The Medieval Marine - Cauldron Simmering
Copyright© 2025 by somethin fishy
Chapter 27: The Bubbling Caldron
“Double, double toil and trouble, Fire burn and cauldron bubble.” – Macbeth Act 4
Rome, Italy. June 1079
Matilda was of two minds. One, she was furious to discover that Luke had traveled from one end of Italy to the other without being detected by Italian intelligence. Due to the failure of intelligence, the entire organization was reorganized, and several incompetent individuals were removed and replaced. On the other hand, Matilda was happy to recognize the new town of Le Donne di Luca. At least, that’s what the inhabitants called it. Matilda would have to come up with a better name later.
After Luke had encouraged the freed women to organize and provided them with the necessary supplies, they quickly restarted the town. After just a few months, it boasted a population of 150 women, all of whom had escaped slavery, abusive marriages, or unwanted engagements. Men were only allowed into the town after a thorough search and were not allowed to carry weapons. Once a woman reached the town, she was declared free and given a new name if she so desired.
In the town, women performed a wide range of jobs, from farming to guarding to administration. With firearms, physical strength was no longer the most important thing in a fight. Instead, it was the ability to think clearly under pressure and not lose your nerve. Sharp eyesight and a steady hand were also important traits with firearms, as the rifled muskets could hit a target almost 500 meters away, although they began to lose accuracy outside of 300.
More news arrived a few months later from the north when a noble was murdered along with his son. While Matilda would admit the noble in question had been one of the least loyal, his death threw off the local power balance and required Matilda to travel to the area to straighten everything out. She ended up seizing control of the dead noble’s land and making it part of the imperial estates. The peasants who lived on the farm were kept on the payroll as regular workers, not serfs. If she hadn’t continued paying them, they would have left as they had quickly organized and liked the taste of freedom they had by working for themselves.
The imperial estate was a program initiated by Pope Alexander a decade earlier and continued under Gregory. In essence, it was when the property of a noble was seized, and the assets were made into an imperial estate. From then on, the money generated would be allocated to the Italian state. The land could either be worked or sold. Recently, villages have begun buying the land around them and working on it collectively. Then, the proceeds were divided among the villagers after all the expenses had been paid. The villages that adopted this practice often earned twice as much money as nearby noble-owned estates.
When Matilda learned of the massacre in the Reschen Pass, she knew Luke had left Italy. His timely departure was almost perfect because soon after Luke left, Matilda had a different issue to deal with. An issue that had been haunting women ever since humans learned to walk upright. It was time to give birth.
Almost as a prediction of what was to come, Matilda went into labor during Sunday mass. Her cry of pain echoed throughout the church where her husband was preaching. Hearing Matilda’s cry, Gregory didn’t stop the message for saving his flock, and delivering the word of God was far more important than the birth of his child.
It took almost two days of labor to give birth, but in the end, Matilda and Pope Gregory VII had their son, Tullio Romono. She was glad her pregnancy was over since the temperatures were climbing, and just trying to move around had her soaked in sweat.
In the background of preparing to give birth and tracking where Luke had been, Matilda and Brunhild were negotiating over trade and territory. Matilda wanted all the land south of the Alps, while Brunhild wasn’t going to give up the lands she controlled without a fight. What worried Matilda about this was her army and the German Army were roughly equal in terms of numbers. However, tipping favor for the time being in favor of the Italians was most of the experienced German officers and NCOs were dead after the recent civil war, Polish War, and 2nd Burgundian War.
However, the Germans had engineering experience, and trains allowed faster redeployment and resupply. Trying to fight in the Alps without engineering support or resupply was a recipe for disaster, even if the army had more experience. When considering all the factors, Matilda would rather get what she wanted through diplomacy than war.
