The Medieval Heretic King is Too Good at Developing - Chapter 18

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Ceaseless

◈ The Medieval Heretic King is Too Good at Developing ◈

Chapter 18: The Heretic King (4)

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I unfolded the letter bearing the Prague City Council's wax seal.

The costly parchment was filled with every sort of flowery phrase and honorific, but once I stripped all that away, only one important point remained.

"What did Prague say, my lord?"

"They aren't sure whether to name me king, so they want to make me Regent of Bohemia first and test me."

János Hunyadi tilted his head.

"Regent of Bohemia? Will you accept their offer?"

"Perhaps... but I do intend to go to Prague."

With a small laugh, I casually tossed the letter from Prague onto the table.

'My bloodline as Charles IV's descendant must be more powerful than I thought. This confirms it. They can never give me up.'

I smiled confidently.

'You want me to prove my worth? Fine. But I'll prove it my way, not yours.'

I immediately called for Sir Kuno.

"Sir Kuno, select ten soldiers to take to Prague. Give them the finest armor and weapons we have, polish them until they shine without a speck of dust, and make them look like an elite royal guard at a glance. Understood?"

"Yes, my lord! We will show them Sternberg's might!"

Of all my retainers, only János Hunyadi would accompany me to Prague. Someone had to remain behind and guard the castle in my place.

A few days later.

Accompanied by János Hunyadi and ten mounted soldiers clad in gleaming armor, I rode out through Sternberg Castle's gates.

Everyone in the Sternberg domain had gathered before them.

Their faces were streaked with dirt and their clothes were torn, yet no one looked miserable. Instead, their faces were full of life and hope for a new future.

In silence, they bowed in respect and saw their lord off on his journey to Prague.

* * *

Clop, clop.

Sternberg Castle's gates receded behind us. The ten riders formed a tight formation around me, their hooves striking the road in a steady rhythm.

János Hunyadi followed beside me like a shadow, though his eyes swept sharply across the forests and hills around us. His hand hovered over the hilt at his waist, ready to draw his sword at any moment.

"My lord, are you truly certain? Isn't an escort of only ten men too modest? If we encounter even a band of brigands..."

"It's fine, János Hunyadi. This is safer, if anything."

Holding the reins, I spoke in an even voice.

"If we marched there with hundreds of soldiers, it would look like an invasion rather than diplomacy. We aren't going to fight. Ten elite cavalrymen are enough to show our strength, while still being few enough not to provoke their suspicion."

Half of that was true, and the other half was bravado.

"...If that is your will, my lord."

János Hunyadi looked doubtful, but he did not press the matter further.

'The truth is, I don't have more soldiers to bring.'

I swallowed a bitter laugh. The castle had once had only forty soldiers, and many had been killed or wounded in the last two bloody battles. Fewer than twenty could take up arms and fight.

The domain's treasury was empty, and the granaries were bare enough for rats to hold a festival. This trip to Prague was a gamble that staked everything we had left. If it failed, Sternberg would have no future.

Once we left Sternberg's forest, the road revealed war's scars in all their naked ugliness.

Fields that had once rolled golden were rough and barren, while only the blackened frames of burned farmhouses remained along the roadside.

The occasional travelers we met saw our gleaming swords and armor, along with Sternberg's banner, and hurried fearfully out of the way.

Their faces held nothing but deep-rooted fear and distrust of war.

"...János Hunyadi, how have the people been living lately?"

The question slipped out before I knew it.

"Who knows? They're probably just watching to see who will win."

János Hunyadi answered as though it meant nothing.

"If Sigismund wins, they'll cheer for His Imperial Majesty. If the Hussites win, they'll raise the chalice. In the end, whoever gives them bread will become their god. Most people only want this cursed war to end so they can plow their fields as they once did."

János Hunyadi's cynical reply held the reality of this country. It was an age where immediate survival mattered more than nations or beliefs.

After several days of riding, a sight finally came into view beyond the Vltava River. Hundreds of Gothic spires rose as though they would pierce the sky.

The capital of the Holy Roman Empire.

The heart of the Kingdom of Bohemia.

Prague.

Prague Castle stood magnificently atop the hill, while the massive walls enclosing the city silently demonstrated its grandeur.

"...It's huge."

Even János Hunyadi let out an involuntary murmur of admiration. It was a city of overwhelming scale, impossible to compare with Sternberg.

How many people must have crowded together and lived within those walls?

Of course, to my eyes, which knew modern skyscrapers, it looked little more than a well-preserved medieval theme park.

The moment we passed through the city gates, even the air felt denser. Heat radiated from the countless crowds, mingling with deafening noise.

...And then every kind of filth assaulted us with a stench so sharp it made my head throb.

'For fuck's sake...'

Sternberg Castle had been bad enough, but the filth of a great city was on another level.

Human waste, animal dung, rotting food scraps, the foul chemicals flowing from tanneries, and beneath it all, the sweat of countless unwashed people.

People casually opened their windows and emptied chamber pots onto the streets, where the waste mixed together on unpaved dirt roads. It was a perfect breeding ground for disease.

