Stories thread - King of the Romans PBM

[OverKnight]

Matthias Adrift, 1308

Even now, years later, apprehension filled Matthias when he sailed, particularly along the coast of southern Anatolia. In 1258 the fleet bringing him to the Holy Land had been attacked by Saracen ships, and he was forced to land on a remote beach south of Smyrna. It was not so much the battle that had unnerved Matthias, but the lack of control. He was no sailor, and the best he could do was repel a few boarders while the ships swirled about him, titans outside his control that could end his life in an instant. Only by blind luck did he survive that day. Oddly enough it had been that loss, that feeling of helplessness that compelled him, among other reasons, to run for Chancellor. With that position he would be in control, as much as any mortal could be. He would rise and fall by his own hand, not by chance or fate.

Now, sailing those waters again, Matthias felt the same loss of control, of helplessness. Of course there was no physical threat to the ship he was on, no ill wind or pirates, yet he still felt adrift. The seas might be calm, but a storm had taken hold of the Reich, and it threatened to consume his life and all he had built up. Forty years in power, forty years of adversity and triumph, Khans killed, Cathedrals built, Popes elevated, Wars won and Peace gained and it had only taken eight years for it dissipate. Just eight years and he felt as powerless and lost as that whey faced boy puking on the shore of a strange land.

I hate ships, thought Matthias, I'd rather be on solid ground. But the Reich itself was adrift, no one seemed to be at the helm, everyone wanted to sail in a different direction and the Corsairs were closing in.

All that he could do, all that he had left, was to repel boarders.