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-VB-

I stared at the woman across the table from me.

The self-introduced Isabella of Gorizia, daughter of Albert I of Gorizia and governor of Tyrol, sat with a self-satisfied smile.

"You have a lot of guts just saying something like that," I told her matter-of-factly. "Marriage isn\'t something you just throw at a person."

"But I\'m not!" she exclaimed proudly with a shit-eating grin. "I have seen enough to know you\'re the one for me."

I sighed for what felt like the fifth time in the past hour. While she looked familiar, I had never met her before so her claims of having met and seen me before felt too much for me. Worse, her bodyguards told me that I had indeed met her before.

Which, you know, felt like gaslighting because I would have recognized someone with fair skin and a pretty face like hers in the backwater mountain valleys! Well, aside from Alvia but Alvia\'s intensity when her passion and crafts were concerned left her bodily traits more out of focus and out of mind.

As for the girl sitting across from me, she also had a similar intensity about her.

It was just my (mis)fortune that she directed hers at me. Or was me?

Hmm. Grammar.

I stared in deadpan before looking up at her "minder." "Mind explaining?" I asked him.

The man, a grey-haired man-at-arms, shrugged with the "what can you do?" look. He did, however, explain. "Lady Isabella is the daughter of Count Albert I of Gorizia." He reached into his rear pack and pulled out a rolled up scroll (letter?). "For you, Lord Fluela."

"I\'m not a lord, so you can be at ease," I snorted as I took the letter(scroll?). Before I unfurled it, the man-at-arms shook his head, causing me to stop and look at him.

"You may not call yourself a lord, but you have the attention of the Prince-Bishop of Chur, named yourself as the enemy of Counts, killed a count, have that dead count\'s heir as your hostage, and hold the attention of the emperor. Disregard your true status all you want, Lord Fluela, but you are a lord in all but title. From what I have heard from my liege, that particular tidbit was also due to your own actions."

I looked at him and nodded slowly. "I see. And you are being frank with me."

"Yes, because if you keep portraying yourself as a commoner, then the lords around you will treat you as one, even if they should know better," Isabella entered the conversation smoothly. She raised both of her hands, palms up. "This also means that they will expect things from you. However, recent actions both here in the valleys and in the surrounding territories have made it clear to me and my father that you will not stand for the normal ... behaviors of the nobleborn."

One hand lowered itself below the other. "This disparity will cause irritation, frustration, and then anger. And I believe you know what an angry noble does," she said as the other higher hand balled up into a fist. "But you aren\'t just a regular commoner." The lower hand balled up into a fist. "You are someone who can and will strike back. You don\'t fear the nobility. You don\'t fear titles. You raised your sword against a bishop, against a count, and against your rightful liege. Why? Because you claimed that they were wrong." The lower fist smashed up into the upper one, knocking it out.

"If you continue to lower yourself, then you also mock the nobles and lords around you. You might not know but the Counts to your north and south are now all laughingstocks. Counts who lost to peasants. Lords who died to their rebels. Nobles who couldn\'t control their peasants."

I listened to her as she wove a story. It was … I didn\'t know all of the details but it fit somewhat with what I have been hearing.

"Angry nobles do what angry powerful men do, Baron Hans. Even if you do not accept a noble title because you profess that you do not control this Compact, you do control a fort, the people who work and live there and make deals with nobles. You are a noble in all things but title. Why, my father\'s peer in the Carinthian lands have been calling you the Peasant Baron," she smiled. "An acknowledgment of your accomplishments, even if they call you that to belittle you among themselves."

"Then why come to this peasant baron and propose marriage?" I asked in exasperated befuddlement. She had her reasons, pinpointed local political dynamic, and … not sure what else. She was a very capable woman. "You also realize that your father and I had been butting heads just a year ago, right?" I asked her.

And her eyes hardened.

"That does not matter to me. The Lord states that when a daughter leaves her father\'s house, she becomes part of her husband\'s house. Even if my father may have a say on who I marry, I still choose you. I chose you because you are a warrior, a leader, a craftsman, an orator, and so much more. However, you keep lowering yourself. It\'s something I kept hearing about you and have seen in person twice. Even if unknowingly, you belittle yourself because you think that is what you should do. Yet you are the most capable man in perhaps all of the Alps and in around a hundred leagues. You stopped a horse and -"

That was when my lightbulb went off.

