After a few hours in the central hall at Von Frundsberg.

Lady Katarina of Bavaria stood stiffly. Her work as a go-between for Bavarian silver was near its end.

Her men were set at the northern borders, but the silver was safe. She was soon to return to Munich.

Blocking her path to the master’s hall was Lady Isolde.

"The Bavarian men are in place, Lady Isolde," Katarina said, "The work is done. Why do you still stand in the master’s hall? Your kin, the Duke, has withdrawn his hand from the old lords’ plot.."

"My place here is not ordered by the Duke’s empty plots," Isolde answered, "My work within this house is lasting. I am the master of the web of spies."

Katarina’s hands balled into fists. "You are a discarded thing!" Katarina hissed.

"I carry the heir to the mightiest host in the Holy Roman Empire," Isolde said, her voice dropping to a low tone. "I secure the future of this realm. You are but a fleeting visitor who needs soft words. When you return to Munich, tell your father that the von Frundsberg house needs Bavarian silver, but it has no need of a Bavarian bride."

"You are a plague!!" Katarina breathed.

"Go and settle your travel. The guard needs the hall for the moving of the powder." Without waiting for a word, Isolde turned her back and walked into the master’s hall.

Katarina stood in the hall, she needed a word from Konrad... She needed him to say that the slight she had suffered was not his will!

She pushed open the doors and entered the room.

"Lord Konrad," Katarina demanded, "I ask you to speak plain: what is Lady Isolde’s place in this house?"

"What happened?" Konrad said.

Katarina stepped toward the table, pointing to the door. "Her power is naught! Yet she walks through this keep claiming rule over the spies, and... and claiming that the child she bears gives her lasting power over this realm!"

"Lady Isolde’s words are true," Konrad said, offering no comfort to the lady. "Her kin’s power is gone, but she is of great worth. She broke the knight Hildebrand, winning the cattle roads that feed our men. She spreads the printed writs that turn the peasants against the priests.

Her work is the most useful of any who do not bear a sword."

He leaned forward, "Moreover, the heir is true... the future of this house cannot be risked on the shifting whims of the marriage market. Her place is lasting."

Katarina stared at him, he was not swayed by lust; he had simply weighed that Lady Isolde was the most useful person to him. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

"...you have slain the Pope’s men, and now you bind your blood to a woman who counts the life of a child as a tally in a book..." Katarina whispered, "You stand all alone, Konrad."

"Standing alone is a strength when everyone else is just as blind as you," Konrad corrected.

Katarina turned and fled the hall, she had to reach Munich.

***

Prussia, Winter 1525

SCREEEECH! The iron-bound wheels of the wagon shrieked as they ground through the frozen mud of the Prussian roads.

Within the stout cage in the rear, Friedrich von Frundsberg sat wrapped in a coarse woolen blanket.

His fine silks had been taken a month prior, sold to pay the sell-swords who dragged him toward the Baltic coast.

The Teutonic Order in the year 1525 was a crumbling ruin... The old holy wars of the north were long dead. The heathen tribes had been crushed or brought to the cross decades ago.

The Order now lived as a bloated house, fighting bitter, costly skirmishes with the King of Poland.

The Hanseatic merchants choked their trade in amber, their serfs rose up and left the fields barren, and the Fugger moneylenders had shut their purses tight against them.

Friedrich stared through the grates at the bleak, snow-dusted pines.

He meant to use this rot... He would weave himself into their broken ranks, play upon their empty chests of silver, and in time, seize their remaining horse and cannons for himself.

He would return to Swabia as a conquering master, ready to tear down Konrad’s forges with a storm of fire!

Clatter... halt! The wagon lurched to a halt.

Looming through the fog were the great red-brick walls of Marienburg.

It was the heart of the Teutonic Order, and its ruin was plain to see. The outer ditches were choked with weeds, and the wooden walls showed deep rot.

Tramp... tramp... A band of guards walked toward the wagon.

