn the consequences with the emperor and the imperial laws. However, this was not his vassal but a "fellow" vassal directly under the emperor. This was mostly because there was no ruling duke over all of the Swabian Alps righ-.

He leaned forward.

Was that the case? Was this commoner baron truly reaching that far?

"... No," he muttered. "There is no way a peasant commoner - a farmer\'s son - knows enough to even think that far ahead. This is just a commoner baron\'s arrogance finally showing up."

And then he grinned. "And it is enough for me to punish him."

Oh, he couldn\'t execute the baron. However, he could go to war over this insult and thoroughly ruin everything he\'s been building up for the last two years. That Compact of his?

"Call the banners," he grinned to the shock of his advisors in the room. "It will be quick and easy. A single baron with nary an ally or proper men-at-arms to speak of. Right, Spymaster Erin?"

"Yes," he replied. "Our last report tells us that the baron has trained up only a hundred or so crossbowmen."

"He should have been training archers," he snorted.

There was a reason why crossbowmen\'s place on the battlefield was always in defense, high up a wall, and behind barricades. They were cheaper and easier to train but more expensive to field. Archers might take longer to train, yes, but each archer could, for the same force of pull, hit further and more accurately.

This, in Rudolf\'s mind, was a show of the baron\'s inadequate understanding of how the battlefield worked. Sure, he might be a good fighter. A good warrior. But a single person? Well-trained men-at-arms could take care of him, no matter what his inflated nickname might suggest.

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Kraft of Davos

Fluelaberg

"War?" he asked with an ashen face. "With a duke?"

"He\'s the one responsible for the bandit attacks you have been hearing about," Baron Hans replied. "I also have the emperor\'s permission to pursue this justice."

"B-But that would have us at war on two sides!" Bruno, an elder of Kloster who came instead of the usual representative, hissed with narrowed eyes.

He, Elder Bruno, and Martin of Schiers had been invited to this meeting because it was their villages that might suffer the first attack should something happen on the battlefield. And if the baron went out to challenge the duke, something was going to definitely happen.

"I know, but this isn\'t something I can just ignore and play defensively. Merchants from Bavaria are already telling us about the duke calling his banners."

Kraft felt his stomach drop.

"But he doesn\'t have any feuds…"

"Outside of his brother and, for some random reason, us. He never sent us demands or anything. Can\'t you see that this is the actions of a stubborn and unreasonable noble? He won\'t be swayed if we stay and do nothing. He\'s already called the banners."

"And you think you can defeat them," Elder Bruno scoffed. "The duke must have over a thousand men-at-arms, never mind the levies he will bring."

Hans shrugged. "That\'s why I don\'t intend to take the fight to him in the fields."

Kraft looked at Hans and remembered that this was the man who led them to victory time and time again when they weren\'t trained and were weak. He must have a plan if he was being this calm. He hadn\'t even called the rest of the Compact.

"You have a plan."

"I do," he replied. "But … it isn\'t one I can share with you right now. Not when I don\'t know who or where the spy for the duke is residing in the Compact."

"Then why even bother to call us here?" the elder asked, slowly stroking his bushy moustache and beard.

"Moving an army through Schiers and Klosters to reach Davos and then Fluelaberg will be hard," Hans replied as he reached underneath his table and pulled out a map. "Not only does he have to cross over multiple territories that are not cordial with him but this is the long way around.

Martin, a burly man almost as tall as Hans, finally spoke up. "The pass. You think that if they want to come at us from the north, they will use the Schlappiner Pass."

"Yes."

Kraft blinked. "But that pass is treachery even for peddlers. An army-."

"That\'s why I also think they won\'t use it. If they even know about it, that is," Hans quickly added. "No. More likely, they will use the more popular Flelaberg pass, cutting through the Duchy of Tyrol. They won\'t be able to use any other route without alerting us to their motives otherwise. If they try to use the northern route, passing by the Free Imperial City of Lindau, through the County of Werdenberg, and into Maienfeld lands, then we will hear about it weeks before they march through. The northern entrance is the duke\'s scenic route that tells everyone of his intention. No, if he is greedy as he seems as the bandits from his duchy were, then he will use the short pass and aim directly for my throat."

"Then you can play this defensively. You don\'t need to go out there."

Hans raised an eyebrow. "I can, yes."

Kraft knew that he was going to add something else.

"But why even let them get close to our home?"

"... Then what would you have us do?" Martin asked.

Hans smiled.

"I need every kind of dung."

Kraft looked at Hans and then blinked. He picked at his ears. "Excuse me?"