"Oh, that was you?" I asked with a bright smile at seeing her alright. "I was honestly a little worried!"

She looked at me with wide eyes, and I realized I just cut her off.

"Sorry, go on."

She blinked before smiling softly and shaking her head. "Still apologizing for the smallest of things. I will have to reeducate you on that once I\'m your wife."

"... You mean if."

"No," she smiled. This one was definitely predatory. "Once I have my eyes set on something, I will have it. I just haven\'t had much I wanted before you came around." She pointed at me. A rude gesture in and of itself in a normal setting, but our current meeting and circumstance were anything but normal. "I want you, Hans Fluela, and if that means I have to walk naked into your room at night, then so be it."

Her bodyguard sighed in tired exasperation.

I could understand his burden. He had my sympathies.

I looked back at Isabella, and saw how tense she was. She had been honest with me (honest to a fault). She showed how useful she could be, which was an A+ tactic for someone of this era but not to me.

I mean, sure, I did want to get a wife and settle down. It wouldn\'t be bad to be in love again.

Would it be selfish to try?

… It helped that she was pretty.

I took a deep breath in…

And answered.

-VB-

Isabella returned to their residence, one they have been using for the past week in undercover.

And she let out a squeal.

"Did you see?! Did you see?! He actually listened to me instead of dismissing me!"

Jacob snorted in amusement. Her ladyship had indeed feared that when it came to matters of family and politics, Lord Fluela would have dismissed Isabella on account of her being the daughter of his former enemy.

But he hadn\'t.

Instead, he had listened to her, talked with her, and made his decision.

"My lady, you understand that he didn\'t say yes, right?" he asked her.

But she just shook her head with a big, fat grin of a cat that caught the birdie. "But he didn\'t say no! He said he wasn\'t averse to getting to know me better!"

Then she squealed again.

He sighed.

She was going to be squealing for the next week, wasn\'t she?

-VB-

Chapter 43

-VB-

"You need to be more careful."

I looked up from where I was doing my own little project with jewel crafting. I spent less time on it than Alvia, but even so, my Gamer made it so that I kept up with her in skill despite spending less than a tenth of the time she did.

She was very jealous of my "ingenuity."

"Hmm?" I uttered as I looked at Alvia, who continued to work on her own jewelry (a gold chain necklace).

"That woman. Isabella. You have to be more careful with what you tell and show her," she explained herself. "People say words all of the time, and I don\'t know what she told you, but you have to remember that she\'s a noble. We, commoners, don\'t know what they, nobles, are planning. For all you know, she\'s planning to rob all of the good things you have here. I think you need to remember that you are special, Hans." She set her tools down and looked up to meet my eyes. She\'d grown her hair out lately, though she always put it up in a bun whenever she worked.

"... You know, it\'s normally your dad who says that," I replied.

She snorted. "Just because I don\'t say it doesn\'t mean I don\'t think it, Hans," she snorted. "I just want you to be careful, okay?"

"Sure," I shrugged.

"I mean it," she glared at me. She hesitated for a moment before she steeled herself and continued. "You are an idiot genius."

I sputtered. "No, I\'m not! I\'m not a genius at all," I replied. "I just … copied a lot of things."

"Yes, copied," she repeated derisively. "Did you know that one of the merchants from the Imperial city of Ulm came to talk to me? Because they thought I had influence over what you did?"

"No…?"

"Well, they did, and for a good reason. I am a woman, young and supple, who lived in the same building as the owner of the Fluelaberg and who handled large quantities of most of the raw gemstones you get your hands on. In the eyes of men unaware of how much training I had to do, of course they will think that I am nothing more than your mistress."

I blanked out.

Uh.

… Huh.

Wait.

But.

I guess…?

"But your brother is also here?" I asked.

"Oh, you mean my good-for-nothing brother who follows your order like a loyal puppy?" she asked with a disappointed sigh. "A decent man-at-arms, sure. Even a better blacksmith thanks to you, Hans. You really made him your man."

"My man…?"

"Yes. You have quite the following among the residents of the fort, you know that?"

