3.30: Konrad

Nordhaven, Nobhart

The ship bobbed one last time before coming to a stop. Men threw ropes from the deck. To the side, Konrad shivered from cold wind trying to claw its way into his clothes as he narrowed his eyes to look around. The dock smelled like any other; tar, fish guts, wet rope, but much colder than the southern ports.

Nordhaven looked lively even under the gray sky; gulls crying above and men shouting even louder, hauling and selling all sorts of wares. The town was quite prosperous for a settlement at the far corner of the kingdom. It said a lot about the power of ports. Konrad couldn’t see a single broken tile on any of the buildings, and every spot was properly painted, protected from the salty air.

The gangplank hit the dock with a thud. Pulling his cloak tight around himself, he lifted his bag and began walking towards it. Someone of his rank would usually have a man or two accompanying him, but his tiffs with his brothers, may God bless them, had turned him into a pariah. If not for his family, he would have been relegated to some distant corner of the kingdom, like the place he was visiting. He didn’t care much. He wasn’t old enough to require assistance, though the cold now bothered him the way it hadn’t until his mid forties.

“May God bless you, my son,” he said to the bowing captain as he left the ship.

Cracking his back, he began walking in search of the local church. The well-worn boards of the dock rocked beneath his boots as he took in the view. As his cloak flapped in the wind, he noticed a ship moored to the left; specifically the flag it was flying.

One he had never seen.

That was odd.

Knowing every flag was a hobby of his.

A glowing white spear rising from a green valley, a crimson river cutting through it.

“Ominous” was the word that came to mind.

Peaceful, but willing to shed blood.

If he understood the message correctly.

Soldiers with light-colored, hard eyes stood on the deck, scanning the docks, holding what looked like crossbows.

Hmm. Are those the weapons that had the nobles in a tizzy? And those eyes… they must be Cha.

One of the uniformed men looked at him.

The soldier’s eyes narrowed, then…

Hot, dark hate stabbed into Konrad’s eyes.

He reeled back, immediately breaking eye contact.

Such hatred. Why?

His hand went to his white collar, the symbol of his office. It stood out against his dark woolen clothes. He was close enough that the man could’ve seen it.

I suppose we do deserve some hate. For what happened to them.

Blaming a group to cover for the mistakes of their own, combined with that stellar justification; “What’s the matter? They are only a group of unbelievers.”

The guilt gnawed at him.

He pushed it aside, deciding to instead accost a passerby.

“Excuse me, brother,” he said to the man with unkempt beard and receding hairline. “I’m sorry to bother you, but who does that ship belong to?”

“Huh?” the man grunted gruffly, a scowl on his bushy eyebrows. The moment he noticed Konrad’s collar, his expression flipped.

“Oh, those are Chads, Father. Silent fellows.”

“Chads? I’m afraid I haven’t heard of them.”

“It’s what the people from this Chadom place call themselves.”

“Oh.”

“They don’t let anyone aboard their ships, nor do they talk to anyone, besides this one fella, Jaklen. A chatterbox, that one. Talks enough for everyone else.”

The man stood there, expectant.

“Bless you, my son.”

He bowed deeply, then left.

It didn’t take long for Konrad to spot the local church’s steeple. He arrived at the well-built structure just as the noon bells finished ringing.

A round-faced priest met him at the door. His eyebrows disappeared into his thinning hair when he noticed Konrad’s collar.

“I’m Bishop Konrad from the capital. I have a few questions for you, brother.”

“It’s an honor to welcome you, Father, a great honor. Please come in!” the jovial, portly fellow said.

Konrad nodded, following his lead. The church was quite well-built, even from the inside. One of the local lords must have been very pious.

The priest, Ewald, pointed to the chairs in the meeting chamber. “Let me put on a pot of mushroom tea. It’s Nobhart’s specialty. You’ll like it!”

“You needn’t worry yourself,” Konrad said, sitting at the table.

“It’s no bother at all, no bother at all!” the priest replied, while working at the hearth.

Light drizzle began hitting the roof while he sat in silence, Ewald tending to the pot.

A nice earthy fragrance reached him as the pot began to boil.

Soon, Ewald arrived with a tray. Konrad gratefully took the cup of tea from him, warming his hands around it. It tasted almost as nice as it smelled. As it went down, he felt his joints losing some of their stiffness. After a few sips, he shifted his attention to the priest.

“The capital was quite shocked when the Queen told them about this battle that happened in the Treacherous Bog,” he began carefully.

“Oh, it was a terrible thing, Father. A terrible thing,” Ewald replied, sipping his own tea loudly. “Nobody could believe it at first. The Count dead, along with Barons Mondgrove, Nebelhain and the heir to Wulfsden. The knights too. Not one came back!”

Konrad nodded absentmindedly.

There were only one or two records of the collective leadership of an entire county being gutted so thoroughly in a single battle, and never by the hands of the presumed dead disowned heir himself.

Even he, as a rather insular man, had heard about this Battle of the Bog in the capital, when father fought son, and the son wiped out half his father’s forces, leaving no noble involved alive.

