Swiss Arms 88 (Patreon)

Swiss Arms

Chapter 88

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

Christmas came and went. It was honestly the biggest celebration, even bigger than the feast I hosted. With my people's still growing wealth, they wanted to celebrate Christmas in a more boisterous manner, and we just … did. We filled the entire valley with laughter, food, and warmth and even dragged Davos to our celebration.

New Year came and went. Unlike Christmas, it was a much more sedate and homey celebration.

During all of this, Isabella and I planned on how our tour would go. I also sent mails to all of the relevant towns and villages that we would be passing by. It would be extremely rude to visit those towns as the baron of Fluelaberg when those towns were their own independent states - as far as the Compact was concerned - without any notice.

It would be like the emperor visiting the Duchy of Saxony without making any announcement, sniffing around, and then leaving. It would be highly suspect from the viewpoint of the local powers that be. Sure, such a thing might not be a concern for small time villages but it would still be rude, so the least I could do was send a letter and asking if I could stay.

And from the letters I got back (thanks to the roads that connected most of the member villages, towns, and cities), they were happy to host me.

All except one.

Deep inside the mountain valley to the west of Davos and east of Chur, there were two small members of the Compact: St. Peter and Langweis. St. Peter was the village closer to Chur, and Langweis was a lot deeper and higher in the valley. So high, in fact, they only needed to walk for three hours eastward to reach the white-capped mountains, cross over, and walk down to Davos, which might take them half the day. And unlike St. Peter, they were happy to host me.

St. Peter, on the other hand…

They have been belligerent since Day 1 of the Compact’s founding. Never agreed with anything anyone else said, often ignored my calls for arms, and just generally acted like someone who didn’t want to be there.

I suspected that the only reason why they even joined up with the Compact was because they feared getting swallowed up by the Chur or something stupid like that.

Excuse me, brothers and sisters. Your village has nothing worth spending the time to attack or take over! Y’all probably don’t even pay that much tax!

St. Peter had a total of 200 people, according to their own village mayor. This included people in the surrounding villages who weren’t part of St. Peter but nonetheless counted due to them “sharing” the membership. Langweis had less than that at only 57 but all of their people were in a single village. But that one village offered up 20 able men (all but four of their able men) during the forewarned invasion by the Duke of Upper Bavaria while St. Peter offered a measly 30 (which was less than a fifth of their able men).

It was getting to a point where I was starting to regret allowing St. Peter into the Compact, and wanted to discuss their continued membership with the rest of the Compact.

And considering that there was a clause that allowed members to be kicked during certain conditions…

Well, it would depend on what their reaction was when I passed by. God forbid, if some of them started throwing rocks at me or Isabella…

But they wouldn’t be that stupid, right?

Right.

As for the tour…

“So are we all ready now?” I asked my steward, one of the rangers who needed to retire once we learned that he had received too big of an ankle wound; the most he could do was walk. Rocco, no surname, was someone in his late thirties and one of the immigrants who made their way to my city. He was one of the better shots, but, well, being a good shot couldn’t do much for a major ankle injury and more minor stab and slash wounds along his arms.

“Yes, milord,” he replied with ease, making his full, short, and well-trimmed beard and mustache tremble a little from speaking.

“Thank you,” I told the shorter and older man. “You will be fine with the management of the estate?”

“You left me with plenty of help, sir. I will manage perfectly, and if not, then at the very least, I will leave the day-to-day administration to the helpers while I focus on the defense and patrols.”

“Good,” I replied with a smile before turning to my convoy of ten carriages. Three held people; the first one was a luxurious carriage (for this era) was for me and my wife, and the other two were omre economical passenger carriages meant to carry merchants and peddlers who would pay to join the convoy. We already had five such merchants who wanted the warmth of other bodies to the chill of late January winter travel. The other seven carriages were for supplies, my soldiers and rangers, and gifts that I intended to give to the other mayors and rulers of the Compact.

As the richest ruler among the Compact, I couldn’t just go around without gifts as, according to Isabella, that would indicate that I was not rich enough to give even a miserly gift was either miserly or not rich. While not being known as a rich man wouldn’t hurt me personally, it would affect my city as rumors would go around saying that if the lord wasn’t rich, then the city couldn’t be rich and thus there weren’t a lot of trade to be had there.

Yes, everything I did had some kind of economic or political implication and consequence. Or in this case, going around giftless because of how “rich” I was would have both political and economic results.

Troublesome? Yes, but it also meant that the things I have been doing have resulted in a lot of good that there were bad things open to happening. After all, rumors about less than rich nature of my city meant that my city was richer than a village or even a town!

“Are we good here?” I asked Isabella, and she gave me an awkward thumbs-up. She was adopting some of my handsigns that I just did out of habit, but there were some that still made her feel awkward about doing. Like the thumbs-up. Something about thumbs-up usually referring to how construction workers and architects measured things and thus not the gesture of a lady.

“Yes, we are, husband,” she replied as she quickly pulled her hand down after that.

“Good. Let’s set off!”

---

Less than two hours after we left Fluelaberg, we were at Davos.

“Chief Kraft!” I greeted the man who’d come out to greet me.

“Baron Flualaberg,” he replied.

“It’s Hans as always. At least until we are among other nobles who are counts or higher,” I replied as I took his hands into a clasp, preventing him from bowing.

Yes, it was not what a baron was supposed to do, but Kraft and his family had been some of my first supporters and friends. Alvia and Albert still lived in Fluelaberg, and Alvia was still my best … student? Disciple? She was also Isabella’s supporter in the castle and the town. I could even go so far as to say that Kraft and his family might have had a bigger impact on the founding of the Compact than others might give them credit for.

Kraft grinned, making his grey beard smirk up.

“Well, it’s good that you’re here,” he told me. “We have a problem.”

… Troublesome.