Re: Steel and Gunpowder

Chapter 127: A Poisoned Feast

Isolde placed her hand flat on the desk, looking right into his eyes.

"We can do all this," she stated with confidence. "Let the Marshal crush their vanguard, and we will butcher any Vatican rat that tries to ruin your wedding."

Konrad let out a long breath, the tight muscles in his shoulders finally relaxing just a fraction.

He looked at Isolde.

"You are right," Konrad grunted, pushing himself away from the edge of the desk. "We stay on the plan. Tell your shadow-walkers to arm themselves with concealed blades and short-barreled pistols. If anyone wearing a monk’s robe looks even slightly suspicious near the Great Hall today, I want them quietly dragged into an empty room and dealt with."

"It will be done," Isolde promised.

"Good," Konrad said, dragging his hands through his hair. "Now, get ready for the ceremony. And on your way out... get me five of our elite guards. I want them standing outside my chamber doors. I have to scrub this forge grime off my skin and actually get ready for this wedding."

Isolde offered a nod, turning and slipping out of the doors,.

However, preparing for a royal wedding while secretly orchestrating a two-front war was an incredibly agonizing test of patience.

Four full hours passed.

Konrad stood alone in his private bedchamber, scrubbed clean of the mud and black charcoal dust that had coated his skin for the past week.

He was fully dressed in his formal wedding attire.

It was a deeply tailored doublet of rich black velvet, embroidered with dark silver threads that perfectly caught the light of the hearth fire.

It looked expensive, fitting for a Swabian Viscount marrying into the powerful Wittelsbach bloodline.

Even so, underneath the incredibly soft velvet, Konrad wore a tightly woven, customized shirt of forged steel mail.

It was hidden from view, but the reassuring weight of the iron against his chest was the only thing keeping his paranoid mind grounded.

He also had a small, modified wheellock pistol tucked out of sight in the inner pocket of his belt.

He walked over to his washbasin and picked up a small object resting on the table.

It was a mechanical pocket watch. He had meticulously crafted four of them.

He gave one to Marshal Eckhard, ensuring that their military maneuvers in the northern woods were completely synchronized down to the absolute exact minute.

And he had given the other two to his wives.

Katarina, his legal bride, wore hers on a delicate silver chain. Isolde, the mother of his heir and the true shadow of his keep, kept hers hidden in the folds of her silk dresses.

Konrad flipped open the cover of his watch. He stared at the small hands.

It was exactly mid-day.

Now, it was only a matter of time... the grand wedding was about to begin.

Outside his locked bedchamber door, the five elite Swabian guards he had requested stood silent, their hands resting on the hilts of their broadswords.

Though the walls muffled the worst of the noise, Konrad could clearly hear the frantic commotion taking over the lower levels of the keep.

The main courtyard and the Great Hall were currently an overwhelming hive of festive activity. Hundreds of local Swabian peasants, off-duty soldiers, and kitchen maids were rushing back and forth to finalize the preparations.

Dozens of roasted pigs with apples in their mouths were lined up on silver platters.

Massive barrels of expensive, imported Bavarian ale and sweet southern wines were being tapped by the quartermasters.

At the far end of the Great Hall, a group of sweating carpenters were hammering the final nails into a raised wooden stage.

This stage was where Konrad and Katarina would stand to exchange their holy vows right in front of the local priest. It was draped in pristine white silk and the black and blue banners of Swabia and Bavaria.

Konrad clicked the cover of his pocket watch shut and slipped it into his doublet.

He walked over to the glass window of his bedchamber and looked down at the courtyard. Then he sighed slowly.

His mind raced, considering all the possibilities. He expected anything to happen at this very moment.

An arrow tearing through the window?

A lead bullet fired from a wheellock pistol in the crowd?

A steel pike shoved into his chest?

He knew that all of this could be waiting for him right now.

His own father-in-law was waiting for the Pope’s signal to slaughter the valley, and the Vatican’s hidden hounds were supposedly already inside the walls.

Even so, Konrad pushed the door open.

His elite guards instantly fell into a tight formation around him

He moved through the archways of the upper gallery, bypassing the main stone stairs where the Bavarian knights were drinking the Swabian ale.

He found Isolde standing in a small secluded alcove overlooking the courtyard. The spymaster was wearing a striking, silk gown that hid the small, modified pistol strapped to her thigh.

"Isolde," Konrad whispered, stepping into the alcove and leaving his five guards just outside the archway. "Tell me exactly what is happening."

"Marshal Eckhard and the Swabian halberdiers have surrounded the northern pine forest. The army will clash with them now. Right at this very second, our Gatling carts are opening fire on the Bavarian vanguard.

If we win, the Marshal will immediately turn the men around, they will get back here as fast as they can to secure the valley and lock down the gates.

But until they return from the north... the ledgers inside these walls are dangerous, My Lord."

Isolde pulled a small piece of parchment from the sleeve of her dress. "There are three hundred and ten Bavarian soldiers standing inside the keep."

She looked up. "And because we sent the bulk of our forces to execute the northern ambush, we only have two hundred and ninety of our soldiers left to hold the fortress."

Three hundred and ten Bavarians against two hundred and ninety Swabians. In an open-field battle, a twenty-man deficit meant nothing.

But inside the enclosed stone walls of a dining hall? It was a lethal disadvantage, especially since the Duke’s men didn’t know they were supposed to be fighting yet.