Friends and foes
Motto: “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer”[1]
The year of the lord 1294, late November, Pavia, North of Italy
“My Lord and dear friend, I’m getting old now but I’ve lived my days… However, you… you are still young, you have a future in face of you. You won money and glory for a lifetime. Why do you gamble all that on hunting illusions? Why do you need the crown when you can have all the advantages of a plentiful life without all the obligations? Being a King, is a dam responsibility. Few if any kings were happy, few if any enjoyed their lives. Even the most successful ones, lived in their souls a miserable existence. If I was you, I would have all the women I would want, I would drink and eat and feast all I would want, I would travel anywhere my heart would have desired, I would have done whatever I would have pleased, but I would not to put my head in a bet… Think at it... if you invade France, your head may end on a spike… my head too, but my life do not count as much as yours. Philip had ten thousand knights at his disposal without even counting the footmen. They will ride over us on the field like we were nothing than a brunch of peasants.”
The tall man with a short but thick beard and big dark eyes continued, passing his right hand over it, like wanting to brush it:
“Even if, by miracle, you will win, you will bring so much destruction in the Kingdom that both nobles and commoners will hate you. All your cousins and uncles on the other thrones in Christendom do not support your claim and nobody will accept you as the rightful King. Your ancestors have fought to win England and Brittany and Loraine and Aquitaine and Toulouse and many other lands. If you win some of them but you will lose the others, you will undo all their work and labour. It will be like you have spit on their graves.”
“Then better we should win on all these lands!” responded Edouard impassable. “Cher Gregoire, I’ve always praised your council and advice. I’m aware of everything you said but I still want to risk my head for the crown that is rightfully mine.”
“All our heads…”
“If you care so much for losing your head, then you are free to go. I do not wish this, but if you do not believe in me, then it would better to leave me. I will definitely miss you… but this is life, full of difficult choices and farewells.”
Edouard used the final argument. He knew that he will not leave him so he taunt him with the threat of separation when he had enough to listen him about the dangers of an invasion.
Gregoire de Flers was one of Edouard oldest and closest followers. He fought for him since the first days in Nogai’s service and countless times he give him precious advice. Gregoire was a Normand landless and impoverished noble, who had served as page, then as squire and later on as mercenary for several high nobles in France and beyond. But with the age it comes the disillusionment of failing in regaining his father domain, or at least in obtaining an honorable position in the French aristocracy.
The castle of Flers and the demesne of the Flers family were confiscated and sold out for unpaid debts, to the infamy of the entire family. It was bought by the powerful count Theobald VI of Blois, which furthermore humiliated the Flers’ who held a feud against the count for an old offense. Gregoire therefore received as inheritance very few money, a small name but a big shame to redeem and a huge grudge against the house of Blois, pear of France and one of the most powerful magnates in the entire kingdom. He wasted the little money he received by trying to win an unwinnable process against the debtors, the Blois and the Crown. Penniless, he had no choice than to humiliate himself further and accepted unworthy jobs until a rich Baron in Normandy, distantly related to the Flers family, accepted his service as a page more out of pity. Then he served as squire for other barons and even served the heir of Flanders. Nevertheless, he remained the same poor and frustrated landless noble. Climbing back the social ladder is hard and mentally exhausting, however going down, it was very easy and handy… Gregoire soon found himself as sell-lance and mercenary for dubious characters. Some contracts here and there, in France and England, in Germany and Italy, and his conscience become heavier and more loaded by day it passed.
When the Pope launched the call to clean the heresy in Bosnia, he do not hesitated to abandon everything he has (almost nothing) for redeem some of his sins. There he meet Edouard and the two become friends, despite the 25 years of difference between their ages. A former disillusioned, Gregoire started once again to believe in someone and in something. He followed Edouard in all his campaigns in Bosnia and Italy. He used his vast knowledges gathered when he had served the great houses to correct and complete Edouard’s knowledges about the network of alliances, and, especially, rivalries between the different families and nobles and cities in both England and France as well as in Italy. He was devout and sincere. But all this friendship was challenged sometime around Edouard’s claim of the crown of France and England in Rome.
First cracks appeared even before arriving in Rome. Gregoire had a little secret… Recently, he discovered that he loved the men as much as the women. One man specifically. He had a minion, a young guy with feminine traits, who he cherished and he overwhelm him with many favours. Edouard knew about this but he do not cared too much… until that young guy, full of himself, committed the supreme outrage. He disobeyed a direct order, even more, he shoved his officer pushing him from stairs. This Edouard could not forgive. Alongside with other disobedient fools, he hanged the boy near Terni, broking the heart of his friend and disregarding his pleases for mercy. Gregoire took very hard this loss… The frustration turned into a disappointment. How could a friend do this to another friend? Or was their friendship just in his mind only? A fruit of his imagination and a despair to find a meaning in his life? Was it mean something for Edouard? Or he was just a tool as any others that he will throw him away when he will not need him anymore?