-VB-

Recommendation: Youtuber Kraut the Parrot. If you like history with more context and not just a bland retelling, then go give him a visit.

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Chapter 70

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Duke Louis of Lower Bavaria

Munich

"You are leaving for war?" he asked with his best shocked expression he could manage. It wasn\'t just the facial expression but also the language of the body.

"Yes," Rudolf replied gruffly. "And as intense as our fights can get, you are still my brother and a member of the Wittelsbach House. If you are willing to take the additional responsibilities, then I would have you temporarily watch over my domain while I lead my vassals to educate the upstart baron what it means to disrespect a duke."

This was the hard part. Louis did his best to keep his true feelings hidden. Instead, he had to show his usual approach to anything involving his brother.

"You are leading your army out … to bully a mere baron." It wasn\'t a question. It was a statement pointing out how low that was, not only for his brother\'s honor but also in calling up the banners for a single baron who couldn\'t have more than two hundred levies at his beck and call.

Of course, Louis knew that Baron von Fluelaberg was an exceptional administrator and developer; he had over four hundred levies and nearly a hundred men-at-arms equivalent soldiers ready to answer his call just from his personal domain. The man\'s expertise in enticing artisans and tradesmen to come and live in his town naturally also brought other less specialized commoners that farmed the poor Alpine soil.

Actually, the people living in the Alps did not farm as much as they made pastures for their livestock. Their poor soil and weather was not great for farming.

In fact, Louis wagered that if Rudolf rampaged enough in the Swabian Alps, he just might ruin the Swabian lords enough that they might never rise up to prominence. This would make his future endeavors to subjugate those lands easily, including the lands of the Habsburgs.

"I see that you have not heard about this baron. He is known as the Count Killer," his brother grunted. "A man with such a nickname is bound to have some military mind, and in those narrow valleys, tactical mindsets will have proven more valuable than pure numbers. I intend to take him on with the quality of our noblemen\'s men-at-arms instead of levy rabble. A smaller army will also mean that I will be able to strike many places quickly instead of lagging behind due to marching peasants."

Louis thought that this was a foolish strategy. It would be better to let the levies plunder across the Compact with little to no repercussion for any reprehensive acts. It would be more efficient and deliver the most damage, after all.

He paused.

Of course, this might mean that the peasants might even kill the Prince-Bishop of Chur, which would earn enough ire from the Papacy. It might even end up with his brother…

…excommunicated.

He shivered.

That just might be what he needed in order to obtain the entire Duchy of Upper Bavaria.

"I think you should take your time and take the entire army, including the levies."

Rudolf looked at him across the table where the map of the Swabian Alps was shown. "You think so?"

"Yes," he replied. "If the baron disrespected you, then you must make this clear not just to the baron but to the entire empire. No one gets away with disrespecting us."

Rudolf continued to stare before smirking. "I guess even you don\'t like it when some lowly upstart insults you, huh?"

\'No,\' Louis thought with a hum as if to show that he agreed. Because while he agreed with his older brother, this aggressive war would be too blunt of a method to show his displeasure. Though it might take longer, he\'ll make sure to ruin the man in other ways. Who knows? He might even find more information to burn the baron with as he took a longer time grinding the fool into nothing.

But.

The baron was just a tool for Louis to beat down his older brother. Once his brother was out of the picture, he\'d just ignore the baron. A baron, at the end of the day, was a baron and nothing more. Money, influence, and political power meant nothing if he could find a decent casus belli and run down the countryside lord with soldiers.

"What else do you need from me aside from managing your realm in your absence?"

Rudolf raised an eyebrow. "Brother, I\'m asking you to kick out any would-be opportunists, not letting you manage my lands. I\'m not dumb enough to let you plant spies and cronies in my ranks."

"Tch," he muttered, and his brother just laughed at him.

"I\'m not that dumb!"

\'But dumb enough to go to war over a slip of paper that isn\'t even from the baron,\' he thought before shrugging. "If that is all, then you didn\'t even have to call for me here."

"True. Maybe I just wanted to see my brother before I went off to war."

Louis rolled his eyes. For all of his brother\'s faults, no one could ever claim that he wasn\'t one for family.

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Henry I

Duke of Carinthia, Duke of Carniola

Count of Tyrol

Isabella\'s cousin

"War?" Henry looked in surprise at the messenger.

"Yes, milord," he replied as he pulled out a letter and handed it over to his lord with both of his hands. Henry took the letter and opened it up.

This letter was from one of his contacts within the Duchy of Upper Bavaria, a certain merchant who managed to gain more market thanks to Henry\'s lenient policies. Of course, this wasn\'t a contact of loyalty but one of tit for tat. For each credible and actionable information the merchant got him, he would pay the merchant one hundred guelders. A chump change for both of them, true, but it was a bigger change for the merchant than it was for him.

