Swiss Arms 77 (Patreon)

Swiss Arms

Chapter 77

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

An overwhelming victory.

More than that, it was the kind of victory so one-sided that it would affect the political and military balance in the region.

‘And I think it’ll just affect everyone instead of change anything significantly because there’s too little to change,’ I thought to myself as the bavarian men-at-arms and knights were forced to give up their weapons and armors to my men. My men, most of whom were hale and whole still, gleefully picked out a weapon for themselves, because I said they could take any one weapon and any one piece of armor as their loot. Everything else would belong to me.

Considering that a good castle steel sword sold to the right buyer could feed a family for half a year, I was extremely generous with allowing them to take two. This was the equivalent of paying everyone roughly sixty thousand USD in the early 21st century. Hell, this might even be the start of my men handing those swords down as family heirlooms.

As for myself, I … probably didn’t get that much richer. Yeah, all of these weapons and armors were surely to make me richer, but I already had a monopoly on the only porcelain production in all of Europe, controlled the flow of trade in the Central Alps, and had a town growing ever more quickly. I was already rich, even if I didn’t flaunt it like most new moneys would.

No, I was more concerned about my captive, the Duke of Upper Bavaria, Rudolf.

He and I sat across each other in my now better tent, formerly his tent.

“... You are a real piece of work, you know that?” I asked him, and he glared at me.

“I have only acted as much as my honor demanded.”

“Your ‘honor’ just got you nothing, ended with the deaths of a good tenth of your men who trusted you as their liege, and got you captured,” I replied with a sneer. “All this over your own people and your own impatience.”

“Impatience?!” he snapped back at me. “I went above and beyond to satisfy my honor! I execute the guild masters affiliated with the bandits that roamed your lands! I sent their heads to you with a letter! And you responded with dismissal and disrespect!”

I stared at him.

“... What heads?”

He sneered back at me. “And now you act like this-.”

“No, I’m serious,” I cut him off with a frown. “What heads? What letter? The last letter I got from you was the one about you saying that the bandits weren’t yours. I thought that was the last of it until I got intelligence from others that you were preparing to attack me.”

He stared at me incomprehensively.

“But I got a letter from you,” he spat back.

“Do you have the letter with you?”

He did and was in one of his trunks. He had intended to use it to justify his sacking of Fluelaberg.

When I read it …

“This is not my seal or my letter. I don’t even have a proper seal yet,” I told him while bringing out one of the ledgers I’d written. It was one about my current army’s running cost, which anyone could guess with how much people I had with me, so showing him this was not a problem. He looked at it and then looked at “my” letter.

He compared them. I only needed a single look to see a difference, but maybe that’s because I wasn’t exactly normal. I gave the duke the time to process the sheer colossal damage … he did to himself.

“Did you even bother to compare the handwriting of the two letters? Don’t you have a spymaster for something like this?” Rudolf sat there as he grew increasingly pale. “Oh my God, you didn’t.” He didn’t say anything. “You got used. To attack me. Or make yourself weaker.”

If his vassals learned about this…

No, more than that, someone used me. There was no one that would be after me right now. The only enemies I would be fighting right now were fighting John in the west or too weak to even consider interfering. So who…?

“Well, all of my enemies are dead, too weak, or busy,” I told him. “So the only option that’s left is your enemy that set this up.” Rudolf looked like he had a dozen emotions running rampant inside of him. Humiliation, frustration, anger, dishonor, expectations, and more just … wrecking him from the inside out. “And you still have to pay for your release.”

“How much,” he gritted out as he tried to calm himself.

“Ten thousand gulden.”

Finally, Richard’s grumbling and glaring facade broke as he sputtered. “Ten thousand?! My duchy barely makes that in a year!”

“Well, you can also rot inside a mountain prison built into a mountain instead. And let me tell you, there’s a lot of mines that can be converted into prison cells.”

Rudolf shuddered in his seat.

“You would do that to a royalty?”

“In this empire, royalties are a dime a dozen,” I smiled. “But I’m sure your brother would pay your ransom if only to not have you be used as an abject lesson of his house’s humiliation.” But more importantly, I did not want to be that guy in the HRE who kept his enemies like trophies. That would get old very fast and even a single sign of torture or whatnot can be used as “honorable” casus belli.

Rudolf froze.

I stared at him.

He did not look so sure about being rescued.

“Your brother will ransom you, right?” I asked slowly while leaning backward.

He looked even less sure.

“Right?”

Rudolf looked desperate and without much to say right now.

I should write a letter to Henry. Maybe he could help me.

-VB-

Leon of Fluelaberg

Our return to Fluelaberg was one of triumph and glory! The baron even forced the duke to march on his feet like those Romans did to their enemies in the old days (according to the books in the library). Some people jeered at the duke and other prisoners of war, but most of us just cheered. We defeated an enemy that no one would hope to defeat! We brought home loot and glory! We came back home safe!

He waved his hand at the crowd cheering them on, and then -.

Leon grunted in surprise when someone ran into him.

When he looked down, his eyes widened after realizing that it was his wife, Elanna.

Her teary eyes looked up at him, and he couldn’t help it.

With a grin, he placed his hands on her waist, lifted her up, and gave her a deep kiss.

Needless to say, the entire crowd broke out into a cheer, but he didn’t care.

He came back home, his wife was here to greet him, she was happy to see him safe, and he was happy to see her again.

And later that night, his usual conservative and stern wife was more than happy to show her appreciation of him. Even more so the next morning when he told her how much he earned from the loot the baron gave everyone on top of the prisoners he caught for himself.

-VB-

A/N: i have no idea what the conversion for shilling to gulden to mark is, and I am basing some of the ransom on everything from 150 shillings for an archer’s ransom to Richard the Lionheart’s proposed ransom of 150,000 marks.