"I mean, yes, I know that people like me, but that\'s because I keep food prices low, water clean, and sell ceramic cheap to the residents?"

She looked at me as if I was an idiot.

"Hans, my dad buys the portion Arnold and I buy from you at double the price, and then he makes a killing profit selling them to merchants in Chur, who then makes a killing when they take it to Zurich, who then makes a decent profit by exporting it to the French."

"There is such a long chain of trade? I thought most of the trade goes to Bavarians or Italians."

"Hans, you make more ceramic than they can handle. Do you not realize how much five hundred pieces of ceramic per week is? After you break the ones that don\'t meet your \'quality control\'?"

I mean… I just ramped up production because I could. There were only five ceramic dedicated furnaces, too.

"And your sugar. You realize just how much trouble that\'s going to cause? I\'m not a noble but even I know that nobles from outside these mountains will surely come for you."

"Wait, you thought that and didn\'t bother to tell me?!"

"Stupid Hans. What happened to the last count who thought he could take stuff from us? Need I remind you, Lord Brandschafzer?"

Shoulders hunching forward, I withered in my seat. "It wasn\'t supposed to burn like that."

"Castles generally don\'t burn. That\'s why they are castles and not peasant huts," she leveled a deadpan. "... You know, I really am thankful. Even if I am not a mistress."

"You are?"

"Yes. See, I\'m not interested in men."

"... Oh."

"Or women."

"Oh?"

"The very idea of sex is … ambivalent," she sighed. "Honestly, it makes me a weird freak." Then she looked up. "And I honestly thought that I would need to visit your room once in a while to keep you happy to let me stay and do what I love."

"... Oh." Lots of revelations today, and the latest one was a heavy and personal one. She trusted me, I guess. The least I could do was listen to her and keep her secrets. "Well, you know that I\'m not like that."

"Of course, I do now," she agreed. "And I have to admit that it wasn\'t on my mind much because you let me be a jeweler. You let me create beauty. If you had asked me to join you in bed starting \'bout six months ago, I probably would have happily joined you." She smiled and then shrugged. "Close that mouth before a fly goes in it."

I did.

She gave me a pitying look. "Look, Hans. You\'re a great man, and you do so much for other people without even thinking. Is it weird that other people want to return that favor?"

---

"... So did you tell him?"

Alvia stopped and looked up to see her younger brother. "Tell him what?" she asked him.

Arnold clicked his tongue as he sat down next to her with his own bucket of laundry. "So you didn\'t tell him."

"I gave him hints," she replied as she looked back down at her laundry. She picked up her beater again and beat her wet clothes. "And you know that he\'s not interested in me that way."

"But you are. You could push for it."

"I could," she sighed. "But I won\'t be of help to him. I\'m just a peasant girl from the mountains. That girl, Isabella, is the daughter of a noble. The best I could do is … hope that she\'s here with ill intent, because if she is, then I might have a chance."

He tsked. "You\'ve become too passive playing with your gems."

She smiled. "It\'s not just that. You realize that love is not limited like a lot of people think it is," she replied. "Perhaps we can describe the different types of love with colors? Like red love for passionate love, blue love for protective love, green love for nurturing love, and so on. My love for Hans would be … a yellow love."

"Yellow?"

She chuckled. "I know, I know. It\'s not a good color, but I\'d like to think of it as a mix of red and green. I love watching him get better at everything. I love having him teach me how to grow myself in skill. I do want to join him in bed, though it\'s not quite a big part of the love," she explained. "I\'m just … lost, that\'s all. I know what I want, but what I want is not always what I can have. The more I live here, the more I realize that. I think, even if I don\'t like how it makes me feel small, I love how I just get to know more about the world the longer I stay with Hans."

He sighed. "If that\'s what you like, then that\'s what you like. I personally can\'t fit in everything he says together. It\'s just too much. Like … what do the actions of those \'muslims\' near the holy land have to do with the price of goods?"

"A lot," she hummed. "Just like everything else in life." She too didn\'t understand too much of it, but she trusted that Hans knew what he was talking about.

-VB-

???

"They are disrupting our trade."

"What can we do? They have the emperor\'s favor."

