Chapter 34: Uncomfortable Truths

“Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” – Confucius.

Rome, Papal States. October 1074

Gregory was still going through Alexander’s papers when he found something interesting. In his files was information on Marion’s husband; he wasn’t of their world. Finally, Gregory had the information he needed to bring Marion down. His only thought was, ‘Why didn’t Alexander use it?’ He sat in his chair and stared at the information.

Three hours later, Sextus found Gregory still sitting in his chair. He couldn’t believe the report in front of him, and maybe that was why Alexander never acted on it. The report had been given to Alexander by a British turncoat. To make the report even more unbelievable, the turncoat was a former member of the Household Guard. He had been in the unit that fought with Luke in Iceland and, upon hearing Luke’s confession, was so angered that he resigned and traveled to Rome. Once in Rome, the turncoat laid everything in front of Pope Alexander.

Alexander did not believe the man and banished him from the Papal States. This wouldn’t have made sense, except he was scared Marion would come after him. She had demonstrated ferocity toward those who threatened her family, and she had the capacity to seek vengeance. This was proven when the man was found murdered three days after his report to the pope.

Marion’s agents had killed the man, but they didn’t do it on her orders. They did it because of their loyalty to Marion, and the thought of anyone betraying her was revolting. Their loyalty was rewarded with a large bonus once word reached York. Rebels were one thing; traitors were quite another. Traitors were one of the few classes of people Luke had no problems executing.

The other reports about him made sense after Gregory digested the report regarding Luke’s origin. To Gregory, it was like the puzzle had suddenly been solved; all the pieces that made no sense fit together perfectly. The problem was that Luke’s ideas were so firmly entrenched that it could take decades to root them out, and that was if Gregory could get unlimited access to Britain. As long as Britain was outside the pope’s influence, Luke’s ideas would continue contaminating Europe.

It was time for Gregory to take drastic action, but not without solid, unbiased intelligence. The only way for Gregory to get that intelligence was to travel to Britain and meet the man behind Queen Marion’s power for himself.

“Sextus.”

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

“I want you to begin preparing for me to visit Great Britain. I want to meet this Luke MacDougall for myself.”

“Yes, Your Excellency,” Sextus replied like he had been expecting the order. “What direction do you wish to travel?”

Gregory had to think for a moment to weigh the pros and cons of the different routes.

“I will travel north across the Alps and through the Holy Roman Empire. While passing through the empire, I will visit Henry IV in Frankfort. He has been pushing me hard, and I believe it may be time to push back.”

“Of course, Your Excellency. Will there be anything else?”

“Yes, do your best to ensure I have a comfortable ship to cross to Britain. I get seasick.”

Sextus smiled. “Of course.”

“That will be all, Sextus. Let me know when I can leave.”

Sextus bowed and left. He knew it would be spring before Gregory could travel north. The alpine passes were death traps in the winter, and the North Sea had a reputation for being a fickle mistress at the best of times. You took your life into your own hands during winter, trying to cross. People did it all the time, but that was far riskier than Sextus was willing to expose his patron to.

Frankfort, Holy Roman Empire. October 1074

Henry wasn’t worried about the influence of Luke’s ideas since he was using many of them. His wife was a good example: Brunhild was a commoner who normally would have never been allowed to marry Henry, but under Luke’s influence, Henry married her anyway. Now, Brunhild was a driving force toward the modernization of the Holy Roman Empire. She had been scared by the technological disparity between her home and Great Britain.

Every day, Brunhild went to the weapon’s laboratory at the army base outside of Frankfort. There, she worked tirelessly developing new weapons for the German Army. Henry needed the technology because, unlike Marion, he had to deal with the possibility of fighting a four-front war.

Brunhild’s problem was she was trying to attack the issue from the wrong end. Instead of developing machine tools and measuring devices to allow for mass production, she focused on developing new firearms and locomotives. This only led to frustration for Brunhild because her efforts couldn’t produce the results seen in Britain. She would have to build her own machine tools because Marion had placed strict export restrictions on them.

