Re: Steel and Gunpowder

Konrad turned away from the palace archway.

Down in the plaza, Quartermaster Hans and the Swabian scribes dragged their ink pots across the wood, preparing to dissect the Fugger contracts line by brutal line.

The banking executive stood nearby, his posture faltering slightly as he noticed the sudden shift in the Warlord’s demeanor.

Konrad looked like a wolf who had just found the slaughterhouse key.

Katarina noticed it too... she stepped closer.

"I found the silver," Konrad said. "Or at least, I am about to."

He did not elaborate further. Konrad marched down the grand marble steps. The cheering Bavarian commoners silenced themselves.

The kneeling royal cousins and minor barons shrank backward, pressing their robes into the dirt, desperate to avoid his gaze.

Konrad walked to the center of the plaza, stopping right in front of Duke Wilhelm.

"Konrad, please..." Wilhelm whimpered. "I signed the surrender. I swore the oath. What more do you want from my blood?"

Konrad reached down, his fingers twisting into the long hair of the Duke.

With a single jerk, Konrad dragged Wilhelm upward.

Wilhelm shrieked in pain. The royal cousins gasped. The Fugger executive took a nervous step back.

"You borrowed three million florins from the suits, Wilhelm," Konrad growled. He made sure the blacksmiths, the weavers, and the city guards heard every single syllable. "You signed away the salt mines to buy the Pope’s assassins."

"I had to!" Wilhelm cried out. "The Vatican threatened excommunication! I was trying to save the city!"

"You were trying to save your own miserable throne," Konrad corrected, tightening his grip on the Duke’s hair until the man hissed in agony. "But your assassins failed. They died on my doorsteps before the wage wagons ever rolled out of Munich."

Konrad stepped closer. "I know they demand a tenth upfront, and the rest upon completion. I also know that a greedy, pathetic bastard like you would never hand over three million silver coins to an Italian commander without skimming a vast fortune for your own private vaults."

Even so, Wilhelm tried to shake his head.

"The silver is gone!" Wilhelm choked out. "Cardinal Morone’s agents took it! They loaded it onto the river barges before the Swabian cannons surrounded the gates! I swear it!"

"You are a terrible liar." Konrad stated bluntly. "Do you know how much three million silver florins actually weigh, Wilhelm? It is not a handful of coins you can slip into a velvet pouch. It requires reinforced iron chests. It requires dozens of wagons and hundreds of draft horses just to move it across the city. If Cardinal Morone’s agents tried to load that much raw capital onto the river barges, every single merchant and dockworker in Munich would have seen the convoy."

Konrad turned his eyes toward the watching citizens of the capital.

"Did any of you see a hundred wagons of silver leaving the city gates last week?"

The merchants and commoners shook their heads. A few bold dockworkers shouted their denials, pointing accusing fingers at the kneeling nobles.

The populace was hungry, and realizing their former Duke had hidden a mountain of wealth while they starved fueled a sudden, vicious anger in the plaza.

"They didn’t see it..." Konrad summarized, turning his gaze back to the Duke. "Because it never left. You kept it. You hid the florins inside this city, waiting to see if the Vatican dogs actually managed to breach my star fortress before you paid the final invoice."

"I will ask you one time, Wilhelm," Konrad promised. He released the Duke’s hair. Konrad rested his hand on the grip of his wheellock pistol. "Where are the florins?"

Wilhelm scrambled backward, staring at the weapon, then at the furious faces of his own citizens.

The people of Munich were gripping their tools, their eyes burning with the desire to tear their former ruler apart.

If Konrad simply stepped aside, the mob would handle the execution for free.

"In the catacombs!" Wilhelm shrieked, throwing his hands over his face. "Beneath the old cathedral of St. Peter! The priests reinforced the crypts with iron doors! The silver is there!"

Quartermaster Hans paused his auditing, his quill hovering over the Fugger ledger.

He looked up, his eyes wide with the staggering realization of the wealth sitting just a few blocks away.

Konrad felt a grim satisfaction. The raw capital required to build the steam locomotives, to lay the iron tracks across the valleys, and to fund the Ironstorm Jaegers was waiting in a dusty church basement.

"Marshal Eckhard," Konrad commanded.

"My King," Eckhard responded instantly, stepping forward with his broadsword resting on his shoulder.

"Take a hundred halberdiers. March to the cathedral. Breach the iron doors of the crypt and secure every single silver coin in the name of the Alemannian crown," Konrad ordered. "If any priest attempts to stop you, remind them that the Vatican’s holy decrees mean nothing against a Swabian firing squad."

"With pleasure," Eckhard grinned, waving for his veteran captains to assemble the men.

Though the victory seemed absolute, Wilhelm let out a laugh from the dirt.

"You think it is that simple, Konrad?" Wilhelm coughed, blood speckling his lips. "You think I just stacked the chests in the dark and left them unguarded?"

Konrad narrowed his eyes, his hand tightening on his pistol.

"I didn’t trust the priests, and I certainly didn’t trust my own royal guards to watch a fortune that large," Wilhelm sneered. "I hired an independent contractor to guard the crypts until the war was decided. A man who owes no loyalty to the Pope, the Emperor, or your pathetic forges."

The Duke pointed a finger toward the towering spire of the distant cathedral.

"He is waiting," Wilhelm whispered. "And he brought his own men."

Konrad stared at the distant church and sighed.

"More dead men..." Konrad muttered, his eyes narrowing as he looked toward the spire of St. Peter’s Cathedral.

"They chose their contract, My King," Marshal Eckhard grunted. "If they want to die for a disgraced Duke’s stolen silver, we will oblige them."

Konrad turned his back on Wilhelm. "Bring my horse."