"Their lord refuses to meet with us."

"Are you sure he refused to meet or that he was too busy?"

"I am the Pottery Guildmaster of Munich. What could a country bumpkin lord up in the Alps have to do that precedes meeting me?"

"A lot, from what I understand."

"Are you suggesting that we just sit on our laurels and let him ruin the delicate balance of trade?"

"No. There are other ways. If he does not want to talk with us, then we can force him to the table. After all, he will have to listen to his betters, wouldn\'t he?"

"You have the connections to make that happen?"

"I do. After all, the Duke of Bavaria will not appreciate the fact that he will be receiving less tax if we earn less than what we used to."

-VB-

A/N: for reference, the current year of the story is 1302. God, we spent nearly 50 chapters, but we\'re only two years into the story.

-VB-

Chapter 44

-VB-

I hummed as I climbed out of my private mine again, and unloaded the content of my bag and inventory at the same time. The large dusty box clunked and rattled as I dropped all of the ores I managed to find.

And I was quickly realizing over the last September that my mine shaft may be soon running out of precious metals and gems in the near future. At least those within a reasonable distance. As this extraction was the source of precious metal crafting and export, if I stopped right now, then it would cause some issues. Namely, the budding jewel crafting will stop. While this was not a big part of Fluelaberg\'s economy, it was still part of it.

In fact, the cheap jewelry, raw gemstones, and raw precious metals made up a third of the reasons why merchants initially visited my town. Yes, my town. Of course, once they saw what other wonderful goods we offered on the cheap, they came back for those.

I have to find a new vein. Would the side of the mountain work? It wasn\'t as if it was being used.

… Yeah, why not?

Actually, did I need to work the mine myself? There were plenty of people here. While there was a chance that this might cause my town to convert from a bustling trade town to a mining town, I would own the mine and thus limit how many times people could access it each day. I could artificially stem the tide, so to speak.

If that was case, then they would get precious metals and gemstones with very little place to sell it. They could sell it to passing merchants, sure, but why not sell it to people like Alvia? At the very least, she could pay them on the spot with money they could use right away whereas merchants from far away places might not even have currency we accepted. On top of that, I had a foundry here and merchants didn\'t. The miners would soon learn that raw ore wouldn\'t give them a decent payout … not like how I or Alvia can.

Yes, this was an idea.

Now, how could I implement that idea?

-VB-

It\'s one thing to keep hearing that their new lord (a lord, no matter what he insisted) was a powerful man whose swings cut armored soldiers in half.

An exaggeration, Leon grew up at the foot of the Tirol Castle by Merano City. Part of his daily life was seeing the men-at-arms and militia practicing in the yards at the base of the hill where the castle sat.

Leon saw some of the best of the best in those valleys. Men with arms thicker than his torso. Men with more time spent fighting battles across the entirety of the empire and beyond. He even saw a siege engine!

Sure, he was certain that Lord Fluelaberg was a mighty man.

But cut a man in half?

Get real.

He looked up from his counter at the butcher\'s shop (the butcher didn\'t want to learn numbers but he did, so he got hired to record every "transaction"). A bunch of men and women hurried towards the lord\'s castle. Or rather, they took a route that would take around the castle and towards the mountain slopes.

"Arnold, what\'s going on!?" he asked one of the men among the group.

Arnold, a thin man working as messenger between the towns, stopped and looked at him. "Oh, Leon! You\'re in luck! Hans is supposed to be digging a mine for himself and others! He said so in the town meeting!"

Leon blinked.

A town meeting was not an old concept. It happened in most villages, towns, and even cities.

It was odd when the lord showed up and didn\'t impose his will, insisting actually that everyone make the vote anonymously.

Leon wouldn\'t know; he wasn\'t a "proper" resident of the castle town or Davos, so he couldn\'t participate in the town meeting nor vote. He did, however, hear about this, even if he had initially dismissed it.

"Wait, how would that work?" he asked Arnold.

Arnold looked like he wanted to ignore him and quickly walk away. It was then that Leon finally noticed that he had a pickaxe slung over his back.

Wait…

"Well, Hans said that if you paid for a daily entrance fee of five pennies or the equivalent, then you can have a go at it all day long from sun up to sun down."

