Chapter 106: A Massive Campaign
"The printing presses,"
"We need to flood the Empire with our narrative before the Pope can even dip his quill in the ink."
Even so, creating a massive propaganda campaign in the middle of the night was an insane challenge.
"We need thousands of pamphlets," Konrad calculated, already moving toward the door of his study.
"I want them in every tavern, every merchant guild, and every town square from Munich to Vienna.
I want Duke Wilhelm to wake up tomorrow morning with a freshly printed copy sitting on his breakfast plate."
"I will wake the scribes, Lord Konrad." Isolde bowed sharply. "We will draft the legal language immediately."
Konrad threw the door open and marched out into the dim corridor.
He bypassed the guest wing entirely, heading straight for the loud working industrial sector of the keep.
The printing room was located in the lower levels, far away from the delicate ears of the noble guests. It was a massive, stiflingly hot chamber filled with the overwhelming, highly toxic stench of boiling linseed oil, pine resin, and thick black soot ink.
Three massive, heavy oak Gutenberg-style printing presses dominated the room. They were heavily modified with Swabian steel gears to increase their pressing speed.
"Johannes!" Konrad roared over the mechanical clacking of the machines as he strode into the room.
Master Johannes, a bald, heavily tattooed man whose hands were permanently stained a deep, completely immovable black, jumped slightly.
He wiped his inky hands on a dirty leather apron and rushed over to the Viscount.
"Lord Konrad!" Johannes bowed quickly. "We are currently printing the new supply ledgers for the quartermaster, just as you ordered."
"Stop the ledgers." Konrad commanded. "Strip the beds. Wash the type. I need a new run set up right now."
Johannes blinked in shock.
Setting a new page of lead type was incredibly tedious, highly precise work that usually took hours.
"A new run, My Lord? Tonight? What are we printing?"
Though the master printer looked exhausted, Konrad didn’t have a single ounce of pity to spare.
"A declaration of war, Johannes." Konrad stated flatly. "And a legal casus belli. I need five thousand copies before the sun crests the eastern ridge."
"Five thousand?" Johannes gasped, his jaw dropping. "Lord Konrad, the lead type isn’t even cast for a new text... It will take my apprentices at least three hours just to arrange the letters, let alone ink and press five thousand sheets of vellum!"
"Then you better start moving before I find a new master printer," Konrad threatened. "Wake every single apprentice in the barracks. Get the fires hotter. I don’t care if you have to press the paper with your own bare hands. Five thousand copies, Johannes. Or the Pope is going to burn this castle to the ground."
Johannes swallowed hard.
"Y-Yes, My Lord." Johannes stammered.
"...wake up, you lazy bastards!"
"Strip the presses!"
"Bring the fresh type!"
Within minutes, the printing room became a hive of organized chaos.
Isolde arrived shortly after, carrying a freshly drafted piece of parchment. It was beautifully written, detailing the "horrific and entirely unprovoked" attack by Savoyard border lords on a peaceful Swabian merchant caravan.
It claimed that the stolen crates contained the personal wealth of the Fugger banking family, giving the invasion the complete legal backing of the most powerful merchants in Europe.
Konrad stood by the heavy wooden table, watching as Johannes’s apprentices frantically picked tiny, backward lead letters from their cases, sliding them rapidly into the composing stick.
The sound of the lead type falling into place was the sound of information warfare.
In 1526, whoever controlled the printed word controlled the absolute truth.
Hours passed in a sweaty, incredibly tense blur. Konrad refused to leave the room. He stood there, his black velvet doublet slowly absorbing the heavy smell of the ink, watching the first frame of type finally get locked into the massive iron bed of the press.
Johannes grabbed the heavy leather ink balls, aggressively beating the thick, black soot ink perfectly across the raised lead letters.
An apprentice quickly laid a fresh sheet of damp, expensive vellum over the type.
"Pull!" Johannes shouted.
Two burly workers grabbed the heavy wooden lever of the press, throwing their entire body weight backward.
The massive wooden screw groaned loudly as it forced the heavy iron platen down, violently crushing the paper against the inked lead.
They released the lever. Johannes carefully peeled the damp vellum off the type bed and handed it directly to Konrad.
Konrad held the pamphlet up to the flickering light of the oil lanterns.
The black ink was still wet, gleaming darkly against the pale paper.
The bold, massive letters at the top of the page read: THE SAVOYARD TREACHERY.
"Print them," Konrad ordered, a deeply satisfied smile spreading across his face. "Do not stop until the paper runs out."
"At once, My Lord." Johannes yelled, signaling the workers to begin the grueling run.
Konrad turned around, holding the wet pamphlet carefully by the edges.
He needed to get this first copy directly to Duke Wilhelm’s breakfast table before the Bavarian guards heard a single whisper from the local taverns.
He walked out of the stifling printing room and headed back up the spiraling stone stairs toward the main levels of the keep.
The sun was just beginning to rise.
As Konrad reached the doors of the Great Hall, ready to execute the final stage of his shield, the doors burst open from the other side.
Captain Ragnar stood in the doorway.
The mercenary was covered in mud and dried blood.
He wasn’t supposed to be here...
He was supposed to be in Savoy, guarding the captured keep and organizing the silver wagons.
Ragnar was panting, his eyes wide, ignoring the wet pamphlet in Konrad’s hand.
"Ragnar? What are you doing here? Where is the silver?"
Ragnar took a staggering step forward. "The wagons are coming, Lord Konrad. Marshal Eckhard packed the caravans as you ordered. We have the men, the grain, and the silver."
Konrad felt a flash of relief, but he knew his veteran captain well enough to read the tension radiating from the man’s massive frame.
"But?"
"But we hit a wall, My Lord." Ragnar spat, wiping a smear of soot from his cheek.
"...we are less than two miles from the Swabian border. The caravan is halted on the main eastern trade road."
Konrad’s jaw tightened.
If the caravan was halted, it meant fourteen thousand silver florins were currently sitting totally exposed in the freezing mud.
"Did Duke Charles rally the Savoyard knights?" Konrad asked. "Did the exiled vanguard finally show their faces?"
"No," Ragnar shook his head. "If it were just mercenaries or border knights, Marshal Eckhard would have simply unlimbered the Gatling carts and shredded them into dog meat. We can kill soldiers, Lord Konrad. But we cannot kill these men without your explicit command."
Konrad frowned, stepping closer. "Who stopped the caravan, Ragnar?"
"The Pope’s men," Ragnar growled, the words tasting like poison in his mouth.
"A massive detachment of heavily armored Vatican knights and inquisitorial guards. They have the road blockaded."
Even so, Konrad did not panic.
The Vatican was not just a religious institution; it was an absolute military superpower.
The Pope’s men carried a divine legal mandate that superseded the authority of local Dukes and Kings.
This was the harsh reality of the sixteenth century...
Marshal Eckhard was a ruthless commander, but he was also smart.
Eckhard knew that if he fired a single Swabian bullet into the breastplate of a Vatican envoy without provocation, Konrad von Frundsberg would instantly be excommunicated.
Excommunication wasn’t just a spiritual punishment; it was a legal death sentence.
It meant every single Catholic lord in the Holy Roman Empire would be legally obligated to march on Swabia, burn the forges to ash, and slaughter every peasant in the valley.
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