"So the older Duke of Upper Bavaria wants a go at my future brother-in-law, huh?" he hummed before walking over to his table, writing his own letter, and put both his and the merchant\'s letter into a new envelope. "Take this to my brother. I doubt he needs my help, but ask him just in case."

"Yes, Your Grace."

And the messenger ran off.

Henry stood there in his office as he tried to picture what was going to happen. The Duchy of Upper Bavaria was not poor by any means, so they would bring enough men-at-arms and levies to crush a normal baron, no doubt. Unfortunately, Hans was no normal baron and his soldiers were no normal soldiers.

Henry imagined a scene where the Bavarian troops walked into the thick forested valleys of the Alps. He imagined a scene of horror as arrows rained down on the unsuspecting levies in the middle of the night with pinpoint accuracy. Hans and a select few of his soldiers would be among them, slicing away at flesh and setting fire to the tents.

… Yeah, no. That Bavarian was walking into a slaughter.

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Isabella

Future Baroness of Fluelaberg

Isabella glared at Hans, and Hans adamantly refused to let her know what the godforsaken horrid smells wafting about in the castle was!

For the first time, they were fighting.

"It can\'t possibly be important enough for everyone in the castle to deal with this smell for a full week!"

"It can\'t be helped! The equipment we need for this can\'t be carried far, and you know about the spies that have to be crawling all around," he grimaced.

As she understood it, Hans had collected a literal cellar-full of animal dung and let them ferment underneath the fort. Unfortunately, he didn\'t do something right and the atrocious smell was wafting about the entire fort. The once beautiful and smell-less Fluelaberg… began to smell like shit for the first time.

"Get rid of those or put them somewhere else!"

"I can\'t! I don\'t have anywhere else to put them! I can\'t leave potential explosives anywhere else! I know for a fact that if they exploded in the cellar, then the cobblestone-lined cellar could take the hit."

She didn\'t know what explosives were until he showed her.

And she just … couldn\'t understand how he so easily lived with the fact that there were those things underneath their feet. Yes, she saw him do supernatural things to make a tunnel and then a cellar to store them some one hundred feet underneath the ground floor of the fort, but it didn\'t change the fact that a single barrel of those dungs could destroy a barn!

And he had hundreds of them!

The smell was really the excuse.

The potential explosion was what really scared her.

And so she fought with him for the first time to the point of ignoring the servants skittering away whenever they got too close.

To think that their first fight would be over … shit-filled barrels, no matter how useful they may be in the future.

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Chapter 71

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Hans von Fluelaberg

[Commander] LvL.29

Center, hold steady. Both flanks, curve in. Trap and slaughter them. Victory is soon ours.

*+1% Man-At-Arms/Soldier Effectiveness per LvL

*-0.25% Friendly Casualties in battle per LvL

*+0.1% likelihood of being able to trap, counter, or outmaneuver enemy commander

[Rulership] LvL.31

Change the rules as how you see fit with your power.

*+0.5% additional law/rule change acceptance with vassals per LvL

*+0.1 opinion per LvL

[Chemistry LvL.22

You are nature\'s lawyer.

*Increase chemical reaction output by 0.025% per LvL.

*Limited to chemical reactions personally performed.]

[Delegate] LvL 59

Divide and conquer… that work.

*Improves work efficiency of workers, employees, soldiers, and subordinates by 0.05% per lvl.

*Output = (Work.Efficiency)*(Work.Proficiency)

-Work Proficiency is determined by a skill user\'s level and supplemental skills.

On average, I saw an increase of twenty levels across most skills I had, and in the upcoming war, I had a feeling that more than any other skills, these four skills would have the greatest impact.

Hell, Chemistry was already having an impact with how many barrels of shit I had to oversee personally. That was part of the reason why I had been adamant about personally doing the work, not only because I possessed the strength and endurance to do thirty men\'s work by myself but also because it helped improve my skills.

In war, there were six aspects that one needed to manage: finance, supply, supply line, war diplomacy, military movement, and battle tactics. The first four could fall under the blanket term of strategy, but I didn\'t because of how each of the four aforementioned skills applied to each part of the overall strategy. It\'s an easy trap to condense and categorize these aspects of war into a generalized category and call it a day. However, 21st-century militaries employed officers specific to each and trained even more specialized officers for subcategories for a reason.

