Stories thread - King of the Romans PBM

[econ21]

A fine romance

First contact


Elberhard waited for the door to open, to see his bride for the first time.

“What’s she look like then?” he muttered to one of the courtiers. “English, eh? All horse-faced and bad teeth?”

The courtier looked mortified: “Oh no, no, no, Sire…”

The door started to open and the gathering fell silent.

Elberhard saw her gliding through the crowd.

“@#$%^&!!!ing ‘ell!” he whispered.

The English Princess had a head not unlike an onion, or so you would think, if you liked onions (as Elberhard did). A beautiful delectable pickled onion: round, small and smooth; contoured and perfectly symmetrical. A pickled onion, Elberhard thought. White skinned, with a sharp and slightly sour taste.

Her eyes flitted briefly across the room and zeroed in on the Prinz. Strangely, it was the fearless Prinz who blushed, as her eyes confidently sized him up. They lingered on his rough hewn body and seemed to scrutinize every manly scar on his face. She smiled and Elberhard fell, pole-axed, helplessly into love and enslavement.

*****

The lure


“So you are the heir to the throne of the great German Reich?” said Linyeve Apperry, sounding not too displeased at the prospect.

“Err, yes.” said Elberhard.

“But the Kaiser is not your father?”

“Err, no. My dad was Kaiser Henry.”

“Ah yes, I have heard much of him. Some say he civilized the enlarged Empire that Kaiser Heinrich carved out of the investiture crisis.”

“Err, yeah, he was all right.”

“And how many provinces does the Empire now span?”

“Oh, errr, quite a few.”

“Not the most eloquent of men, are you?” laughed Linyeve.

*****

The end of the beginning


“That man was the Kaiser?!?” stormed Linyeve.

“Err, yeah love, why?” queried Elberhard.

“But he is so young! The man is thirty if he is a year!”

Elberhard watched and waited, he had dreaded this moment.

“And you must be, God knows, forty at least!” she continued.

Elberhard rubbed his gnarled chin – the sand of Outremer and the rigours of battle had not been kind.

“So basically…” pressed Linyeve, “You may be the Prinz, but you will never inherit! The Kaiser will outlive you.”

Elberhard rubbed his chin harder and then shrugged his shoulders. There was no point denying it. The maths was incontrovertible.

“So what, precisely, does being a Prinz entail if it does not mean you will succeed to the Throne?” demanded Linyeve.

“Well, I am his, err, deputy.” ventured Elberhard. “And he is away a lot.”

Linyeve looked somewhat placated. “I see – so all the Kaiser’s powers devolve to you in his absence?”

“Well, err, that’s how I see it. But Kaiser Siegfried, well err, he does not quite see it like that. I am only supposed to chair the Diet and, err, shout at Electors if they are out of order.”

“I see, so I married a man of no prospects who is great at shouting?”

“Err, well that’s rather the long and short of it, yeah.”

“Wonderful.”

[econ21]

Acre, 1280


“No, you cannot stay in Outremer, you cannot!” pleaded the old man.

Elberhard looked puzzled. His mentor, Niklas Gruber, was normally so composed, so urbane. This desperation was wholly out of character.

“Why the @#$%^&!!! not?” demanded Elberhard. “The boss is dead. Hans is @#$%^&!!!ing off once he has added the latest scalp to his trophies. Even @#$%^&!!!ing Jens Hummel is quitting. I can’t quit now – not now.”

Niklas seemed almost visibly to be grasping for any support. “But you must not! The Diet will not accept an heir to the throne who refuses to come home! Outremer has few friends now and you need friends.”

“Outremer has few friends and that is why she needs me. But seriously, Niklas, why do you care so much? It’s my @#$%^&!!!ing life.”

“Yes, Niklas, that is a question I would like to hear answered.” intervened Linyeve. “If Elberhard asked me – as I should note, he has singularly failed to do – why I desperately wanted to leave Outremer, I am sure I could conjure up a plausible answer. Probably, something involving sand, camels, murderous Mohammedans and the phrase “Get me out of this sinking hell hole, you bastard!” I suppose.”

Elberhard winced, but Linyeve continued – her gaze fixed on Niklas. For once, Elberhard was not her prey and the Prinz could watch with detachment as she circled her latest victim.

“So tell me, Niklas, why does the Prinz’s old mentor demand that he leave Outremer, when it is quite evident that wild horses and even sweet English Princesses could not get him to do that?”

Linyeve moved very close to the old man, her face was almost touching his, and her fingers gently brushed the sweat dripping from his brow.

Niklas crumbled: “Because they will kill them if you don’t…” the old man cried.

