Chapter 55: Executing the Thieves
The endless blows from the von Frundsberg twelve-pounder great guns had stopped at dawn. The sudden quiet was, in truth, more terrifying than the deafening roar!
Baron von Rechberg huddled in the deep cellars with his remaining old retainers and the peasants.
He gripped an old silver rosary, his lips moving in silent prayer to a Church that had left him to die.
The quiet stretched on past the first hour of sunlight...
The Baron’s captain of the guard stepped toward his lord. "The guns are silent, My Lord. The smith may have spent all his Fugger powder... or perhaps the Swabian League has marched to our aid and forced him to fall back."
The Baron grasped at this hope.
Rustle... He slowly stood up, brushing the dust from his doublet. "We must see the field. If he pulls his guns back, we must hold the broken walls before the peasants rise up against us..."
The Baron and his captain climbed the stairs, stepping out into the gray Swabian dawn.
The eastern wall was a ruin.. the iron shot had battered the stone to pieces, leaving great, yawning gaps that laid the whole courtyard bare to the valley below.
They crept to the edge of the ruin. Down in the valley, four hundred and fifty paces away, the von Frundsberg camp sat perfectly still.
The bronze barrels of the great guns were plain to see, but the gunners stood idle.
"They do not fall back," the Baron whispered, "Why do they cease their fire?"
Before the captain could offer a guess, a single crack echoed across the valley.
It was not the deep roar of a great gun... it was the sharp snap of a single wheellock dag.
The captain’s head snapped violently back.
The lead ball, fired from a grooved barrel at four hundred paces, struck true upon the bridge of the old knight’s nose!
The blow was ruinous, instantly ending his life!
The captain’s body fell backward onto the flags, dead before he hit the ground.
Baron von Rechberg cried out, throwing himself flat against the broken stones.
Konrad stood in the center of the camp, ringed by the soot-stained ranks of his paid footmen.
Three men knelt in the mud before Lord Konrad. They were peasants from the old levies - the useless men Konrad kept only to guard the camps.
Behind the three kneeling men stood Marshal Eckhard. Standing near Konrad was an old Swabian farmer from the newly taken Rechberg village.
The farmer bled from a deep cut across his brow, and his rough tunic was torn.
His law was clear: the taking of the Rechberg lands meant the peasants were now the farmers and smiths of the von Frundsberg house. Stealing from them was stealing from the Konrad’s own purse.
In the dark of the night, these three old levies had slipped from their posts, ignored the master of stores, and stolen food from the old farmer’s sty.
When the farmer cried out against the theft, they struck him, dealing the bloody wound!
"The laws of this march were spoken plainly to all," Konrad declared. He spoke to the whole camp.
"The Holy Roman Empire lives by the sword and the thief’s hand," Konrad lectured. "The old lords pay their men a pittance, and let them steal cattle and burn fields to fill their bellies.
This way is the ruin of all. It burns the very wheat needed to feed a strong realm."
He pointed a finger at the three kneeling levies.
"By stealing swine from a man of these taken lands, you have not stolen from an enemy," Konrad stated, "You have stolen from the von Frundsberg purse. By striking a farmer, you have proven you cannot grasp the new laws of this house."
The oldest of the three levies, a scarred veteran of border raids, looked up.
"My Lord, we starve! The bread from the wagons is not enough for the freezing night watch. It was but a few pigs. The old laws of war say a man may forage from a taken village!"
"..." Konrad eyes locked onto the man. "Your choice to feed yourselves by stealing my goods is treason of coin."
Konrad turned to the old farmer. "Your lost goods shall be paid for," Konrad stated flatly.
He pointed to the master of stores standing nearby. "Give twenty Fugger silver florins to this man to pay for the sows and the days of work he will lose to his wound."
The farmer stared at the leather pouch of silver, unable to grasp the justice of the new law.
"Marshal Eckhard. Call forth a company of the wheellock footmen. You shall shoot these three men dead. The deed shall be done at once, before the eyes of the whole camp."
A ripple of deep shock ran through the old levies in the camp... In the year 1525, shooting your own men for stealing a few pigs from a taken village was unheard of!
It broke every old rule of knights and sell-swords!
Eckhard stiffened. But he looked into the unblinking eyes of his Lord and knew that staying his hand would only buy his own death.
"It shall be done, my Lord." Eckhard confirmed.
Within three minutes, the three old levies were bound to wooden posts used to hold the earthworks.
Twelve paid wheellock gunners raised their new pieces.
Marshal Eckhard raised his hand.
"Make ready... take aim. Give fire."
The sudden roar of the twelve wheellocks was a sharp blast that briefly drowned out the groans of the crumbling Rechberg keep. The bodies of the three levies slumped against the posts.
Konrad e turned back toward the tent. "Do not waste the strength of the men to bury them, leave them bound to the posts..."
After the sshooting of the three old levies who dared steal from the taken lands, the battering of the Rechberg keep did not stop for the night or for prayers.
By the seventh hour of the new day, the limestone gave way... a great span of the high wall fell crashing into the ditch, sending a massive cloud of blinding dust rolling across the Swabian valley.
