Chapter 38: Inflection Points

“Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions.” – Mark Twain.

Rome, Papal States. August 1075

Pope Gregory was still unsettled from his visit to Britain. Once he looked with unbiased eyes, it seemed that everything the church was built on crumbled. The more his views crumbled, the harder Gregory looked, and the harder he looked, the more his views crumbled. Sextus watched his liege descend further down the rabbit hole, and nothing he said or did could seem to stop it.

Adding to Gregory’s angst was northern Italy. While Florence shifted toward him, the other Italian states moved toward independence. A large amount of German sausage was mixed in with the spaghetti-like mess in northern Italy. To make things worse, Matilda of Tuscany and her mother pulled in different directions. Instead of an alliance, Matilda changed her mind and wanted to combine Florance with the Papal States if she and Gregory could come to a power-sharing arrangement. Her mother didn’t want to merge with the Papal States and did everything possible to block it. She believed in the previous agreement for the alliance.

While Gregory fretted over the church’s future and alliances, Sextus was busy with more personal tasks. Chief among them was getting showers and flushing toilets installed in the Vatican. Sextus had been thoroughly spoiled during the trip to Britain and wanted some of the comforts he experienced there. He loved never having to empty chamber pots and having hot running water on command. The best thing for Sextus was he didn’t have to invent anything since everything was available from Britain. Most of the plumbing parts were available without export licenses. The only thing he needed an export license for was the steam-powered pump.

Once Sextus figured out the running water, he knew he would have to tackle the sewers next. Without an efficient sewer system, all the waste from the toilets would back up and cause huge problems. At least with the sewers, nothing would need to be imported from Britain, enabling Sextus to begin work on Rome’s new sewer system almost immediately.

Frankfort, Holy Roman Empire. August 1075

Gregory wasn’t the only one reflecting on the recent Papal tour. Henry IV was doing the same thing. Henry was furious about the Pope’s interference in his Italian lands. It didn’t occur to him that he did much of the same thing in church politics.

Henry watched the developments on his western flank with a sense of relief. Philip proved his inexperience by focusing on military spending before any other expenditures. French infrastructure had been destroyed by the Germans and would take years to rebuild at their current rate. Another mistake Philip had made was beginning to rebuild his nobility. Henry wasn’t going to repeat that.

After Henry had crushed the empire’s nobility, he was in no hurry to rebuild it. Luke’s tale of his Holy Roman Empire had frightened Henry to no end, and he was determined not to repeat the same mistakes. Slowly, Henry had been gathering power over the last several years but had stepped up the process. He had forbidden any of his remaining nobles from raising anyone else to nobility status.

Henry sold land to commoners to help dilute the nobles’ power and educated them about holding onto their land. He also banned nobles from collecting taxes and appointed collectors who answered to him alone; this made tax collection more transparent. Henry simplified and published the tax code to keep the tax collectors in line, and if someone felt they were being unfairly taxed, they could appeal to an independent court. The court would review all documentation before making their ruling. Any collector who tried to cheat was sentenced to ten years of hard labor, and all their possessions would be sold to repay the people who were cheated. If the cheating were bad enough, the collector’s families would be sentenced to being indentured servants for the cheated.

While Henry was busy slowly crushing the nobility, Brunhild cared for the bun in her oven. She was pregnant with their second child and Henry’s fourth. From the size of her bulge, her midwife thought Brunhild was carrying twins. Brunhild spent half her time cursing Henry and the other half cursing her ancestors. Even though she was a large woman, her baby bulge kept her from working. She often compared herself to a beached whale, and when she started on that line, Henry did what men have done for millennia: retreated and stayed out of sight.

Retreating wouldn’t help his other problem, though. The Polish saber-rattling was getting louder, and intelligence suggested that Grand Duke Dobrosław Zima was using the promise of going to war with the Holy Roman Empire to build support among the nobility. The likelihood of a new war in 1076 or 1077 was extremely high. Zima was brighter than Bolesław; he worked tirelessly to build the new Polish Army. He also built ties with the Kyivan Rus under Sviatoslav II of Kyiv.

Bolesław had helped Sviatoslav’s brother retake the throne after he had been deposed. Then, Sviatoslav deposed his brother again. Zima felt it would benefit him greatly to ally himself with Sviatoslav since Henry IV was aiding his brother in retaking the throne again. An alliance hadn’t taken long to forge, and suddenly, Zima had the manpower to be a serious threat to Henry.

All Henry could do at the moment was continue to strengthen his army and frontier fortifications. He didn’t expect them to hold but to slow the invading Polish down so the German Army could rally and counterattack.

Henry was learning that although the German Army was vastly more powerful than it had been, it still took time to get that power concentrated enough to work correctly. If Henry tried to counterattack too quickly, the army wouldn’t be at full strength and could be destroyed piecemeal.

