WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Ceaseless

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◈ The Medieval Heretic King is Too Good at Developing ◈

Chapter 27: The Return

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On the walls of Sternberg Castle.

A guard who had been nodding off since early morning rubbed his eyes and stared into the distance.

"Mm...?"

A massive cloud of dust was rising beyond the horizon.

It carried an ominous weight, as though a great storm were rolling in.

"W-What is that? An earthquake?"

The guard narrowed his eyes and peered into the dust cloud.

Then his face drained of all color.

People.

Countless people, wagons, horses, and banners marched toward the castle.

The host flooding through the valley, blackening it from end to end, appeared to number in the tens of thousands.

"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"

At the guard's shriek, the bells on the walls began ringing like mad.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

"Emergency! All men to battle stations! Raise the drawbridge! Damn it, they've already come for us!"

Kuno, commander of the knights, who had been overseeing drills in the training yard, rushed out in a panic.

He hastily retied his helmet straps and raced up the stairs, as though he meant to break them beneath his feet.

"Where are they? Sigismund's crusaders? Or those Taborite fanatics?"

"L-Look over there! There’s no end to them! At least ten thousand, no, it must be twenty thousand!"

Kuno gripped the parapet and looked down. His mouth fell open.

A black tide.

An overwhelming mass of people surged down the road leading into Sternberg's domain as though it might burst apart. The dust clouds blanketing the area were so thick that even the banners could barely be seen.

"T-This can't be..."

Kuno nearly dropped his sword. Despair filled his face.

"Has that bastard Emperor already brought the entire Imperial army? How are we supposed to stop an army like that with this little castle? Damn it! To strike while my lord is away... those cowardly bastards!"

At that moment, Konrad, the steward, came running from inside the castle, out of breath.

"Sir Kuno! What is happening? What do you mean, an enemy attack?"

"Look, Konrad! Look at their numbers! We must prepare to fight at once!"

Konrad looked down from the walls and turned pale. The old man's legs trembled.

"Oh, God... and at a time when our lord is in Prague..."

Then a gust of wind swept away the dust cloud for an instant, revealing the banner carried by the rider at the head of the procession.

One of the soldiers on the wall pointed and shouted.

"Huh? T-That banner at the front... isn't that our family's crest?"

"What?"

Kuno's eyes widened.

The banner the leading rider waved through the dust cloud.

A blue star with eight points on a golden field.

It was unmistakably the crest of Sternberg.

And beneath it, a man in splendid armor sat atop a white horse, waving toward them.

"...My lord?"

Kuno's eyes nearly popped out of his head.

* * *

The heavy drawbridge lowered, and the tightly shut gates opened.

I rode slowly into the castle.

"My lord! You're safe!"

Kuno and Konrad rushed out without even putting on their shoes and dropped to their knees before my horse.

"We thought it was an enemy attack and nearly died of fright! What are all those people? Prisoners, or...?"

Sir Kuno pointed blankly at the endless procession following behind me.

"Oh, these people?"

I dismounted and dusted the dirt from my cloak.

"They're our workers."

"Pardon? A-All of them?"

"That's right. I brought them here to rebuild Sternberg. I gathered up every unemployed person in Prague."

Konrad's face went beyond white, becoming almost transparent.

"M-My lord... there must be over ten thousand of them at a glance. You hired them all?"

"Yes."

I looked back at the procession trailing behind me.

Stonemasons, carpenters, blacksmiths, laborers, and their families.

They followed me with bundles on their backs, pulling carts and carrying children on their backs.

There were hardly any stragglers. If anything, refugees who heard the news in every village we passed joined us, making the procession grow like a snowball.

Konrad clutched his head and cried out.

"My lord! Where will they sleep? What will they eat this evening? Even if we emptied every granary in the domain, it wouldn't last three days! And how will you pay wages to all those people? Our family finances will be ruined!"

To someone who managed a rural domain, the idea of a massive construction project was no different from a disaster.

To his eyes, they were not workers. They were a swarm of locusts that would devour the domain.

I smiled and patted Konrad on the shoulder.

"Calm down, Konrad. We have more than enough money."

"Pardon?"

"And you don't need to worry about food. I brought an expert."

I gestured behind me.

"Abraham! Come greet them."

An old man stepped down from one of the wagons behind me.

It was Rabbi Abraham.

"A pleasure to meet you, retainers of Sternberg."

Abraham bowed politely, but without servility.

"My name is Abraham. By His Majesty's command, I have been appointed to oversee royal finances and provisions."

"A-A Jew?"

Konrad and Sir Kuno stared at him in shock.

To them, Jews were nothing more than heathens to be avoided or vicious moneylenders.

Yet Abraham seemed accustomed to such contemptuous gazes. He pulled a thick ledger from his robes and opened it.

"We have secured roughly one month's worth of provisions for twenty thousand people. Two hundred wagons' worth of flour and salted meat requisitioned from Prague are ready."

Abraham delivered his report clearly.

"We have also already contracted merchants from the neighboring domain of Rattay. Additional food supplies will arrive beginning tomorrow. Naturally, payment has been made in full in advance, so there should be no mishaps with the deliveries."

Konrad's mouth fell open.

They had already solved the food supply problem for twenty thousand people while on the move?

"E-Even if that's true, where do you plan to lodge all these people? There are no rooms in our castle!"

"We brought ten thousand tents. We will divide the plain outside the walls into sections and establish a camp. For sanitation, the water source and latrine areas will be kept strictly separate."

