Hohenfels

“–and as proven later in the battle of Orbach, hammer-and-anvil remains a highly reliable and, dare I say, highly effective tactic. The higher the quality of the commander’s strategy, the higher the degree of success. A trivial matter, really, given the excellence of our commanders compared to foreign… forces.”

Arne suppressed a sigh. This was exactly why he wasn’t looking forward to lectures on military tactics.

The subject itself was not the problem – hammer-and-anvil was indubitably effective in large engagements between near-peer opponents and probably would forever remain a staple of warfare. No, the issue lied in the small detail that most people present would never lead an army of that size outside of wargames.

Even Hohenfels, wealthiest margraviate by a significant margin, had to rely on small, highly mobile, and mostly self-sustaining elite units of nobles, as well as a standing professional army of around seven hundred well-trained soldiers, most of which were relegated to territorial defense. Peasant levies and mercenaries burned through the treasury in a flash, and every life lost to flintlock volleys was a considerable setback for the dead man’s village.

The duchies – except for Schwarzwald and Eisengrund, both comparatively poor – had no such issues. Losing two thousand levies in one battle was simply a reality of warfare for them.

Imparting that reality onto the next generation of barons, counts and landgraves was not just irresponsible, but also destructive. Just eight years ago, the Count of Trisin had wasted most of his considerable wealth as well as a significant percentage of his young male population on a harebrained invasion of Danholm, emulating tactics he had undoubtedly learned here.

Trisin was still stuck in an economic downward spiral, with no signs of improvement.

He sincerely hoped that a similar lecture held by some Landgrave’s field marshal later this week would be more applicable to military engagements below ducal levels.

He also hoped that the young lady sitting behind him had something else planned for that time slot.

His library acquaintance had been staring holes into his back ever since the lecture began. Not in any obvious way, of course. He was sure her eyes were on the instructor the entire time. He could feel her attention, though. Her surprisingly intense emotions – theoretically obscured by her ‘shell’, but not completely hidden from him now that he knew where to look – were focused firmly on Arne.

The question of what she was doing here was easily solved, since her tightly controlled aura consisted almost entirely of worry, stress, and frantic calculation. She simply regretted messing with him, now that she knew who he was.

Maybe he should just tell her to stop worrying and to leave him alone. But that would be difficult. He would have to somehow bring it up subtly in an unrelated conversation, to keep his talent under wraps and to avoid being unnecessarily rude to someone who might potentially be the fiancée of some landgrave’s son.

The prospect of engaging in another conversation with her seemed rather daunting, though.

= = = = =

Katharina was not enjoying the lecture.

It wasn’t even particularly uninteresting if she viewed it as an embellished retelling of the Empire’s greatest military successes instead of a sober discussion of military tactics.

No, the issue was the prince sitting in front of her. So far, he had completely ignored her save for a surprised glance when she had entered the room.

He had not expected her to be here. Or had he? Was his surprise faked to lull her into a false sense of safety? And did that line of thought even matter?

‘Of course it matters,’ she mentally chided herself. ‘If he planned for me to follow him here, there is a reason for it.’

What could that reason be?

But she was getting ahead of herself. First of all, there was no guarantee that he still cared.

‘But why the challenge, then?’

That was the root of her dilemma. Everything hinged on that final challenge of his. What had it been? A playful invitation for further conversation? No, it had been several orders of magnitude too intense for that. A threat, because he felt rightfully insulted by her failed attempt at probing?

Maybe it had been a simple warning because she had so rudely disturbed his reading. Something she was still kicking herself over – she had vastly underestimated him, otherwise she would have never attempted such a cheap trick.

Which was another highly important factor in all of her considerations. Everything, from the rumors regarding his frailty to his amateurish body language, was clearly designed to make her – no, everyone – underestimate him. ‘Why? Wouldn’t it have been in Hohenfels’ interest to make sure everyone and their mother knew about their frightfully competent male heir?’

Not only would it help with their ducal aspirations, it would also have guaranteed an even larger uproar at the entrance ceremony.

Instead, they had kept him secret from the Empire at large. Although, the Eisenberg princess had apparently known both him and his cousin. So did Matthias von Falkenstein. Which meant they had revealed him at least to some other houses.

But why Eisenberg? Falkenstein was obvious given their ties to Hohenfels and their discontent with the Emperor. But the houses Eisenberg and Hohenfels had been bitter rivals ever since the Empire had conquered the Eastern regions almost five hundred years ago.

What was their goal? And more importantly, how could she make herself useful to him and Hohenfels without risking the ire of the ducal houses?

‘Enough of this,’ she resolved herself. ‘One step after another. All I need to do at the moment is collect information.’

She needed an excuse to talk to him. Approaching him under a flimsy pretext would be a grave mistake given his conversational aptitude and sharpness of mind. But did she really have a choice?

Painfully aware of the potential consequences of either course of action, Katharina resolved herself to keep her momentum, even at the cost of letting her desperation show. Something he was probably aware of anyway.

= = = = =

Arne was facing a dire situation. The only free seat in the tiny classroom was right next to the young lady, who clearly was not here for the ritual magic. She did her very best to appear surprised by his arrival, but her aura betrayed her intentions.

“I am delighted to meet you once more, Mylady. May I take this seat?”