At least it was winter. If this had been summer, the stench would have been twice as bad.

In the middle of that smell, János Hunyadi spoke as if nothing were wrong.

"Prague's air truly is nothing like Sternberg's. It's full of life."

Life?

This wasn't life. It was the stench of decay.

"So, how do you intend to handle this enormous city? Will you visit the Prague City Council first and accept the position of Regent of Bohemia?"

In response to János Hunyadi's question, I gave up breathing through my nose and answered in quick breaths through my mouth.

"No... ahem! No."

My voice came out nasal for a moment, and I quickly cleared my throat.

"We're going to Prague's square."

"The square? Not the Prague City Council? Shouldn't we put those arrogant old men in their place?"

"Why walk straight into a nest of vipers?"

I smiled faintly.

"We should make them come running out to us."

Prague's nobles and high-ranking clergy.

By now, they were likely huddled together inside the Prague City Council building, discussing how to win me over and turn me into their puppet.

I had no intention of begging those cunning nobles and theologians for a crown.

A crown was something one had to seize for oneself to bear its weight.

We left the main road leading to the Prague City Council and rode toward Old Town Square, the heart of the city.

Our procession stood out sharply amid Prague's crowded streets.

Polished steel armor, proud horses, and two banners fluttering at the front.

Sternberg's eight-pointed star and Bohemia's double-tailed lion.

Passersby noticed the banners, made way for us, and whispered in voices mixed with awe and suspicion.

"Who are they? Which house do those knights serve?"

"Isn't that Sternberg's coat of arms? That family that burned the Hussites not long ago?"

"Then why are they carrying the king's banner...?"

Curiosity quickly became a great wave. Like iron filings drawn to a magnet, the crowd swelled until a vast mass of people followed behind our procession.

At last, Prague's Old Town Square appeared before us. The twin spires of Týn Church and the Old Town Hall with its Astronomical Clock rose before our eyes.

The square seemed to breathe like a giant living creature, filled with vendors calling out to customers, the constant ringing of hammers from smithies, and children laughing as they ran through the alleys.

"My lord, we have come to the square as you said, but... what exactly do you intend to do here?"

Anxiety colored János Hunyadi's voice. The countless eyes fixed on us seemed to burden even him.

"Just watch."

Without hesitation, I rode toward the center of all that noise.

A path opened through the thousands filling the square. I could feel their stares flying at me like blades and lodging all over my body.

Outwardly, I maintained an arrogant expression, as though I were the master of this world, but in truth my heart was pounding like mad.

Cold sweat ran beneath my armor, and my palms were so damp that the reins nearly slipped from my grasp.

That crowd was a huge beast. In an instant, it could push me onto the throne or drag me from my horse and tear me apart.

One wrong step, one poorly chosen word, and everything would be over.

'Calm down. This is the most important presentation of my life. An audience of thousands. The subject is the nation's future. Failure means death.'

I stopped my horse in the very center of the square, at the spot where Jan Hus's statue would one day stand. When I halted, the ten cavalrymen following me also stopped as one.

As the clattering of metal ceased, every sound in the square gradually died away.

Merchants stopped calling out. Children fell silent. The murmurs washed away like a receding tide, and heavy silence settled in their place.

Thousands of gazes.

Thousands of silences.

All of it was focused on one person alone.

Clutching my trembling chest, I slowly opened my mouth.

* * *

Vojtěch, an ordinary citizen of Prague, coughed violently from deep in his lungs.

"Cough, cough..."

In this cursed age, being an ordinary citizen was no different from being a sinner living in hell.

War. Everything was because of that damned war.

Emperor Sigismund and the Hussite heretics. Their sword dance had sent the prices of rye and oats soaring into the sky.

Vojtěch had sold pretzels in the market, but he could no longer bear the rising prices, the Prague City Council's taxes, and the Church's tithes. In the end, he had been forced to close his stall.

Men were conscripted and never returned, while taxes grew heavier every year.

Vojtěch's only son, Josef, had been taken away like that.

They had called it "His Imperial Majesty's glorious holy war."

Even after the Emperor fled, his son never returned. All that remained was a notice, the ink not even dry, stating that he had died at the Battle of Vyšehrad.

After that day, Vojtěch had stopped speaking much, and his wife prayed in tears before the statue of the Virgin every night.

The priest went on and on about how Josef had died for God's glory and gone to heaven, but Vojtěch scoffed.

'What great martyrdom... He just died like a dog.'

His son had probably served as a shield for some nobleman whose name he did not even know, then died in the mud without even managing a scream.

Now all he had left was his sick daughter, Anna.

Her small, wheezing breaths as she burned with fever through the night weighed heavily on his heart.

The doctor had said she needed medicine, but Vojtěch did not even have enough money to buy a piece of bread for that evening, let alone medicine.

'Damn it...'

Clutching his empty stomach, he wandered through the crowd. There had to be work somewhere, even if it was carrying loads or cleaning horse dung.

If he failed to earn a wage today, his wife and daughter would have no choice but to go hungry.

The square was noisy as always, but a dangerous tension ran beneath its liveliness. Worry outweighed laughter on people's faces.