Frankfort, Holy Roman Empire. June 1079
The Italian queen wasn’t the only one furious at Luke slipping through her fingers; Empress Brunhild was beyond furious that not only had Luke slipped through her fingers but that he had taken her prisoner, carried her to Rotte, and knocked her out before escaping. What truly infuriated her, though, was what she hadn’t told anyone. When she woke up and found the money, she wished she had been awake to feel Luke tucking the money between her breasts and against her nipples. The dildo he left her was used the night to calm the fire between her legs.
When Brunhild returned to the palace, she stomped in, and nobody dared say anything to her, fearing what she might do. When she slammed the door to her study, the servants breathed a sigh of relief and made sure to find something to do where they could remain hidden as long as possible.
Brunhild’s grip on power was shaky at best, and her being held captive for several days didn’t help. It didn’t help her that people often whispered how she had been born a commoner. The few remaining nobles and much of the merchant class were growing more weary of the empress as she was beginning to show signs of ruling as a tyrant.
If she had been able to capture Luke and the woman he was with, she could have forced him to give her the information she needed to advance German industry. So far, nobody in the world had been able to produce steel like the British, which greatly annoyed Brunhild. She wanted the secrets to steel making so bad she could almost taste it. Alas, every attempt her people made ended in failure; some even ended in disaster.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter, as Luke was now beyond her grasp. When she had woke up and got out of the barrel he stuffed her into, she went to the dock only to discover that a ship had left for Hull several hours before. There was no way she could intercept it because no warships were docked there. They were all docked in Stettin or Hamburg.
With nothing she could do, Brunhild boarded a ship going upriver, rejoining with her remaining guards four days later. To her horror, she had gone from two dozen guards down to three. Five men deserted, while the rest had been killed in Luke’s escape. Then Brunhild learned of the city guards that had been killed by, she presumed, Tuija and Zeva. The entire thing was a clusterfuck.
Once she returned and went through her intelligence reports, trying to figure out how Luke got to the Holy Roman Empire, she came across several strange events in Italy that sounded a lot like Luke’s doing. Indeed, according to the reports, that was the opinion of the Italian government.
Other than Luke escaping, the empire was quiet, and Brunhild liked it like that. She had seen too much war and didn’t want to go to war again. Being realistic, she knew eventually she would have to go to war again, but every day that eventuality was delayed, the better Brunhild liked it.
She had a treaty with France for a 10-year ceasefire while also finishing a trade deal with Italy. That deal included the recognition of the former Italian states of the Holy Roman Empire that had already been absorbed by Italy. Hungary was still quiet as they were eying a suddenly strengthening Byzantine Empire. Poland had been crushed with British aid, and with the revolt leaders gone, all the revolts collapsed. The best news was from the home front, where Brunhild had decimated what remained of German nobility after their failed revolt. When she arrested the participants, she seized their lands, wealth, and often families. The families were sent to the mines to pay for the sins of the members who rebelled.
The only thing Brunhild wished for was a man in her life to keep her bed warm at night. However, that wasn’t possible because she didn’t want to risk becoming pregnant and giving another person a shot at the throne. If Brunhild had been more like Marion, she could have taken a female lover, but she had no interest in other women.
Paris, France. June 1079
King Philip and Ahmad ibn Sulayman al-Muqtadir faced each other on a wet field outside Toulouse at the beginning of May 1079. The French Army was armed with firearms but in an inferior position, while the Muslim Army was armed with swords, pikes, and bows. Many of their cavalry were armed with swords and bows and could pound an enemy from a distance with rapid arrow fire before moving in to finish the job with the sword.
To the Muslim’s annoyance, Toulouse still defied them after a two-month siege, and when they managed to break into the city, the Muslim soldiers would exact a terrifying revenge. The defenders had defeated every attempt to take the city by force and were even able to destroy several siege engines using artillery based in the city. To save powder until supplies could arrive, the cannons were only used against enemy siege engines, but without the siege engines, Ahmad didn’t have much chance of taking the city quickly.