As the leader of Jews who had spent their lives persecuted and wandering, Abraham was always prepared for a large-scale migration.

Of course, those preparations had not been for Prague's unemployed, but for the possible flight of his own people one day.

Abraham turned and gave orders like an experienced quartermaster.

"What are you standing around for? Teams One through Ten, pitch the tents. Teams Eleven through Twenty, build the field kitchens! If you don't have the cauldrons going before sunset, you'll be chewing on flour for dinner tonight!"

"Yes, sir!"

At Abraham's roar, the laborers brought from Prague began moving in perfect order.

In an instant, a neat tent village began rising across the empty plain outside the castle. Cauldrons were hung throughout the camp, while the smell of burning firewood and rich stew rose into the air.

Konrad stared at the sight in a daze.

No matter how capable a steward he was, this was on a completely different scale.

For a man who had spent his life in a rural domain counting chickens, Prague's overwhelming capital and administrative power were a shock beyond words.

Konrad asked in a trembling voice.

"Y-Your Majesty. What exactly are you planning to do, bringing all these people and supplies here...?"

I turned to my two retainers and grinned.

"From now on, Sternberg will no longer be some rural domain that only grows crops."

"Pardon? Then you mean..."

"This will become the heart of industry."

I pointed at the tens of thousands of workers bustling beneath the walls.

"I'm going to pour out steel from this place. The strongest, hottest steel nobody in Europe has ever seen. And I will build a city for the craftsmen who make it possible."

For now, it was nothing but an empty plain, but I planned to make Sternberg the only industrial city in Bohemia.

All the reforms I planned would begin here.

"All right, enough sightseeing for now."

I clapped my hands.

"Sir Kuno."

"Yes, my lord."

"Did you take care of what I instructed in my letter?"

Sir Kuno's expression immediately turned calm. He answered in a heavier, more serious voice than usual.

"Yes, of course. Before your arrival, I gathered everyone in the domain and conveyed your will."

Before arriving here, I had sent a letter to Sternberg through a messenger.

I wanted to tell my retainers and subjects in advance that I had been proclaimed King of Bohemia in Prague, and that in the process, I had joined hands with the Hussites, the very heretics I had fought against at the risk of my life.

The thing I had worried about most during this return was not enemies outside, but unrest within.

A lord who had sharpened his sword yesterday to slaughter heretics had returned today as king of those very heretics?

From the perspective of the people in the domain, it was a bolt from the blue. It would not have been strange if they thought their lord had sold his soul to the Devil.

"How did they react?"

"To be honest... at first, no one seemed able to believe it. They had been enemies who pointed swords at each other until only days ago, and the Church called them horned devils. The priests nearly fainted, and the peasants trembled in fear."

Sir Kuno paused for a moment, then looked at me with steady eyes.

"But in the end, they resolved to believe in you and follow you. They remember the miraculous victories you have achieved and the devotion you have shown for the people of this domain."

Sir Kuno looked out at the domain below, where smoke rose peacefully.

"When everyone was starving and dying, you fed them. You protected this castle from overwhelming enemies. The people of this domain now trust your bread and sword more than the Pope's doctrine."

"..."

"They said that if it was your will, there must be a deeper purpose beyond their understanding. Though they were afraid, they had resolved to follow you."

Something weighed heavily in my chest.

"That's a relief. It's thanks to you persuading them so well."

"You flatter me. I am only your sword, my lord."

In any case, if the people of the domain had accepted it, that was one burden off my shoulders.

I let out a breath of relief and turned my gaze.

Then I called to the steward, who was still staring blankly at the tens of thousands of people with his mouth hanging open.

"Konrad."

"Yes? Y-Yes, Your Majesty!"

Konrad flinched and bent at the waist.

"Pull yourself together. This is no time to stand around in a daze. The real work starts now."

"I-I understand."

"Clear out the guest chambers in the castle. Give them the cleanest rooms with the most sunlight. They're for some very important and very proud master craftsmen I brought from Prague."

Konrad blinked.

"M-Master craftsmen... do you mean those filthy blacksmiths over there? You want them in the guest chambers?"

By medieval standards, blacksmiths were nothing more than lowly manual laborers.

The idea of housing such people in guest chambers meant for nobles and knights was beyond Konrad's rigid understanding.

"That's right. There are blacksmiths, carpenters, and stonemasons. They're guild heads who made names for themselves in Prague, and their pride is through the roof."

"B-But, Your Majesty! Those chambers are for noble guests! How can you house lowly craftsmen..."

"Konrad."

As my voice lowered, Konrad flinched and shut his mouth.

"From now on, in my domain, those with calluses on their hands are the nobility. A man holding a hammer will be treated better than one holding a title. Do you understand?"

"...Y-Yes, Your Majesty. I'll prepare them at once."

Konrad ran off with a miserable look, as though he believed the world had turned upside down.

Just then, a lavishly decorated carriage stopped around the middle of the procession.

The door opened, and men in silk clothes and leather gloves stepped out.

They were the head of Prague's craftsmen's guild and his party.

"Good grief, the smell. This place reeks of cow dung."

"Why are they ordering us out to this backwater to make anything?"

Their arrogant, dissatisfied voices carried all the way to the walls.

"Well, it's only a matter of time before that pride gets knocked down a few pegs."

I snorted.

"Bring Tomáš and Jakub. Tell them some distinguished guests have arrived from Prague."

Footnotes:

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