Chapter 62: A War on Two Fronts?
The Dowager Baroness, Konrad’s mother, burst into the room.
"Konrad!" the Dowager Baroness cried, "What dark madness is this?! You sit in your seat, speaking of the holy giving of life as if it were a tally of coin! You speak of your own child as a ’shield’ and a tool!"
The Dowager Baroness marched toward the table, her hands shaking. "You have no soul, Konrad! You cast out your brother and now you breed a bastard with your spy merely to please the Fugger merchants! You gladly tear the Christian world apart with your printed lies, all to keep your godless fires burning!"
"The Christian world is a greedy beast that seeks to burn us to ash..." Konrad stated flatly. "As for the child, the Pope’s laws of marriage are empty words. I make the law within these borders."
He stared down his mother. "The child Lady Isolde bears shall rule the whole of the Swabian forges, and the old lords shall bow to it because it will command three thousand paid gunners and fifty great guns."
The Dowager Baroness stopped at the edge of the desk, looking deep into the unblinking eyes of her son.
"You are a tyrant..." she whispered, her voice cracking. "You have cast all honor from our house!!"
"Honor will not stop a twelve-pound bursting shell," Konrad threw back instantly. "Honor does not make powder. Honor does not pay the gunners. I have cast out honor to keep breath in our lungs."
Gasp...
Isolde watched the breaking of the old lady. She simply stood straighter, waiting for the master to speak again.
"The noise is gone," Konrad stated. "Isolde, send your hidden eyes to the Bavarian borders, we must see that the Bavarian footmen do not try to wring coin from our own wagons."
...
The carrying of Konrad von Frundsberg’s firstborn son took a heavy toll upon Lady Isolde.
The master of the Swabian spies found her strength failing, forcing her to hand the reins of her hidden watchers to others.
The chief spy hole in Bavaria, set deep within the rich halls of Munich, was given over to the care of Magdalena.
Magdalena was a bastard daughter of a ruined Swabian knight. She now worked as a lowly clerk in Duke Wilhelm’s counting house.
Magdalena held a deep, burning hatred for the rule of Konrad von Frundsberg.
Yet, hatred filled no bellies, and the Fugger silver Isolde paid for true tidings was a sure thing.
Magdalena put her own life before the old honor of knights. She filed ledgers, swept the polished floors, and quietly marked every shift of power within the Bavarian court.
Magdalena was carefully tallying a load of Bohemian copper when the doors of the counting room swung open.
She at once shrank back, playing the part of a mindless servant, keeping her eyes cast down to her tallies.
Duke Wilhelm strode into the room.
Cardinal Morone, a high master of the Pope’s purse, swept into the chamber.
The Cardinal wore rich, crimson Italian silk, his fat bulk showing a life of feeding off the Church’s heavy tithes.
"Your clerks sit too close for words of state, Duke Wilhelm," the Cardinal commanded, speaking with the high pride of a prince of the Church.
"The clerk tallies my copper... her ears matter naught to our words," Duke Wilhelm threw back.
The Duke poured two cups of strong spirits into silver goblets.
"Speak of why you creep into my lands unbidden, Morone. Bavaria does not bow to the Pope’s curse upon the Swabian forges."
Magdalena’s mind locked onto every word.
"Your binding of swords with the von Frundsberg heretic puts your soul in grave peril," the Cardinal stated, refusing the cup and standing stiffly.
"Konrad is a blight upon the earth. By guarding his wagons, you cut your own house off from the light of God. The Holy Father commands you to pull your footmen back from the Swabian borders at once."
Duke Wilhelm drank his spirits, setting the cup down.
"Konrad von Frundsberg’s forges beat out the hard steel I need to hold my borders. You ask me to cast away the finest smith in the Empire for a priest’s blessing. That is a fool’s bargain. If the Pope wants my swords, the Pope must offer a heavier purse." the Duke lectured.
Cardinal Morone’s face tightened.
"The Holy Father knows you will lose much silver by breaking with the von Frundsberg house," the Cardinal yielded, speaking the only tongue the Duke truly heard. "Thus, we offer a great prize. If you march your footmen to strike the Swabian eastern flank on the very day the Teutonic knights attack the north, the Pope will break the Prince-Bishopric of Salzburg."
Gasp...
Magdalena’s breath caught in her throat. The Prince-Bishopric of Salzburg was a vast, sprawling land, rich beyond measure!
"The Pope shall give the rule of Salzburg wholly to the Bavarian crown," the Cardinal laid out the bribe. "You shall hold the salt mines and the deep silver veins of the Alps.
