Free Web NovelChapter 63: Striking Down Old Charters
"He is handing us the very writ we need to take the Bavarian forges the moment the Teutonic threat is broken..."
Before the master of spies could speak of the Teutonic supply trains, the doors were pushed open. Marshal Eckhard entered the solar.
"I bring the tallies of the new men, My Lord," Eckhard stated, standing rigidly.
"Speak the tallies, Marshal," Konrad ordered.
Rustle...
Eckhard unrolled a canvas ledger. "The gathering of men from the taken Rechberg lands bears a great harvest. Father Anselm’s printed words, joined with the promise of Fugger silver and steady bread, have brought a flood of peasants. The starving serfs are fleeing their old lords to seek work at our forges."
The Marshal pointed to the final sums.
"The cannon foundries have all the hands they need...
The twelve-pounder great guns have full crews. I ask your word on where to place the rest of these men. Shall we swell the ranks of the footmen?"
"..."
The coming of the Teutonic heavy horse demanded a trap... unarmored pikemen were a relic; armored knights must be met with piercing shot from all sides!
"The footmen shall be swelled to exactly two thousand and four hundred paid wheellock gunners," Konrad ordered, setting the main line of defense.
"...but the rest shall be formed into a swift company of horse. We shall swell the ranks of the Reiters." freewёbnoνel.com
"This?" Eckhard frowned. "We have but fourscore Reiters now, my Lord. To raise a full host of horsemen demands a great spending of silver on mounts and saddles..."
"You shall raise a host of 800 riders," Konrad commanded, opening the chests of silver for the task. "The forges are even now making the new twin-barreled wheellock dags. Every Reiter shall carry two of these pieces, allowing them to fire four heavy lead balls at close measure before needing to load again."
Konrad stood up, "More than this," Konrad went on, "I have sent a new drawing to Master Klemens. The Reiters shall bear thirty-eight-inch, fine steel thrusting swords, wrought with a basket hilt to allow the wrist to turn swiftly. They shall ride as a swift, moving storm of shot, forged solely to break the ranks of the Teutonic knights.
Draw up the tallies for the silver and give them to the master of stores to pay from the Fugger chests."
"The work begins at once, Lord Konrad," Eckhard swore, striking his breastplate.
The Marshal turned sharply and left the room, going back to the camps.
Isolde watched the spending of the realm’s wealth...
Eight hundred riders with fire-dags and four-and-twenty companies of gunners made a host to rival the standing armies of the greatest Dukes in the Empire!
Konrad turned his eyes back to the map, his mind setting the final shape.
He tallied his whole strength:
Two thousand and four hundred wheellock gunners bearing plug bayonets,
Eight hundred Reiters,
Eighteen bronze great guns.
Never before had such a storm of powder and shot been gathered in one place.
...
A few hours later, the maid locked the doors of the lord’s chamber. Inside were forty Swabian lords and knights, and magistrates from the lands bordering Von Frundsberg Castle.
Konrad von Frundsberg did not sit on a high platform or a gilded throne to display his power. Rather, he stood behind his desk.
The coming Teutonic crusade and the gathering of Bavarian halberdiers demanded a single host acting as one. The Empire’s old way was a sure path to ruin on the field...
"The shifting tides of war in Swabia have made your old rights useless," Konrad declared.
"...from this day forth, the house of von Frundsberg strikes down all old charters giving you the right to call peasants to arms, keep your own guards, or lead your own banners into battle."
"Henceforth," Konrad went on, "every man fit to bear arms belongs solely to this house and forge. Your peasant bands shall be broken up and folded into the drilled wheellock footmen. The captains of this new host shall be chosen only by their skill at arms, their reckoning of stores, and their true obedience... noble blood and ancient names are hereby worth nothing."
Dozens of lesser lords shouted curses, calling upon the Pope, the Emperor’s Diet, and ages of Swabian custom.
Several knights reached blindly for the hilts of their broadswords, their minds failing to grasp the true peril of the room.
Konrad did not raise his voice to fight the shouting.
Marshal Eckhard, standing in the shadows of the room raised his mailed hand.
At once, thirty paid gunners of the master’s host stepped from the arches.