Gregoire start to doubt Edouard and tried to test him. He ask him a firm engagement that after winning the crown he will return his father fief to him. He had sworn his father to recover the castle their grand-grandfather had built. He believed in Edouard and he believed that he was his guarantee to fulfil his filial duty. But Edouard gives him only vague promises. Moreover, Gregoire found about letters sent to all the great seniors in France and England, promising them to keep their power and lands if they will support his claim, including to Blois. How can Edouard keep his promise of returning him Flers if he promises Blois to expand his lands and privileges? No… Edouard is lying him.
Obviously, Edouard could not offer his friend what he demanded so loudly. Why spoiling a possibility of allying such a powerful house as Blois with such a promise? If he start promising feuds to his follower at the expense of great nobles he will sabotage any efforts of winning them for his cause or at least of having them as neutral. He will make the most powerful lords his enemies before he would even put his foot in France. No, he will not do such thing for any friendship. Gregoire should be content with something else. Edouard did not held any particular consideration for the great magnates who he saw them as a threat for the crown but he could not make all of them his enemies, right from the beginning. He tried to explain his friend and it seems that he understood. But what Gregoire understood was only that his fears were indeed founded. Edouard saw him as a tool, not as a friend.
Even before Edouard have claimed the throne, Dowager Queen Christina have sent trustful men in Italy to keep an eye on the Bastard. A keen political animal, Christina felt the threat before even it become real. She always hated Edouard and wanted his death. She praised the day when he was sent away and lost in Orient. But when she heard about his return in Christendom, Christina become crazy mad. After she got read of Montfort, a sweet revenge, she found that her husband, King Charles, was keeping an eye on the faith of his bastard too. Charles become prouder of his bastards than his own heir. He played again with his thoughts of calling back to France. Edouard was his son. The son of his first love. The son of his only love. The lost son who have comes back stronger and better than he even dream to be. The son who stepped on places where he had travelled only in his dreams and read in his books. The son who he was certain that he was the blood of his blood. When Charles found about Edouard’s great victories in Italy, he told his guards that the blood of Philip and Charles the Greats
[2] was running through his veins and he was proud of his son.
The greatest Christina’s fears become true again. What if the King will legitimize his bastard? What if he name him his heir? What if he crown him junior King alongside him as the Capetian kings have done it in old times? Her sons, the beings that she loves most on her life, will be then in danger. It was him or them. With days it passed, the fears become more and more tangible, more and more likely. She need to action before it will be too late. The men in Italy reported her that Edouard planned something big, really big and the King might have knowledge about it. The threat needed to be neutralized in a way or another. The King become more and more dangerous. Edouard’s fame grow more and more and both the nobles and the commoners start to speak about him. She tried to assassinate Edouard but… no chance. He was far smarter than the men sent to assassinate him, his guards were devoted. Therefore, she instructed her spies to recruit collaborators among Edouard’s inner circles.
Nobody could know how and when they reached Gregoire or Gregoire reach them. While he could not assassinate his former friend, he decided to offer his service to the Queen for the right reward: money and a document in which the Crown engaged to recover the castle of Flers and to resituate it to its rightful owner, the Baron and Knight Gregoire de Flers. It was a feeble promise but for Gregoire was more than nothing. And nothing will he receive from Edouard. He therefore agree to inform the Queen about the Bastard’s movements and plans and to deter Edouard from smart acting.
Edouard suspected that something was going wrong when he found that some of his secret contacts with great French lords were not so secret. He had himself his own eyes and ears placed in advance around his target. He realized that there might be a mole inside his inner circle. But who? Only his closest associates and friends knew about his plans. Why anyone will betrays him? And how he could identify the traitor? He remember a trick from somewhere he have read it long time ago about a similar situation. He will trap the mole with a honey lie. He told to each of them contradictory secret information about a fake negotiation he had with the King of Sicily himself. It was all fake but he waited to see what his enemies would find about. It will not be a long waiting[3]…
Most men would reward treason by death. Being it short or painful one. Or at least by separation or isolation. When Edouard discovered that Gregory was betraying him, he also was terrible angry and wanted to kill the man on the spot. Or even better, to make an example of him and let everybody knows what happens with the traitors. But Edouard had a principle. To not let the wrath acting in his place. He waited until next day and the next day the wrath was gone and cold calculations took place. He decided to use him as an unaware double agent.
