While the headquarters personnel were being handed over along with Louis, I was the first to claim the enemy cannons. Because of the stakes driven deep inside, the artillerymen had been flailing about in confusion, and when we approached they surrendered.
After securing the cannons and arquebuses as spoils, I also gathered up the wounded among our cavalry. The proportion of fatalities was quite high. And five of my own men had died too.
They hadn’t been prospective grooms, but even so, I couldn’t hide the bitterness.
I had to drag the Royal Artillery Corps before me without giving them so much as a moment to taste the sweet joy of victory. And they stared blankly at the enemy cannons sitting there before their eyes.
Marco, unable to believe what he was seeing, asked.
Schneider had already passed out. So the lieutenant had to take responsibility.
"...You want us to repair those?"
"That’s right. Thanks to driving in the stakes just as you said, we were able to neutralize them."
"...."
"...."
"Your Excellency, Supreme Commander! You’ll forgive me if I curse, right?"
"Hmm, permission granted. Just leave out the Schwanz."
But Marco had no reason to curse at me. He’d only been venting his feelings, and when I actually gave permission to curse, the artillery commanders seemed swept up in hollow resignation.
I’d taught them a method infuriating enough to make you want to kill someone, and they’d never dreamed in a thousand years it would come back to haunt them. The truth was, I’d guessed as much to some degree. I just deliberately hadn’t said anything.
If you take them as spoils, naturally you have to repair them, right?
If we’re going to put them to use, that is.
With this, the Royal Artillery Corps grew from twelve guns to twenty-eight, and with the various stores of powder and shells we’d also secured, its strength rose by leaps and bounds. For me as artillery commander, it was a very gratifying moment.
I also absorbed some of the captured artillerymen and reorganized the unit anew. Though Marco and the technicians had to spew every curse imaginable through the night pulling the stakes out.
According to Anton, astonishingly, there were no curses aimed at me.
I should set aside some Rosenheim wine for the artillerymen who’d worked so hard.
The cannons were handed over to the duchy government, but I claimed the rights to the firearms, and the crown prince acknowledged it. Three hundred twenty-three arquebuses came into my hands.
I’d only had fifty, so with this, firearms wouldn’t be a worry for a while.
Of course, the most important thing, the gunpowder, was still in short supply.
"...Louis, your health seems to have gotten worse."
"My apologies, brother. Cough, cough!"
"I heard from Sir Streit. You’d been resolved to die?"
"I was. But just as he advised, I intend to take responsibility as a war criminal."
I could feel Louis’s resolve. The crown prince looked at Louis with pity and bit his lip. But the lords were very cold toward Louis. For Louis, it was rather familiar treatment.
"A fine choice, but it’s a shame Radensdorf hasn’t surrendered."
"Hmm, it can’t be helped—Prince Louis’s influence is negligible."
"Wasn’t he merely there for justification? Securing the prince doesn’t mean the civil war ends."
The crown prince glared at the lords for a moment. Fortunately, he calmly hid his emotions. Count Essenbach and Count Euz knew the crown prince’s feelings, yet they pressed Louis hard.
Louis spoke calmly.
"I surrendered to take responsibility for starting the civil war."
"Prince, in that case, will you accept hanging as the war criminal who started the civil war?"
"If my neck is worth that much, I’ll accept it."
At Louis’s composed words, the lords finally stopped their sneering. This wasn’t the Louis they’d known. Though his coughing had grown even worse, Louis stood his ground with dignity, like a burning candle.
In the end, Louis was placed under house arrest.
The council room fell into silence. They seemed not a little surprised by Louis’s transformation. The crown prince looked at the lords with composure and disclosed the information I’d passed on.
"It seems my uncle has joined hands with Bavaria."
The lords’ expressions hardened.
"Hmm, so that’s why the artillery corps appeared all of a sudden."
"Do we even have the capacity to take on Bavaria?"
"That’s for the East to handle on its own. There’s no reason for us to protect the East."
For the West, which had traditionally traded blows with Burgundy, support from the East had been almost negligible. The South and Offenburg had given a great deal of support, but the East had all but watched the fire burn from across the river.
So even if the East, now surrendered, faced a Bavarian invasion alone, the Western lords had no intention of helping to begin with. The crown prince frowned at the lords’ way of thinking.
"The war isn’t over yet. If Bavaria invades through that opening, we have a duty to intercept them. Unless you’d like to take on Burgundy by yourselves!"
Oh, he’s coming on strong.