The trip south had been arduous for the French, and Philip had already sent orders to every corner of the kingdom, requesting every spare horse to pull roadbuilding equipment and every blacksmith to build the equipment. To rebuild his relationship with his wife, Philip gave her control of the building efforts and issued orders to the treasury, giving Bertha carte blanche to spend whatever she needed to build the roads and canals France would need to win her wars.
When the first elements of the French Army arrived at Toulouse, the city’s citizens were overjoyed. They knew what would happen to them if the Muslims entered the city. The problem was that the French Army had become dispersed during its march, and it would take over a week for the entire army to arrive.
Seeing the state of the French Army, Ahmad moved swiftly and attacked with his cavalry. The Muslim cavalry quickly learned of the difficulty of attacking infantry armed with rifled muskets. The muskets had a much longer range than the Muslims’ bows. Twice, the cavalry tried to attack but retreated in the face of massed musket fire.
Ahmad had been studying the French infantry and saw how he was going to win this battle. He attacked from multiple directions at once. This put the French infantry at a severe disadvantage because they lacked the square formation, which was developed to deal with cavalry.
The Muslim cavalry swept toward the French flanks, thereby avoiding most of the firepower. Once they were close enough, the Muslims began raining arrows down on the French, and since the French infantry wore no armor, the arrows were devastating. While the infantry fought back as hard as they could, there were too many Muslim cavalry hitting the infantry formation at the weakest points. Soon, the French infantry had been surrounded. Without orders, the men formed a small circle to keep the cavalry at bay by eliminating the flanks.
Now, the two powers were in a standoff, but the Muslims couldn’t afford to prolong it; French reinforcements were on the way. Ahmad knew this and continued to probe the French circle. Eventually, he realized the French formation, while an advantage against cavalry was weak against infantry.
While keeping the cavalry circling to keep the French infantry from reforming, the infantry was sent in. Just as he thought, although the infantry suffered some casualties, they were able to close with the French and quickly dealt with the remaining French infantry in the circle.
After the battle, Ahmad inspected the captured French arms. While he didn’t believe in firepower, he had to admit that it did have a place on the battlefield. The smaller French force had held off the larger Muslim Army for hours and caused a significant number of Muslim casualties. In total, the Muslims lost almost a quarter more men than the French.
Knowing he couldn’t withstand those kinds of casualties, Ahmad had to adjust his tactics and way of thinking. He had to incorporate gunpowder weapons into his army while on campaign. While it was an almost impossible task, Ahmad thought it was possible, especially since the French Army was so spread out; all he needed were some prisoners to teach his men how to use the new weapons.
The citizens of Toulouse were horrified when they learned of the French annihilation. However, it had an interesting effect on the population; their defiance hardened even further, and they were constantly taunting the Muslim troops. The Muslims replied in kind by burning the dead French in full view and upwind of Toulouse.
When the next French unit arrived, the Muslims were ready and ambushed them. This time, the battle was brief, sharp, and resulted in a decisive Muslim victory. Also, unlike the first battle, the Muslims captured several hundred prisoners. All Ahmad needed was one of those soldiers to cooperate and train several dozen of his men.
First, though, Ahmad thought that instead of fear, he would try to win over some of the French troops with greed. For men performing, being forced to perform a task wouldn’t do as good a job as someone who volunteered to perform said task. To Ahmad’s surprise, almost 10 percent of the prisoners volunteered to train the Muslim troops. All it took was the promise of gold and release upon completion of the training. The remaining prisoners were marched back to Iberia for use in the mines. All told, between the two battles, the French had lost 2,500 soldiers.
Before the turncoat French could begin training Muslim troops, the main body of the French Army arrived on the field. Looking out over the mass of soldiers, Ahmad was stunned. The French Army was massive when compared to his. Unwilling to abandon his gains so far, Ahmad had his army dig in and erect defensive fortifications. He also employed subterfuge, having his men light extra campfires at night and parade around in different uniforms to give French spies the illusion of a larger army.
