Swiss Arms 79

Swiss Arms

Chapter 79

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

When I received the news that John had defeated the Count of Sargans and taken over everything that the troublemaker had, harvest season came rolling around. Now, despite being a lord with more investment in trade and non-agricultural production, I still lend my aid to the farmers because a faster harvest would mean that there would be more people to help me out in my own ventures in the narrow time between the harvest and the first snowfall.

And that was the expansion of the road network!

Our current road network extended from my township of Fluelaberg all the way to Chur, snaking down from the Upper Pratigau Valley to the Lower Prattigau Valley and into the Alpine Rhine Valley, which was where Chur was and where to the road network extended to.

Now that we had all of the Sargans land as well as Toggenburgs, I wanted to expand the road down south to Churwalden and Vaz while expanding the road network up north and west toward John’s new seat of power in Walenstadt; instead of rebuilding the Toggenburg Castle I accidentally burned down, John apparently wanted a new castle by the Walensee.

The problem was the distance between Walenstadt and Vaz; it was over thirty-five miles of Alpine mountain valley, and the fifteen or so miles between Chur and Vaz were especially rough with a lot of ups and downs in altitude. Even with all of the wealth I had accumulated, this was going to be a very expensive undertaking, especially if I couldn’t get it started in the fall; the spring climate in the Alps was one of snow and rain, neither of which I wanted to deal with while constructing a road.

At the very least, I had a lot of limestone from all of the mining my people have been doing, though we also had a lot more granite than limestone. I was very tempted to start making and selling granite tabletops. Nobles liked shiny and smooth trinkets and it was even better if that trinket was practical.

So!

I gauged the wider nobility’s reception of the smoothed granite tabletop by inviting all of my noble allies for the end-of-harvest feast.

And it was why after the first snowfall, I received more than three dozen nobles and merchants ranging from rich merchants and knights to dukes and bishops from not just within the Compact and my allies but beyond that with word of mouth invitation.

---

Though snow fell sparingly, it was still a sign of winter coming a bit earlier and one that worried many of my people. This didn’t change the fact that it made for a more dramatic background for Henry’s arrival at the head of a noble entourage some fifteen carriages long and surrounded by at least a hundred men-at-arms.

“Welcome,” I said with a grin as Henry got off of his horse. “To Fluelaberg!”

“Yes, yes,” Henry huffed at my dramatics. “Thank you for welcoming me. I’d like to do all of the meet and greet right now but everyone’s cold and miserable. Can we go inside first?” he asked, and he definitely did not look prepared for the weather. He had expected the winter to come later and not sooner.

I chuckled at his reply but nonetheless stepped aside to allow the carriages through. “Yes. We can talk later. Let’s all get your people inside first.”

As the carriages rolled through the eastern gate, I saw many of the nobles and their children inside the carriages blooking out of their carriages at my fort speculatively. I wondered what they were told about me and thinking about in this instance.

Henry, despite his words, stayed outside by my side as the carriages went through, and perhaps that was what he was waiting for.

“Once again, I’d like to congratulate you on your victory over Duke of Upper Bavaria.”

I was about to turn to face him but my [Rulership] activated, which was a first. I got the sensation that he wanted to look like we weren’t having a serious conversation.

“Thank you. It would have played out differently had it not been for your warning,” I replied with a smile as I waved at some of the children inside the carriages. A particular pair of brown-haired girls waved back with big smiles on their faces. “Setting up the battlefield was what brought me the easy victory.”

“... Speaking of easy victory. There have been words in the grapevines about how you achieved it.”

“Yes?”

He glanced at me. “Did you use magic?”

I glanced back and our gazes met. He looked … tense.

“No,” I replied honestly. “I just used something that all commoners know, even if they might not acknowledge it right off the bat.”

“Something everyone just knows?”

“Yes,” I replied with a slight smile. “Maybe nobles and knights might not know because they aren’t the ones usually cleaning out the latrines.”

There was a pause before he realized what I was getting to.

“Wait, you’re not serious? How can it make the fire that the survivors are talking about?”

“What kind of fires would they be talking about?”

He had to pause to remember what he heard. Or read. “A force of wind and fire like a tornado, striking at all who was near. A fire that would not go out easily.”

“Yes, normal … excrement wouldn’t do that,” I hummed. I didn’t elaborate because if I told him how exactly I made it, then it might leak out faster than I would like it to spread. It was, after all, easier to make an IED shit bomb than dedicated gunpowder; there was only a longer time investment and the risk that came with storing explosive material.

Because that’s what my shit barrels had been: IED fertilizer bombs. By allowing certain strains of ammonia bacteria I cultivated (which was hard fucking work in a lab without sterile conditions or good microscopes!) to have an advantage in growing when I stored those barrels, I essentially built up barrels of ammonia of questionable ratio. As for the fire, I wasn’t sure exactly how that came out to be but the fire used to start the explosion might have been enough to ignite what didn’t immediately explode into flames.

The truth was that less than half of the buried barrels exploded.

… Yup, my barrels had a near 50% failure rate. Sure, some of that definitely had to do with how they were set up but those barrels also, when I opened them up, didn’t make ammonia but something else that I could identify right off the bat and definitely couldn’t use.

Whatever that was, I was storing it in a different location this time. Otherwise, I might not get to sleep with Isabella.

Speaking of Isabella, my dear wife was currently in charge of the castle right now, setting up everything and directing the servants and employees for the feast.

“Fine, keep your secret,” Henry grumbled.

I grinned. “I will be sure to pay you back for the favor you gave me with that letter,” I told him. “It just won’t be what I used to defeat the duke.”

“... Fine,” he huffed, sounding appeased by my words. “And what exactly did you have in mind?”