*****

Elberhard paced around the room liked a bear in a pit. Betrayed by his old mentor! He cast hostile looks at Niklas, who was sat, a broken man. Periodically, the Prinz approached the old man angrily, fists clenched, before thinking better of it and turning away.

His closest retainers were in attendance. Jan the Teuton, hand on sword hilt – ready to act the instant the Prinz commanded it. Kachig Iskyan, the Armenian mercenary captain, watching Niklas with distaste. Whether it was distaste for the man’s betrayal or distaste at the possibility of having to kill such a helpless old man, Kachig himself did not know.

Linyeve was like an island of calm among the men. She moved to soothe the restless Prinz. She stopped his pacing and forced him to sit, so that both Niklas and Elberhard found themselves looking up at the young woman in front of them.

“Niklas – you said at your last meeting, you sought this man out in a local tavern?” Linyeve inquired.

“Yes.” sniffled Niklas.

“Rather careless of a kidnapper, don’t you think? He really must think he has you.” she commented.

“My grandchildren.” moaned Niklas. “I could not live with myself if they are harmed.”

“Yes, yes.” scolded Linyeve in a businesslike manner, “Blubbing won’t get them back. You must arrange another meeting – do you have a means of contacting this man?”

Niklas nodded. “But he is well protected – I think by Hashashins. If we send men to seize him, he will know and he will be gone.”

Linyeve smiled. “Yes, if we send men.”

Elberhard looked up at his wife, not understanding. And then, as her meaning became apparent, he fell, pole-axed again, just as he had on the first day he had ever set eyes on her.

*****

Why was the old man sweating so much? Something was not right. Dusan looked at the hashashin by the door again, inquiring. The hashashin shrugged again.

“Are you telling me you have failed?” Dusan asked Niklas. “That would be most unfortunate.”

“The Prinz is determined to stay in Outremer, but I think there is still a way to remove him.” said Niklas, talking fast and almost falling over his words. “His wife… she can be very … persuasive. And she is not fond of this place.”

Dusan smiled. “Good, good, the rats are finally leaving the sinking ship. Salier has been removed. Hans will leave once he has had his sport. Matthias cannot be Chancellor forever and soon will be a lame duck. And that joke they made King, soon his Duke will drag him home to Franconia. Who will be left? The Reich will be free to concentrate on its true destiny in Europe, not this Papist obsession”

“You talk too much.”

Dusan looked aghast as a pretty young whore boldly sat down opposite him.

“Go away, whore! This is men’s talk!” Dusan barked.

The whore smiled and drew something under the table. Dusan felt cold metal press against his groin.

“You remember this blade, Kolar?” said Linyeve. “It was a bequest from King Otto to Elberhard. Apparently Otto always regretted that Henry has stopped him from ever wielding it fully. And perhaps Otto suspected that Henry’s son might one day require it.”

Dusan looked up in alarm, seeking out the hashashin by the door.

“Send him and his men away, now, or say goodbye to your manhood.” Linyeve said commandingly. Dusan felt the metal press hard against his clothing, the point pricking his flesh. “I am not messing around. Do it now or regret it forever.”

Dusan jerked his head up to the side. The hashashin looked curious. Go. mouthed Dusan. Reluctantly, the hashashin exited the tavern.

“Now, listen to me, Kolar. My husband, well, you know, he kind of shares King Otto’s view of you. If it were up to him, he would have his men spend the next few months working you over. By the first day was done, you would be screaming for them to kill you. But they wouldn’t. I wonder how long a man could be tortured before dying? My husband would use you as an experiment to find out.”

“But, Kolar, it is your lucky day. Because you are talking to me and not my husband. You see being a frail and gentle woman, I am a very different creature. I would not want you to be tortured for months. The screaming might disturb the guests. And the stains would be hell to get off the floors. No, insect, I do not care about you.”

“As a woman, I care only about Niklas’s brats. Or should we call them grand-brats, Niklas?” Linyeve smiled at Niklas, who turned away in distress. “Yes, I care only about Niklas’s lovely little grand-brats.”

“So this is what we are going to do. You are going to come with me and stay as my guest in the Prinz’s quarters. Oh, your accommodation may not be of the highest class, but you will not be harmed. While there, you will summon the grand-brats to be brought to Outremer and we will make an exchange: you for them. An insect for some grand-brats: a fair exchange. And you must pray that they arrive here in just as pristine a condition as you yourself will be in.”

“I know what you are thinking: why should you surrender to this mad woman? Why should you not make a run for it? Have your hashashin rescue you?”

