A few minutes later Adler and Ekkehardt left the room and were escorted to their quarters. Claudius the guards remaining in the room.

“I will need you to leave us,” He announced. The guards immediately complied, leaving Claudius, Adiran, Erik, and Rudolf in the room. Claudius then sighed.

“And here I thought the biggest issue of this month was the bog iron collection edict…” He muttered. He then turned to Adrian. “Adrian, what do you think of them?” Adrian sighed.

“I don’t know. All I can really tell you is that I have a bad feeling about all of this. If the prince dies out here, then we’re going to have a great deal of problems.”

“I agree,” Rudolf added. “Alexander the younger is his father’s only son. If he were to die then the empire would have a succession crisis on its hands. Secession, invasion, even a civil war between different Ostermanian factions would be on the table. Actually, it wouldn’t be unfathomable to see all three of those things at once.”

“I’m afraid that you may be under-estimating the severity of the situation we have on our hands…” A raspy voice said. The whole room turned to Schwartzbaum, the owner of said voice.

“What do you mean?” Claudius asked.

“Give me a moment, this might be a little difficult to explain,” Schwartzbaum replied as he began to grab a couple of objects that were sitting around the room. The man spoke Alemanian just like the others in the room, though he did not speak with an Ostermanian accent. His dialect was one of the cruder kinds spoken in the Confederation.

Schwartzbaum then placed a chess set and a map on the table in full view of everyone. The map depicted Yerb1, the continent that the Ostermanian Empire resided in. The continent was a west-ward facing peninsula with three smaller south-ward facing peninsulas attached to it. There were also three large islands near the peninsula, one to the north and two to the north-west.

“Now, as you all know, the Ostermanian Empire is already one of the largest powers on the continent,” He explained as he placed a black king on a country that took up most of the land on the eastern side of the main peninsula, “It directly controls a number of kingdoms to the south-east of the continent and indirectly controls the majority of the Alemianian-speaking world thanks to the fact that the Emperor of Ostermania or one of his puppets is always elected chancellor of the Holy Confederation of Reme. If there was some sort of crisis within the empire then all of the land held by the von Adlers and the Confederation would be dragged into it. That much is obvious. Unfortunately, Emperor Alexander von Adler the first has done something that would make this much worse,” Schwartzbaum explained.

“What do you mean Erik?” Adrian asked.

“In the emperor’s quest to obtain a suitable male heir he was hindered by what appeared to be a supernatural ability to only conceive daughters. His late wife gave birth to the princesses Adelaide, Amelia, Aurora, Agatha, Alena, Aveline, and Agrippina before he was able to conceive prince Alexander the younger. Now, any other man would have seen this as a massive disappointment, but Alexander was able to turn this curse into a blessing. By strategically marrying off his daughters he has managed to put a finger in every pie on the damn continent.” Schwartzbaum explained.

The man then lifted a black pawn up to his face. “The first daughter, Adelaide von Adler, was married off to Prince Pierre the second of the Kingdom of Metrovingia and gave birth to a son, Pierre the third.” He said as he placed the pawn on a large country to the west of the empire before getting another pawn.

“A few years after that the second oldest daughter, Amelia, was married to Juan the fourth of the Kingdom of Iberistan2 before giving birth to his son, Jaun the fifth.” He said as he placed the pawn on the western-most peninsula. “The third daughter: Aurora, wife of Prince Carl the eighth of Sviaria-Soumland3 and mother of Carl the ninth.” He said as he placed another pawn on the large island that lay to the north of the continent. Schwartzbaum continued this for Agatha, Alenia, and Aveline, at which point he produced a rook and placed it on a small country between Metrovingia and the Confederation. “Finally there is Agrippina, wife of the late Philip of Kleinkastelburg, who has effectively become its ruler after her husband’s ‘untimely demise’ on a hunting excursion two months ago,” he explained. At this point the majority of the countries on the map had some sort of black chess piece on them.

“What are you getting at here, Erik?” Adrian asked.

“It’s simple: While King Alexander’s strategy of marrying his daughters into every royal family on the continent has given him the ability to exert massive amounts of soft power it has also created a situation where every one of those royal families has the ability stake a claim on the imperial throne; provided that Alexander’s male line, which is currently only consists of himself and his son, dies out.” Schwartzbaum explained. As the three other men in the room processed Schwartzbaum’s words their muscles began to tense and their blood turned to ice-water.

