Re: Stories thread - King of the Romans PBM
A village south of Frankfurt, 1364.
“He was trying to knife me!” the fat farmer pointed indignantly at the vagabond.
Jacobus Stoyan made no attempt to break free from the Teuton’s steel grip. The knights were all around him. It was hopeless. The brief burst of sunlight he had enjoyed was drawing to a close. As the skies darkened around him, the prospect of further pain and imprisonment loomed. The approaching shadow of death appeared almost inviting. But self preservation prevailed.
“I have information … important information. I demand to speak to your Komtur. I will not talk to anyone else.”
The Ritterbruder leading the Teuton initiates looked at his bedraggled captive and laughed: “By God, what makes you think I would waste the Komtur’s time with your jabbering?”
The Teuton looked at the broken eggs around Jacobus. “It is obvious that you are a common thief.”
He picked up Jacobus’s cruel dagger and studied it, before gesturing at the fat farmer: “This good man says that you tried to kill him. I should just have you hung as a small contribution to making Franconia safe for decent people.”
The cataclysm and the invasion of the Catholic Alliance had led to a wave of violence throughout Franconia. However, sponsored by successive Chancellors, the Teutonic Order was expanding out from Frankfurt - slowly pacifying the countryside, even as it sent waves of new recruits to the frontline armies. The Ritterbruder glared at Jacobus - seeing in his feral form everything the Teutonic Order was struggling against. Impatiently, he drew his sword and moved towards the prisoner.
“Damn it, why waste good rope …”
Jacobus watched the blade emerge gradually from the Teuton's scabbard as if time itself was slowing. His instincts urged him to fall to his knees, to beg for mercy. But Jacobus had been in battle. A higher part of his brain told him that those who were easiest to execute were the men who prostrated themselves, who threw away their dignity. Killing them was no harder than butchering animals. No, the ones who soldiers spared were the noble and the brave. Jacobus met the Ritterbruder in the eye and took a deep breath:
“I am a soldier, a Captain of Mercenaries. I would not deign to try to kill one so unworthy as him.” He gestured at the fat farmer. “Yes, I have seen better times. But has not Franconia herself? And indeed the Reich? Yes, I stole the farmer’s eggs. I was starving and he, evidently, is not. Yes, I have committed a crime … but not one that warrants summary execution.”
The Ritterbruder paused, reassessing his prisoner. “This information you spoke of…?”
“I have documents … evidence of matters of state that are of the gravest importance. But I will only speak to your Komtur.”
Documents. The word seemed to deflate the Ritterbruder and he visibly lost interest in his quarry. Documents. Who among the Brotherhood stationed nearby could read, still less want to do so? Although supposedly a monastic order, the Teutons were recruiting men for the strength of their sword arms rather than any monkish learning. Then a thought occurred to the Ritterbruder. Captain Jan! Formerly of Kaiser Elberhard’s retinue, the veteran Teuton was often to be found reading some obscure manuscripts stashed away in the bowels of the castle.
“I will not trouble my Komtur with your fantasies. But there is one brother who may wish to indulge you.”
*****
Captain Jan looked from the Ritterbruder to Jacob’s documents and back again with scarcely concealed excitement. It had been so long since he had been asked to do anything, however mundane or trivial. The death of his master, Kaiser Elberhard, at Bologna had led to an immediate collapse in Captain Jan’s fortunes. Without his patron, Captain Jan was merely a figure of mirth and contempt in the Reich - famous for being the hero who had bravely escorted the Reich’s treasury into the hands of the traitor Empress Theodora. The Teutonic Order had provided shelter, but offered him little work except overseeing the efforts of the Diendebruders. These young recruits were assigned with pacification duties and law enforcement as an initiation to the Teutonic Order before they were deemed ready to send into battle. An aging, grey haired veteran such as Captain Jan was seen as a suitable person to help mentor them.
“So you will do it?” the Ritterbruder asked, as if Jan’s willingness to read the documents and interrogate Jacobus only confirmed everyone’s views that the Captain was the saddest excuse for a Teuton in the castle.
“Yes, yes. These seals … they are important documents. Leave them to me.”
“And this one?” The Ritterbruder gestured at Jacobus. “Shall I have him thrown in the dungeon until you are ready?”
Jacobus tried not to flinch at the suggestion.
“No, no … sit him down there…” said Captain Jan absentmindedly, before seeing the poverty of his accommodation - he was not accustomed to having a guest in his quarters. “Oh, better bring another stool in here. I will talk to him in a minute, when I have finished reading … my God…”
“What is it?” asked the Ritterbruder.
“Leave him here and go.” said Jan, a hard edge entering his voice. And then he looked up at the Ritterbruder. “Believe me, brother, you are better off not knowing.”
*****
Captain Jan studied the documents for a long while and then finally looked up at Jacobus, aghast - as if the itinerant mercenary were an ancient and terrible shade from Hell.
It was all coming back to Jan, nightmarish things he had buried and tried to forget. But here was Jacobus, like a ghoul, uncovering the hideous corpses of the past.
Jan drew out a parchment from his own desk. A note he had long kept safe, one entrusted to him by Elberhard, his now deceased master, who at the time was Prinz. Jan compared the hand writing on the note passed on from Elberhard with that on some of Jacobus’s documents. He had hoped for the handwriting to match, but no - no powerful secret society could be expected to expose itself so carelessly.
