Swiss Arms
Chapter 134

Swiss Arms

Chapter 134

-VB-

Henry of Bohemia

King of Bohemia, Count of Tyrol, Duke of Carinthia, Marquis of Carniola

He stared out of the clear glass windows, a luxury, as the carriage he and his wife was in rolled down the road as they made their way toward Frankfurt. It was where the last three King of Romans had been elected and the place currently acknowledged as where Konigswahl took place.

To reach Frankfurt, they needed to travel across the lands of the Bishopric of Bamberg, the Bishopric of Wurzburg, the County of Wertheim, the Electorate of Mainz, the County of Falkenstein, and then finally, Frankfurt itself.

So far, they managed to just reach the border of the County of Wertheim.

He looked away from the forest scenery outside and looked across the carriage.

Sitting across from him with a single lady-in-waiting was his wife, fifteen year old Queen Anne Premyslid. She was a homely woman, but he had been waiting all this time to marry someone for her looks, then he would have married and had a kid already when he met Isabella. Yes, the same cousin who was now married to Count Hans.

Anne may look homely but her mind was anything but useless.

She was sharp, educated, and cunning in a way he often wasn't. After all, he would have never devised the sort of scheme that Hans made to bring down his house's rival.

"Just the route and the scenery," he replied with a sigh. "I've already spent way too long thinking about the future of the empire and the kingdom."

"Is there a distinction in your eyes?" she asked while quirking an eyebrow.

He frowned. "... Yes," he replied. Though she may have a brilliant mind, he didn't yet trust her with all of his schemes, alliances, and secrets. They were married more because her father had been partial to him over other potential candidates, not because they loved each other. However, if he didn't begin somewhere, then he would never have the trust he needed from his lady wife. "The empire is an ever shifting and changing beast that can't control itself, and thus must work to bring itself under control. The kingdom, however, is one part of that whole that can exist without the empire yet would paradoxically become weaker the moment it breaks out from its control. It would be preferred for the kingdom to maintain a high level of self-autonomy, but the empire cannot allow that lest it grows stagnant. This is the problem that the late emperor faced… and used both me and my cousin to achieve his goal. Had it not been for his stupid nephew, we would be seeing the rise of the Habsburgs and not this election."

"Truly?" Anne asked in surprise. "You allowed yourself to be used? Prideful Henry?"

Did he mention that she was quick with her tongue? Because she was. She didn't hesitate to point things out to him in privacy.

He grunted. "... It's less that the emperor used me and more that the emperor and I were allies in a scheme." He glanced at the lady-in-waiting, a daughter of a noble house loyal to Anne for her lineage.

"I trust Josephine."

Josephine nodded. "I have been the queen's lady-in-waiting for over a decade, Your Majesty," the much more attractive and older woman replied. "Unless you specifically move to hurt my parents, not my house but my parents, I will die before I reveal any of my lady's secrets."

"But not mine?"

She raised an eyebrow in an eerily similar manner to Anne. Or was Anne's mannerism eerily similar to hers?

"Your secret is hers. I see no difference, Your Majesty."

It was a roundabout way of saying that she wasn't loyal to him, yet.

He saw Anne nod, and sighed. "The emperor and I lent our aid to one of my allies, the Count of Fluelaberg-Rheintal, Hans von Fluelaberg."

Anne frowned. "I am unfamiliar with this ally of yours."

"He's the one married to my cousin, Isabella of Gorizia. He used to be a countryside commoner before he showed up out of nowhere during troubling times for his homeland."

"A commoner…?!" Anne asked with wide eyes and she looked thoroughly scandalized. "Your uncle allowed your cousin to marry a commoner?"

"Yes. Because said commoner is strong enough to snap a man's neck, has killed many nobles, won wars almost by his lonesome, and raised his land's standing to match richer imperial cities nearby."

There was a moment of silence. "An ambitious man, then."

"The opposite."

She looked taken aback. "How so? A commoner who goes from nothing to a count is nothing if not ambitious, husband."

He snorted. "Would you believe me if I said that the man himself doesn't care for titles? He wanted to become a mountain hermit but kept getting into wars and riches at first without meaning to but then only started doing so with intent in the past three years or so, and even then, it's not because he finds the sound and shine of silver and gold to be alluring but because he wants his people to be happy."