To everyone’s surprise, the French didn’t attack but seemed content to watch. Ahmad wondered what the French were up to, but he refused to waste any of the precious time he had been given and commenced firearm training. He didn’t realize the French were waiting on additional reinforcements, and since the Muslims had withdrawn to form their defensive works, Toulouse was able to receive supplies again.
For the citizens of Toulouse, this was a godsend, as they had not had fresh supplies in two months, and most of the stored food and powder had been depleted. With fresh ammunition, the city’s cannons began bombarding the Muslim fortifications.
The Muslims got another lesson in the art of war; artillery is God. Within days of receiving supplies, the French cannons had reduced the Muslim fortifications that they could reach to rubble. It was so bad that Ahmad had to move the camp back almost a full kilometer to get out of the range of the city’s guns.
They also ran into a problem with their training. While they had enough muskets to arm roughly 2,000 soldiers, they didn’t have the ammunition to fire the weapons, and none of the captured French troops knew how to make it. In short order, the Muslims ran out of ammunition for the muskets. At that moment, Ahmad knew firearms wouldn’t be useful to him until after he had either captured or built an industrial base to produce powder and lead.
Instead of releasing the French troops who had helped train the Muslims in firearm usage, they were chained and also sent to the mines. Ahmad couldn’t take the risk that some of them would return to the French Army and inform their commanders about the Muslim army.
As each day passed, the French began moving to encircle the Muslims. The advantage of time had swung in favor of the French. Ahmad knew he had to do something, so he started making nightly raids on the French camps. If he could demoralize the French troops, maybe he could launch a sudden attack that would shatter the enemy.
When the French caught the raiders, it turned into a fierce night battle in which, surprisingly, the French often came out ahead. The little victories increased French morale more than the nightly raids diminished it.
After a week of cat and mouse night games, Philip had an idea. He issued orders for the soldiers to go about in soiled uniforms and dirty equipment. They were to make themselves look as pathetic as possible. He wanted the Muslims to believe they were winning. The troops understood what their king was driving for and enthusiastically supported the plan. Philip remembered something Luke had once told him: one can always tell which are the best troops by their equipment because while their uniforms would be filthy, their rifles would be clean.
On the Muslim side, morale was quickly dropping. Many soldiers were suffering from disease, and with their supply lines stretched to the breaking point, the army was barely getting the supplies it needed to sustain itself.
During the second week of May, Ahmad weighed the details and decided it would be best for him to preserve his army and retreat before the French could attack or cut them off. The first units to withdraw were the units that had been trained in the use of firearms. These troops were the future, and Ahmad wanted to ensure they escaped.
Due to French pressure, the Muslim army had to withdraw all at once and at night. To speed up their withdrawal, the badly wounded were left behind while all the army’s slaves were used as pack horses. To aid in their escape, the men being left behind would feed the campfires to keep the French from discovering the rest of the army was leaving.
Ahmad intended to withdraw to the mountains where he could battle the French in the passes, eliminating their numerical advantage. He discovered that he would need to fight much sooner than he planned.
Philip had anticipated Ahmad’s withdrawal and was ready. Instead of the spies watching, they were listening as an army leaving would make a lot of noise that wasn’t commonly heard. As soon as the Muslims began their withdrawal, Philp found out about it and ordered a full assault.
The Muslim army was about halfway out of camp when the French attack struck. As most of the army rushed to withdraw, several infantry units and one cavalry force fought a desperate rear-guard action against the French. In this, they were aided by the wounded. While the wounded often couldn’t walk, they could hold a pike or sit up and use a bow.
The rear-guard action the Muslims fought bought their army just enough time to escape but not enough for them. They fought to the last man, refusing to surrender. The rear-guard action cost Ahmad 500 soldiers and the 175 wounded men who were staying behind. But because of their sacrifice, the main army, around 9,400 men, escaped. While the Muslim army escaped, most of their supplies had been lost in the confusion. The French troops were too exhausted to mount an immediate pursuit, although some of their cavalry constantly harassed the rear of the retreating enemy army.