Therefore, he brought Gregoire even closer to him, entrust him with more secrets, more plans. He praise him more in face of others and decided to follow his councils instead of others… but just apparently. Bringing him closer, he isolated the man. Praising him and following his advice, he fool him in a false sentiment of security and importance. He entrust him with secrets that he wanted to reach his enemy. He entrust him with ultimate secret plans to fool his enemies falling in well prepared traps. In the meantime, he constructed a parallel service which foiled his correspondence, secretly placing double agents in his service and therefore checking all his steps and actions.
***
From time to times, Gregoire tried to persuade Edouard to abandon his plans to invade France, especially now when they are so close to do it.
The 9.000 mercenaries of the Company of the Iron Lily were encamped not far away of Pavia, to the high concern of the Pavians which do not knew how to deal with them. While they were not foes, they were not friends either. They wanted to cross the Alps, however with the approaching winter the prospects of crossing were less and less realistic. Moreover, as Edouard’s fame grow and traveled far away, attracting a huge interest and many newcomers which wanted to enroll in the Company, more thousands unemployed mercenaries, merchants, prostitutes and even vagabonds gathered in northern Italy. Have thousands upon thousands mercenaries contracted by a ruthless commander wintering in your lands was not great, in addition, having other thousands un-employed mercenaries and other wanders roaming trough your lands, was really frightening.
So great was the number of the new applicants, that Edouard could be very selective in the recruiting process. But more than soldiers, he needed other kind of men… agents. He recruited hundreds of them and send them all over the Capetian lands with precise missions. They will prepare his coming, diffusing information, rumors and, when the time will comes, they will create agitation. They comes from all social categories, but mostly they were merchants and traders while some were troubadours, actors and artists. Some were itinerant friars. Suddenly, in towns and cities across France appeared pamphlets about a certain mythological Queen… and they were not flattering at all. She was portrayed as cheating her husband, a benevolent but a solitary King, and surrounding herself with lovers…. It was obvious about who were all these pamphlets. While nobody raised concerns with a loud voice about the actual king’s paternity… the question was whispered everywhere in the corners. While the temperatures were dropping, France was boiling up…
But Edouard quickly found himself that he has a big issue. As the spending increased, the money gained in the previous contracts and pillages started running low. The Roman adventure was quite expensive, as the Pope didn’t pay him too much for reinstalling the Papal order on the streets of Rome, while the sums his soldiers extracted from the populace and from the Pope’s rivals amounted to little, barely covering the costs. Now, he needed more and more money. His troops needed to be paid, fed, armed and entertained, his agents need to be payed, bribes need to be generously scattered all over the places, provisions for the incoming war need to be gathered. All these cost tons of money. Money that need to come from somewhere. He might could convince his troops to be patient with their payment if needed, but no army will march and even less to fight on empty bellies.
So, the questions that hunted Edouard in that autumn was how and where to find money… There could be only few possibilities: either borrowing them from Lombard bankers, Jews or rich merchants, wining them by more condotas (mercenary contracts), plundering them from the lands he passed or receiving them from friends. First option was the most obvious, however many moneylenders were still skeptical to fund him as they were afraid to bet on the wrong horse. The second option will detour him from his mission. He wanted to hit as sooner as possible, before Philip’s position on the throne will strengthen even further. Plundering from the lands was always a possibility… however the result was unsatisfactory and he risked by provoking too much the shaky but still potent Lombard League. Now, the last option was even more difficult, as Edouard had no great rich friends or patrons to support him. Only his father in law could help him. As much as he would have prefers to dump his wife and search a better placed or a more strategical match, he knew that if he do so he will not only lose several hundred men among his best ones, but also maybe the single hope for receiving more help as well as a place where he could fall back in case of failure. By claiming the crown of France and England Edouard have piss off the entire Capetian world. While all of the Capetian rulers were busy with other enterprises to jump on Philip’s help or considering not even necessary as they will not see him as a real treat, none of them will receive him if he fails. As a good strategist he knew that he always need a secure base to fall back if needed. So, trampling on his pride, he send curries to Varad[4] to ask for money.
Nogai received the pledges for founds and help from his son in law with a big concern. Would he sped his limited money for this adventure? He knew how capable he was, but conquering the throne of France and England was by far a huge gamble. On the other hand, not helping him will spoil the tiny but the unique chance to have a son in law on the greatest throne of Christendom. However, Nogai usually spent more than he earn and he was always in shortage of funds. Buying fancy stuffs from both Occident (weapons, armours, cloths, tools, art, etc.) and Orient (mostly silk and spices), bribing vassals and tribes, quelling rebellions after rebellions, building castles and fortress all around his kingdom, building new churches and monasteries, establishing new towns, attracting craftsmen and artisans from west, organizing big feasts and banquets, paying for the incessant fighting against the Golden Horde, intimidating his neighbors by display of force, all these drain money faster than they could be extracted from the Bosnian mines in Kreševo, Fojnica, Zvornik and, especially, in Srebrenica[5]. Putting the hands of these silver mines was one of the primary goal and reason to start the entire crusade against the Bogomils. However they were still undermanned and most of them were destroyed or severely affected during the war, sabotaged by the Bosnians themselves. They were slowly put back into function but the Khan lacked the men with expertise to both extract the precious metal and to melt it afterward.