Leon\'s eyes widened as he shot up from where he had been sitting.

"Wait, are you telling me that the lord who has the right to mine … is just giving it away?!"

Five pennies wasn\'t a lot but it wasn\'t small, but for a chance to work the same mines or the area that the lord brought out handfuls of gold ores out every day, it was nothing compared to what they could potentially gain!

"Not really. There\'s weird rules like being allowed to mine only once every week or something like that. Oh, and you gotta have a working job here or in Davos or anywhere else in the Compact. And be a resident or "citizen" of the Compact," Arnold waved his hand. "Okay, gotta go!"

Leon stood there and then gulped.

Could he … strike it rich?

He gulped and turned to his boss.

The burly man grunted. "You can go tomorrow. It\'s not like the mountain is gonna run out in a single day, and you know that Hans has been pulling up all of that gold for … years now."

Years.

Leon settled his pounding heart.

Yes, he had time. Five pennies. That was a little under half of his daily wage. That wasn\'t bad for a chance to get a silver nugget or even a gold nugget.

"Umm… can I go watch for a bit?" he asked.

But if he wanted to succeed, then he needed the know-how. Watching others do it or even the lord himself might get him some of that.

Boss looked irritated but waved him away. "Yeah, yeah. It\'s not like today\'s a busy day. But if you\'re gone for too long, then you can expect to not get paid today."

"Thanks, boss!"

Leon quickly ran after the miners, and after what felt like a long trek across the entire town (it wasn\'t), he arrived at where they had gathered.

He frowned.

There wasn\'t anything here. Just a bunch of tools, some sturdy wooden carts, and a lot of men and women.

And then there was the lord.

He looked … strong. The muscles alone was on par if not bigger than that of biggest fat-less men-at-arms he ever saw over in Tyrol.

"He\'s starting," someone muttered and everyone quieted as the lord picked up a …

Was that a steel shovel? It was a giant shovel but it was still a shovel.

And then -.

CLANG!

Leon\'s eyes nearly popped out of his eyes as the lord dug into the rocks and scooped them out. He tossed them to the side, and a few of the watchers quickly ran over to see if the first rock was worth a damn.

"Quartz!" someone yelled.

The lord just kept digging as if he hadn\'t dug out a rock as big as a man\'s torso and did it continuously. He watched as a pile of rock formed within five minutes. Within an hour, there were five such piles and a mine was starting to shape up.

"Alright, I want the support pillars in there now!" the lord shouted as he walked out of the tunnel that was ten ox deep, two ox wide, and angled slightly down. A bunch of men rushed in with planks and timber. Leon watched as they worked furiously. The lord checked their work as they came out and -.

His jaw dropped when the lord reached into his pocket and gave each of the workers responsible for the support pillar two silver pennies each.

Each silver penny was worth ten copper pennies!

They didn\'t even work for a full hour!

"Alright! We got room for five prospectors! If you want to have a go at it, line up in front of me with your fee ready!"

A dozen men and women did so, but those in the back grumbled and left once they realized that they had been too late in lining up.

The lord accepted the fees, had them write their names on paper, and let them in.

Leon reluctantly went back to work, but later that day at the bar, he heard that of the five, three had found something worth a damn.

Three-fifths chance that he found something decent? Something worth more than five pennies?

It was an extremely good chance.

Who knew that he, a former dung "farmer," would be a miner this far from home?

-VB-

"He lets the peasants work the mines? And sell the gold and silver?"

"Most of them found quartz and only one found a very small nugget, but yes."

"... Is he mad?"

"I think that he wants to ruin the order and peace we have. A peasant lord who knows nothing."

"He is a threat."

"Yes. Very much so."

"And what about our representative? The one who went to meet him?"

"He has rejected the chance to meet him."

"Then it is time we go and talk with the duke."

-VB-

Chapter 45

-VB-

Rudolf I of Bavaria

Munich, Bavaria

What did it say about a man that he was always playing second fiddle to the rest of his family?

His uncle and the current king of the Romans, Albert, was constantly hounding him for his possessions in the Palatinate and Upper Bavaria. When that wasn\'t the case, he was fending off his younger brother\'s attempt to usurp the lands he got from their father; his spies in his uncle\'s court spoke of Louis\'s letters and couriers traveling there regularly.