It took several days for the French army to head off in pursuit. This time, the French had field artillery, which would allow them to clear river crossings and field fortifications. In contrast to the Muslim army, the French Army numbered 42,000 men with 100 field guns. The army’s size also worked against it, as the French were slow to get anywhere. This delay allowed Ahmad to dig in in defense of the mountain passes.
While Philip was battling Ahmad, Bertha was spending money like crazy to build the road network France needed. For now, they wouldn’t be able to build railroads as none of their friends had acquired them yet. While Empress Brunhild disliked the British, she hated the French, and there was no way she would aid them. Marion wasn’t going to sell to the French either, as she didn’t want to see them get any stronger.
Construction crews worked throughout the kingdom to rebuild roads, bridges, and canals. While it would take a decade or more to fully upgrade the French roads, the worst areas could be fixed relatively quickly. Portable stamping mills were set up to crush whatever the local rock happened to be to quickly make the needed gravel. The portable stamping mill was nothing more than a couple of mules tethered to a vertical shaft with a gear on top. That gear turned a horizontal shaft with cams on it. The cams lifted the iron-capped logs, which then dropped to crush the rocks below against the grooved iron bottom plate. Since the power source was animal, the logs had to be much smaller, or the animals wouldn’t be able to lift them. While slower than permanent stamping mills powered by water, they could be used close to job sites or where there might not be a convenient river to power a mill.
At the end of one of her letters to Philip, reviewing what she had been doing, Bertha mentioned that she thought she was pregnant again and would know for sure in a couple of months. She also remarked that areas that had seen infrastructure improvements had a more robust economy than the regions that hadn’t been improved yet.
The French Army finally ran into the Muslim fortification and were stopped in their tracks. While Philip had the larger army, the Muslims were dug in and in positions from where they could shower the road with arrow fire. Additionally, French cannons were line-of-sight weapons, and the Muslim fortifications were hidden from the direction from which the French were firing. For now, the French Army was at a standstill.
New Cork, New Ireland. June 1079
The British were still a thorn in Toirdelbach’s side, although they had discovered that the British would allow Irish fishing boats to travel north. Once they found that Toirdelbach issued orders allowing Irish fishing boats to go north, but with the caveat that they had to stop for any pursuing British warship. As long as there were no slaves aboard the boats, the British let them go.
The Irish still had difficulties with the native slaves escaping and heading to the British colony. When Toirdelbach complained to the British, he was rudely told that slavery was illegal in all British possessions and that any slave entering British territory was instantly free. The native slaves were not the only people from New Ireland headed north; the French who had come to the Irish colony were fed up with the Irish attitude.
To make life more difficult for the Irish, the French left just before planting season and took as much preserved food as possible. With the French gone, the Irish planting season was thrown into turmoil. Toirdelbach was forced to have all available Irish work the fields. It didn’t matter if they were soldiers or priests; they had to help plant the crops. Even Toirdelbach and Órlaith helped in the fields.
Toirdelbach took possession of the remaining French houses and sold them to arriving immigrants. Most of the French burned their old homes to the ground before they left to prevent the Irish from using them.
After learning their lesson from the French debacle, the only new immigrants accepted into the settlement were from Ireland or Scotland. Other immigrants were allowed to enter but on a case-by-case basis. Most of the others were people who had been released from British prisons and wanted nothing more to do with the Golden Queen.
Many of the men arriving from the British prisons were former soldiers, so Toirdelbach used them in the same capacity. Only this time, they were not mercenary soldiers but citizen soldiers.
Between the limited immigration and natural growth, the Irish population was up to 5,000 souls, not counting the slaves, who would add an additional 2,100 souls to the population if they were counted as persons.