Linyeve pulled out two stiletto blades, handing one to Niklas. “But you have to think on this. You are talking to a Princess of the Crown – recently wed and expected to produce many offspring for the Reich. How likely do you think it would be for the Prinz to let her face down a kidnapper with only this old fool as my guard? And if by some miracle, you did escape, how long do you think you could stay in the shadows if you struck down a woman of such standing? In such an event, do you not think the Reich could pay the hashashins rather more for your neck than you could afford to pay to save it? No, Kolar – do the smart thing. Come with me and I will spare you. Defy me and I will squash you like the insect you are.”

The other customers noticed nothing out of the ordinary when the tall, dark clothed gentleman left the tavern. It is true, he did look rather discomforted. A young whore seemed to be clinging to him passionately and a nervous older man seemed to be supporting him. But the tall gentlemen did not protest and the watchers in the shadows did not intervene, as the ungainly trio marched up the street.

[Privateerkev]

Antioch, 1280

Jan sat in a large library in Antioch. At a large table, books on law were piled high. Max sat on a stool against the wall. Gunther was coming back with another pile of books. The King was flipping through books while scribbling notes down. Next to them was a fine piece of parchment that had, as of yet, no writing on it except for the words, Charter Amendment 13.x

Gunther plopped down the books and sat across from the King. He eyed the parchment and noticed its exceptionally high quality. "My King, that is one fine piece of paper. Surely you could have used any old piece of paper for a CA."

"Its the piece of parchment that Duke Arnold sent me as repayment. Its a long story. I thought it would be appropriate for what I'm writing," said the King as he was scribbling.

"And if I may ask, what are you writing?" Gunther inquired out of curiosity.

Jan slid the paper he was scribbling on across the table to Gunther and said, "Here is a rough outline of it."

Gunther took it and the old veteran scrutinized it. His face turned to a scowl.

"What? You don't like it?" asked Jan.

Gunther struggled for a respectful way to say what he was thinking. "Um...Sir... what are you doing? Why are you doing this to the Dukes?"

"What? You don't think they'll like it?" inquired Jan.

"Like it? I think they'll love it! But why ever would you do this?" Gunther was starting to wonder if the King had gone a little crazy.

Jan sat up and explained, "Because Gunther, we need to bind the Duchies to Outremer. Its the only way. If the Dukes feel involved, then the mission will survive. If they feel alienated from the land they sacrifice for, then our mission will fail. This will ensure that they will feel more included."

Gunther shook his head, "Sir, its so unbelievable, it just might work. If this doesn't make them feel included, nothing will."

With that, Jan grinned, took the paper back, and started working again on his legislation. A man in a robe, a few tables down, closed his book, got up and left. Max saw him but thought nothing of it.

---------------------

The robed man walked out of the library. After back tracking to make sure he wasn't followed, he went down an alley. Coming to a door, he knocked two up high and three down low on the door. It opened and a large hulking man saw him and let him in. The robed man walked down the hall to a large den where an older man was sitting at a table counting coins. The robed man sat down and immediately said, "I'm worried, about the King. He's working on something that could undo everything."

The older man continued counting until he was done with a stack before replying. "Oh, and what is the boy-king up to?"

"He said something about binding the Duchies to Outremer. If that works, it could be disastrous. Everything depends on getting the Duchies to become fed up with being over here and call for an abandonment of Outremer. I think we need to add him to the list," said the man in robes quickly and insistently.

With that, the older man fully turned away from his counting and looked up before speaking. "The list? Are you joking? King Salier was on the list. Kaiser Henry was on the list. Elberhard is on the list. Powerful and influential men who were a threat to our agenda. You want to add Jan to the list!? We might as well add Dieter to the list. Or Dieter's dog! If we're going to set the bar that low, we might as well add every German in Outremer to the list. Your thinking too much and your not paid to think. Your paid to follow your target and report. Every noble out here is followed by one of us. You follow Jan and report in. We'll do the thinking."

The older man was about to return to his counting when the man in robes pleaded, "But what if he can really pull it off? Getting the Dukes involved in Outremer could set us back years!"

With a sigh, the older gentleman explained, "Look, your making two assumptions. One is that Jan can get anything passed in the Diet. The man is a laughingstock. The boy-Kaiser appointed the boy-King and then abandoned him to the wolves. The Dukes smelled blood and tore him to shreds during the last Diet. Even common electors mock him openly. He's lucky if he will even get re-appointed. The second assumption is that the Dukes will stop being petty, narrow-minded, short-sighted, and provincial. No, the Dukes are far more concerned with their little corner of the Reich than they are of Outremer. Nothing will change that. And when the time is right, the right words will be whispered in the right ears in the Diet and Outremer will be abandoned. In the meantime, just do your job and you'll be fine. Dismissed."

The older man slid a stack of coins to the man in robes. The younger man pocketed the coins, got up, and left.