The Age of the Sword
It was, truth be told, a thoroughly unimportant fact—but Claude V had his own reasons, of a sort.
He had never expected something like this to erupt so suddenly in the peaceful south.
He had recently thrown a lavish banquet and was short of funds for any military expedition.
He had put on so much weight of late that climbing into a saddle had become a genuine ordeal.
And why, exactly, should he protect free cities that did not even pay their taxes properly? Questions of that nature.
For such miscellaneous and trivial reasons, the king felt little desire to involve himself in the affair.
After all, the citizens of the city were nothing more than a pack of merchants. Surely they must have committed some insolence first, for the Count to be so enraged that he was tearing the place apart.
With little money to spare and no wish to make an enemy of Count Montpellier, Claude V finished his self-justification and resolved to ignore the turmoil in the south.
“Your Majesty, are you in your right mind? You’re saying you’ll turn a blind eye while Count Montpellier swallows the city of Montpellier for reasons that ridiculous? Seriously?”
“They’re lawless ones who don’t even pay their taxes properly. It would be a fine thing if a loyal subject like Count Montpellier came to rule the city.”
“It isn’t that they failed to fulfill their tax obligations—it’s that the central government simply lacked the capacity to collect them! And if the Count dominates the city, even the trickle of revenue that was coming in will dry up completely. Nobles have no obligation to pay taxes!”
“Come now. Would the Count really be so heartless? I have already made up my mind, so stop pestering me.”
“This son of a—”
The finance minister charged with the royal treasury raged with insolent fury, demanding intervention, yet could not break the king’s firm resolve for peace.
Besides, it was not as though an army could simply be summoned on the spot to teach the Count some manners.
How dare anyone glare and bark back when the king himself had given an order?
He had entrusted her with a post far beyond a woman’s station out of regard for her father’s old ties, yet she had no sense of her place and kept making a scene. It was high time he dismissed her.
Managing the finances would be the same no matter who held the office, would it not?
He resolved to invent some suitable pretext soon, cut her loose, and bestow the finance minister’s seat upon a more agreeable close aide.
Having made that resolution, he moistened his throat with expensive wine.
Claude V was a kind and wise king who respected tradition and loved peace.
“…What? Is the king dead? Why is there no response?”
“He’s just going to sit there sucking his thumb while Count Montpellier becomes the new master of the south?”
“Come on. Even if His Majesty is an idiot, he can’t possibly be that stupid… can he?”
Of course, to everyone else it simply looked as though the king had handed the city over to the Count as a gift.
The French nobility, already reeling in shock and terror at the sight of Count Montpellier yanking the king’s nose hairs, could only stare in utter horror as their sovereign discarded even his most basic duties.
Good heavens. What kind of half-witted moron could simply watch while a city whose freedom he had personally guaranteed in his own name was attacked?
Doing so would destroy his reputation as a monarch and his credibility abroad, not to mention inflict fatal military and economic damage.
Yet Claude V managed it.
He coolly ignored Montpellier’s desperate pleas for rescue after Count Montpellier’s invasion had turned the city into a shambles, and to this day remained shut up in his residence, slicing steaks.
It was truly an achievement that left all of France flat on its back in astonishment.
In effect, he had created a massive threat in the south with his own two hands.
A stunned silence settled over high society.
The nobles, who had briefly forgotten Claude V’s extraordinary political gifts, now realized their liege was an even greater idiot than they had imagined, and began rolling their eyes in unison.
Maybe I should give that free city attached to my own lands a little poke…
Serving a king like that while trying to face the Germans is pure madness.
Damn it. It’s too late to cut ties with that idiot now…!
Ambitious men, patriots, and even royalist nobles who had belatedly begun considering a clean break—all of them were clicking their abacus beads when the first to step forward were the marcher lords of the north.
“Metz, Épinal, and Nancy strongly condemn Count Montpellier’s lawless act of rebellion!”
“How can a subject of the realm draw his sword against a city whose freedom was guaranteed by the Goddess and by His Majesty the King?”