However, she did see some success as she developed a bolt-action rifle for the army that was cheap enough for mass production. Her rifle design bore a striking resemblance to the Dreyse needle rifle from mid-19^th century Prussia. There were some differences, though. Brunhild’s rifle could only manage a maximum rate of fire of five rounds per minute, and the needle was thicker, making it less likely to break off. She also used a smaller diameter round at 8mm, which was still larger than the 7mm round the British Army favored.

Where Brunhild’s rifle suffered the most was in replacement parts. A soldier couldn’t take parts from one rifle and put them in his with any guarantee of the firearm working. British rifles had interchangeable components, making them much easier to manufacture; the British gun industry could produce 2,500 guns per month, while German arms makers could only produce 500 per month.

There was no comparison when comparing artillery. German artillery was smoothbore muzzleloading bronze cannons, while the British used steel, breach-loading, rifled cannons. British guns were capable of indirect fire since they could be elevated to +55^o. Their German contemporaries were incapable of indirect fire since they couldn’t be elevated past about 15 degrees and couldn’t fire far enough to make indirect fire effective.

When Luke designed his artillery, he made them strong enough to accept smokeless powder once he got the kinks out of the production line. Brunhild didn’t know smokeless powder existed. Like almost everyone in Europe, she couldn’t conceive of such a thing as smokeless powder.

It wasn’t that Brunhild was stupid; she didn’t have Luke’s background. He had countless hours of learning both in and out of the classroom. She also didn’t have the military training that would have made much of her work easier. While Luke knew what the soldiers needed and wanted, Brunhild had no idea since her first introduction to military operations wasn’t until she was married. Luke had served on the front lines, smelled the gunpowder, and suffered the consequences.

Henry, meanwhile, was working to ensure he didn’t face a multi-front war. He sent ambassadors to Queen Ingegerd and Pope Gregory to ensure their future neutrality toward the Holy Roman Empire. He had no such hopes for France and Poland. Everyone could see another war was coming; it was only a question of when.

If Henry was working his diplomats hard, he worked his engineers harder. To fight a two-front war and win, Henry would need an effective transportation system to shuffle troops between the fronts. Rail lines were designed for military operations, and if they didn’t have the rails to lay when the base was done, it was turned into a road until the rails were available.

Paris, France. October 1074

Henry’s engineers weren’t the only ones working overtime. Philip’s engineers worked even longer hours since they had a much more daunting task: rebuilding France. France had been devastated by back-to-back wars that could be traced back to Philip’s inexperience. Guiscard had seized power only because Philip stepped on too many toes at the same time. That directly led to the British invasion that devastated most of western France. The people suffered again when Philip tried to take a shortcut in repaying Marion and launched an ill-advised war against the Holy Roman Empire.

Now, everyone had to start over yet again. Disregarding his wife’s advice, Philip began investing in manufacturing arms and munitions. He wanted to rebuild the army at all costs. Since the French Army used muzzleloading rifles, they could be built in most blacksmith shops. The problem was that for every gun made, there was one more farm or machine tool that wasn’t. Every soldier in the army was one less who could build roads, canals, or schools.

Bertha wasn’t going to take Philip’s stupidity lying down. Working behind the scenes, she diverted funds to infrastructure and education. In this, Philip’s mother, Anne of Kyiv, aided her. Like Bertha, Anne understood the link between a strong economy and a strong military. They mutually depend on each other; a strong economy pays for a strong military, while a strong military protects the economy.

If Philip had been paying attention to his treasury, he would have noticed funds being moved, but he didn’t. Since Bertha had Philip’s comptroller’s support, the funds transfer would stay hidden. Once the funds were out of the treasury, they were sent to various construction projects around the kingdom. Bertha kept a tight leash on the money once it was out of the treasury, so it wasn’t misspent. When someone misspent money, they quickly found themselves arrested and sentenced to work in the mines; their time was directly proportional to the amount of money they misused.