Nevertheless, scrapping at the bottom of his treasury, Nogai could still found several thousand coins (being them groso, ducats, florins, solidi, hyperpyrons and even some tournois[6]) to fill a chest and send it to Pavia escorted by 200 light cavalry, recruited from among his own bannermen. It was not much, but it helped to pay for a while for food and footer. But the Khan sent him something else… a letter, in which he legitimated Elizabeth. The letter contained the seals of the Khan himself as well as the signatures of the members of the Great Council, starting with the one of the Legate of Scythia, the Archbishop of Varad. The members of the Great Council of the Horde were recruited among the Mongol princes of blood, the great Mongol and Cuman chieftains, the Khan’s great vassals, the great landlords and high clergy. Moreover, the letter contained an addendum carrying on it the seal of the Holy Siege, in which the Pope himself recognised and blessed this act.
Edouard received the gift with mixed feelings… he definitely need all the money and help he could gather, but the sudden legitimization of his wife rather annoy him than encourage him. He always consider his marriage a temporary one, until he will be in a position to negotiate a better one. She being a bastard, would have made all this far easier.
Not small was Edouard surprise when 150 heavy cavalrymen, accompanied by their squires and servants, arrived in his camp. They were Vlahs sent by Vladislav, the Ban of Severin. Well, actually they were sent by his mother, Anastasia, Khatun of the Black Horde. Since Vladislav was granted the inheritance of Severin four years ago, Anastasia acted as regent and remained in Severin with him. She was not be missed by her husband which have… younger companions. She was an ambitious and intelligent women with a high political sense. When Anastasia found about Edouard’s claim and his legitimization by the Pope, as well as Nogai legitimization of Elizabeth, she decided that it was the time to break the money box. Severin was a wealthy land and well administrated, while she had herself a quite big personal fortune, both in form of jewels and precious objects as in form of land grants by her husband to support her household. She had countless fields, forests, ponds, mills, villages, monasteries, which all generated a lovely profit. Therefore, not only she paid for the 150 lances, but also she sent to Edouard, in the name of her son, the equivalent of 320.000 golden florins as loan. Anastasia had big plans for her son and she wanted strong and powerful allies, both inside the Horde as outside of it. She raised the money using different methods, including selling several of her lands, taking some loans from the local merchants and bankers, as well as demanding a contribution from the boyars with the pretext of building a new monastery. God will pardon her for this small fraud…
These moneys, as unexpectedly as they come, constituted a huge financial relief for Edouard. He knew that this was not a donation but an earnest for a later commitment. He even could knew which. And he gladly accepted. With these money he could wait well until the spring to better prepare his invasion. Having friends is also good for solvency. Some Lombard bankers decided to bet on him and open him some credit lines. If he could convince them that he had a chance of winning, then all his financial problems will found an answer. The first obstacle was probably the biggest one. Crossing the Alps with an army. Not only the heights makes this obstacle big, but the fact that on the other side was King Louis of Arles. He controlled the crossing points and he could easily deny him for crossing.
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[1] Astonishingly was spoken neither by Sun Tzu, nor by Machiaveli but by "Michael Corleone" in The Godfather Part II (1974)
[2] Reference to Philip III the Great (of TTL) and Charlemagne
[3] From “A song of ice and fire” maybe?
[4] One of the temporary capitals of the Black Horde (the Khan travelled a lot with his court).
[5] From
http://www.bosniafacts.info/early-history/the-medieval-bosnia
[6] The Black Horde do not yet mint coins of its own, despite mining considerably quantities of silver. All the coins are foreign one, obtained by trade, tribute, plunder, etc. Therefore the Grosso and the Ducats were Venetian silver and gold coins (the ducats being introduced earlier ITTL than OTL but still at its infancy), florins were Florentine (vastly used everywhere as international currency but less than in OTL, being restricted more for Italy, Levant and Eastern Europe), solidi and hyperpyrons were Byzantine gold coins adopted by both Nicaea Empire and the Roman-Bulgarian empire (1 solidus = 4.5g of Gold at 24 karats, 1 hyperpyron = 4.5g of Gold at 20.5 to 18 karats), while the gros tournois being the French currency, far more spread and used than OTL.
