The breaking of the Hanseatic ciphers brought dark and pressing tidings to the von Frundsberg keep.
Konrad sat within his room, reading the ruinous numbers brought by Lady Isolde’s spies.
The Pope in Ro had sent a great chest of silver to the Swabian League. The Bishop of Augsburg was using the holy coin to gather a massive host for a march upon the von Frundsberg lands.
More than this, the spies sent word that Friedrich von Frundsberg now held a captain’s place among the monks.
Friedrich was using his deep knowledge of the Swabian trade roads to guide the coming host.
"The Teutonic footn outnumber us three to one..." Konrad said to the empty room. "We must swell our ranks at once."
The paid wheellock footn now counted one thousand n.
To be certain of crushing the Teutonic host, Konrad needed no less than three thousand.
The taking of the Rechberg lands gave him the hands he needed, but turning starving, unlettered serfs into drilled gunners demanded a harsh remaking of their ways of war.
Konrad took the deciphered writs and left the keep, walking straight to the forges.
Master Klens was looking closely at a cracked bronze casting.
Konrad stepped to the table, swept Klens’s old asuring charts to the floor, and unrolled a new piece of vellum.
"The clash with the Rechberg horse showed a great weakness in our lines," Konrad lectured, his voice a flat. "...we waste near half our n holding pikes just to guard the gunners while they load. This is a ruinous waste. I am striking the pike from our ranks."
"You an to take the long spears from the footn? The heavy horse will trample the gunners into the mud before they can fire a second volley!"
Konrad tapped his charcoal against the drawing.
It showed a strange, twelve-inch blade of hard steel, tapering to a sharp point ant to pierce armor.
The base of the blade ended in a smooth, round wooden plug, carved to fit tightly into the barrel of a wheellock.
"The plug bayonet," Konrad declared, naming the new tool. "By giving this blade to every gunner, the fire-dag becos a spear in a heartbeat. Every man is a gunner, and every man is a pikeman. We double our swords without paying a single silver florin for new n."
Klens studied the drawing, his mind quickly seeing the toil it demanded.
"My Lord, the weight of iron needed for this is staggering... to forge three thousand of these hard steel blades ans taking great fires away from the casting of the cannons.
Moreover, the wooden plugs must be turned to a perfect asure. If the fit is loose, the blade will fall out when the man strikes."
"...If the the Pope’s army break our walls, the Pope’s law demands they hang the masters of these forges. You shall swing from your own beams." Konrad stated.
"..." Klens swallowed hard, "The fires shall burn night and day, Lord Konrad."
Konrad went straight to the new paper mill, built beside the swift waters of the Inn River.
The mill held a great printing press.
The master of the press, a fearful clerk who had once served the priests, stopped the great stamping press as Konrad walked in.
"Halt all the tally books and letters," Konrad ordered.
He drew a stack of written pages from his pouch and laid them on the inking table.
"These are the new holy words written by Father Anselm," Konrad explained, "But the holy words are a secondary matter. Look to the bottom of the page."
The words promised that God cared naught for the Pope’s tithes, speaking harshly against the Bishop of Augsburg.
But beneath the holy talk was a blunt, worldly bargain: any strong man who ca to the von Frundsberg lands would find a full belly, a steady wage of Fugger silver, and a warm bed in the new longhouses.
"When the starving serfs of the nearby lords see that the priests offer only hunger, while my forges offer silver and salted pork, they will flock to our lands by the thousands..." Konrad lectured the clerk.
"My Lord," the clerk stamred, seeing the terrible ruin hidden in the paper. "If we spread these words across the Swabian roads, the nearby lords will lose all their hands to work the fields. They will call this an open act of war."
"That is my design..." Konrad stated flatly. "I want them to beggar themselves trying to hold their serfs. You shall print ten thousand sheets before the sun sets today. Give them to Lady Isolde’s smugglers to scatter across every Catholic land within fifty miles. See that the ink is dark and clear."
...
After a few hours, Konrad sat stiffly behind his table, eating only what his body needed for the day’s long toil.
Across from him sat Lady Isolde.
Sitting at a smaller desk in the corner was Elise.
"...this building is a fool’s waste of coin, my Lord" Isolde stated, using the words he favored. "In this age, a common serf is a cheap thing. If a peasant dies of the plague, we simply take another from the Rechberg lands to fill his place. Turning hundreds of weight of good iron away from the cannons to lay pipes for unlettered peasants is a ruinous waste of our strength."
"The von Frundsberg forges need n of sharp wits and numbers..." Konrad stated. "When a trained gunner dies of the bloody flux because we let his drinking water mix with filth, I do not just lose a peasant. I lose forty florins of my purse. I lose the half-year of toil spent teaching him."
Konrad stared at the master of spies, "The iron pipes are no gift of rcy... the plague steals more coin from this house than the whole army of the Teutonic Order. The Fugger moneylenders will bear the cost now, and the strength of the n will repay the debt tenfold before they are gray."
Isolde nodded. "And what about the stone walls?".
"The old walls of the keep are useless against true shot." Konrad ordered, "I have drawn the plans for a star-fort... we shall tear down the old stone walls of my fathers to build low, thick banks of earth."
Elise, unable to fight her old noble pride, suddenly stopped her writing.
The old walls were the true mark of her house’s glory... the thought of tearing them down to build mounds of dirt was madness!
Those walls have held back the Bohemian raiders for three hundred years." Elise whispered.
"The Bohemian raiders threw stones from old wooden engines. The Pope’s army bring great guns. Hard, high stone shatters when struck by heavy iron shot, sending deadly shards of rock to slay the n on the walls. Sloped, packed earth swallows the iron shot whole, taking no hurt..." Konrad stated.
"Furthermore, high walls leave blind spots at their feet where foes can hide," Konrad went on, speaking only to Isolde, "The pointed bastions of the star-fort give crossing fields of fire for the wheellocks. Any knight who charges the earthworks will be caught in a deadly storm of lead from two sides at once."
"My... my al is done, Konrad," Elise stamred, leaving the word ’brother’ unspoken. "I have four hundred books left to tally before the sun sets."
"You may go," Konrad commanded, "See that your tallies of the Hanseatic powder are true..."
...
Three days had passed since the breaking of the Rechberg lands, and Konrad sat behind his table.
Rustle... A runner, wearing the plain black wool of the masters, stepped through the doors and laid a deciphered letter on the wood.
Konrad read the writ. It told the true tale of the Bishop of Augsburg’s failed snare of thieves.
The tidings proved the Pope’s snare had been broken utterly!
The Duke of Bavaria, acting purely to guard his own supply of new steel breasts and cannons, had sworn a harsh oath of blood.
The Bavarian writ promised to send paid footn to strike down any Swabian lord who dared steal the von Frundsberg wagons under the cloak of holy duty.
The eastern roads were open. The flow of Baltic powder and Fugger silver would begin anew, keeping the paid gunners ready for war.
At the sa ti, the letter brought word of Father Anselm...
The bought priest had finished his great work against the thieving ways of the Church. The book tore down the Pope’s holy rule, naming the paying of tithes a ruinous waste of coin.
The von Frundsberg printing presses were now striking thousands of copies of this new faith!
Konrad ant to flood the Holy Roman Empire with the book, knowing the coming holy war would shatter the Swabian League and keep the Catholic lords from marching upon his forges as one.
Lady Isolde entered the room. "The Bavarian footn hold the main toll bridges, my Lord... the first wagons of raw brimstone should cross the border before the sun sets."
"Good news, so the roads are in order." Konrad stated.
Before Isolde could complete her report, the doors of the room were flung wide open.
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