They were not the shining, white-cloaked holy knights sung of in tales. They were grim, starved veterans. Their captain, a man with a badly scarred jaw, wore pitted half-plate over a filthy white tabard bearing the black cross.

Tellingly, the captain bore no knightly sword or lance; a twin-barreled wheellock dag hung from his belt, a stark sign of the new ways of war.

"Hold your beasts," the captain barked, "The gates of Marienburg are shut to common wagons. Speak your business and show your writ."

The master of the wagon looked down from his bench.

"I carry no common goods, Captain," the master stated, drawing a parchment from his leather tunic. "I bring a prisoner of state... By the writ and seal of Konrad von Frundsberg, the man in the cage is given over to your rule. He is found guilty of treason of coin, secret parleys with foes, and plotting against his house. His doom is to wear the monk’s cloth forever."

The captain snatched the parchment. He read the Latin words, his jaw tightening in anger.

"Another broken lordling," the captain spat, crumpling the parchment. "Your Lord uses our fortress as a dungeon, yet he sends no silver to keep these exiles. The Order’s granaries are bare. We cannot feed the men-at-arms we have, let alone pampered Swabian lords."

"The feeding of the prisoner is no longer the care of the von Frundsberg house," the wagon master countered smoothly, caring only for his bargain. "The giving over is lawful and absolute. If you turn him away, you break the Emperor’s laws. I need your seal upon my writ to claim my final pay."

Inside the cage, Friedrich knew he must show his worth at once... If they saw him only as another mouth to feed, they would likely send him to the deadliest borders to hasten his end.

Friedrich stepped toward the iron grating. "Captain. My noble blood matters not. I hold deep, proven secrets of the new Swabian great guns. I have read the Fugger saltpeter tallies. I know the hidden trade roads that choke your Polish wars."

"..." The captain slowly turned his gaze to the prisoner within the cage.

"Secrets are but wind," the captain stated flatly. "They do not pay the coin owed to the Hessian gunners who threaten mutiny in the lower yard. They do not mend the broken wheels of our wagons."

"Secrets buy power," Friedrich corrected, "If your gunners murmur of mutiny, your chests are empty. I hold the ciphers needed to read the Hanseatic merchants’ letters out of Danzig.

You can use those secrets to strike their silver wagons. I can turn your starving defense into a rich harvest of coin."

The captain stared at Friedrich in silence for a long moment.

"Strike the locks," the captain finally ordered the wagon master.

The heavy iron bolts were drawn back with a loud clatter. The wagon door swung open.

Friedrich stepped out, his boots sinking into the frozen Prussian mud. The freezing wind bit through his coarse blanket, but he stood tall.

The wagon master handed over a small pouch of coin for the toll, took his sealed writ, and at once turned his beasts around. He rode away without a backward glance, his work done.

"You are no longer Friedrich von Frundsberg," the captain declared, bidding two guards to stand beside the new man. "Lords’ names buy no bread within these walls. You are a Brother of the Order. Your meat and drink shall be earned by your sweat alone."

"I yield to your laws," Friedrich replied.

Friedrich was led through the crumbling outer gate and directed toward the lower keep.

The yard was a mess of hungry, sell-swords huddled around open fires.

"You must be cleansed lest you bring plague upon us," the captain explained, leading him toward a long stone house. "The camp sickness kills one man in ten. Your head shall be shorn to kill the lice."

Inside the house, Friedrich was pushed onto a rough wooden stool.

A servant wielding iron shears began at once to cut away his hair.

As the locks of his hair fell to the damp floor, Friedrich weighed the powder keg he had walked into.

The fortress was full of angry men, rotting walls, and foolish lords... The Grand Master in Königsberg was even now seeking to bend the knee to the Polish King, a move that would surely anger the men-at-arms.

Friedrich took up the rough, scratching woolen tunic of a brother.

He was entirely stripped of his gold, his name, and his Swabian birthright. Yet, as he looked out the barred window at the angry men shivering in the yard, Friedrich reckoned the weight of silver needed to buy their swords.