Chapter 85: Cohorts of Five Hundred
Konrad stood still in the center of his study, his hands still covering his face.
Isolde remained leaning against the table, she didn’t look panicked at all. In fact, the spymaster looked entertained by the mess the Viscount had just found himself in.
Konrad turned his back and walked over to the window, looking out into the Swabian night.
The more he analyzed the brutal arithmetic of moving an army, the more he realized that Duke Wilhelm’s sudden arrival wasn’t actually the main problem.
"Even without the Duke sitting in the guest wing," Konrad said quietly, "marching an army of that size out the front gates in the morning would be a stupid mistake."
Isolde tilted her head slightly. "Why? You hold the legal right to move your own troops within your own borders."
"Spies have eyes," Konrad corrected her flatly. "If I march four thousand men and a massive artillery train out into the open daylight, the dust cloud alone will be visible from ten miles away.
Every single wandering merchant, every corrupted priest, and every hidden whisperer in the valley will know exactly where we are heading."
He turned away from the window, "They would send fast riders ahead of our column, by the time we reached the southwestern mountain passes, the Duke of Savoy’s remaining border barons would be fully warned.
With or without Duke Wilhelm breathing down my neck, we could never march in the morning."
After hearing such words, Isolde’s smile slowly faded. "So... you intend to hide a massive marching column from the entire world?"
"We will go in the night. And we will go in parts." Konrad stated.
Isolde raised a delicate eyebrow. "In parts? You cannot send an invasion force into hostile territory piecemeal. If the Savoyard cavalry catches a single, isolated battalion in the dark, they will slaughter them before the rest of the army can reinforce the line."
"They won’t catch them, they won’t even know they are there," Konrad said, "We have roughly ten hours of darkness right now. A column of five hundred men can quietly exit the eastern postern gate, loop around the heavy pine forests, and bypass the main trade roads entirely in under an hour."
"...we send the veteran pikemen first, to secure the forward staging ground near the Savoyard border. An hour later, we send the first five hundred wheellock gunners. Then the Reiters. We stagger their departures throughout the night."
"And the cannons?" Isolde pressed, crossing her arms tightly. "The wooden wheels alone will echo across the entire valley."
"Then we muffle the wheels," Konrad ordered bluntly. "Tell the quartermaster to wrap the iron rims of the artillery carriages in layers of raw wool and scrap leather. Grease the axles with extra pig fat until they are silent. The horses will have their hooves wrapped in burlap sacks."
"If we move them in silent cohorts of five hundred, the Duke of Bavaria will wake up tomorrow morning, look out his royal window, and see a few hundred militia boys drilling in the yard."
"He will simply assume the rest of the army is patrolling the outer star-forts. He won’t have a single clue that my main host is already sitting on the southwestern border, waiting to strike."
Isolde stared at him for a long moment. "If Marshal Eckhard actually pulls this off, he deserves a chest of Fugger silver just for himself."
"I need you to go find him. Tell him to quietly wake the mercenary captains. The first cohort of pikemen leaves at midnight. I want the entire striking force assembled at the forward border camp before the sun rises on the third day." Konrad replied.
"I have to manage the Duke," Konrad sighed, rubbing his aching temples. "If he gets bored, he will start asking questions. I will have Elise bury him in wedding ledgers. Seating charts, dowry negotiations, wine selections. Keep him arguing over the price of silk while my gunners march out the back door."
Isolde laughed softly, "I will go find the Marshal."
She slipped out of the study, pulling the door shut behind her.
Konrad leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes for just a second.
The door was being pushed open once again... he reached for the wheellock dag on his belt, expecting Duke Wilhelm to come storming back in to complain about his bedchambers.
Instead, a much older, highly stern-looking woman stepped into the study.
She wore a modest gray dress that covered her from her neck to her ankles.
A rosary was clutched in her hands. Her hair, streaked with gray, was pulled back into a severe bun.
It was Mathilda, the Dowager Baroness... his mother.
Konrad slowly took his hand off the grip of his pistol.
He hadn’t spoken to his mother in weeks... not since the day Isolde had given birth to Albrecht, when the Dowager Baroness had openly cursed him for breeding a bastard with a common spymaster.
She spent most of her days locked in the keep’s small chapel, praying for his heretical soul.
"Mother," Konrad said, "It is late. The chapel is usually closed by this hour."
Mathilda walked into the center of the room, "I heard the commotion in the courtyard, the maids are whispering that Duke Wilhelm of Bavaria has arrived. And that he brought his daughter."