It was a pressure tactic, asking whether they’d like to take on Burgundy by themselves, without the royal family’s help.
Joining forces to face an external enemy was common sense, of course, but in feudal society, that sort of thing didn’t matter much. If need be, nobles would bring in a foreign royal and seat him on the throne.
It was only because they’d traded blows for a hundred years that the Western lords needed the royal family’s help. Would Burgundy leave the Western nobles, who’d been thorns in its side for a century, in peace?
But Count Essenbach didn’t bat an eye.
"Crown Prince. We’ve taken part in the internal war of the Altringen royal family and nothing more. We never accounted for a foreign invasion. If you intend to mobilize our forces, wouldn’t it be only fitting to promise commensurate compensation? Permitting the plunder of Radensdorf, for instance."
"Plunder the royal family’s property? I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that."
"Hmm, I see. But you must provide compensation in some form."
Count Essenbach pressed the crown prince hard, using compensation as his pretext. In effect, since there was no force in Radensdorf to threaten the Western Lords’ Army, now was the very best time to demand compensation.
The Count of Belfort, who’d been silent, spoke.
"Before taking on Bavaria, we must first take Radensdorf."
"Well said. Let’s reach an agreement once we’ve entered Radensdorf."
When even Count Euz agreed, Count Essenbach could no longer pressure the crown prince. This was a clear act of containment. Essenbach didn’t share a border with Burgundy, which was why the two lords hadn’t taken his side.
The crown prince let out a sigh.
He seemed sick to death of a world where sharp conflicts erupted over self-interest. But because he was the crown prince, he would have to endure the endless testing and containment of the regional lords.
That was the destiny of the Altringens who ruled Beren.
And it was something every royal in the world went through.
Having seen and heard this sorry state of affairs, I hadn’t the slightest ambition to become king. Far better to become the representative of the noble faction. Become a royal, and you have to endure every kind of challenge there is.
That was why I’d stayed faithful to my duty, and why the royal family liked me. A loyal, unambitious lord was a reliable ally from the royal family’s standpoint.
But the me of now was weak in power.
I did have at least enough ambition to want to rise to a position where I could openly contend with the lords. I was looking forward to what reward the grand duke would grant me once this civil war ended.
"My lord! We fought on the battlefield too, so why were we left out of the distribution of spoils?"
"It was a fitting punishment for those who ignored orders and acted as they pleased. It was publicly announced at the joint council that the cavalry commander had been granted the authority to punish, was it not?"
"If you slight us like this, the count won’t stand for it!"
"Go to Count Essenbach and tell him clearly. That the cavalry commander dared to punish you. Why are you hesitating? Go tattle to your master. That the cavalry commander disregards Essenbach."
"...Grrr, are you insulting us right now?"
"If you’ve been insulted, you should draw your sword. Isn’t that a noble’s honor?"
When I urged them to challenge me to a duel like proper nobles, slung my halberd over my shoulder, and let my killing intent show, the knights and cavalry who’d come to protest averted their eyes. Now they seemed to be getting scared.
The mere fact of being a lord must have earned Essenbach plenty of privileges and benefits, but that was pressure that had no effect on me. On the contrary, it gave me grounds to raise the issue openly at the strategy council and, together with the other lords, crush them.
"You’ll regret this."
I clicked my tongue, watching the order-breakers retreat while grinding their teeth.
Regrettably, this kind of fracturing was the reality of the Duchy of Beren.
Essenbach included, most of the cavalry had already split into two camps. The cavalry who’d ignored my orders and gotten stiffed, and the cavalry who’d faithfully followed my orders and received a great reward.
The fragmentation of the combined cavalry was, in fact, all but inevitable.
This was exactly why I’d demanded punishment authority from the lords when the second combined cavalry was formed. While running the combined cavalry hastily assembled during the relief of Feuzen, I’d dealt with that kind of problem countless times.
It was fortunate enough that there’d been no defiance of orders then, but when those damn cavalry fellows started clamoring for spoils, it had annoyed me enough to make me want to kill them. So to prevent this kind of thing, I’d strengthened my authority.
Every punishment short of execution and flogging became possible, and I completely excluded the order-breakers from the distribution of spoils. And I added their shares on top of the shares for the cavalry who’d faithfully followed orders.
So naturally there was an uproar, and they came to protest.
It didn’t get them anywhere, though.
I sternly warned them that if they failed to follow orders next time, they wouldn’t be able to obtain spoils going forward either. I didn’t know whether it got through, but if they had any sense, they’d at least take the hint.