And on top of that, he had guild masters begging him for his attention on the first day of his visit!

Even so, he trusted his uncle not to stab him in the back. He had, after all, helped him in the three years since he surrendered to his uncle. Not only did he cooperate fully, much more than Louis, but he also made sure to keep himself in full view of his uncle, unlike Louis.

… Still, it unnerved him that his uncle was so readily in communication with his less reliable and ambitious younger brother.

Today was the second day of his visit to Munich, and he allowed the guild masters an audience.

Sitting upon the seat of power of the Duchy of Upper Bavaria, he watched as the throne room\'s doors opened. On the other side of the door were four men of varying ages but all equally rich for commoners. One of them even wore silk! It was only a silk sash around his waist, but it was a luxurious item that even he, a duke, dared not wear too often.

"Enter."

The four did as he commanded and bowed before him.

"Thank you for your time, Duke Wittelbach," the eldest of the four greeted.

"Welcome to my court, Guild Master Rueben, and tell me what you seek of this duke."

"Very well, milord. We wish your help in subduing an upstart who is ruining the trade Munich depends on."

"... What?"

---

To say that the guild masters were exaggerating was an overstatement. They were fucking blowing the "damages" out of proportion.

"What has my brother been doing that he has guild masters like these asking us for military aid to curb a small village in the Swabian Alps?"

Louis and he ruled Upper Bavaria together as co-rulers, which was part of the reason why Louis was upset with the situation and sent letters to their maternal uncle.

He let out a sigh of frustration before turning to the one man he trusted.

"Erin."

A young man stepped out of the shadows. "Yes, milord?" the cocky-grin adorning blonde-haired boy asked.

"What can you tell me of this \'Compact\'?"

It had been two years since he visited Munich. He had been over in the Palatinate lands and taking care of the family business over there, so he didn\'t know much about what was happening here or in the neighboring regions. Hell, the Swabian Alps, specifically this "Compact" wasn\'t even a neighboring region or polity.

"Ah well, they\'re the ones making the moves, you know, milord?" the once-commoner boy drawled with a shake of his hand. "Like your maternal uncle, the king. The Compact of the Seven… or is it Eight now? They\'re the ones who came out strong after what the Swabian Alps call \'the Unruly Year.\' A year with absolutely no one in control of the wars of naked aggression that nearly all lords participated in. Well, this Compact, formed by a bunch of peasants, went and demolished everyone else. Everyone from the Gorizia in charge of Tyrol to all of the local nobles. In fact, the commander of the Compact burned down a noble\'s castle to the ground!"

"And what did my uncle do in response?"

"Told them to stop. And made the Compact legitimate."

Rudolf frowned.

"Legitimate how?"

"Absolved them of all crimes committed against the nobility up to that point in time, milord, and formally acknowledged the then Compact of Seven\'s rule over eastern Swabian Alps west of Tyrol, north of the Kingdom of Italy, south of Swabian Werdenberg, and east of the Lords of Sargans."

Rudolf looked over at the map of the Holy Roman Empire and calculated a rough size estimate of the land that the Compact ruled.

"Of the Seven?"

"Yes. They used to be seven members. And then the Prince-Bishop of Chur joined them."

"I see." There wasn\'t anything to say to that. If the Prince-Bishop wanted to frolic with the peasants, then Rudolf wasn\'t going to say no. It wasn\'t as if those were his lands at any rate.

"Milord."

"Yes?"

"I would advise against fighting them."

"... Why do you say so?"

"My people have reported signs of increased trade."

"Is that not the problem that my guild masters here in Munich have come to me to solve? When trade outside of the city is not even their jurisdiction? Or mine?" he scoffed. Asking the duke to solve their trade issues. Absurd!

"Because there is a chance that one of the artisans in the new small castle of Fluela has discovered a way to mimic fine china."

Rudolf had to think for a second before his eyes widened.

"... China?" he asked as he turned back to look at Erin, his spymaster. "Are you implying that…?"

"There is a chance. China that has not been bought and sold in either Genoese or Venetian market have shown up in the east Swabian Alps."

