Re: Steel and Gunpowder

Konrad tossed a wax-sealed parchment onto the table.

"You don’t know the half of it. My scouts intercepted that yesterday. It was written by General von Harrach to the Ottoman Vizier. He offered to throw open your Western Gates, provided the Sultan spared the Austrians and slaughtered my Alemannians."

István stared at the letter.

"While you starved on these walls," Konrad continued, "the Austrians sold your lives to save their own. And all the while, the Akinji cavalry bypassed this fortress. How many of your villages burned this week, István? How many subjects were dragged off in chains while Ferdinand sat in his palaces?"

"They burned everything," István choked out, slamming his fist onto the table. "My farmlands are salted. The Habsburgs swore an oath, and they used us as a shield!"

Konrad leaned forward. "The Habsburgs have voided their feudal contract," Konrad declared. "I am declaring von Harrach’s treason an act of war. When I march back west, I am not stopping at my borders. I am stripping the Habsburg dynasty of their authority over these lands."

István’s head snapped up. "You are going to war with the Emperor?"

"I will reorganize, but I have no desire to manage the minutiae of the Hungarian plains," Konrad corrected. "I need a man who understands this soil and despises the Austrians."

Konrad pointed a finger at István. "I am severing Hungary from the Holy Roman Empire. I will recognize you as the Sovereign King of an independent Hungarian state. My armies will guarantee your borders."

"...?" István was paralyzed. The offer was staggering, but he knew men like Konrad did not give away kingdoms for free.

"And what is the price for this crown?" István asked.

Konrad smiled. "Exclusivity. Unrestricted, tax-free access to the Carpathian copper and iron mines. Your agricultural sector will be modernized to my blueprints to meet strict annual grain quotas, exported directly to Swabia. You will buy manufactured goods exclusively from Alemannia."

István looked at the map on the table, then at the treasonous letter, and finally at the Jaegers by the door.

István stood and extended his hand across the table. "I accept your terms." István said.

Konrad gripped the Hungarian’s forearm. "Excellent," Konrad murmured. "Now, let us go to the dungeons."

...

Three hundred miles northwest of the Hungarian slaughter, inside the Hofburg Palace in Vienna.

Archduke Ferdinand of Austria stood by the windows of his private study, staring out at the sprawling capital of his domain. He was a man in his early thirties, yet the stress of managing the eastern borders of the Holy Roman Empire had ravaged him.

Deep, dark bags hung beneath his bloodshot eyes, and his once-thick hair was receding rapidly, threaded with premature silver.

For months, Ferdinand had been playing a terrifying game of political chess, trying to balance the looming threat of the Ottoman Empire against the sudden, explosive rise of the Kingdom of Alemannia right on his western border.

The doors of the study clicked open, breaking the silence.

Lord Kinsky, the Archduke’s premier spymaster and chief of intelligence, slipped into the room.

Ferdinand turned away from the window, exhaling a long breath. "Tell me you have good news, Kinsky. Tell me Suleiman’s vanguard has bogged down the Swabian King in the mud of Veszprém. I need Konrad bleeding. I need his army distracted so we can fortify our borders."

Kinsky offered a bow, but his expression remained grimly neutral. "I have no fresh ravens from the Hungarian front, Your Grace. The distance is too great for immediate reports. However, I have just returned from my inspection of the Swabian border."

Ferdinand walked over to a silver tray on his mahogany desk and poured himself a chalice of spiced wine.

His hands shook slightly. "And? Did you manage to infiltrate Augsburg? Have you seen the inside of these demonic foundries Konrad has built?"

"I did not get inside the foundries, Your Grace," Kinsky admitted. "And honestly, I did not need to. The sheer scale of what the Swabian King is doing spills out into the countryside."

Ferdinand frowned, taking a sip of the wine. "Explain yourself."

"I watched a line of cargo wagons leaving a munitions facility," Kinsky detailed, stepping closer to the desk. "They were transporting field cannons. Every single barrel, every single wooden spoke on their wheels, every brass fitting... they were identical. Down to the millimeter."

