Two days had passed since the Swabian vanguard broke. Konrad moved swiftly to press his advantage.

He knew Baron von Waldburg would gather his shattered host again, but the poison air had broken their spirit. They waited a few miles away for their great siege culverins, likely believing Konrad commanded dark sorcery...

Konrad needed iron. The Fugger silver allowed him to build, but coin was useless without the raw earth. He needed iron ore in vast measure.

Leaving Elise and Katarina under the watch of Captain Eckhard and the new militia, he took twenty seasoned guards armed with wheel-lock pistols and rode for the eastern hills.

They rode for the lands of Lord Henrich of Rothenburg, a lesser vassal sworn to the von Frundsbergs. His lands were rocky and poor for crops, but they sat atop a rich, shallow vein of iron.

Henrich had always paid his tithes in raw ore, which Konrad’s father had foolishly sold for a pittance to Augsburg merchants.

Konrad meant to change this entirely.

The ride took four hours over rough earth. When Konrad’s guard crested the ridge above Rothenburg, the gap between his swift forges and this ruined holding was painfully plain.

Rothenburg was a miserable cluster of hovels around a crumbling tower. The serfs looked gaunt and spent. The iron mine in the hillside was surrounded by a squalid camp of wretched workers.

As Konrad’s guard rode into the yard, Lord Henrich emerged in panic.

He was a plump, nervous man wearing a faded doublet.

"Lord Konrad!" Henrich gasped, bowing deeply. "We heard tales of a great battle... of the Swabian League marching on your lands."

"The tales are true, Lord Henrich." Konrad stated, dismounting slowly. "The Swabian vanguard was met and broken two days past. They gather their strength anew."

"This...!" Henrich’s eyes widened in shock.

That a lesser lord had broken a Swabian host was madness... He looked at Konrad’s grim guards and saw the truth of the whispers.

"I have not come to speak of war," Konrad continued, walking past the nervous lord toward the mine. "...we require a vast and sudden swelling in the harvest of your ore."

Henrich hurried after him, wringing his hands. "My Lord, the yields are at their limit... My serfs break their backs in the dark. The air is foul, the timbers rot... we cannot draw more stone without killing the men."

Konrad stopped at the mine. The smell of foul water and unwashed bodies was heavy. He looked at the wretched work.

Men crawled into narrow, bare shafts with only picks and baskets. It was foolish, a mere sentence of death.

"Your ways of mining are foolish... Lord Henrich." Konrad judged.

Then he signed to his guards, who began unloading sealed crates from their mules.

"What is that?" Henrich asked, staring at the crates.

"These are cunning tools for the earth," Konrad explained, spinning the same lie he had used on Uncle Lothar. "They use strong powders to shatter the deep rock. We will no longer rely on men swinging picks to break stone."

Then he turned to the plump lord. "Further, I am changing the ways of your workers. Your serfs will work in steady turns. And they will be paid in silver Batzens for the weight of ore they draw."

"Pay them?" Henrich stared at him, bewildered. "My Lord, they are serfs... Their toil belongs to us by right!"

"A lord’s right means nothing if his people starve or die in the dark, a paid man works harder than a beaten slave. You will pay them the silver at once. The coin will come from my vault." Konrad countered.

Henrich swallowed hard. He saw he was speaking to a ruthless master. "Yes, my Lord. But if we draw more ore, where will we keep it? The League holds the main roads. We cannot send it to Augsburg."

"We send it straight to my forges. I need all the iron you can draw to feed the falconets." Konrad stated.

...

Over the next five days, Konrad did not return to the keep.

He stayed at the mining camp, driving the change in the deep earth himself.

He taught the sharpest miners how to carefully place the sealed powder pots in deep, drilled holes in the rock. He taught them to set the slow-matches and judge the reach of the blast.

The first blast was a fearful victory!

A sudden vibration ripped through the mine, followed by a great cloud of dust billowing from the mouth. When it settled, the miners found tons of shattered, loose iron ore - what would have taken a week of breaking backs to win with picks.

The promise of silver also worked its magic.

The gaunt serfs, seeing they could earn true coin for their toil, attacked the loose ore with fierce hunger.

Konrad also set laws for their keeping, ordering the rotting supports replaced with strong, new timber from the woods.

On the eve of the fifth day, Konrad sat in a small shelter near the mine, reading the ledgers by a tallow candle... The swelling of the harvest was vast.

He closed the ledger and stood up. It was time to return to the keep.

"I will inspect the deepest shaft one last time before we ride," Konrad told his guards. "Have the mules loaded with the remaining powder pots." 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Lord Henrich, watching from the shadows of his crumbling tower, saw the young lord walk into the dark mouth of the mine alone with only a lantern.

A sweat broke on Henrich’s brow. He signaled to his most loyal, hidden servant holding a lit match... A sudden roar shook the earth.