Re: Steel and Gunpowder

The blast of the falling wall brought a swift end to the fight.

Marshal Eckhard pushed past the canvas of the tent.

"The foe yields, my Lord. The doors are thrown open. The Baron himself comes across the ditch bearing a white cloth."

"Tell the master gunners to cease their fire. We must save the Baltic powder for the coming holy war. Gather a company of the wheellock footmen. We shall seal the taking of these lands at the border mark." Konrad stated.

The ground between the camp and the broken keep served as the place of parley.

Baron von Rechberg stood shivering in the mist. He wore full plate armor, dented and scarred by the flying stone.

Beside him stood a few weary men holding broadswords and pikes.

Facing them stood the von Frundsberg men. One hundred paid footmen, all wearing the same blackened half-plate, held their new wheellock dags ready.

They were quiet, moving as one, entirely free of the wild shouting of old sell-sword bands.

Konrad von Frundsberg rode forward on his horse. He wore a simple black doublet. He carried no shield and bore no bright colors of his house.

"..." Baron von Rechberg stared at the young smith.

"I come to end this quarrel, von Frundsberg," the Baron declared, trying to speak like a lord though his lands lay in ruin. "My keep is sorely battered, and the burning of the fields brings hunger to us both."

Konrad did not dismount. "Speak your terms of yielding."

The Baron stood taller, leaning on his sword. "I offer a fair ransom. I shall give back your wagons of steel and cloth at once. More than this, I will set my seal to a writ promising two thousand silver florins to pay for the powder you have spent.

In return, you shall march your men back across the border, and the lands of my house shall remain mine."

"Your offer is a fool’s dream," Konrad stated. "You seek to bargain with silver you do not have. You have not two thousand florins. Your chests are empty."

"This?!" The Baron’s face flushed a deep red. "I am a Baron of the Empire, named by the Diet! You cannot cast aside a lawful ransom!"

"Your lands are no longer a sovereign house. They are a blocked road that chokes my trade. I came to take these lands whole." Konrad stated.

Konrad reached into his saddlebag and drew out a vellum writ, sealed not with a noble crest, but with the plain stamp of his forge’s clerks.

He handed it down to Marshal Eckhard, who stepped forward and gave it to the Baron.

"That is a writ of total yielding," Konrad explained, "You shall not swear an oath to me. You shall not be my man. Lesser lords are greedy, lazy fools who always rebel when their silver runs short.

By this writ, your name, your lands, and your rule over these peasants are stripped from you forever."

Baron von Rechberg stared at the writ in horror. "You mean to strip my house of everything?" the Baron whispered, "You would cast a lord of the Empire into the dirt? How shall we live?"

"When you set your hand to the writ, you and your kin shall be given five hundred Fugger florins. My horsemen shall take you to the Bavarian border. You shall live out your days far from here. If you ever cross into my lands again, you shall be shot dead on sight." Konrad stated.

The Baron’s old captain stepped forward, gripping his pike. "My Lord, we cannot sign this! Let us return to the keep and die like men upon the stones!"

Konrad turned his gaze to the old captain. "If the Baron does not sign the writ before the glass turns, I shall loose the guns. I shall aim for the deep cellars where the women and children hide."

"You shall all be crushed beneath the stone, and I will simply take the lands from your dead hands. The end is the same... the only difference is the spending of my powder."

Baron von Rechberg looked back at his keep, then down at the clerk’s writ.

With a shaking hand, the Baron took a piece of charcoal from Marshal Eckhard. He wrote his name across the bottom of the vellum, forever giving his lands, his peasants, and his whole realm to the rule of the von Frundsberg forges.

"The taking of the lands is done," Konrad announced, putting the signed writ back into his saddlebag.

"Marshal Eckhard, send the footmen forward," Konrad commanded, "Send the master of stores to feed the peasants at once; they must have meat in their bellies if they are to mend the ruined fields."

Eckhard gave a salute. "And the stolen wagons of steel?"

"Check the tallies," Konrad ordered. "When the steel is counted, send the wagons straight to the Bavarian markets. We are late in buying the Baltic saltpeter, and the Bishop of Augsburg is gathering his holy army to the south. See that the work begins."

Konrad turned his horse back toward the camp.

...

A week later, inside the von Frundsberg Keep.

The breaking of the Rechberg house was carried out with the swift order of a Fugger counting house.

The sudden fall of the baron sent a shock through the Swabian Circle!

A strong stone keep, held by a lord of the Empire, had been battered to dust and its lands swallowed in less than a day!

Because the surviving peasants were at once fed from Konrad’s own stores, the exact measure of his bursting shot remained a dark secret.

The nearby lords whispered of dark arts and devil’s work, unable to grasp the true power of the great guns.

The Duke of Bavaria, who held a great stake in Konrad’s new arms, saw the taking of the lands with cold reason.

Though pulling down a lord of the Empire broke the old laws, the Duke knew that to speak against Konrad would cut off his access to the true-firing dags and cannons.

Thus, the Bavarian court turned a blind eye, valuing the new arms above the old laws of chivalry.

Within the master’s room of the keep, Konrad gave his whole mind to the ordering of his new lands.