He wakes up somewhere in the snow, meets a priest walking with bare feet. He kills some knights. He ends up working for a noble making inventions for him and works his way up to being a noble himself.
He wakes up somewhere in the snow, meets a priest walking with bare feet. He kills some knights. He ends up working for a noble making inventions for him and works his way up to being a noble himself.
Cross-Time Engineer
by
Leo Frankowski
The first chapter of X-time Engineer does not start out as the OP describes the story he is searching for. Conrad wakes up in the cellar of an inn that he fell asleep in after getting roaring drunk. It is not snowing when he leaves the inn and the first individual he meets is a German-speaking knight he mistakes for a SCA nutcase. I think the OP is looking for a different story.
there are 8 books in the series
9 actually. Last Campaign however is only available as an e-book, and was published by his estate after he died.
But that is undoubtedly the series. I realized it as soon as I read the description.
This was a dead-tree book, as mentioned by i4pepsi.
FWIW, Baen books has a compendium collection of some of the stories, with the remainder available as separate works. You could probably find the books used, on amazon or elsewhere, or find a kindle version on amazon, or buy a DRM-free copy from Baen.
Weird, I would have sworn I read that story here. Explains why I had such a hard time finding it again. Thank you for the help.
the priest walking barefoot in the snow sounds very familiar to s story I read here but can't remember title or author...
I'm with the folks who are guessing the deadtree Crosstime engineer series--and it really does feel like the kind of story that would be on this site.
Chapter two of the first book starts with the MC having a run-in with a german knight who clubs him on the head, and then a monk named "Father Ignacy". There is a bit in there about how he expects the monk's feet to be frostbitten because of all the snow, but no, he's just got super-tough feet from all the barefoot walking.
MC goes on to be a knight and progress through the peerage, inventing stuff as he goes and exercising his droit du seigneur frequently and with many a willing partner.
The first three books are available at baen.com as part of the omnibus "Conrad Starguard-The Radiant Warrior". I think that's the first 3 books. There's a "free sample" that takes you about halfway through the book 1. Probably worth going there & reading chapter 2 to see if that's your book.
Fantastic Fiction is a good reference site for dead tree books and authors.
https://www.fantasticfiction.com/f/leo-a-frankowski/