Swiss Arms 70 (Patreon)

Swiss Arms

Chapter 70

-VB-

Duke Louis of Lower Bavaria

Munich

“You are leaving for war?” he asked with his best shocked expression he could manage. It wasn’t just the facial expression but also the language of the body.

“Yes,” Rudolf replied gruffly. “And as intense as our fights can get, you are still my brother and a member of the Wittelsbach House. If you are willing to take the additional responsibilities, then I would have you temporarily watch over my domain while I lead my vassals to educate the upstart baron what it means to disrespect a duke.”

This was the hard part. Louis did his best to keep his true feelings hidden. Instead, he had to show his usual approach to anything involving his brother.

“You are leading your army out … to bully a mere baron.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement pointing out how low that was, not only for his brother’s honor but also in calling up the banners for a single baron who couldn’t have more than two hundred levies at his beck and call.

Of course, Louis knew that Baron von Fluelaberg was an exceptional administrator and developer; he had over four hundred levies and nearly a hundred men-at-arms equivalent soldiers ready to answer his call just from his personal domain. The man’s expertise in enticing artisans and tradesmen to come and live in his town naturally also brought other less specialized commoners that farmed the poor Alpine soil.

Actually, the people living in the Alps did not farm as much as they made pastures for their livestock. Their poor soil and weather was not great for farming.

In fact, Louis wagered that if Rudolf rampaged enough in the Swabian Alps, he just might ruin the Swabian lords enough that they might never rise up to prominence. This would make his future endeavors to subjugate those lands easily, including the lands of the Habsburgs.

“I see that you have not heard about this baron. He is known as the Count Killer,” his brother grunted. “A man with such a nickname is bound to have some military mind, and in those narrow valleys, tactical mindsets will have proven more valuable than pure numbers. I intend to take him on with the quality of our noblemen’s men-at-arms instead of levy rabble. A smaller army will also mean that I will be able to strike many places quickly instead of lagging behind due to marching peasants.”

Louis thought that this was a foolish strategy. It would be better to let the levies plunder across the Compact with little to no repercussion for any reprehensive acts. It would be more efficient and deliver the most damage, after all.

He paused.

Of course, this might mean that the peasants might even kill the Prince-Bishop of Chur, which would earn enough ire from the Papacy. It might even end up with his brother…

…excommunicated.

He shivered.

That just might be what he needed in order to obtain the entire Duchy of Upper Bavaria.

“I think you should take your time and take the entire army, including the levies.”

Rudolf looked at him across the table where the map of the Swabian Alps was shown. “You think so?”

“Yes,” he replied. “If the baron disrespected you, then you must make this clear not just to the baron but to the entire empire. No one gets away with disrespecting us.”

Rudolf continued to stare before smirking. “I guess even you don’t like it when some lowly upstart insults you, huh?”

‘No,’ Louis thought with a hum as if to show that he agreed. Because while he agreed with his older brother, this aggressive war would be too blunt of a method to show his displeasure. Though it might take longer, he’ll make sure to ruin the man in other ways. Who knows? He might even find more information to burn the baron with as he took a longer time grinding the fool into nothing.

But.

The baron was just a tool for Louis to beat down his older brother. Once his brother was out of the picture, he’d just ignore the baron. A baron, at the end of the day, was a baron and nothing more. Money, influence, and political power meant nothing if he could find a decent casus belli and run down the countryside lord with soldiers.

“What else do you need from me aside from managing your realm in your absence?”

Rudolf raised an eyebrow. “Brother, I’m asking you to kick out any would-be opportunists, not letting you manage my lands. I’m not dumb enough to let you plant spies and cronies in my ranks.”

“Tch,” he muttered, and his brother just laughed at him.

“I’m not that dumb!”

‘But dumb enough to go to war over a slip of paper that isn’t even from the baron,’ he thought before shrugging. “If that is all, then you didn’t even have to call for me here.”

“True. Maybe I just wanted to see my brother before I went off to war.”

Louis rolled his eyes. For all of his brother’s faults, no one could ever claim that he wasn’t one for family.

-VB-

Henry I

Duke of Carinthia, Duke of Carniola

Count of Tyrol

Isabella’s cousin

“War?” Henry looked in surprise at the messenger.

“Yes, milord,” he replied as he pulled out a letter and handed it over to his lord with both of his hands. Henry took the letter and opened it up.

This letter was from one of his contacts within the Duchy of Upper Bavaria, a certain merchant who managed to gain more market thanks to Henry’s lenient policies. Of course, this wasn’t a contact of loyalty but one of tit for tat. For each credible and actionable information the merchant got him, he would pay the merchant one hundred guelders. A chump change for both of them, true, but it was a bigger change for the merchant than it was for him.

“So the older Duke of Upper Bavaria wants a go at my future brother-in-law, huh?” he hummed before walking over to his table, writing his own letter, and put both his and the merchant’s letter into a new envelope. “Take this to my brother. I doubt he needs my help, but ask him just in case.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

And the messenger ran off.

Henry stood there in his office as he tried to picture what was going to happen. The Duchy of Upper Bavaria was not poor by any means, so they would bring enough men-at-arms and levies to crush a normal baron, no doubt. Unfortunately, Hans was no normal baron and his soldiers were no normal soldiers.

Henry imagined a scene where the Bavarian troops walked into the thick forested valleys of the Alps. He imagined a scene of horror as arrows rained down on the unsuspecting levies in the middle of the night with pinpoint accuracy. Hans and a select few of his soldiers would be among them, slicing away at flesh and setting fire to the tents.

… Yeah, no. That Bavarian was walking into a slaughter.

-VB-

Isabella

Future Baroness of Fluelaberg

Isabella glared at Hans, and Hans adamantly refused to let her know what the godforsaken horrid smells wafting about in the castle was!

For the first time, they were fighting.

“It can’t possibly be important enough for everyone in the castle to deal with this smell for a full week!”

“It can’t be helped! The equipment we need for this can’t be carried far, and you know about the spies that have to be crawling all around,” he grimaced.

As she understood it, Hans had collected a literal cellar-full of animal dung and let them ferment underneath the fort. Unfortunately, he didn’t do something right and the atrocious smell was wafting about the entire fort. The once beautiful and smell-less Fluelaberg… began to smell like shit for the first time.

“Get rid of those or put them somewhere else!”

“I can’t! I don’t have anywhere else to put them! I can’t leave potential explosives anywhere else! I know for a fact that if they exploded in the cellar, then the cobblestone-lined cellar could take the hit.”

She didn’t know what explosives were until he showed her.

And she just … couldn’t understand how he so easily lived with the fact that there were those things underneath their feet. Yes, she saw him do supernatural things to make a tunnel and then a cellar to store them some one hundred feet underneath the ground floor of the fort, but it didn’t change the fact that a single barrel of those dungs could destroy a barn!

And he had hundreds of them!

The smell was really the excuse.

The potential explosion was what really scared her.

And so she fought with him for the first time to the point of ignoring the servants skittering away whenever they got too close.

To think that their first fight would be over … shit-filled barrels, no matter how useful they may be in the future.