Then it happened.

Clop, clop, clop.

The regular, arrogant sound of hooves cut through the noise of the square.

Knights in shining plate armor appeared, parting the crowd.

'Some nobles are passing through.'

Vojtěch spat onto the ground and quickly stepped aside. If he blocked the way, a whip would come flying.

His eyes held only contempt, indifference, and deep exhaustion.

Two banners fluttered at the head of the knights. An eight-pointed star on a blue field, and Bohemia's lion.

'Sternberg?'

He had heard of it. A young lord from the south who had crushed a Hussite army.

But what did that have to do with him? It was only nobles cutting one another down, as always.

Clop, clop.

Yet the young lord did not even glance at the Prague City Council building. Instead, he rode toward the center of the square.

People murmured at his boldness and made way. Swept along by the crowd, Vojtěch found himself close enough to see him clearly.

'He's just a boy...'

He was far too young to be the hero of the rumors. Yet his eyes were so deep and cold that it was impossible to judge his age from them.

At last, the young lord opened his mouth.

"Listen! Citizens of Prague!"

Vojtěch's shoulders flinched at the booming cry.

"I am Ulrich von Sternberg! Son of Princess Eliška, the youngest daughter of the great Emperor Charles IV! I stand here today to demand the Crown of Bohemia, my rightful inheritance!"

Vojtěch let out a short, humorless laugh.

'Right. He came here to boast about his bloodline. How impressive.'

Here it was again. Their little game of power.

How great I am. So follow me.

It had nothing to do with people like him, who worried about tomorrow's bread.

That nobleman was either mad or thoroughly drunk. Demanding a crown in the middle of a marketplace.

Vojtěch decided there was no reason to listen further and turned away.

His sick daughter's face flickered before his eyes.

"...But! I did not come here simply to parade my bloodline! I wish to speak of a plague that is sickening all of Europe... Its name is the Roman Catholic Church."

Vojtěch's feet froze to the ground.

He wondered if he had heard correctly.

What had that nobleman just said?

A plague? The Roman Catholic Church was a plague?

That was... blasphemy that should never be spoken aloud, worthy of burning at the stake.

"Look at the world around you! The Pope, who calls himself God's representative, sends anyone who questions the Church to the pyre! The man called Emperor has mustered crusaders for the sake of a single crown and is slaughtering his own people!"

Slaughter.

That word pierced Vojtěch's heart like a dagger.

The face of his dead son, Josef, came to mind. He had been said to have died fighting for the Emperor.

Yet he had heard that same Emperor was now mustering another force of crusaders to kill Bohemians.

Then what had his son died for?

"Is that all? The nobles care only for squeezing taxes from your blood and sweat! The priests roll about drunk on wine bought with money from indulgences! Is this God's will?! Is this the world our Lord desires?!"

Vojtěch remembered the parish priest from his hometown.

The bastard who patted his fat belly while visiting widows' homes.

His parents had given that man their life savings to buy tickets to heaven.

Had his parents truly gone to heaven? He did not know. The only certainty was that Vojtěch had been left with crushing poverty.

He had turned his back on his hometown and come to Prague because he did not want to live shackled by poverty. Yet the life he found here had been no more than an endless continuation of that same wretched poverty.

And now, before Vojtěch's eyes, that young nobleman was saying the things he had never dared to say, not even when drunk.

"The great teacher, Jan Hus, spoke the truth! He cried out that the Church was rotten to its bones! Yet the Emperor and the Pope branded him a heretic and burned him alive, because they feared the voice of truth!"

Suppressed sobs broke out throughout the square.

Jan Hus. He had been the only person to stand with the poor and powerless.

Vojtěch remembered secretly listening to his sermons when he was young, his heart burning with passion.

"That's right!"

"The Emperor is a traitor!"

The cries grew louder, and the people in the square became one.

Vojtěch realized that he was not alone. His rage was the same rage held by everyone filling the square.

"And today! I have come here to carry on Jan Hus's cause! I will make the Four Articles of Prague my law! I will become a king not for the Holy Roman Empire or the Roman Catholic Church, but for the Bohemian people alone!"

Vojtěch forgot even to breathe. His heart began to race wildly.

A king had always been a disaster who collected taxes from on high and started wars.

But a king for them?

A king for the Bohemian people alone.

It was... something he had never imagined even once.

"In the nation I build, salvation will no longer be sold for money! A nobleman's sin will be judged with the same weight as a commoner's sin! All tithes will be spent not to fill priests' bellies, but to feed and protect the starving people! This is my promise!"

A nobleman's sins and a commoner's sins judged with the same weight.

It was madness. It was the kind of thing that would turn heaven and earth upside down.

But... what if it were true?

What if such a world could really come?

Shing!

The young nobleman drew his sword and raised it high.

Prague's sun reflected brilliantly from the keen blade.

"Then answer me, citizens of Prague! Will you accept me as your king?!"

A brief silence, as though the world had stopped.

Vojtěch clenched his fist. His nails dug into his flesh.

A world where working hard meant being able to buy medicine for his daughter.

A world where people would not die like dogs for no reason, as his son Josef had.