Swiss Arms 81 (Patreon)

Swiss Arms

Chapter 81

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

The feast and the festivities took up a swing as I spent the occasion to impress all of the guests. Some of it was simply through the impressive decorations, fine china, and expensive fabric on display. Oh, and in one corner of the displays, Isabella put all of the cleaved plate armors neatly in a row for everyone to see my prowess.

This display was where I found the Prince-Bishop of Freising after he separated from the duke.

I didn’t know what kind of relationship he had with the Wittelbachs, which was a house with many branches, and Freising was in Bavaria, according to Isabella. There was a very good chance that they were chummy with each other, right?

Looking around, I noticed that everyone else was minding their own business, so I slid next to the bishop.

“What do you see when you look at them, Your Grace?” I opened up.

The bishop glanced at me from the corner of his eyes before returning to examine the ruined plate armors. “I wonder what kind of strength is needed to cause … such devastation. They look less like they have been cut and more like they had been torn.”

I hummed. “It comes with using a sword as heavy as I do.”

“A sword?” he asked me curiously.

“Well, it’s less of a sword and more of a butcher’s knife as tall as I am and half as wide.”

“... And you can wield that?”

“Yes, Your Grace. It took some time but I can.”

He hummed. “I will be honest, Your Lordship. I was asked to participate in the festivities by none other than the currently self-proclaimed sole Duke of Upper Bavaria, Louis the Fourth of the Bavarian Wittelbachs.” He paused, trying to put words as politely and gently as he can. “And he specifically asked me to inquire whether there is heresy and witchcraft afloat in these valleys.”

Ah. So that was their angle.

“Is that what you are here to do then?”

“It is what I must do, yes.”

“And words of the local Prince-Bishop of Chur is not credible?”

“He seems … too connected with you.” Another pause. “Ah, but please, be at ease. I am not here in any official capacity nor have I called upon the Inquisition.”

The Inquisition.

Personally, I felt ambiguous about the Inquisition. Having grown up in these mountains and met people all around, I learned more about them than I thought I would or remembered from my past life. The Inquisition was not what was popularly portrayed in Hollywood (never mind the fact that the power brokers, movers, and shakers in Hollywood and the United States, in general, were usually not Catholic nor pushed for Catholic agenda). Hell, I’ve seen the people do the things that the Inquisition had been accused of. In fact, I’ve learned that the Inquisition wasn’t … really all that frightening. Hell, they didn’t even give off a bad vibe, and I would know because I met one.

See, back in Uri, there was this priest who had ideas about God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, claiming that they were not here and were never here in the flesh.

While I initially didn’t understand, I found out why that was bad. See, if Jesus Christ was not in the flesh and did not sacrifice himself upon the cross, then did his sacrifice have meaning? It was apparently a question that had been around for a very long time, sprouting heresies left and right since before the formation of the orthodox church. It was a set of beliefs, essentially, that invalidated the idea of Christianity, that Jesus Christ came down to Earth to sacrifice himself for us, and our sins were washed away with his noble sacrifice. If Christ never had to sacrifice himself and only “acted” like he did because he who was not in the flesh could not suffer for sins of the flesh, then Christians were still not saved from the Original Sin and thus God and salvation were forever out of reach.

In fact, the Inquisition was more of a threat to the clerics than the regular folk like the Wittelbach Dukes, myself, or even the emperor. No, what we needed to watch out for was -.

“Leaving aside the armors, I am more curious about how you accomplished some of the deeds that were told by the soldiers at what the Munchners experienced. Fire and brimstone, they said.”

… wait, my half-assed dung bombs with near 50% failure rate? That’s what he was here for?

“Your Grace… shit burns if you set it on fire.”

He blinked and turned to face me a little. “Excuse me?”

“Have you ever seen the latrine get emptied?”

He scrunched his nose handsomely. Hmm, I wondered why this man, who - even in his 50’s - made women blush and fluster, became a priest.

“I have not.”

“Well, Your Grace. When enough excrements pool together, they produce miasma… that can be lit on fire with extreme results.”

He stared at me.

I stared back at him.

He grimaced.

I grinned.

“You… you set them on fire … with excrements?”

“Fermented excrements, but yes.”

He gagged. “You realize I will be telling them this if only to dissuade them of the idea that you are not a warlock or consorting with the devilkin?” he asked as he stepped away from me.

I only felt amusement. “Is that what they were accusing me of? Sorcery?”

He glanced at the torn plate armor pieces. “Something like that.”

“Well, you will be glad to hear that a lot of what I do are all within the natural causes and effects of what Our Lord Above has set into motion. You need not worry about that.”

“Oh, I wasn’t worried about it at all,” he replied with a casual “what are you talking about?” look. “I’m actually here to see if you were amiable to a military alliance.”

I froze. I tilted my head.

“... I must have misheard you,” I said as I looked around. No one was paying attention to us for now.

“Is it so hard to imagine that a prince-bishop seeks to better his lot within the empire? Or that he wants to protect his subjects?”

“... Were you not their friend?”

“Friend? My boy, I’m not sure what gave you that idea, but I am a prince whose realm is constantly under threat of the Wittelbachs. Now, if the closest prince-bishop, Bishop Degenhard of Augsburg, wasn’t so focused on internal development, I might not be here at the behest of the Wittelbachs of all people, but here I am. So, are you interested, son?”

Oh.

This … just got interesting.

“What did you have in mind, milord?”

It was a good thing that none of the other guests were connected to the Wittelbachs because the one guest who I thought I needed to watch out for?

He didn’t like them either.