One of the things that would help with the Irish population growth was New Cork’s sewer system, which was completed at the end of May. As soon as it came online, the drop in the stench coming from the city streets was immediately noticeable. The people celebrated the sewer’s completion, especially the recent arrivals, as many were accustomed to the way things were in Britain.
With the sewers functioning properly, Toirdelbach decreed heavy fines for anyone caught dumping their waste into the street. While bodily waste was sent to the sewer, food waste was collected and fed to the hogs the city raised. The meat from those hogs was given to the poor or salted for later consumption.
Once the planting was completed, Irish troops began hitting the nearby native settlements again. Since the Irish had enough horses, all the soldiers rode into action, giving them a massive increase in range striking power. One person in New Cork wasn’t happy with the Irish military. Unfortunately for Toirdelbach, that person was Órlaith.
“Why Toirdelbach? Why are our soldiers making war on additional native tribes when there isn’t a tribe close enough to us to attack?”
“Our soldiers have to remain sharp, and we could use more slaves.”
“Why do they need to raid faraway settlements when they could stay here and train? Why do we need to send the army for slaves when we can trade for them? Does the army even bring slaves back with them?” Toirdelbach and Órlaith stared at each other as couples have since time began when they were having a fight. Seeing Toirdelbach wasn’t backing down, Órlaith stepped up the pressure. “Toirdelbach, I think you need to sleep somewhere else.”
“Where?” he demanded.
“Anywhere but with me. You like the soldiers, sleep in their quarters.”
With that, Órlaith turned and left. Toirdelbach didn’t know what to do as nothing in his previous life had prepared him for having a fight with his spouse. While he could beat her into submission, Toirdelbach thought better of it. Órlaith was one of those people who held onto each transgression until the right time before bringing forth a terrible retribution. Órlaith had given Toirdelbach enough clues in their time together that he didn’t wish to suffer her retribution.
Ingegerdsborg, Scandinavia. June 1079
Ingegerd leaned back in her chair and sighed. The battle of the island of Saaremaa was not going to plan. In the thick forest, the Scandinavians’ firearms didn’t give them a significant advantage. Instead, the battle turned into a slugfest with neither side backing down. Ingegerd knew she would win the battle eventually since she had much greater resources at her disposal, but the question was how many would be needed to quell the Oeselians.
While the Scandinavians had been able to construct their fort, the rest of the island was causing them problems. The natives had dug their heels in and demanded the Scandinavians pay for every centimeter of ground with blood, a currency in perpetual short supply. The Oeselians received reinforcements from the mainland, as many mainland tribes saw the Scandinavians as a threat to their way of life.
For the time being, the Oeselians were able to sell slaves to buy weapons and food, although the price for slaves had plummeted. The sudden drop in demand, resulting from the turmoil in the Middle East, eventually reached the Baltic. While the Byzantines and Rus still bought slaves from the Oeselians, it wasn’t enough to raise the prices back to the levels enjoyed when trading with the Seljuk Turks. Until peace returned to the Middle East, slave prices would be depressed.
Unlike the price of slaves, food prices were not depressing in Ingegerdsborg. With more children and adults surviving winter, food prices were creeping upward. Ingegerd was forced to turn more of her attention to food production. The easiest way to increase food production was to increase the number of fishing boats. However, that required an increase in the number of fishermen, and since commercial fishing wasn’t a skill that one learned overnight, it would take time.
Farming was another area where Ingegerd worked to increase production. By clearing more land and providing affordable loans, farmers could purchase more advanced farm equipment, land, or horses, leading to improved farm production, although this would likely take a few years. Ingegerd also allowed more hunting access on her lands so people could have wild game to eat.
With all the measures she put in place, plus the importation of more food from the Holy Roman Empire and Great Britain, food prices remained reasonable. As long as food prices stayed reasonable, the population might grumble but not revolt. What the rising prices did was shorten the leash on Ingegerd. Every action she took had to be balanced with the need to keep prices down.
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