"Is he someone who benefits you greatly?"

Henry hummed before giving her a "shit-eating" grin. "He helped me kill one of my rival dukes. Or rather, did the killing himself in the middle of a battlefield where he suffered nearly no losses for our combined army while causing devastation upon the enemy's. He is a master of war who I can call upon for our blood ties and alliance. I have already used his infamy to get many unruly vassals to bow their heads lest I sic him on them."

"And you have not brought him with you? Would he not find your lack of invitation to join him at the konigswahl to be an affront?" she asked with a frown. "If he is truly a worthy ally, then you should be working to keep him close."

"Ah, well, he doesn't care for big events like the election," he replied with a shrug. "In fact, I'd say that he'll be happier smoking fishes."

"... Smoking fishes?"

"Yes. In our latest exchange of letters, he seemed awfully worried about food stocks for his direct fiefs and those of his Compact." A pause. "Ah, the Compact is a loose if legally bound alliance of neighboring lands, of which von Fluelaberg is one of the central pillars and architect of said alliance network."

"I see." He knew she didn't, and would certainly not understand just how odd and powerful Hans was until she met and saw his work for herself.

"But he did send me a few people to help guard me, though I hardly need extra guards."

"He did?"

"Yup," he said as he looked out into the forest. "Here they come."

She looked out and froze when she saw men stepping out of the forests. She obviously hadn't seen them until the moment they took that step out of the dense forest.

Yeah, Henry knew that feeling, and as he stared at the trio of "rangers" waiting for orders, he knew that he would feel it again sooner or later when Hans inevitably did something absurd. Again.

His Bohemian guards quickly drew their swords but the Tyrolian ones moved faster to step in.

One of the rangers was led up to the carriage to meet them.

He opened the door to the carriage, and the ranger stopped a good six foot outside of it. He bowed. "Guten tag, Your Majesties," the ranger, dressed from head to toe in his ranger outfit including the cloak that mimicked the forest. "My commander, Count von Fluelaberg, has sent us to assist you."

"Thank you for coming so quickly, good men. It must have been a hard journey to arrive so quickly."

The man straightened his back. "The forests are our homes. Only the bird in the sky and animals born to it move faster through it than we do."

"How many have you brought with you?" Henry asked as he glanced at the forest again.

"A dozen, milord."

A dozen yet he and everyone else in this convoy could only see three who had deliberately revealed themselves. The Bohemian guards who heard the exchange looked at the forest warily.

"I assume you are all here in your full gear?"

"Of course," he nodded.

"Well then. If that is the case, then I will have you looking out for potential threats that my men cannot see."

The ranger bowed, and he left back to the forest with the other two. They all took a few steps into the forest … and disappeared.

"... Who are they, Henry?" Anne asked, using his name to point out how serious she was.

"The Rangers of the Fluelaberg," he replied with an air of mystery as he closed the carriage door. "Men who you will not be able to find if they don't want to be found. And apt at ambushes and surviving ambushes. Last I heard, a group of no more than thirty of them killed the same number of knights and more men-at-arms in our latest war."

Anne's eyes widened.

"Isn't that… Dangerous?"

"They are dangerous," he agreed. "But they are on our side, which makes us dangerous, don't you think so?"

"But they are not knights or men-at-arms. Will this not cause your standing to drop if our peers see you with such shabbily dressed men?"

Henry snorted. "If Hans would only trade me some of his rangers, or better yet train a whole cadre of them for my personal use, then I would trade away land for them."

Her eyes widened at his proclamation. "Truly?"

"One hundred of them with a few hundred barely trained levies, Anne, held off three thousand soldiers of men-at-arms and knights." Of course, the bulk of the work in defeating the enemy had been Hans's work, but right now, he wasn't trying to convince himself of the importance of the rangers.

It was Anne.

Yes, he was extending trust to her, but the rangers weren't his "secret" to hold. If Anne did something unwise with the information he gave her here, then he would know that she wasn't to be trusted.

This was as much a chess move as it was informing his wife about assets and alliances she might not have grasped tangibly up until now.

Now… now it was up to her to act as she saw fit with what she learned.

He prayed that she chose wisely.