Paris, France. August 1075

Philip had also reflected on the Papal tour. For him, the best way to rebuild France quickly was to reconstruct the nobility. The nobility would be helpful in controlling the countryside and rebuilding local infrastructure, while Philip focused on national-level rebuilding.

Naturally, Bertha and Anna opposed this. They saw what a strong nobility did. Moreover, they saw Marion’s strength without nobility. It had taken them a while, but they finally saw the elite for what they were: leeches draining the nation’s strength for their personal glory.

Philip ignored Bertha unless he wanted to try for another heir. On those nights, Bertha lay in her bed with her legs spread while she waited for Philip to finish. The days when they made love were gone, killed by Philip’s lust for power. Bertha couldn’t wait to get pregnant so Philip would leave her alone. It honestly annoyed her that Queen Marion and Emperor Henry had stable, loving relationships. In September, Bertha finally became pregnant by Philip, although she wouldn’t realize it for a few months.

Niðaróss, Norway. August 1075

Thankfully for Queen Ingegerd, the discontent in her army died down. She paused all offensive military operations for a year to give the army time to rest and refit. It would also give her time to consolidate her rule over the captured territories. Using a page from Marion’s book, Ingegerd hired every native she could find to build new railroads and roads through the captured territory. This would allow them to trade more efficiently, give the natives some money to buy goods they usually couldn’t get, and keep them from being idle.

The railroads would take several years to catch up, but their construction had to start somewhere. When the railroad cut into a new area, Ingegerd would have surveyors move into the new area and mark plots of land. Other crews would explore for minerals, although they didn’t have the core drill that Luke used. Also, unlike Luke, the Norse converted all the cut trees to charcoal for their iron industry. The Norse iron industry relied on charcoal since it didn’t have access to coal or direct conversion technology.

Cairo, Fatimid Caliphate. August 1075

Al-Mustanṣir sat on his throne and pretended to listen to Hasan as he tried to persuade him not to tangle with the British. Hasan was almost desperate for Al-Mustanṣir to release the British ship, cargo, and crew. Since Hasan had done so much to build the Egyptian Army, Al-Mustanṣir felt he had a duty to allow Hasan to plead his case.

Once Hasan finished, Al-Mustanṣir clapped once, and one of his British slaves shyly stepped out with her head down. After three months, she was the only Brit who had been broken. Al-Mustanṣir waved his hand, and the nervous woman slipped her gossamer tunic off. Since Hasan had seen many British women naked during his mission, he didn’t react to her milky white flesh and dark brown hair. Al-Mustanṣir was excited and flipped his robe up to allow the woman access to his flesh. With little hesitation, the woman knelt at the caliph’s feet and began working his cock.

“What is wrong, Hasan? Do you not care for kāfirah flesh?”

“Al-Mustanṣir. Do you realize the fire you are playing with? The British Army and Navy will come down on us like the pyramids. What are we going to do when 60,000 British soldiers come here?”

“They will fall before Allah.”

“Do you really believe that? I saw the might of the British. Their industry, their infrastructure, and their advanced military hardware. They will come here, and even Allah will not be able to save us.” Hasan’s voice was rising until he screamed the last words.

“Hasan, it is only the memory of you as a friend that is keeping me from ordering your wife and children sold into slavery and you executed. You insult me, you insult Allah, and YOU do not believe in my army which you built. This leads me to think that you do not believe in yourself. I want you out of my palace before I fill this kāfirah’s mouth with my seed.” Hasan’s face was cherry red as he turned to leave. Before Hasan could reach the doors, Al-Mustanṣir yelled after him. “Hasan, you and your family will not leave the city. If you do, I will have you hunted down and killed by impalement. Now, get out.”

Hasan was still furious when he arrived home. For the first time in his life, he hit his wife when she greeted him at the door. Before she could say anything, Hasan went to the crate he brought back from Britain and grabbed a bottle. He pulled the stopper and took a large swallow of the contents; it was wine he had brought back from Britain.

“Hasan, what is wrong? Did I do something to anger you?” his wife asked with tears threatening to stream down her face. Marrying Hasan had been like a fairy tale that came true for Menna. She had grown up seeing young women being married to much older men who saw them as nothing but sex toys or commodities. Hasan was very close to her age and always treated her as an equal.

“No, Menna, you did nothing to anger me. I was furious before I came through the door. The caliph refuses to listen to my warnings regarding Queen Marion. I have no doubt she already knows about the merchant ship the caliph impounded and the crew he enslaved. She has no patience for her subjects being made into slaves. What I cannot understand is the caliph knows the power of the British; we saw that when they razed Algiers and Tripoli.”

“You know, Hasan. You sound like you are scared of this Queen Marion.”

“Scared, no. Absolutely terrified, yes. Make no mistake about this, Menna, the British will come, and they will destroy. It wouldn’t surprise me to see no buildings still standing from the coast to the 2^nd cataract.”