Chapter 216: A Spy

Just seconds later, a chaotic flurry of footsteps echoed from the main spiral staircase.

"...What the cursed hell is going on up here?" Margrave George’s voice shattered the silence of the hallway.

The Margrave of Brandenburg, entirely out of breath and still holding a half-eaten turkey leg in his hand, came rushing up the stone stairs.

Right behind him was Elector Philip of Hesse and Duke Ulrich of Württemberg, flanked by a dozen of their own heavily armed royal halberdiers.

They all stopped dead in their tracks. The foreign royals stared in shock at the black smoke pouring out of the archive door, and then their eyes locked onto the red blood dripping freely from Konrad’s broad shoulder.

"By the Maker..." Duke Ulrich gasped, taking a frightened step backward. "King Konrad... You are bleeding!"

"What happened?!" George roared. He dropped his turkey leg onto the floor and drew his saber. He looked at Konrad’s murder-filled expression. "Who made you look like you are about to burn the entire world to ash..?"

Konrad leaned the back of his head against the wall and closed his eyes for a brief second. "Just a minor disagreement about farming techniques."

Elector Philip stepped forward, his mind ignoring the joke.

He looked at the melted lock on the door and the Swabian engineer sitting on the floor. "...A spy managed to infiltrate your personal palace. What did they take from you?"

Before Konrad could answer the young prince, another wave of boots echoed from the opposite end of the corridor.

A dozen elite Jaegers marched into view, forming a protective wall of charcoal wool and steel.

In the very center of their formation was Queen Katarina.

"The royal family is secure, King Konrad!" the lead guard shouted, slamming his fist against his chest in a salute. "The lower levels are locked down. Everything is fine!"

"I can see that..." Konrad sighed.

"You..!"

Katarina dropped to her knees right there in the hallway, tearing the bloody white handkerchief out of Lothar’s hands. "I leave you alone for ten minutes to go check on the children, and you somehow manage to get stabbed in your own palace!"

"I did not get stabbed," Konrad chuckled weakly, wincing sharply as she pressed the cloth hard against his open wound. "I got a stiletto thrown at me. There is a huge difference in the skill level required to pull that off."

"Shut up," Katarina hissed. She quickly pulled a clean linen bandage from the small leather pouch on her belt and started wrapping it tightly around his shoulder. "Who did this? Richter, why is my King bleeding on the floor?!"

General Richter lowered his head. "A spy, my Queen. He slipped past the outer walls using the coronation festival as a distraction. He stole the blueprints for the subterranean coal mines."

"A Spanish mercenary," Konrad added. "Sultan Suleiman hired him. The Sultan sent him to smile in my face and steal our industry, thinking I would assume the Habsburg Emperor sent him."

"W-wait... King Konrad, are you sure he was hired by the Ottomans?" Duke Lothar suddenly spoke up.

Konrad frowned, looking down at his friend. "He literally told me his Emperor would pay him a mountain of gold for the papers, Lothar. And he sounded like every single Spanish noble I have ever traded with."

"That is the problem," Lothar said. "...If you were Sultan Suleiman, and you had just signed a secret peace pact with Swabia to get heavy mortars to fight your rivals... would you hire a spy who clearly talks like a Spaniard, practically screaming his false identity?"

"The Duke is right," Elector Philip whispered. "A true spy hides his origin. He pretends to be a local."

"Unless..." Margrave George muttered, scratching his beard. "Unless the bastard wanted you to know he was Spanish, so you would think the Sultan was trying to trick you with a double-bluff."

"Or unless he was pretending to be a Spanish mercenary pretending to be hired by the Ottomans," Lothar finished, looking up at Konrad’s gray eyes. "What if the spy is not Roman or Ottoman? What if someone else... the French Valois kings, or maybe someone even closer... hired him to frame the Sultan who you thought was framing Emperor Charles?"

If Konrad had declared war on the Ottomans or the Habsburgs because of this theft, whoever actually stole the agricultural blueprints would get to sit back in the cool shadows and watch the great empires destroy each other.

Katarina tied the final, tight knot on Konrad’s linen bandage, pulling it sharply to ensure it held. "There. The bleeding has stopped. We need to cancel the rest of the coronation feast and lock down the city until Felix finds that spy."

"Cancel the coronation?" Konrad asked, looking at his wife.

He slowly pushed himself away from the wall, rolling his shoulders and testing the movement of his left arm.

It hurt like genuine hell, a burning pain radiating down his bicep, but he could still swing a cavalry saber if he had to.

"Get your rear up, General," Konrad ordered. "Tell the men to put on their finest charcoal uniforms and polish their bayonets until they shine like the sun."

Richter stood up. "My King? What are we doing?"

"Shall we continue the coronation, my beautiful Queen?" Konrad grinned, turning to Katarina and offering his good arm with a grand bow.

Katarina smiled. She knew exactly what her husband was doing. "A military parade, Konrad?"

"Oh, much more than a simple parade," Konrad chuckled, turning his head to look at the vassal princes.

***

Though the corridors of the royal palace were still echoing with the shouts of guards searching for the escaped spy, Konrad walked toward his private chambers with calmness.

He pushed open the door to his bedroom and let out a long sigh, finally allowing his shoulders to slump.

Katarina was already inside, having handed little Wilhelm and baby Karl over to the trusted royal nurses in the nursery next door.

She stood by the large wooden wardrobe, while she sorted through a pile of clean clothes.

"Are you sure you want to host a military parade now? You just lost a lot of blood."

"I am fine," Konrad groaned, using his good arm to pull the ruined coat off his shoulders and toss it onto the floor. "I have to do this."

Katarina rolled her eyes, but a soft smile touched her lips. She knew he was right.

"Fine. But you cannot wear that ruined wool," Katarina said, reaching into the back of the wardrobe. "If you want to look like an emperor, you have to wear something that suits that look."

She pulled out a folded bundle of bright fabric and tossed it onto the edge of the bed.

Konrad walked over and picked it up.

It was a long, beautifully tailored doublet, but it was not made of wool, linen, or heavy leather. It was made of crimson silk. It had long, wide sleeves, intricate black and gold embroidery depicting roaring Swabian eagles along the high collar, and a cut that looked decidedly foreign to the grim Bavarian north.

"What the cursed hell is this?" Konrad asked.