Ferdinand scoffed, though a bead of sweat formed at the base of his neck.

"If Konrad’s armies are equipped with even a fraction of what I saw leaving those gates, we’re doomed." Kinsky countered.

Ferdinand’s knuckles turned white around his chalice. The Archduke had secretly conspired with the Ottoman Vizier, offering the gates of Veszprém to ensure Konrad’s modernized army was crushed by sheer numbers.

But if Konrad’s firepower was truly as limitless as Kinsky described, the Ottomans might actually lose. And if Konrad survived Veszprém and discovered Ferdinand’s treason...

Vienna would burn.

Ferdinand set the chalice down. "We need those weapons, Kinsky. If Konrad can forge rapid-fire carts and explosive shells, then we must possess them as well. I want a working prototype of his grooved rifles."

Kinsky sighed, shaking his head slowly. "Your Grace, Konrad pays his workers absurd wages in silver. He builds them heated homes. They are fiercely loyal to him. Any man caught smuggling blueprints is immediately shot by the Ironstorm Jaegers."

"Every man has a price!" Ferdinand snapped, his voice echoing sharply off the walls. "I do not care if you have to promise a Swabian foundry master the weight of his own wife in gold! I do not care if you have to kidnap their children! If we do not acquire the technology to match Alemannia’s steel, the Habsburg dynasty will be swept off the map!"

Before Kinsky could formulate a response to the Archduke’s hysterical demands, a sudden commotion erupted outside the study.

The sound of scuffling boots and the panicked voices of the Imperial Guards filtered through the doors.

"Unhand me, you armored apes! I am an Archduchess of the blood!"

The doors burst open, slamming against the walls.

Standing in the threshold was Ferdinand’s sixteen-year-old niece, Archduchess Isabella.

She was dressed in an exquisite gown of deep crimson silk, her dark hair pinned up in elaborate braids laced with pearls.

But her beautiful face was twisted into a scowl of pure venom. She held a crumpled piece of parchment in her fist like a weapon.

"Isabella," Ferdinand groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I am in the middle of a vital security briefing. What is the meaning of this?"

Isabella marched into the roomز She ignored Kinsky entirely and slammed the parchment onto Ferdinand’s desk.

"A marriage contract?!" Isabella shrieked, pointing an accusing finger at the wax seal of the Duke of Piedmont. "You signed a betrothal contract behind my back? You are marrying me off to Prince Lorenzo?!"

Ferdinand shot Kinsky a tired look, silently praying for patience.

He looked back at his furious niece. "Isabella, lower your voice. Lorenzo is the heir to one of the wealthiest duchies in the Italian peninsula. He is a fine match, and you will be a Duchess."

"He is a perfumed coward!" Isabella screamed, throwing her hands in the air. "He paints his face with lead powder! He wears more imported lace than a Venetian courtesan! Last spring at the Vienna tournament, he literally fainted when a hunting hound barked at him! I will not marry a man whose wrists are thinner than my own!"

Ferdinand’s remaining patience instantly evaporated. He slammed both his hands down onto the desk, leaning forward with a terrifying glare.

"You will marry whoever I tell you to marry!" Ferdinand roared. "Do you think we have the luxury of choosing husbands based on their jawlines and their bravery? Look around you, you foolish girl! The Ottomans are pushing against our eastern borders, and the Swabian King is building an empire in the west! We are out of money, and we are out of time!"

Isabella flinched slightly at his volume, but the rebellious fire in her eyes did not dim.

"The Duke of Piedmont has gold, Isabella," Ferdinand continued. "He has silver, and he has thirty thousand mercenary pikemen on his payroll. If we marry you to Lorenzo, the Habsburgs secure a defensive pact. We gain the capital we need to fortify Vienna against King Konrad. You are a woman of the Imperial bloodline, and you will do your duty to your family!"