"He did," Konrad confirmed, watching her closely. "They are staying in the guest wing."
Mathilda gripped her wooden rosary a little tighter, "I have spent the last year watching you drag the noble name of von Frundsberg through the mud, Konrad, you stripped our loyal lords of their rights. You armed illiterate, filthy peasants. You filled this keep with smoke and the noise of those unnatural metal machines."
"If you are here to tell me I am going to hell, Mother, leave it for the morning."
"I am not here to curse you," Mathilda interrupted.
"I am here to say that it is good you are finally marrying for real." Mathilda swallowed hard, clearly struggling to force the words out of her proud mouth.
Konrad blinked, genuinely surprised. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me," the Dowager Baroness said, standing up a little straighter. "You have played your games with that spymaster woman. You secured a bastard to hold the local lords at bay. But Lady Katarina is true nobility. A legitimate Wittelsbach union brings real honor back to this house. It brings true, Catholic blood into our lineage."
Konrad stared at her... Did his mother actually believe he was marrying Katarina for honor?
She missed the truth: the marriage was nothing more than a contract to secure Bavarian halberdiers for his future wars.
In reality, Konrad was perfectly content with his marriage to Isolde, perfectly content with what he had done.
And, of course, for her, the arrival of Duke Wilhelm was a return to tradition... a return to the way the Holy Roman Empire was supposed to work.
"Do you think this marriage absolves me, Mother?" Konrad asked.
"I think it is a step toward God’s grace," Mathilda said firmly. "A true wedding before the eyes of the nobles. I have already sent word to the kitchens to begin preparing a proper feast. This keep will host a royal union, Konrad. We will finally have something to celebrate."
She turned around, satisfied that she had delivered her maternal approval.
"Goodnight, my son," she said, pulling the door open. "Do try to clean the soot from your hands before you speak with your bride tomorrow."
Konrad stared at the closed door, feeling the irony of the situation.
The hours went by, and dawn finally broke.
A few miles south of the von Frundsberg keep, hidden from the main trade roads, a silent camp was taking shape in the shadows of a deep ravine.
The seemingly impossible plan had actually worked...
Throughout the dead of night, the first parties of the Swabian army had slipped out of the eastern postern gates.
They moved in staggered cohorts of five hundred men.
Every soldier had been explicitly ordered to wrap their boots in burlap and secure their steel breastplates with leather ties to prevent them from rattling in the dark.
Marshal Eckhard stood at the edge of the hidden staging ground, he looked exhausted, his bloodshot eyes scanning the sea of men pitching their low canvas tents.
However, despite the lack of sleep, a deep sense of pride swelled inside the veteran’s chest.
Four thousand and one hundred men had been moved right under the arrogant nose of the Duke of Bavaria.
"Damn it, keep those horses quiet!" Eckhard hissed, walking toward a group of Reiters who were struggling to calm a nervous gelding. "If that beast whinnies loudly enough for a Savoyard scout to hear, I will personally feed it to the camp dogs."
The riders quickly threw a wool blanket over the horse’s head, calming the animal down.
Eckhard rubbed his face. He turned and walked toward a small, heavily concealed command tent pitched near the center of the ravine.
Three men were already waiting for him there, sharing a bottle of the fiery grain drink that Konrad used to clean the gunpowder mills.
"Listen to me, and listen closely," Eckhard said, "I can’t be everywhere at once when we cross the Savoyard border. So, as I told you, I appoint you as my three chief lieutenants."
The three men straightened up, the first was Ragnar, the mercenary veteran who had suggested the wagon forts.
The first was Ragnar, the scarred mercenary, who had proposed the idea of mobile fortresses. The second was a sharp-eyed young man named Hans, who had become the most skilled marksman in all of Swabia, having mastered the gunpowder measurements needed to penetrate armor from a distance of fifty paces.
The third was Dieter, one of Master Clemens’s senior pupils.
The three men gave a sharp salute. Eckhard had already given them the orders and they knew their ranks in the army, so they quickly left the tent to carry out their new duties.
Even so, as Eckhard stood alone in the tent, a knot of anxiety remained tightly coiled in his stomach.
The entire plan depended on Konrad managing the perilous situation at the castle.
If Duke Wilhelm were to awaken and decide to search the local garrison, the plan would be exposed in an instant.
Back within the imposing stone walls of the von Frundsberg keep, the morning sun was just beginning to cast shadows across the empty drilling yard.
Konrad lay sprawled across the wool blankets, still wearing his black trousers and a loose linen shirt.
He heard the click of his door latch.
