Swiss Arms 94 (Patreon)

Swiss Arms

Chapter 94

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

As days passed and more and more clerics visited my manor, I found myself hosting luncheons and dinners where talks of alliances, favors, and money flowed like how the Italian wines flowed from bottle to cup to lip. 

It took me just a month to determine a few things about most of the clerics. 

They hated the fact that I was trying to influence the election. 

Some like the Abbot of Saint Gall needed that kind of scenario for him to get his payday while others like the Abbot of Disentis saw my offer as a way to keep me out of church affairs in the future.

But most? 

Even if it was the norm for interferences to be made, they saw my action as heavy handed. It also did align with how the Abbot of Disentis reacted. The main reason, as best as I could surmise, was that it was traditional for outside actors like nobles, merchants, and the like to submit their candidate. Then the priests would discuss and vote.

What I was doing, directly contacting individual priests to sway them, was being seen as “intrusive” and “threatening.”

I could understand intrusive.

Threatening, though, confused me.

“It’s because you are the closest military power.”

I looked up from where I have been writing while eating and paused when I saw John. He was eating with Isabella and I like we did before.

“Ah, was I talking out loud?” I asked and both of them nodded. “Well, alright. Why does that matter?”

Denying that I was a military powerhouse would be stupid. I had too many personal achievements on top of actions as commander in both offensive and defensive to be called anything but that. It didn’t help that my military prowess and power outsized my noble rank. 

“Do you want to tell him?” John asked Isabella while glancing at her.

“You spoke up. You say it.”

John sighed before turning to me. He tried to get serious, but all I saw was the boy I trained and taught for two years. “How many rangers do you have?” he asked directly. 

Normally, this wasn’t the kind of information that a ruler should share with -.

“Around four hundred now,” I replied. “Their ranks have been adding up quickly once I got my senior rangers to take on student squads to teach.”

John … let out a terrified, shuddering sigh.

“You have no idea how terrifying that is right?”

“... No?”

“Hans. One of your rangers can take on a dozen men in the forest. If they have time to set up, then a single ranger can mean the death of hundreds.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I think you are exaggerating. You know personally that they aren’t like that.”

Isabella raised an eyebrow. “Husband, while it might be an exaggeration, that is how the rest of the empire perceives your troupe of mountain warriors. Need I remind you what happened at the Battle of Lower Engandin?” she asked. “The overwhelming victory is how they see the rangers. Silent killers who cannot be seen. Warriors who weave through the mountain valleys and forests faster than horses ever could. And that is what the priests and nobles see, honey.”

John cleared his throat and glared at her, and she just stuck her tongue out at him.

I rolled my eyes. 

“Alright, I can see that, but how does that relate to the priests.”

Isabella gave me a slightly sad look. “It is normal for a man with a powerful army to wield it as he pleases, and if the clerics do not answer to the man’s whims, then it is possible that the man in question may simply loot the monasteries and abbeys to fill his coffer.”

I stared at her and then at John, who nodded in begrudging agreement. 

“But I wouldn’t.”

“You are known for killing a lot of people, not for the genorsity that you show the commoners. And generosity to commoners does not equate to fairness or righteousness toward the clerics,” she replied with a shake of her head. 

That … made sense.

“Wait, so they think I’m threatening them?” I asked, more than a little aghast. Never mind the fact that it wasn’t my intention but if the Papacy decided to get involved because they were told I was threatening the priests…! 

“Well, no, not quite,” John replied. “But there is the implication that they should not displease you. You are closer to them than anyone else of noteworthy power are. Even my mother’s side, the Habsburgs, are far away. And unlikely to help since he is now busy trying to interfere with the Hungarian succession. That and the Compact’s growth will be seen as an extension of my growth and thus the Habsburg influence through my mother, meaning that he will be more than happy to let some abbeys suffer if they don’t fall in line with his indirect influence.”

“So to summarize, you are the strongest military power who is not known for genorsity to the priests. You can blame the priest in Langweis for that,” Isabella sighed.

“... Excuse me?” I asked with a frown.

“The ordained monk who serves the flock in Langweis has been the one to speak out against you among the clerics. You didn’t know?” 

“No… Since when did their priest get involved in politics?”

She looked off to the side before sighing. “I wanted to be sure before I told you this, husband, but it seems that Langweis’s problem with you is actually the priest working from behind the scenes on its village mayor and people. He and the mayor of Son Peder* have been working together on that.”

“... Alright. I’m kicking them out of the Compact,” I grunted as I set my fork down. “I am done with their shit. They can either beg Chur to let them join or something because I am not dealing with them any longer.”

---

The following morning, I left the manor, accompanied only by a pair of rangers. Isabella had opted to not come with me but John did. As the other military power of the Compact, his presence would act as a support for what I was about to do.