“If he does not immediately abandon that foul ambition, he will not escape divine punishment!”
Their reasons were simple.
They did not want France torn apart by civil war.
Their territories bordered not some other country, but Germany itself.
And the belligerence of the German principalities was exceptional even by medieval standards.
The marcher lords who had crossed blades with the Germans time and again on the northeastern frontier understood their danger better than anyone.
For now the Kaiser’s gaze was turned eastward, so things remained quiet—but if France exhausted itself in civil war, those people would certainly come pouring in.
A kingdom already drained by internal strife would be defeated without even managing a proper fight.
The southwestern nobles, soft from long peace, might think it mattered little if the country fell so long as their own lands and fortunes remained intact. But the marcher lords, who had diligently piled up bad karma on the front lines and earned the Germans’ lasting hatred, could not possibly tolerate the kingdom’s collapse.
In the end, they condemned Count Montpellier not out of loyalty to the crown, but for the sake of their own survival.
“We of Brittany also condemn Count Montpellier’s atrocities!”
“Limoges agrees with the Count of Metz.”
“Dimont as well—well, I’m not entirely sure what this is about, but I agree anyway.”
Yet because their cause was so unimpeachably perfect, nobles classified as royalists began one by one to voice their agreement with the marcher lords.
The statement of condemnation that began in the north grew longer and longer as it rolled southward, until by the time it finally reached Count Montpellier it had become something resembling a rolling paper of signatures—
“How amusing.”
The Count received the carefully prepared statement filled with the marcher lords’ and royalists’ earnest efforts and tore it apart without a moment’s hesitation.
That they would dare invoke the rotten authority of the old church against him, a faithful servant of the Goddess… it was so absurd he felt more like laughing than angry.
…Well, in fairness, of course they wouldn’t know.
Had they known that the Flame of Benevolence in the heavens had chosen him, they would never have written anything about faith in the first place.
So he could overlook those arrogant, incompetent hypocrites twisting the Goddess’s will to suit their own convenience.
From the perspective of someone who knew the truth, it was a comedy beyond comedies—and the Flame of Benevolence was not so merciless as to harshly punish sins committed out of ignorance.
But there was something even more ridiculous.
The names.
On the list that carefully recorded every single noble who had joined the condemnation, the most important name of all—the king’s—was missing.
Nor was the name of the Duke of Orléans, his closest confidant and the real power behind the throne, anywhere to be found.
So what, exactly, was this statement meant to condemn?
A heinous traitor had invaded a city whose freedom was guaranteed in the king’s name and stained the royal house’s honor—yet the king himself remained silent while only his subjects made a noisy fuss.
Anyone could see how ridiculous the whole thing looked.
“Thomas. Have you finished?”
“Yes, Father. I’ve dealt with or imprisoned every last one of the men you named.”
“Well done. Now let us accept those piglets’ advice and withdraw from the city.”
Moreover, their response had come far too late.
Father and son had already cleanly eliminated the spinning guild and its hangers-on that had been their targets.
Thugs who could not even handle mana properly were no match for knights.
Perhaps on an open plain where numerical superiority could be brought to bear it might have been different—but in the tangled streets of a city, it was nothing more than a one-sided massacre.
The two knights left the blood-soaked alleys looking as immaculate as if not a single drop had touched them.
Having wiped out most of the resistance inside the city and shown mercy by enslaving those who might still prove useful, they returned to their fortress at a leisurely pace, as if to say, Since you’re all making such a fuss, we’ll stop here—after pocketing every last scrap of profit.
Count Montpellier had plundered the city.
Claude V had condoned it.
The opposition’s condemnation had achieved nothing whatsoever.
The precarious balance that the hollow royal authority had barely maintained collapsed.
A few days later, the Count of Marseille declared he would reclaim the autonomy of the city of Marseille.
A few days after that, Nantes abolished the monopolies of the craft guilds.
Then Nice, then Lyon, then Bordeaux.
A wind of blood began to blow.
The feudal lords who sensed the omens of war decided to slit open the goose’s belly.