They all wore matching blackened half-plate. Moving as one with terrifying order, thirty wheellocks were lowered, the newly forged plug bayonets gleaming in the lantern light.
The sharp click of thirty locks making ready to fire was a chilling sound that instantly froze the protesting lords.
Konrad leaned forward. "I called you to this hall not to parley, but to open your eyes to the new age,"
"You may speak of your needs of bread and coin, provided you do so one by one and without shedding useless tears."
An aging Swabian knight, clad in a jack that spoke of decades of border raids, stepped forward.
"I am a Knight of the Empire, von Frundsberg," the old warrior rasped, "My house has led lancers for this valley since the Bohemian wars.
If I am stripped of my men and my warhorse, what is my place? I cannot work a blast furnace."
"Your old ways of crossing swords are useless against a massed volley of lead shot," Konrad stated,
"Yet, my host needs captains to drill the peasants in marching in true squares and husbanding their grain. If you have the wits to cast aside your lance and learn the fourteen steps to load a wheellock, you shall be given a captain’s pay in my footmen. Your rise shall be measured purely by your men’s speed in firing."
"...If you refuse to bend to the powder age, your silver from the Fugger chests shall be cut off, and you shall starve... the choice is yours."
The old knight swallowed hard, He bowed his head and stepped back into the throng of his peers.
A nearby baron, a man whose wealth came mostly from wringing tolls from Hanseatic merchants crossing his small lands, saw a chance to speak. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
"If our guards are scattered, my Lord," the baron began, "who guards the borders of our lands? Who collects the tolls and forces the serfs to yield their winter wheat?"
Konrad locked his eyes onto the baron, "You live within the von Frundsberg lands. To guard these borders, I have ordered the digging of great star-forts of earth. These forts shall be held by my paid gunners..."
"More than this," Konrad commanded, "these guards shall hold the sole right to keep the peace and collect the tolls. You no longer hold the right to wring coin from the peasants or the merchants’ wagons. My rule shall dispense all justice, and my chests shall hold all the coin."
The gathered lords immediately realized what was happening... Konrad was not only taking away their swords, but also their right to judge and levy taxes!
Yet, as the lesser lords looked down the barrels of the wheellocks, and remembered the ruin of Baron von Rechberg’s stone keep, their fear of death easily conquered their noble pride...
They lacked the silver, the great guns, and the men to fight the iron master!
One by one, under the silent watch of the gunners, the Swabian lords walked to the table.
They pressed their seals and hands to the vellum books, lawfully signing away their rights of the sword.
They comforted themselves with one foolish hope: they believed that by giving up their swords, they were at least keeping their rich fields and the grain harvested by the serfs.
They thought they could hide in their stone manors and wait out the coming Teutonic war in soft, cowardly ease...
Konrad watched the final name being written. He gave a sign to Marshal Eckhard to take up the writs.
"The reckoning is done. You may go," Konrad stated, turning his mind at once from the lords.
As the broken lords filed out of the room, Konrad drew a fresh, blank book from his pouch.
To ensure this law held fast, Konrad mixed the thousands of new men directly into the ranks of his drilled wheellock footmen.
He set a strict measure: one seasoned gunner for every three new men.
This breaking of their ranks smothered any hope of treason, drowning their loyalties.
At the same time, Konrad remade the Swabian horse.
They were named Reiters, set upon plain geldings and armed with fine thrusting swords and twin wheellock dags.
The silver spent to buy the saddles and forge the dags was a king’s ransom, briefly emptying the chests.
Yet Konrad knew that swift riders, armed to pierce armor with lead, were the only shield against the coming Teutonic knights... the silver was spent.
As the forges burned day and night to cast the blackened half-plate and the new plug bayonets, the armories grew full of cast-off iron.
The keeps overflowed with taken Swabian chainmail, rusted jacks, and plate armor stripped from the broken lords.
In the old days, this spoils of war was a great treasure. To Konrad, it must be turned to coin at once...
Konrad framed a cunning snare to fill his chests and strike at his foes... he sent a plain letter of trade across the eastern border, aimed straight at the Bavarian lords.
