Chapter 454: Tea With Four Captive Lords

The four lords I had captured and brought back from Basel were gathered in one place.

We were in Hissen, Rosenheim’s frontline fortress village.

Sir Heindel, Lord of Wischelbach.

Sir Helixen, Lord of Hagenhausen.

Baron Grossent, Lord of Landschaft.

Sir Handendorf, Lord of Birsfelden.

Never before in Basel’s history had all of its lords been taken prisoner. Having pulled off that remarkable feat, I sat back leisurely at the head of the table and offered them tea. Apart from the four of them, August had joined us as well.

"...."

"...."

Amid the heavy silence, Sir Helixen glared fiercely at Baron Landschaft. The baron stared right back, refusing to lose the staring contest.

Hagenhausen and Birsfelden were hostile toward Landschaft, while Wischelbach remained neutral. Hmm, this rose tea has a curious, one-of-a-kind flavor. Its charm lies in being earthy and fragrant at the same time.

"The Grossent family dumped a giant pile of crap on me."

"And that’s my fault? You’re the one who threatened to pull your support unless we gave you my sister, and now you’re complaining? A giant pile of crap? Fine. Thanks for cleaning up the Grossent crap."

Breaking the long silence, the Lord of Hagenhausen and Baron Landschaft launched into a heated war of words. The Lord of Wischelbach watched from the sidelines, while the Lord of Birsfelden sided with Hagenhausen.

"Grrr, Baron Landschaft! I challenge you to an honorable noble battle!"

"You think Hagenhausen stands a chance against Landschaft? The Gale Knight himself praised me as a lord with a fair bit of military talent. And I hear you got captured without even putting up a real fight?"

The Lord of Hagenhausen’s eyes went wide in disbelief.

"That can’t be! The Baron of Rosenheim praised the military talent of someone like you?"

"Baron of Rosenheim! Please, tell him yourself."

All eyes turned to me.

Good grief. Were they really going to argue over whether a passing compliment was genuine?

"Your plan to lure me into an ambush and catch me by surprise wasn’t bad."

If I hadn’t had a scouter in my eyes, it might have been a tough fight. Given how much I’d been stirring things up all over the place, predicting my route and setting up an ambush had been no easy feat.

"Did you hear that? I’m a commander recognized by the Gale Knight!"

"...."

The Lord of Hagenhausen only trembled with rage and kept his mouth shut. Unlike Baron Landschaft, he had fallen for a lure and been routed. Baron Landschaft laughed triumphantly. Was that really something to gloat about?

"But you set up an ambush and still lost to me, so it’s not exactly something to brag about, Baron."

"Who in all of Basel could possibly beat the Gale Knight?"

Ever since I had purged his uncle’s faction for him, Baron Landschaft had done a complete about-face and turned friendly toward me. At first I wondered if he’d eaten something bad, but considering I’d handed him full control of Landschaft, his change of heart wasn’t hard to understand.

Ideally, I would have kept the uncle and the baron fighting to weaken them both, but the uncle had disrespected me, so things turned out this way. Still, I was content to have built a faction friendly to me inside Basel.

"Huh, so Landschaft has gone over to the Baron of Rosenheim’s side completely."

The Lord of Wischelbach, the eldest among them, sighed at how thoroughly Basel’s balance of power had shifted. The very fact that a powerful outside enemy had won over a faction from within was a serious threat.

Baron Landschaft glared at the Lord of Wischelbach.

"Sir Heindel. You wouldn’t be saying that if you knew what the Count of Basel had done to me."

"What are you talking about? Our liege took special care of Landschaft."

"By ’special care,’ do you mean using my uncle to keep me in check?"

"...Is that true?"

"Unlike that one (the Lord of Birsfelden), who wags his tail for the Count of Basel, I’ve always been under pressure. When you get right down to it, those damn Brists are even the reason my father died!"

Baron Landschaft was regarded as a total degenerate, but his father had been a respected noble in Basel. If the son’s claim was true, the matter warranted a second look.

When the Lords of Wischelbach and Hagenhausen reacted with unease, the Lord of Birsfelden stepped in to push back. As an illegitimate son, he needed the count to recognize his legitimacy one way or another.

Otherwise, the Handendorf family, which didn’t even have a cadet branch, would die out, and Birsfelden would inevitably be reclaimed by the Count of Basel.

Though his disposition was justice (good), his very birth was his weakness. That was why the Count of Basel kept a firm grip on that weakness and ordered the capable Lightning Knight around like a personal servant. What a shame.

"You talk as if you’re the only victims here, but you’re the ones who put our liege in a tough spot by joining hands with the anti-Zurich faction of the Swiss Confederation! It’s not right to blame our liege when you gave him the excuse in the first place!"

Hmm, Handendorf had a point, too. If a vassal family in Rosenheim had joined hands with Basel, which is hostile to me, I might well have done the same. No, I’d probably have crushed them outright.

Knowing myself, I’d have wiped them off the map without a second thought.

This is why you should never listen to only one side of the story.

You couldn’t overlook the background, either. The regional lords had tried to team up with the anti-Zurich faction because they had suffered under Zurich’s economic tyranny. In the end, it was a clash of interests.

As if on cue, the four lords began tearing into one another. It was the moment Basel’s regional lords split apart. I hadn’t said a word, and yet they were going at each other tooth and nail.

Had I just gotten what I wanted without lifting a finger?

When things came to blows, the attendants who’d been standing by rushed in and pulled the lords apart. Apparently, insulting each other’s mothers is the same in every time and place.

"If you want to fight, fight all you like after this war is over."

Whether they started a civil war or held a noble battle was none of my business. The weaker and more divided Basel became, the better the board would be set for me. The Count of Basel had brought all of this on himself.

I intended to tell them the truth.

It was time the lords learned how this ridiculous war had broken out.

"As you gentlemen know, I’m redeveloping Vintenheim. I’ve invested 1,300 gold coins in developing that port city."

"1,300 gold coins?!"

The lords’ jaws dropped at the enormous sum. Apart from the grand duke and Marquis Offenburg, I was probably the only one in the Duchy of Beren who could pour that kind of money into developing a city.

I revealed the figure partly to flaunt my overwhelming wealth, but also as an indirect warning that, if it came to all-out war, I could hire an enormous number of mercenaries.

"Meanwhile, the Count of Basel proposed a noble battle under the pretext of avenging his defeat in the last civil war, and I accepted. And as you all know, I won."

Because I had crushed a force of about 400 Swiss mercenaries, the battle had become more famous than expected. But the lords were stunned to learn that the battle itself had been a decoy, meant to keep my eyes elsewhere while schemes unfolded behind my back.

"From the start, the Count of Basel’s goal was to launch a surprise attack on Vintenheim. Fortunately, my retainers caught on, and we were able to prepare. We still lost part of the port, but we held them off."

"So you came to sweep through Basel in retaliation, Baron?"

"If his goal had simply been to deal me a blow, I wouldn’t have gone this far. But the Count of Basel’s scheme wasn’t that simple. The plot had three objectives."

One, to have the Baron of Rosenheim, enraged by the destruction of Vintenheim, declare war.

Two, to have the Swiss Confederation join the war as an ally, giving it legitimacy.

Three, to have the Altringen royal family bring about the Baron of Rosenheim’s downfall.

"All of this was a grand strategy for the Count of Basel to break away from the Duchy of Beren and join the Swiss Confederation. And since I stand in his way on the road to Breisburg, he cooked up this scheme to get rid of me first. But in the end, his grand strategy failed."

"...."