“The pleasure is all mine, Mylord,” she said, her face and voice perfectly controlled. “Please do.”

“My thanks. It is good to see a familiar face here,” he responded while sitting down next to her. “I believe I missed the chance to introduce myself when we first met, and I apologize. My name is Arnold von Hohenfels, though I suspect you already knew given yesterday’s events.”

“Indeed, your entrance was most spectacular, Prince Arnold! I am Katharina von Silberthal, and I am pleased to formally make your acquaintance,” she giggled. She faked it very well, and had Arne not felt the hint of stress and panic in her aura, he might have thought this conversation a pleasant one.

Arne himself felt rather conflicted after finding out that the young lady had turned out to be significantly more important than he had expected. House Silberthal was neither wealthy nor a military powerhouse, but they had gained a relatively stable position in the upper echelons thanks to excellent marriage arrangements and a firm grasp on the Empire’s universities.

It was extremely likely that Lady Katharina was engaged to someone from a ducal dynasty. Probably Tannburg or Sonnenstein, given their proximity to the county of Silberthal.

Both of them flinched when the classroom door swung open, revealing a slightly disheveled scholar with dark rings under his eyes. A faint smell of strong alcohol accompanied him, causing the students occupying the four seats in the front to wince.

Without much preamble or even offering his name, he grabbed a piece of chalk from his desk and began drawing on the large slab of slate fixed to the wall.

“The circle–” he dropped his monocle, somehow managed to catch it with frantic motions and continued seamlessly, “–is a fundamental component in the majority of Celtic, central European, Eastern, and even Arabic ritual traditions. Even the usurp– the Holy Church tends to use circle formations for large–scale rituals involving multiple participants.”

Each of the eight young aristocrats in the room had caught the slip-up. Some with a raised eyebrow, some with blatant indignation.

Arne was not particularly perturbed. The church had little influence in the eastern territories, with many of the villages still practicing pagan customs. Converting to protestantism had further weakened the already dwindling grasp of the catholic church, much to the current Margrave’s delight. Still, appearances needed to be kept, and so they tried to maintain good relations with the Prince-bishop of Domstein, the valiant man who managed the seven catholic and five protestant paladins in a precarious balance.

Lady Katharina was monitoring him as closely as she could while pretending to focus on the lecture, no doubt looking to glean something from his reaction to the scholar’s blunder. She herself had seemingly not reacted in the slightest other than a tiny spike of amusement he barely felt through her shell.

“As you probably know,” the lecturer continued, “a ritual loses effectiveness the more mundane it becomes. Hence, if one is widely known, we can assume that it is no longer practiced. You can imagine that this makes reliable studies an exceedingly rare thing.”

Arne was well-aware of that fact, but appreciated that the lecturer was seemingly not interested in rehashing the absolute basics any further than summarizations.

“The only known countermeasure is practiced by most organized religions: Substituting arcanity for blatant displays of extravagance. Ornate altars, golden crosses, cathedrals larger than entire villages,” the lecturer ranted on, disdain obvious in his tone.

Two students exchanged a grimace and quietly left the room, worry and uneasiness in their auras.

“This approach has a clear drawback, next to the ridiculous amount of wealth required. Does anyone know what it is?” He turned to face the students, blinking in confusion as he noticed the two empty chairs. “Where did they… Oh, whatever.”

He looked around in the room, looking for a volunteer to answer his question. Being met with nothing but silence, he randomly pointed at the lordling sitting in front of Arne. “You. Tell me.”

The young man’s aura contorted in shock, then in fear. “I– I apologize, but I have an important… thing to do,” his voice petered out as he grabbed his notes, stuffed them into his bag and half-sprinted out of the room.

The instructor closed his eyes in resignation. “Who else?”

One more student left in the same manner. Now, only Arne, Katharina, and two lower nobles remained.

“Well, that is one more than in the last batch. I’ll take what I can get.”

He sat on his desk, sighing. “I take it you’re all from the East?”

Arne and the two others nodded.

“No, Instructor…” Katharina paused strategically to let the man introduce himself.

“Oh. Right. Just call me Professor Nowak. No titles, no anything,” he said, something Arne had already surmised from his underdeveloped aura.

“Understood, Professor. I’m from Silberthal, not from the East.”

“Silberthal, huh? Good to see that rationalism is still alive in the heartlands.”

Katharina inclined her head slightly. “I wholeheartedly agree, Professor.” From what little Arne felt through her shell, she seemed genuine.

“Well, let’s get back to the question at hand, shall we?” Professor Nowak spun around to the blackboard and began drawing a complex diagram.

“Counteracting mundanity with opulence is akin to battling a hydra. A ritual supported by nothing but mammon will require more and more and more and more of it… You get the point,” he sighed. “And, after the demands grow untenable and its result diminishes further and further, the ritual dies.”

One of the other students shuddered, a young woman wearing patterns commonly seen in Marbach.

“The world is littered with dead rituals, killed by mundanity. Once dead, it takes a long time before one of them can regain its true effectiveness. They are usually lost before that happens.”

He turned around again, his glance wandering over his four remaining students.

“Over the coming semesters, I will be trying to keep as many dead rituals from oblivion as I can, by imparting them onto you.”

Arne was glad he picked this lecture. It would be utterly useless in practice, but it sounded really fun.