More than this, the Fugger merchants have sworn to pay your sell-swords for the whole of the Swabian war... you trade one unruly smith for the richest lands in the south."
Duke Wilhelm stared at the Cardinal...
Konrad von Frundsberg’s great guns were a marvel, but the endless salt and silver of Salzburg were wealth beyond counting. The math of the bribe was absolute!
"The von Frundsberg boy holds too much power..." Duke Wilhelm decreed, "The Bavarian swords accept the bargain. We shall keep our men guarding his roads so he sleeps soundly. But the day the Teutonic knights cross his northern border, my halberdiers will turn and crush his eastern supply lines."
"The Holy Father smiles upon your return to the true path," Cardinal Morone smiled, a sickening stretching of fat lips. "The heretic’s forges shall be broken, and his wealth given to true men."
The two lords left the counting house to seal the pact in the Duke’s private room.
Magdalena stood frozen in the room. The very ground of the Holy Roman Empire had just broken open!
The Bavarian Duke was plotting atwo-faced strike against the Swabian forges!
Magdalena dropped the copper tallies. She drew a small, ciphered wheel from her rough bodice.
She carefully turned the exact numbers of the footmen, the price of the Salzburg bribe, and the day of the strike into an unbroken code!
She sealed the vellum with a smuggler’s stamp, making sure the tidings would reach the von Frundsberg keep within two days.
The deciphered Bavarian letter was laid squarely upon the table in the master’s room.
Konrad von Frundsberg read the spy’s report.
Marshal Eckhard stood beside the table.
"My Lord, this brings our utter ruin..." Eckhard reported, his voice shaking. "The Duke of Bavaria moves to crush us in a vise with the Teutonic knights. We have not the men to fight on two fronts. Our paid gunners are set only to hold the northern walls.
If the Bavarian halberdiers break our eastern flank, the forges will fall before the sun sets..."
"It’s clear now, and it doesn’t matter... The Bavarian halberdiers are no longer our guards; they’ve become a flock of sheep waiting to be sheared for their grain." So ordered Konrad.
"This?" Eckhard stiffened, "Lord Konrad, they outnumber our eastern guard five to one."
"As I told you, numbers are meaningless when men march blindly into battle," Konrad lectured before sighing. "The Duke thinks we’ll sit around like frightened rabbits waiting for the Teutonic Knight. We must strike first, and we will strike to break them."
He stood up, "You shall move six batteries of the twelve-pounder great guns to the eastern roads at once," Konrad ordered.
"...we shall burn their harvests to ash, starving their heavy footmen before they can even form their ranks for the march."
"To strike first is to openly declare a war on all sides, Lord Konrad." Eckhard warned, his old caution holding him back.
"The war is already upon us; the clerks merely haven’t written the writs yet..." Konrad stated.
As Marshal Eckhard went out to do as he was ordered, Lady Isolde quickly entered without looking at him, seemingly unaware that the message had already reached Konrad a few minutes earlier.
Isolde stepped to the drafting table, skipping all courtly greetings. "The Bavarian pact is broken, My Lord. Duke Wilhelm has taken the priests’ bribe. For the rule of the Alpine silver veins of Salzburg, he has pledged his footmen to the Pope’s holy war!"
"Yes, yes, Duke Wilhelm’s treachery was a foregone conclusion," said Konrad, his eyes fixed on a map of Swabia’s borders. "His mind is controlled by the lords’ greed for land. The salt and silver of Salzburg yield immeasurable wealth. The Pope simply paid a price far exceeding what we paid in steel."
Isolde stood still, watching her master’s lack of fear. "The Teutonic heavy horse numbers far more than our own men... if the Bavarian footmen break our eastern roads at the same time, our paid gunners will lack the powder to hold the line. The realm will be broken."
Konrad tapped his finger upon Munich on the map. "Your tally assumes the Duke of Bavaria will send his whole host to Swabia," Konrad lectured, "Duke Wilhelm even now fights off Bohemian raiders on his northern borders. If he sends his main host of halberdiers into this valley, he leaves Munich bare to the taking."
"Thus, the Duke will send only a token force... perhaps eight hundred sell-swords to satisfy his oath to the Pope," Konrad reckoned, "He means to save his bread and silver while the Teutonic Order bleeds against our twelve-pounder great guns. This gives us the lawful right of the sword."
Isolde saw the cunning of his mind... Konrad was welcoming a war on two fronts?!
"By crossing our borders, the Duke breaks the sworn oaths of the Swabian League," Konrad went on, "When his token force is shot to pieces by our gunners, we gain the lawful right to march upon Munich.
He is handing us the very writ we need to take the Bavarian forges the moment the Teutonic threat is broken..."
