Chapter 73: The Emperor’s Son?
The knight lowered his hand from his sword hilt and bowed his head.
Marshal Eckhard, sitting on his horse just a few paces behind Konrad, let out a slow breath of relief.
"Lord Konrad," the masked woman said, urging her black mare a single step forward. "You have every right to ask who is buying your steel."
However, she did not reach up to remove the featureless metal half-mask that concealed her face.
"I cannot show you my face, Viscount." she continued, her tone smooth. "There are too many spies in this Empire, and the Swabian League has a very long, very vindictive memory. If the Pope’s men knew I was riding at the head of this host, the fallout would be disastrous."
"I don’t care about the Pope’s feelings," Konrad replied flatly. "I care about who is signing the Fugger ledgers."
"You may call me Lady Amalia," she said, resting her gloved hands on her saddle horn. "We are here to rebuild the ruined lands of Württemberg. The exiled Duke lost his throne, yes, but we intend to take those lands back from the Swabian Diet before the summer harvests."
Konrad raised an eyebrow, "Taking back Württemberg requires a massive siege. It requires thousands of men, artillery, and a fortune in silver. An exiled banner does not have that kind of coin."
"We do," Lady Amalia corrected him softly, a hint of a smile entirely evident in her voice, even if he couldn’t see her mouth. "Because we have the full financial backing of the Emperor’s son."
After hearing such words, Marshal Eckhard choked on his own spit, his horse sidestepping nervously in the snow.
The Emperor’s son?
If the son of the Holy Roman Emperor was funneling Fugger silver to an exiled army to crush the Swabian League from the inside... it meant the Imperial family was trying to shatter the Pope’s power in the south.
Who the hell is this woman? Konrad asked himself, his eyes scanning the fine craftsmanship of her breastplate and the way the Imperial Knight deferred to her every word.
Is she a bastard sister to the Emperor’s son? Or perhaps they are bound in some kind of secret marriage? Young royals have certainly done crazier things to hide their military assets.
Even so, Konrad abruptly cut that line of thought off.
It was a waste of his energy... he wasn’t a noble playing the game of thrones, and he didn’t give a single damn about royal gossip or hidden bloodlines.
If she was the Emperor’s bastard sister or a common tavern wench who had stolen a royal seal, it didn’t change the reality of the situation: she had Fugger silver, and he had a monopoly on the finest weapons in the world.
"The Emperor’s son." Konrad mused aloud, resting his hand on his saddle. "That explains how you can bypass the western toll roads without the Fugger bank seizing your wagons. Very well, Lady Amalia. If your silver is pure, my forges are open to you."
"You truly are as the merchants describe you, Viscount," she said. "We will need two thousand of your new wheellock muskets, twenty bronze field guns, and enough Baltic powder to sustain a three-month siege."
"You will have them in a fortnight," Konrad agreed instantly. "But if you are marching six hundred heavy lancers into a prolonged siege, muskets and cannons are not going to be enough to keep your men alive. You are severely lacking in basic logistics."
Lady Amalia tilted her masked head slightly, clearly intrigued. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that dysentery, the bloody flux, and simple starvation kill far more soldiers in a siege camp than cannonballs ever do," Konrad lectured, "If you want to win this war, you need to buy my other goods."
"Other goods?" Sir Heinrich scoffed loudly. "We do not need to buy your rusted peasant trinkets."
"..." Konrad looked back at Amalia. "I can produce high-quality lye soap. I will sell it to you for two silver florins a crate. Your men wash themselves and their bandages. Wounds don’t fester. Your army doesn’t shit itself to death in the trenches."
Amalia sat perfectly still, "And what else do you have, Lord Konrad?" she asked, leaning forward with genuine interest.
"Portable soup," Konrad said, pulling a small brownish block from a pouch on his belt and tossing it through the air.
Sir Heinrich caught it with his gauntlet, "What is this?"
"It’s boiled cattle bones, marrow, and meat scraps," Konrad explained, "We boil it down for three days in the Swabian stills until it becomes a thick paste, then we dry it into hard blocks. It lasts for months in the cold without rotting.
Just drop that block into a pot of boiling water, and your men have a nutritious meat broth in minutes."
Sir Heinrich looked disgusted. "You want us to feed our elite lancers boiled garbage?"
"I want your elite lancers to not starve to death when the Swabian Diet burns the local grain fields to stop your advance," Konrad countered. "It requires no supply trains, no massive herds of cattle slowing down your march. Every soldier carries a week’s worth of food right in his pocket."
After hearing such words, Lady Amalia let out another soft laugh, "You take the refuse of your butcher yards, boil it into hardened squares, and sell it to an Imperial host for pure silver."
"I will sell them to you for five silver coppers a piece. You buy the muskets, the cannons, the soap, and the soup. I will open the western mountain passes for your supply wagons, and we will establish our secret trade route."
Amalia reached over, taking the block of pocket soup from the bewildered Sir Heinrich and examining it closely in the torchlight.
"We have an agreement, Viscount." she said, slipping the block into her own riding pouch. "Our merchants will arrive at your western gates in ten days with the first payment of Fugger silver. See that your wagons are heavily loaded. We march on Württemberg before the snow fully melts."
"My clerks will be ready." Konrad nodded.
"Until we meet again, Lord Konrad," Lady Amalia said.
She gracefully pulled her horse’s reins, turning the sleek black mare back toward the long column of waiting knights.
Sir Heinrich gave Konrad one last suspicious glare before spurring his destrier to follow her.
Konrad sat on his gelding, watching the Württemberg vanguard slowly begin to turn around in the snow. Beside him, Marshal Eckhard finally let out a long groan.
However, a sudden thought pierced through Konrad’s mind.
