Rome, 1192

Conrad Salier snapped up the latest reports on the Crusade. The governor of the Reich's capital had been little more than an administrator for the past years, but he didn't mind. Work, he learned, could be delegated rather easily. And unlike in battle, if someone screwed up, the consequences didn't put everyone's lives in danger.

After telling an adept young fellow, Fritz von something or other (Conrad would have to try harder to learn names) to appoint a committee to inspect the condition of the ancient Roman aqueducts in the city, Conrad turned to the Crusade reports.

"Two large Jihad armies beaten back, the Crusaders have reached the Levant, excellent, excellent." Conrad flipped the paper to the back and read the next report (having spent most of life around nuns and monks, he was quite literate). His expression quickly clouded.

“Duke von Saxony has died. Unbelievable. What a loss.”

Dietrich was the kind of man who seemed immortal. He was supposed to live forever, fading into obscurity, enjoying the better life that he helped create. Instead, the Lord had seen fit to end his life with his greatest objective, Jerusalem, in sight.

The Lord does work in mysterious ways, Conrad thought with a chuckle as he mulled over the Duke –no, former Duke- of Franconia’s accomplishments. And there were many. He really seemed to come into prominence during the first years of Kaiser Heinrich’s Chancellorship, when the Reich had been at its lowest point. There were many records of his brilliant victory at Hamburg and subsequent marriage to the Kaiser’s daughter, propelling him to Dukedom in what amounted to an amazing rise.

Unfortunately, he fell just as quickly when he got into a relatively minor argument with Heinrich. The hot-tempered Kaiser took offense at what he saw as disloyalty (he had, after all, given him a title and a wife) and sentenced Dietrich to watchtower duty for a number of years. For that time, von Saxony’s name was dirt in the Diet.

However, time passed and Dietrich eventually returned to the Diet, a more mature man. He came back into favor with the Diet quickly with more stunning victories against the Poles, and became known as a voice of reason and an “old warhorse” up to the very day of his death.

“He will definitely be missed.” More missed than most of the Reich would suspect, if Maximillian Mandorf’s letters were not exaggerating. Conrad’s father had recently been fearful of the company that Kaiser Henry kept. Maximillian spoke of a Pagan magician, evidently the same man that the Kaiser picked up in the Balkans, who was exercising his influence over Henry daily. The most recent letter from Mandorf gave the inclination that the Steward of Bavaria now had the same opinion of Kaiser Henry as he did the Kaiser’s father.

I worry for the future of the Reich if its leader becomes less pious while embarking on a journey to save his country’s soul, the last letter had concluded. After ominous news such as that, Conrad was glad to be back in Rome. There was little point on going on a Crusade if it was tainted.

“And so,” Conrad said to himself, “I shall stay in Rome for the time being, and continue to be a prepared leader.” For, even in these times, the monsters of unrest and disaster lurked below the surface of prosperity. It would only be a matter of time before a large enough monster broke the surface.