As if God’s own hand was upon him.

Or was it the devil’s?

“How did the county fair?” Konrad asked.

“Well… not well. We in Nordhaven were fine thanks to the old Dowager’s guidance, may God keep her safe and sound for years. She’s a smart biddy. When the old Count called, she only sent the men her oaths required, and not one man more. Just between us,” he said, lowering his voice, “I don’t think they were her best. It’s still quite terrible that so many lives were lost.”

“Quite. And… the other baronies?”

“Nebelhain erupted into infighting. The fools there burned each others’ villages. I heard that Mondgrove was also about to tip into mayhem, before the new Count went to its capital himself, along with some Royal troops. He executed the former Baron’s cousin for trying to steal the seat from his infant child.”

“Oh?”

“Some say that he got rid of him for the favor of the young Dowager. She is rumored to be quite a beauty, and the Count has a certain… reputation.”

Konrad’s disapproval must have shown on his face, as Ewald raised his hands. “That’s the rumor among the soldiers. You know how they are; they love to gossip and make up facts for the sake of entertainment. Maybe the man was indeed guilty.”

“What else do they say?”

“There… was something about blood,” Ewald said, searching the ceiling for his memories.

Konrad’s eyes widened.

“Blood?”

“They say he showed a dagger covered in blood to everyone, saying Grunric’s finger… prints, if I remember correctly, were etched on it.”

“Huh.”

Konrad wracked his brain, but could not recall any record of such a method.

He couldn’t help but turn his hand up to look at the patterns on the tips of his fingers.

It just keeps getting more interesting.

“You spend quite some time around soldiers,” he said, trying not to come off as judgmental.

The portly fellow’s face fell.

“I had to. I was called by the old Dowager herself to look after the men who returned from the Battle of the Bog.”

“Why?”

“They had become hollow shells. Eyes staring into nothing. Babbling of fire raining from the sky, wraiths firing arrows from nowhere and demon archers that didn’t need quivers. Everyone of those men kept repeating it was all real.”

Konrad scratched his non-existent beard.

Those bows were clearly the peculiar weapons the Cha soldiers had been wielding. The rest must also be tricks of some kind.

But what if they were actual wraiths?

That brought his attention back to his mission.

The Church wouldn’t usually respond this quickly to a provincial priest’s claim of demonic possession, not even one who served the capital of a county.

Not unless the man he accused happen to be the regnant Queen’s soon-to-be husband.

Still, it had come as quite a surprise to him that he had been the one chosen to investigate the matter, not one of the Cardinal’s favorites.

The Queen must have made quite an offer to Cardinal Godmar. He couldn’t see why else they would send him.

“Anything else you could tell me about the Count?” he asked, sipping more of the excellent tea.

“Hmm. The returned soldiers said that he managed to capture the mining town of Blackrain from the Ironfelds within a matter of hours, and without a great host. Our soldiers didn’t even have to participate. I’d say that was impossible, if I hadn’t heard the testimonies of dozens of survivors of the Battle of the Bog with my own ears.”

So definitely a capable commander, but the Count’s military prowess wasn’t Konrad’s focus at the moment.

“Anything else?”

“Well, he established a standing army of three hundred men, the biggest the county has ever had. Then he established stewardship councils in every barony, saying they would prevent the mayhem that followed the death of the County’s leadership.”

“Hmm.”

Concentrating military power into himself and dividing political power at the same time.

That must not have enamored him to the nobility.

And then he fires his physician and replaces him with a surgeon, no less.

Nobody could accuse Konrad of being politically astute, but even he could see that such actions weren’t very… sensible.

And finally, there was the claim of possession.

Konrad heaved a sigh.

“I heard the Count almost lost his life the very day he arrived at his seat.”

“Yes,” Ewald said softly. “Two young soldiers who had lost their fathers at that fateful battle ambushed him in the castle.”

“God must’ve smiled upon him.”

“Indeed.”

“Would you happen to know the physician who attended him?”

Ewald’s lips quivered in a sly smile.

“I do. I hosted Brother Soren after the Count dismissed him from his service.”

Konrad made sure to not show any emotions.

Not as daft as he acts.

“What did he have to say?”

“The Count was badly injured; the stab had nicked his guts. Men don’t usually survive such wounds. Yet he not only recovered to full health, but it took him only two weeks.”

“Two?” Konrad couldn’t help his voice from rising in shock. “The report said it was three weeks.”

“Maybe not fully, but he certainly was out of danger pretty soon.”

“What is your opinion, brother?”

Ewald’s eyes crinkled. “I’m just a provincial priest, Father, but that doesn’t sound natural to me. Was it God who intervened, or something else, who can say?”

“What did brother Soren think?”

Ewald grimaced.

“Brother Soren… might not have been the voice of reason at the time. He had, after all, been replaced by a barber-surgeon.”

Konrad leaned back, exhaling out the tension.

At least this was going to be an interesting investigation.