We made our way toward where most of the priests were staying … and then veered off. 

While most of the priests who came to the election of the prince-bishop were fine with staying in the best houses and rooms that Chur could provide, there were a few who were not happy with such an arrangement. Unlike most of the priests who were okay with some luxuries, the group of priests that I was looking for - including the Langweis monk - chose humbler places to inhabit. 

And I knew where they were because there was at least one of them always shouting at the top of his lungs during the day against the “sinful trade and luxuries” that seemed to overflow Chur in his eyes. 

I arrived at a small collection of houses closer toward the side of the valley, and saw that there were priests already waiting for me. 

I came to a stop some ten yards from the closest member of their ranks and looked around.

“Where is the monk of Langweis?” I demanded.

“I am here,” a man said from the back and made his way around the group presenting a united front to me. It was a young man, probably around the same age as I was, and he glared at me.

Like straight up glared at me. 

Now. I might not think like a baron like i should most of the time, but even I knew that the monk in front of me was acting way out of line with none of the respect someone of his station should show to a man of my position. 

“Good,” I grunted. “I wish to speak to you on matters of the Compact. I have been led to believe that you are Langweis’s best representative.”

“And if I am?”

“I would like to talk with you in private.”

He scoffed. “Anything you can say in privacy can be said in front of my brothers here,” he said while gesturing to the … I would say Franciscan priests, but vow of poverty wasn’t their thing anymore. So what were these monks and priests?  

I gestured for one of the rangers to bring out the letter I had handed to him before this visit, and he walked over and handed the letter over with both of his hands. The monk snatched it out of the ranger’s hands and then tore it open, littering the ground with the envelope.

He read the first few lines before his head snapped up toward me.

“This is an outrage!” he roared. 

“What is an outrage is a member of the Compact openly denying help, openly working against its siblings, and then advocating for the reduction of trade that has enriched all of our lives. With the support of the Count of Toggenburg, Mayor of Maienfeld, and Mayor of Davos, I proclaim that Langweis and Son Peder* are expelled from the Compact. Unless this decision is reversed in the future by two-thirds majority of the Compact’s members, this will remain so.”

“... Heretic loving bastard!” he hissed. 

I snorted. In any other place in the empire, he would have been killed for his remark. But this was the Compact; we don’t go around killing people unless they start it first. 

No, even if I did want to kill him (I didn’t. I just wanted to punch him a little “gently”), I did not want to give the other priests even more reason to distrust me. 

Instead, I turned to my rangers. “Spread the news. Langweis and Son Peder are no longer protected by the Compact. This means they now fall back under the Prince-Bishopric of Chur.”

The rangers saluted and ran off - with paper pamphlets - to spread the news. 

I turned back to the seething man playing at poverty. “At the very least, I am a man of God who loves his neighbors like Jesus Christ asks of me while you play at poverty with none of the love Christ has for God’s children. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

With that last remark, I left. 

---

Of course, there were consequences to my action. Or rather refusal to take the Compact’s matter into a more private setting. 

First off, I did not know but the Langweis monk had been some sort of an influential member of the local poverty-priests, but my public expulsion of his village from the Compact cut down on that influence. 

Second, there were priests who were happy with what I did. Even the clerics had power struggles and rivals…

The third, and the most important to me, was that a good portion of the priests and clerics who had been hesitant to vote for the Abbot of Disentis (my candidate) … chose to vote for him.

It turned out that there was an issue that I didn’t even know about, and that the Compact had been unknowingly harboring fraticelli priests, namely the Langweis monk and his cohort. They had been quiet while Prince-Bishop Siegfried was reigning over Chur, but now, they were out in force to try to get one of their own on the position. This had made quite a few of the priests wary that the Abbot of Disentis, my candidate, was also a fraticelli because I was somehow a supporter of fraticelli due to Langweis monk’s presence and thus my candidate also had to be fraticelli regardless of what the man himself said? 

Yeah, something like that. 

By expelling Langweis - and thus the monk - from the Compact in such a public manner with vitriol response from the monk, many priests were assuaged of their fears. Between the newly approving priests and the ones who I had “bought off,” when the next voting session came within a week, Abbot Gion of Disentis became the Prince-Bishop Gion of Chur. 

Gion did as he promised and granted the city of Chur independence from the Prince-Bishopric of Chur, and the mayor apologized for his rudeness as the City of Chur became a new member of the Compact (with all of the members agreeing to let them in). 

And with that, I could finally move on from the Compact’s matters and continue my tour of the Compact. 

-VB-

A/N:

And that is the end of the Prince-Bishop Election Mini-Arc. 

Next: The Tour pt. 2

Son Peder*: St Peter, Switzerland.