Swiss Arms 53 (Patreon)

Swiss Arms

Chapter 53

-VB-

The guard detail that Henry brought with him was meant to be an intimidating show of force to a newly raised noble ruling over a small but strategically important valley that connected the Eastern Alps to the Swabian Alps.

So why was it that when he finally found himself staring down from atop his horse at that peasant lord, he was the one who felt threatened? As if the knights and men-at-arms he brought with him - men whose quality could not be matched anywhere else in the Christian world - and the additional soldiers were all nothing but irritating obstacles at best to this man in front of him.

If that wasn’t all, he found himself glancing at the deep blue dress his dear beautiful cousin Isabella wore. It was a color unlike any he’d seen before. It was unique. It was rare. Yet this peasant lord had one while he, a duke and margrave of the empire, did not. It grated on his nerve a little but not enough to skip the pleasantries to demand where the peasant lord - who his cousin was pursuing and demanded that he be “polite” to, at the very least - got the dye so that he may use it himself.

Well… there was one more thing that irritated him.

A peasant lord had a formidable fortress-town sitting across the width of a valley with walls sturdier than many of the stone walls of lesser barons, if they had a wall for their villages and towns.

How?

Things did not make sense. There was no logical explanation for the explosive growth he saw, and he knew the progress he’d seen.

After all, he’d crossed this very valley multiple times when he accompanied his father to battle.

… Standing before this man that had Isabella so infatuated felt very much like that day.

“Duke Henry,” the peasant lord said and bowed halfway to his waist. “Welcome to Fluelaberg.”

He looked at the thick lumber walls. “Yes. Fluelaberg. Thank you for your welcome, Baron Hans.”

He got off his horse and stood on the cobblestone road. It was finer and smoother than his own castle town’s central road.

How embarrassing. This small town’s road was better than the one he had back home in his main residence.

“Henry,” his cousin greeted him with a curtsy.

He made a face at her. “Ugh, stow that polite formality. That is unlike you.”

She laughed and gave him a hug. “Welcome to Fluelaberg. What do you think?” she asked him as she stepped back to stand next to Hans. To Henry’s surprise, Hans looked uncomfortable still with having Isabella next to him. If Henry hadn’t been her cousin, then he would have seduced her to his marriage bed, damn the consequences of marrying a count’s daughter. The fact that Hans still remained chaste with her was a great show of discipline, piety, or … simply different interest.

Isabella’s letters had stated that Hans was simply not the kind of man to be focused on sex, but that alone was suspect in Henry’s mind. What man does not want to wet his dick and hear the cries of a beautiful woman?

But now that he was here to look at this man’s work in this “Fluelaberg,” he understood that, just maybe, he just wasn’t interested in the fairer sex as much as he might in other pursuits. Henry understood such passion; such men were often times more reliable than those whose entire focus was on their family, and thus liable to act only for the sake of their kin.

… But that also embarrassed him. Here was a man barely out of his boyhood having accomplished so much with his hands while Henry… He couldn’t even get a proper wife despite the fact that he was duke.

(But then again, most of his peers did not wish to wed their daughters to him, a known producer of bastards.)

Hell, he had not even gained his duchy through his own accomplishment but because his elder sister was married to the previous emperor.

So maybe he felt a little threaten and brought so many men with him because of that. After all, this was a town that was right at the border of his lands at a prime crossing point for armies. On top of that, it was a fortified position that could and had withstood assaults from organized armies. His spies have reported that this town withstood at least one assault by an army of a thousand! For a wooden fortress, it was possible, but not with the number of people in it, because the same spy noted that the town recently grew to house maybe seven hundred people; this was after the town had grown to house some five hundred additional people in the past year.

An explosive growth, to be sure, but it also meant that the town had maybe two hundred people to fight off and win against an army of a thousand.

And kill the enemy commander.

The rumor was that it was Hans himself who’d plowed through the soldiers on his own to attack the count who had been commanding from the back. Henry didn’t believe that, but believed that the man was strong as were his personal guards, whoever they were.

Now.

Put all of those facts together. A peasant seemingly from nowhere important, noble armies decimated, a fort raised in weeks that should have taken months if not years, reorganization of the local fiefdoms into one consolidated power, introduction of new trade goods…

None of this was possible.

‘Not unless there is a hidden backer who can benefit from the development of the Alps.’

And Henry knew there were exactly four powers who would benefit by having a puppet king in the mountains: his rival Habsburgs, the Bavarian Wittelbachs, his uncle the Count of Gorizia, and, the most underappreciated of them all, the Lordship of Milan. Although one of their own allies were hurt in the chaos, the Habsburg would have a power bigger than their previous ally. The Wittelbachs would have a secure southeastern flank, giving them more strength to consolidate internally and expand in all other directions. His uncle’s lands in his County of Tyrol would be safe if they had a secure western ally. Milanese would be happy to have a secure route through the mountains where they would act as the middleman between the Venetians and the southern imperial states.

All of them would have a stake here, but none of them rose up to take ownership. The Habsburgs were oddly silent. The Wittelbachs were seemingly split on hostility and manipulation. His uncle sent his cousin and no one else. Milan was completely absent.

So who was it? It couldn’t be his uncle because he hadn’t been in control from the start.

“This is a magnificent new town,” Henry congratulated the baron.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” the man smiled. “And I have a gift for you.”

“Oh?”

Hans turned and gestured for one of his servants to walk up.

Henry nearly grimaced at the richly dyed robes that the servants all wore. A baron was richer than a duke! The envy that he was feeling weighed heavily.

And then he forgot all about it when his eyes landed on the covered object that the baron’s servant brought out. The baron lifted the veil and -.

Henry’s jaws dropped.

Was … was that porcelain?

“Our finest product, Your Grace,” Baron Hans smiled.

Henry beheld a porcelain vase as big as his head decorated with striking green and blue waves that blended seamlessly into each other and didn’t clash with the shining whites of the vase. It didn’t depict any glorious battles or pious scenes; the simple nature of the waves mesmerized him nonetheless.

“This is…”

“A porcelain just any of the ones from the Far East, Your Grace,” the baron smiled. “But with a modification of my own using a mineral called cobalt.”

Henry glanced at his cousin, who merely smiled.

Henry gestured for his own servants to take the vase. If any of them damaged the vase, then he’ll execute their three generations; it was worth more than a hundred of them.

“Thank you for your gift,” he said with some genuine appreciation. This was the kind of gift that dukes and kings would exchange… not a baron.

It was also a trap, whether the baron meant it or not. If after he took this gift and acted even a little discourteously, then everyone would know that he was a graceless and ungrateful guest. He had to be perfect for the duration of his stay and not a single perceived disrespect could be even hinted at unless offered one first.

“Let us retire to my home, Your Grace. We have a small feast ready for you and your knights.”

-VB-

When Henry retired that evening to his guest room, he laid down with a full belly and pondered about what had just happened.

The feast was…

It was a small feast as the baron had stated, but the dishes the baron had put out. He was normally not one for pastries at night, but the sweetness that flowed everywhere was …

It was exquisite and absurd.

It was also what he realized while eating.

The land was poor but the people and its baron was smart. They created things that no one else would consider, but that’s perhaps because there was nothing else they could do but innovate to survive. They were simply being creative with what little things they had.

For example, the blue dye that had him burning with envy apparently came from periwinkle flower weed. A lot of what they did had to be related to similar desperate needs and wants.

But this also made him want to object to Isabella’s desire to wed the baron. The baron was poor, and Isabella was from a dynasty with more land than most. Why should he allow his beautiful cousin to wallow in poverty?

He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

‘I’ll think more about this tomorrow.’