“It would depend on how you want the favor repaid,” I replied as the last of the carriages entered the gates. I gestured for him to follow and we walked in. “But I would have to ask whether you are speaking as a family or a duke.”

He gave me a stink eye. “Sly bastard.”

“Ah, I apologize, but my parents are happily married!”

Speaking of whom, they had been invited as well, and the Forest Cantons had sent them and some others as representatives to probe their new neighbor.

This feast was going to a dance of politics, business, and scheming, and as much as I disliked having to deal with politics, I wasn’t bad at it and needed to get involved now because of how big the Compact had become.

Those who didn’t play will lose.

Those who took advantage will win.

That was the nature of the world, and politics, as I realized, was no different.

---

Two days after Henry arrived, Count John arrived from the west with his entourage and others who had joined him on the journey to my town.

“John, welcome back!” I grinned as I met the boy who had become a man in the few months of separation we hadn’t seen each other. I hugged him.

He grinned right back. “It’s good to be back,” he replied as he hugged me back.

The still-teenager quickly broke the hug and cleared his throat as a pair of men walked up from behind him. “Ah, before we talk, I want to introduce you to some important peers of the realm.” He gestured to the two men, who stepped up. “This is Prince-Bishop of Freising, Emicho Wildgraf von Kyburg,” he said while gesturing to the fifty-ish man with wild hair and cassock of a bishop. “And the man next to him is Lord Mayor of Memmingen, Albert von Lorsmich.”

I immediately recognized his name. He was the one who sent me that letter that showed me Upper Bavaria’s involvement in the bandit issues.

I bowed and knelt before the bishop, kissed his ring, and he gave me a smile and shook hands with the Lord Mayor.

“Welcome to Fluelaberg,” I greeted them both. “I did not expect your august self to journey so far south in winter for a feast hosted by a mere baron, Your Grace.”

“I have heard about how big of a rising star you are, and I just had to see for myself!” the bishop chuckled, who looked vaguely like Philosopher John Locke except with a better nose job. He looked around the town wall. “It is a marvel how you managed to safeguard the people here during the crisis two years ago.”

“Oh, you are aware of it?” I asked.

“Of course! It isn’t every day that the emperor raises a commoner to the seat of a baron.”

Ah. I supposed that it was a big event if you thought of it like that.

… Wiat, Kyrburg? Wasn’t that a castle in Swiss Habsburg land? He … couldn’t be a an agent of the Habsburgs looking into a new polity right next to their ancestral lands, right? He was a prince-bishop from … Bavaria. Which was the seat of power of the Habsburg’s main rival, the Wittelbachs.

… Ugh.

I couldn’t refuse a prince-bishop. Not when I already invited the Prince-Bishop of Chur and granted admission to the Patriarch of Aquiela who came with Duke Henry!

I made sure to not show my wariness and stepped aside. “I’m happy to have new friends join me during the feast.”

“Wonderful!” Lord Mayor Albert laughed. He was a slightly portly man with a thick mustache. “I’m thrilled to see what you have to offer, Your Lordship!”

His joyous outburst set everyone back a bit in surprise but then we all shared a glance with each other and a shrug.

There were just people who were loud and boisterous like the lord mayor.

---

“... You’re going to let me participate in your feast?” Rudolf asked me.

Deep inside one of the mines that had been converted into a prison, I sat across from bars made out of logs, which was impossible for a man to break, and looked at Rudolf.

“Yeah, I am,” I replied.

“... Why?”

“To show you off as a trophy, why else?”

He glared at me. “And why would I indulge you?”

This wasn’t the kind of thing I liked doing. Not really. I liked my enemies dead and quickly. However, holding onto Rudolf when there was a big chance that his brother might not pay for him was … suboptimal. I wasn’t interested in keeping a foreign ruler as my prisoner. We also hashed things out, and while he was still grumpy as fuck about his situation - and we were both wary at potentially who might have caused this misunderstanding - he was also quite sullen.

Even if the prison cell he got was one of the better ones and furnished with a chair, desk, and indoor plumbing. Kind of. His shit just fell into a pit that had running water through it and discharged into another location and not directly into the river.

“Well?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

“It’s about how others will perceive your house. If your brother is careful about his image like you say that he is, then he either has to pay up the ransom and bring you back, and I already lowered the ransom in a letter I sent him, or say something about not bringing back his own brother, which will impact his image.”

“And showing me around will do that?”

“Well, I have three bishops, a duke, three counts, and two dozen minor nobilities. They’ll talk. Rumors will spread.” Then I leaned in. “And maybe the person who arranged this fiasco will show up unwittingly to try to kill you.”

He glared at me. “You want me to be bait.”

“Yes. Because there is no other way to catch them otherwise.”

He gritted his teeth.

“My outfit better be worth my standing…!”

“Oh, it will be. It definitely will be.” It will be so expensive that you will never wear anything as rich as the outfit I had in mind. And if I made an announcement about potentially helping Rudolf take back his seat?

Someone will have to respond.

-VB-

(Using the highest title set per person)

Prominent participants:

Baron of Fluelaberg (of the Compact) Hans von Fluelaberg

Baroness of Fluelaberg (of the Compact) Isabella von Fluelaberg

Duke of Upper Bavaria Rudolf von Wittelsbach (Prisoner of Hans von Fluelaberg)

Lord Mayor/Baron of Memmingen Albert von Lorsmich

Prince-Bishop of Chur (of the Compact) Siegfried von Geilnhausen

Patriarch of Aqueila Ottobuono di Razzi

Duke of Carinthia and Landgrave of Carniola Henry of Gorizia

Count of Gorizia Albert of Gorizia

Count of Toggenburg and Sargans John von Toggenburg

Prince-Bishop of Freising Emicho Wildgraf von Kyrburg

Count of Werdenberg Albert von Werdenberg

Less prominent participants.