“My god…” Rudolf said, “If even half of those countries decided to try to put one of their own on the imperial throne then the continent could see war on a scale that it hasn’t seen since the time of the Bergmen Horde, or the Reman civil wars.”

“Well in that case, we better do everything in our power to help the prince. If the entire continent were to burn then Nordfell would burn with it and I don’t know if I will live long enough to see this county out of that,” Claudius explained.

“Understood, sir. I’ll make sure that there are at least six soldiers with them at all times,” Adrian replied. Claudius shook his head.

“No, make it twelve,” Claudius corrected. Adrian nodded his head.

“I’ll make it happen, sir,” He responded.

“Good. I would also like for you to double the garrisons at the villages between Neustadt and Weisshart. Also send a message out to the leader of every village militia in the county: They need to be prepared to mobilize every able-bodied man possible as soon as possible,” Claudius ordered. He then turned to Schwartzbaum and Rudolf.

“Erik, I need you to send the Band of the Crow to Weisshart. When you get there I want you to tell Unterbrink that your men will be relieving his unit and that they’re to report to me for new orders at once. I believe that the blockhouse in Weisshart is only big enough to accommodate a force roughly half of your size, but we should be able to mitigate this problem if we use the nearby church as an auxiliary barracks...” Claudius continued, only to be cut off by Adrian.

“Sir, isn’t that church run by…” Adrian interjected.

“Father Taggart?” Claudius said, completely Adrian’s question, “Yes. It is. If he cooperates with us then that’s fine and if he doesn’t then that shouldn’t be a problem. He’s not the same man he was thirty years ago.”

“So I have permission to kill him, should it be necessary?” Schwartzbaum asked. Claudius shook his head.

“No. I don’t want to see any harm done to the man. If you have to, have him sent here for internment, but don’t hurt him,” Claudius answered. Schwartzbaum nodded his head.

“Understood. Anything else, sir?” Schwartzbaum asked.

“No. Just make sure that the Band of the Crow is able to leave as soon as possible. I trust that your Mizraimi4 friend can have this arranged?” Claudius asked.

“Yes, sir,” Schwartzbaum answered. Claudius then turned to the young scribe.

“Rudolf, I want you to brief Schwartzbaum on the terrain surrounding Weisshart before he leaves tomorrow. Once you’ve done that I want you to inspect every defensive structure within and around Neustadt. If there is a weakness anywhere then I want to know about it and have it corrected,” Claudius continued. He then turned to Adrian once again. “Adrian, I am also going to need Sven to take my armor out of storage and make sure it’s in working order.”

“Sir, I hope you’re not thinking about getting yourself into a fight. Even if this all goes horribly wrong, you won’t be able to do the things you did thirty years ago,” Adrian warned. Claudius sighed.

“I know. I understand that my days of leading from the front are over, but if I have to raise my sword, by God I’m going to do it and do it well,” He replied as a concerned look appeared on Adrian’s face.

“Understood, sir. Anything else?” Adrian replied.

“Yes. One more thing: sometime tomorrow I want someone to summon Klaus Zimmermann to the castle.”

“Zimmermann, that carpenter? What is he going to do for us?'' Adrian asked.

“He’s going to build us another chair,” Claudius replied as he gestured towards the remains of the chair Ekkehardt had broken. With that the meeting adjourned and the men prepared for the difficult days that lie ahead.

None of them noticed an owl fly away from the window as they left.

Elsewhere in Brandt Castle

“I apologize for the accommodations, but it is all that we could prepare, given the circumstances,” a guard said as he opened the door to a modest room with two beds, a wooden desk, stone flooring, and stone walls.

“This will be fine,” Adler replied.

“Are you sure, your highness? I could get you your own room and open up some space in the barracks for your knight if you would like.”

“No. Wherever I go, Ekkehardt goes. That is the way this works.”

“Alright then. Let someone know if you need anything,” the guard said. Adler and Ekkehardt nodded. The two of them entered the room and stared at each other in silence as the door closed and footsteps outside got quieter and quieter. Finally, Ekkehardt spoke up.

“I think he’s gone.”

“So it’s safe to talk normally now, Ekkehardt?” Adler replied.

“I believe so,” Ekkehardt answered. The next words that came from Adler’s mouth were spoken in a higher pitched and more effeminate voice.

“How was my act?”

“I think they bought it.”

“Good. Now that we have that out of the way, could you roll out our map of Nordfell out on that desk?” Ekkehardt’s companion said as they pointed at the desk. Ekkehardt smiled.

“As you wish, Princess Alexandra.”