“What’s that?” Jacobus asked, innocently, looking the parchment Captain Jan had drawn out.
Jan shook his head. “It does not matter.”
He hurriedly put the parchment back inside his desk, closing it firmly, as if hoping to rebury what was best left undisturbed. But it was too late.
Jan’s mind drifted back, as if reliving a recurrent nightmare. The parchment he had stored away had been passed on by his master, then Prinz, who in turn had received it on the eve of the last Diet before the cataclysm. It was a strange note, sent by a mysterious Order of the All Seeing Eye, advising the Kaiser to sideline his brother Hans and his ally Jan von Hamburg.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
What had shocked Captain Jan, and the Kaiser, most had been the politeness and matter of fact nature of the note. As if the new Kaiser should have recognised immediately that his job was to bow to the wishes of this secret Order. The Kaiser had not been long in identifying suspected members of this Order - starting with those who had most to gain from Hans and Jan von Hamburg not being appointed to the positions of power that they were due. As the suspects endorsed and supported each other, they spun a dance that drew in new suspects and strengthened the Kaiser’s existing suspicions.
Of course, the inaugural note had seemed innocent compared to the subsequent assassination of Kaiser Siegfried. Elberhard, Hans and Jan von Hamburg had quickly surmised that the secret Order of the All Seeing Eye were behind his assassination. However, they had no hard evidence for this belief. Hans’s investigation of the death implied it was the work of a prominent Bavarian, but Duke Lothar of Bavaria had quickly launched his own inquiry - fingering the Milanese and the Assassin’s Guild. The trail had gone cold, as cold as the corpses of the Milanese aristocrats Lothar had accused. With no solid evidence for their heinous accusations, Elberhard and Hans had been forced to remain silent for fear of public ridicule. At times even Captain Jan wondered if it were all paranoid delusions.
Elberhard had attempted to use Peter von Kastilien to infiltrate the Order, to provide the evidence he needed to uncover the secret Order as Siegfried’s murderers. Captain Jan had been present as Elberhard offered Peter a trade while the rebel was imprisoned in Rome - freedom and the future Imperial crown in return for Peter’s services against the Order. But while the new Prinz had proved eager to seek out his brother’s killers, the killers were less keen to seek out the Prinz. The plan failed miserably.
But the cataclysm had re-opened the wound. Elberhard had duelled Lothar in a proxy war for Swabia. But in the minds of many of the “Swabian loyalist” protagonists - Elberhard, Hans and Jan von Hamburg - it had not been a war for Swabia. Still less was it a war of Catholicism against Lutheranism. Instead, it had been a war against the secret Order. The war had ended with the fratricide at Bern and subsequent death of Hummel at Staufen. But while the conflict had been a victory for the Swabian loyalists, the wider conflict with the Order had merely been a draw. Captain Jan still had a copy of the terms of the ceasefire sent by Lothar to Elberhard.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
So, Elberhard had chosen peace. Better to save the Reich, he had argued, than tear it apart in a continued struggle against the illusive Order. Captain Jan grew pale. Now the choice that Elberhard had faced was confronting him. He looked up at Jacobus. Kill him. Burn the documents. No one need know. The Reich could continue undisturbed. She was weak and sick, but growing stronger. Let her rest, regroup and recover. Forget the past. Honour Elberhard’s wishes.
And yet, Elberhard was dead. His brother, Hans the fighter, was dead - murdered in cold blood by a man he believed to be an agent of the sinister secret Order. Something hardened inside Captain Jan. He remembered what Jan von Hamburg had said when Elberhard had pleaded for restraint. Elberhard had begged Jan von Hamburg to try to save the Reich by avoiding escalating the Swabian conflict and bringing in more of the Order’s supporters out in the open alongside Duke Lothar. But Jan von Hamburg had hauntily retorted that a Reich built on compromise with the hated Order would not be worth saving.
Captain Jan looked up, his face set. His master, Elberhard, had been a good man but ultimately a politician. Elberhard's foul language and bluff manners did not conceal the fact that he was as keen on compromise and harmony as his father Henry. But Captain Jan was not a politician. He was a soldier of God. He would do what was right, even if the world burned as a result.
Jan spoke: “Jacobus, I believe you. And when they read these documents, the Kaiser and Chancellor will believe you too. I will send them on immediately.”
Jacobus heart leapt: “And what of me?”
Captain Jan contemplated the figure in front of him. Another soldier like himself, who had seen better times. Whose life had been ruined by being ensnared in crimes not of his design.
“You hail from Bohemia, do you not? I will send you to Count Becker. I believe he is an honest man and may be seen as impartial in this matter. He will keep you safe from the reaches of Duke Lothar. And one day you will be called to testify. When that day comes, your voice will carry more weight if you are sheltered within neutral Prague and not a vengeful Franconia.”
Jacobus stood up, eagerly - for the first time in many years, his future seemed bright. Captain Jan ruefully watched the man’s rise in spirits. If Jacobus’s future was bright, would it not merely be from the glare of the flames that were about to consume the Reich?
Originally Posted by Lothar Steffen
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