It was one of the reasons why, once I ascertained Isabella\'s trustworthiness, I delegated some of the work to her. When I first did that, my Delegate had been level 43, which gave her a 2% increase in productivity. Or at least I assumed that was the case because I didn\'t know how well she did before she met me. I also didn\'t have time to compare her output with anything because she didn\'t take up any hobbies or personal projects that I could measure objectively.

It was this delegation skill that also impacted my soldiers and rangers as they followed my directions.

"Get those barrels tucked in tightly! I don\'t want them juggling around in the cart when we\'re rolling down the valley!" I shouted.

"Yes, milord!"

I watched a hundred-plus men and some women working to move the supplies that I had prepared over the last six months. I was noticing how much faster it was when people were directly receiving orders from me. There was, however, no secondary chain of effect; only those taking orders from me seemed to benefit from my Delegate\'s effect. Isabella, for example, was doing great over where she was overseeing another supply convoy being loaded up but the speed of my workers made it seem like those under her were lagging behind.

She noticed that, too, and saw me. She flushed, looked away, and began to yell out more orders.

I hoped that she didn\'t think I might think less of her for not being able to catch up with me.

After staring at her for a minute more (during which my eyes mysteriously drifted down to her shapely rear), I quickly turned back to focus on my share of the convoy but from the knowing glances my people sent my way, everyone saw it anyways.

Ugh.

-VB-

Leon of Fluelaberg

He took a deep breath, held it, and pulled up.

He kept his back straight, feeling almost curved inward but actually not, and used his legs to lift. His thighs burned at the load he was pulling up, but it was also a load that he couldn\'t possibly do it by himself! After all, he never lifted three hundred pound barrel before.

But he was now. Maybe it was because he was feeling great? Wait, why was he feeling better here instead of the mines?

… Maybe because he was doing something to protect himself, his wife, his newborn daughter, and his town. He was there in the castle hall when the baron gave a speech about the bavarians and their wicked ways. How they have been responsible for bandits! Knights dressing up bandits!

It was unthinkable but it had happened. He had proof, even if Leon himself didn\'t know the sigils, insignias, and house colors. He thought it was weird. If he were to do something illegal, then he wouldn\'t leave something like that around him. That might make trouble for his wife.

But then he wasn\'t a lord, a baron, a knight, or even a man-at-arms.

He was a miner, a mine manager, and now a soldier for the upcoming war.

It was… He didn\'t want to go to war but he sure as hell wasn\'t going to let some plainsfolk, who knew nothing about how hard mountain life was, come up these hills and tell them what to do!

"Oi, Leon!"

He looked around and saw James, one of the more opportunistic Davos folks who shacked up early with this whole town. He was one of the richer commoners around.

"What is it?" he asked.

"The lord is calling for you."

"Me?"

"Yes," he replied as he adjusted his pristine brigandine. "I think he wants to make you a squad captain or something like that."

Leon gulped. Most of the able bodied men in Fluelaberg trained in one way or another. "Squad" was a formation that their lord drilled into them. It was a formation of five men. Being a squad leader wasn\'t all that bad, but he wasn\'t sure if he was the one for the job. He didn\'t know much about fighting.

He nodded and walked up to the cart that their lord was standing on top of, using it as a makeshift platform from which he gave out his orders.

"Milord, you called for me?" he asked nervously.

The younger man turned to look at him. He had a bit of a stubble growing out now, compared to the clean face that he usually kept.

"Yes. Leon, I want you to be the platoon leader for Platoon Seven."

… Platoon leader? Not a squad leader?

"I-"

"You\'ve been showing good leadership as the mine manager," he said with a smile. "I think I can trust you with a platoon."

A platoon was composed for three to five squads, which meant that he would be responsible for up to twenty-five men. Twenty-five lives.

But did he dare object to his lord? Baron von Fluelaberg was a great lord but he was also a merciless killer when it came to the battlefield. He heard about how he killed dozens of men-at-arms on his first battlefield, hunted down landed nobles, and butchered hundreds!

"I- I am not sure if I am fit for such a role, milord," he stuttered out. He wasn\'t objecting! He was … Oh God, was he questioning his lord?

The baron shook his head. "Don\'t think I\'m ignorant of what\'s happening in my own town, Leon. I\'ve been hearing too many good things about you to just let you languish as a common soldier. Who knows, maybe you\'ll even get an accomplishment in this war to become something more, eh?" he said as he handed him a blue brigandine, much like the one that James had worn.

On its back, he saw a heraldry stitched onto the upper right chest of the brigandine: a black tri-tipped mountain.

-VB-

A/N: Commander and Rulership were introduced in Chapter 31, and Chemistry was introduced in Chapter 38

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CHAPTER 72 OMITTED DUE TO NSFW CONTENT