"And I am just hearing about it?!"

"Not many such pieces have been made, milord," Erin replied with a slight bow, obviously understanding just how shocked he was at the news. "The more relevant information related to the guild masters is the fact the same fort also mass produces ceramic dishes of high quality at large scale, and have been selling to any merchant or peddler passing by their lands." He paused. "What may be of greater concern, and one that the guild masters do not yet know about, is the fact that there may be substantial quantities of gold and silver in those mountains. The new lord of Fluelaberg has made a small name for himself mining for those very precious metals as well as other gemstones like ruby, sapphire, and diamond."

"You are telling me," Rudolf began slowly. "That we, and the Romans before us, have been … sitting on a literal gold mine? And we left it alone?"

"There is a chance, yes."

Rudolf thought about it. He really thought about it. It was impossible that the greedy Romans would have missed any gold in the mountains. There was also no record of substantial silver veins originating from those peaks. Copper, certainly. Gold and silver? No.

"From where?"

"A single hole in the ground within Fluelaberg itself."

"He does not run a mine?"

"No. At least not until very recently, according to my people. He opened up a mine and charges any would-be gold miners a fee to enter and try their luck."

Rudolf looked at his spymaster with his jaws dropped open.

"He… opened his mine to others? He does not find miners to use as his laborers?"

"No. He is an odd character."

"You can say that again." He hummed before drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair. "Tell me, what would you do in my place?"

"Milord, I am a spymaster, not a noble or a bureaucrat working for a noble."

"There must be an idea you have. You are a boy, nearly a man, and all men have ambitions, no matter how small."

Erin looked out of the window for a moment, staring at the setting sun, before looking back.

"The Compact of the Eight is no threat to Munich. In fact, the guild masters have been the ones hurting the city and the duchy with their recklessness. Several trade caravans have \'mysteriously\' vanished within our lands and their goods missing. My people would say that certain goods listed in the recovered caravan roster have circulated among one of the guild master\'s own peoples but I have no definite evidence."

Rudolf gritted his teeth.

"What else?"

"They have imposed a tariff on all goods originating from the Compact. This has led to a distinct lack of Compact goods within Munich and its surrounding townships while they have shown up in Landshut. Coincidentally, Montfort and Werdenberg are outside their influence and no bandits have shown up there. I believe it was an effort made to curb the influence of the Compact within Munich. Stupid, if you see their actions from the outside, but understandable when I think about it in their position. They are, after all, under the assumption that most of the trade coming through that area eventually goes through this city."

"Does it?"

"Lately? No," Erin replied as he pulled out something from his back, walked up to his desk, and slid it across to him.

… Parchment?

He picked it up and his eyes widened at the flexible paper. High quality, no tore edges, smooth surfaced, and evenly colored paper. No blemish, off colors, or any hint of even middling quality. The kind of stuff that even he, a duke, would hesitate to spend money on because of how expensive they could be. A single bible made from this kind of paper would be ruinously expensive in the current economy if only because he would be competing with every other count, duke, bishop, and merchant for an obviously limited product.

"The Compact is also making those, and many guild masters are upset that the Compact is not exclusively selling it to them."

Guild masters potentially financing bandits? Underhandedly changing the policies that only dukes can change? Undermining his and his brother\'s authorities? To satisfy their greed? That wouldn\'t do. No. No, it would not…

"Look into their actions and contacts. If any damning evidence is found, bring it to me."

His grip tightened around the arm of the chair.

And then the wood shattered underneath his hand.

"I will execute any filthy traitors with my own bare hands."

On the other hand, he might need to look into this Compact if it reduced his own guild masters to such lengths to control them. Ineffectually, yes, but they had attempted, nonetheless. If the Compact was worth that much, so much so that the guild masters were overstepping their boundaries while he was not here and under his ambitious but less able brother\'s eyes…

\'It must be worth something big.\'

Perhaps big enough that if he were to acquire it for himself, then he might be able to use it to ward off Louis. No, he might even be able to use it to keep his uncle from ever interfering in his affairs again.

A plan began to form.

-VB-

A/N: Louis here is Louis the Bavarian (Louis IV of Bavaria) and Rudolf here is Rudolf I of Upper Bavaria.