Caen, 1300

"Ragusa?"

"Ragusa."

"Ragusa?!"

"Yes sir, I believe that it says 'Ragusa' on the parchment, yes."

"Cut the crap, Friedrich," Dietrich von Dassel said to his aide. "I'm being shuffled around, which is unlucky for the both of us. At first I thought that the Kaiser would simply be content with putting me in eternal second-in-command of the SHA behind the last Hummel. Kind of an irony considering that he hates me more than the man who tried to violently rebel against him some years ago. But now, not even that's good enough for me! Instead he puts me in Austrian territory overseeing nothing in particular for the best years of my life!"

"Well," said Friedrich thoughtfully, "It is close to the Byzantine border... If the Kaiser screws up negotiations - and considering him, it could happen - then you might be seeing more action than you think."

"No," said Dietrich with a touch of gloom on his face. "That's the brilliance of it all. Not even he can botch these negotiations, at least not to the point of war. He just gave Emperor Isaac two territories that should have been Bavarian right off the bat. I shudder to think what will happen when they get down to business.

"Anyway," he continued, "The whole point of his plan is that I won't even be on the frontier if his plan works. The way he sees it, he puts me right smack-dab in the middle of the new Empire once we re-unify with the Byzantines. I'll be far from anywhere important - exactly what he wants. That's why he picked Ragusa."

"I see," said Friedrich. Now he looked rather depressed. As a commander's career went, so did his aide's, and Friedrich's commander was not on the fast track to greater things at the moment.

"I don't know what went wrong during that Diet session," Dietrich said. It must have been the thousandth time he had said this since the session had ended some weeks ago, and that was only out loud. God knows how many more times he thought it to himself, at night, sleeping, eating, drinking, going over paperwork.

"I thought I really had something going, you know? Power to the people, and all that. I talk bad about the Kaiser, incite popular sentiment, and throw enough carrots to the Houses and I really thought they'd join me. It worked, for a while. I had Fritz, Peter, Athalwolf (although I don't know what happened with him, I was clearly being sarcastic when I insulted him), even Matthias! But what happened after that?"

"Well, sir, the fight with Duke Ansehelm got pretty ugly."

"Bah!" Dietrich spat, remembering the insults that had been traded and the political pressure placed on him to apologize. "I meant every word I said to him. The stupid idiot agrees with me but won't vote with me just because Kaiser Siegfried is his brother, so that completely absolves him of all wrongdoing. Hans acts like a total Frenchman when the time comes to make a stand, of course. 'I want to preserve the alliance with Franconia,' he says. Bah! The Swabian edicts still passed overwhelmingly. And he deprives his own House of voting influence because of that damned Duke."

There was a slight lull in conversation, which didn't last long due to Dietrich's continued ranting.

"Jesus Christ, Friedrich, I don't know what went wrong. I guess I'm just going to have to suck up to Hans if I want this thing turned around."

"Indeed, sir," Friedrich said. He looked uncomfortable at the mention of Hans but said nothing further to that effect. Dietrich did not notice the expression on his face and the two continued to live their newly-boring lives as normal.