Building Intrigue Snippet 4

 

Chapter 4

 

Grand Duchy de Medicini

 

Grand Duke Lucas De Medicini swirled his drink as he considered his scheming and its latest implications. Things had not gone at all as planned.

He fought a grimace. He knew better; he honestly did. Too many annus of success had made him forget that there was the occasional setback and that not every scheme worked. These two had backfired rather spectacularly in fact.

For many annus, his spies had stolen technology, kidnapped artisans, assasinated people to destabilize a region, or formented war between two dominus to keep them fighting each other rather than look in his direction.

He had paid off the pirates with tribute so they would naturally look to his enemies to prey on for a time. He had no regrets over any of those actions. None at all.

This time though … he downed the drink. This time was a bit different he reflected. This one had the potential to bring thousands of annus of rule by his family crashing down around his ears. And he had only his own schemes to blame.

Well, to be fair he had to work through secondary parties, and he had to rely on the pieces moving in the directions he wanted. That didn't always work out. This time it had and had backfired anyway.

Duluth attacking the Imperium a decade or more ago had been anticipated and even encouraged. He had sat back and thought that the war would run for at least a generation, thus protecting him and his people. Instead, it had gotten the newly-arrived gaijin involved.

Duluth had settled into trying to lay siege to duchy Emory while also looting the countryside. He would have loved to have been a witness to the clash of titans on the battlefield.

He had anticipated the old king to have to rally the other dominus, and his spies had been set to have them bicker and stall while sending forces to the north. Duluth would have dug in, and it would have been a gloriously long campaign.

No one, not even he, could have anticipated a group of well-armed gaijin with technology beyond his people's to come from Patria. Nor could he have anticipated the massive changes that were shaking the Imperium and their world to the core.

The gaijin's influences had allowed the Ianna Imperium to smash the Duluth army. Their infernal contraptions had allowed them to smash the dominus as well. Rather than capture them and ransom them many of those dominus had been killed with their sons.

The Imperium had then taken control of Duluth, sending the young princess there. His spies had a few minor machinations to help prod the surviving Duluthians into rebellion. Rather than smash them again and then spend many annus and fortune guarding the north east the Imperium's gaijin had led a raid and rescued the princess as well as broken the rebellion.

Now instead of looting the fallen country, they were rebuilding it. That had killed a lot of resentment in the rusticus. The peons had taken the food and the aide that the gaijin had offered and were well on their way to converting into loyal subjects.

He shook his head. He'd thought the Duluthians were more prideful than that. Apparently, the giajin's allure had driven a wedge between them and their dominus. Most likely because they had been starving and the war that would have given them food had ended badly. Instead, their so-called enemy had helped them and wanted to teach them … he shook his head. Even he could hardly believe that.

It definitely inspired loyalty, though his spies he had recently sent to Duluth would put that to the test soon.

His latest schemes to destabilize the Imperium had failed. He was still struggling to understand how. Of course the gaijin had a hand in the failure of one. The other, well, that may yet succeed in diverting the gaijin from his borders for another few annus.

He reached over to the decanter and poured himself another drink.

Ever since the war in Duluth had ended, his spies had been reporting that the gaijin had convinced the queen to hold a Harvest Festival in her capital. It was just before the beginning of Autumus, when the largest harvest was finished and the winter crops were put in. Each festival was more impressive than the last. At the festival, they taught new things and showed the rusticus how to make things and of course sold many things as well.

They even had a university, a school of learning to teach such things. He had yet to get a spy in there for long. He didn't have such things; the guilds were jealous over their territory and did not like to share their secrets easily.

His spies had of course come back with many things from the festivals. However, the Imperium's spymaster had gotten wise to their antics. Also, no matter how much gold they offered no one could bribe or steal the recipe for the blasted thunderstick ammunition.

His right fist clenched and then unclenched around his glass. After a moment, he stopped it and gently touched the rim with a fingertip and traced it for a full minute.

The thundersticks and machima had started a race in all of the remaining kingdoms. He had taken advantage of their fear of the Imperium to try to forge an alliance with them. He hadn't anticipated that some would be more able than his own people at implementing the new technology.

One such group were the pirates and slavers off the west coast. He had an ambassador with them paying them tribute to keep them off his shipping. Dominic Cassius was his Legatus, ambassador to the pirates. He was also a spy. Through his reports, the duke had become aware that they were more advanced than he had assumed. But they were wary of him for his machinations and refused to share or sell their new technology.

He grimaced and shook his head. He would do the same if he was in their shoes. In fact, he was doing that very thing. His people had a treasure trove of material from the Imperium. He naturally wanted to keep what his spies had delivered under wraps for as long as possible. But he needed to use it too. It put him on the horns of a dilema.

He was still pushing to have his artisans look at the various things and do their best to recreate them. The weapons were top of the list.

Of course that research and development cost a lot of money. He wasn't happy at the expenses involved. He had been selling the secrets to the guilds but they hadn't been putting them into use much.

Oh sure, they'd made some strides with printing presses but not a lot. He had recently found out that the duchy ones were crude in comparison to the Imperium's. The guilds used wood carvings that were pressed onto paper. The costs had come down a lot for posters and such things but they still take time to produce.

His eyes went to the slate clock on the mantle and then to the map nearby. It studied it with practice ease, eventually shifting to the bottom of their known world.

He was very nervous about Caliope. Word had gotten back to him by ship; Caliope had fallen to the Imperials some time ago. He hadn't anticipated their fall happening so quickly. He'd thought the pass had been impregnable or at least would have turned into a slogging match that would have attritioned each side badly.

He hadn't anticipated the ability to bypass the pass with flying craft. Nor had he anticipated that the Imperials could take it so readily. The details were sketchy; however, his spies in the Imperium had confirmed that there were plenty of news reports stating that Caliope had fallen.

Had the grand duchess' court survivors told the Imperium about the mutual defense deal? How much had she let on to her court? He cursed himself for putting anything in writing. That had been foolish.

He still thought that playing her as a patsy had been a good move. Had he waited until the armies of the Imperium had been committed to attacking Caliope, even during the invasion, he might have been able to get in and take some of the northern reaches away from them.

Maybe. But they and their infernal gaijin would have taken it all back and then come for him next.

The new weapons gave a single man the power of many. It was amazing as to how small their army was and how easily it could break larger more conventionally armed ones. It was also a bit terrifying given that his army was still armed with those now antique and useless implements.

The one bit of good news was that the pirates had played into his hands in a way. The news from the Imperium had reported that they had somehow forced one of the Imperium planes to land in the water near their land. They had taken the people on board hostage.

He had to get a look at the thing. There were no doubt many wonders on board.

More importantly, the downing of the craft and the pirate raid on Nuevo Imperium's coast had fixated both Imperiums on them for the foreseable future. Which meant he might have time to get his people to finally crack the secrets of the thunder sticks and other mechanical marvels.

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