Under Bertha’s leadership, the French economy began the long task of rebuilding. Bertha arranged to buy harvesting and planting equipment from Britain to aid the farmers. She also purchased draft horses to pull the equipment since she had no time to train draft animals.

By harvest time 1074, Bertha had enough reapers to do full-scale testing to see how much difference they made. The data was available, but no one in Bertha’s small court trusted the British. Testing was to take place in fields owned by Philip near Paris. That way, Bertha and Anne could observe them. When the farmers were done harvesting the first field, they couldn’t believe the increase in the harvest and the reduced time they spent harvesting.

They harvested five more nearby fields to ensure their results were not a fluke. Every field produced the same results. Harvested grain volumes were up 20%, and farmers spent only an eighth of the time harvesting compared to neighboring fields harvested the old-fashioned way. Bertha and Anne could barely believe the results. If every farmer in France had the same results, there would be a massive increase in food and labor. The extra food and labor would enable more people to move to the city or enlist in the military.

The problem Bertha and Anne ran into was they couldn’t go to Philip with their finding because that would be the same as admitting they stole money from his treasury. While it was unlikely Philip would execute Bertha and Anne, he wouldn’t hesitate with some of the lady’s co-conspirators. Bertha desperately wanted to protect those people since they risked everything to help her.

Sweden. October 1074

On 15 October, Colonel Mersctun’s offensive began with a ten-minute artillery bombardment of Swedish positions. The purpose of the artillery was not to kill the defenders but to disorient them. The battery consisted of four 155mm howitzers on loan from the 1^st division.

Anund Gårdske had just climbed out of his tent after another chilly night. He hated being in the field, but the Norse wouldn’t quit. They had been winning against the Norse when the British Grenadiers stepped in at the last moment, saving the Norse and costing the Swedes heavy casualties. As he stood and watched his men start stirring for another chilly but dull day, a haunting whistle was heard overhead.

At first, the men were confused until the object hit the ground and exploded. Soon, more whistling was heard, and the men ran for cover as the ground began exploding. Anund managed to get out of the way, but many of his men didn’t. He looked back and wished he hadn’t. Blood and body pieces were lying around while other men were moaning but missing large parts of their bodies. Once in a while, a shell hit someone directly, and they were vaporized. Anund was sure that if he survived, he would have nightmares for the rest of his life.

Colonel Mersctun stood on a stump with her field glasses and watched the bombardment. The power of artillery intrigued her as she watched the dirt and trees being sent skyward. Behind her, her grenadiers were watching her for the signal to advance. Mixed in with the grenadiers were the remaining Norse soldiers. Over the last few months, the Norse had integrated into the grenadiers, and although they were not up to grenadier standards, they were much better than when the grenadiers met them.

Ten minutes after the first shot landed, all was quiet. Anund looked around and wondered what was going on. Many of his men were staggering, and all were dazed. Anund’s ears were ringing, and he couldn’t hear a thing. Around him, the world was moving in slow motion.

When the howitzers stopped firing, Colonel Mersctun hopped off the stump and checked her rifle to ensure it had a round in the chamber. Around her, her troops were doing the same thing while the Norse troops checked their muskets. It only took 30 seconds, and Colonel Mersctun blew the whistle hanging around her neck to start the assault.

The Allied troops headed toward the Swedish positions at a fast walk and in loose formation. It took them five minutes to get there, and when they did, some of the Norse threw up. There were blood stains and body parts everywhere. When they saw a live Swede, they shot him.

Colonel Mersctun finished working her way through the impact zone and began finding unaffected Swedes. It didn’t matter to her since she was a crack shot and serviced her targets as quickly as they appeared. Suddenly, there was a man before her who was better dressed than anyone else she had met, and her rifle was out of ammunition.