Three days passed since the night raid at Calais. As expected, Duke Odo decided he could not solve this problem on his own. He wrote a detailed letter explaining the failure of the siege.

The messenger rode a brown horse for three days straight. He was desperate to reach the Emperor, hoping for a genius response helping them take the city.

The messenger finally arrived at the palace. He ran up the stairs and pushed open the door to the main throne room.

Inside the throne room, Emperor Louis the Germanic was holding a court discussing with his advisors what they should do about the upcoming winter taxes.

The throne room had a stone floor and a wooden table. Twenty generals, bishops, and tax collectors stood around it.

The messenger ran into the room and fell to his knees on the floor. He handed the rolled parchment directly to the Emperor.

"Your Majesty!" the messenger said, breathing heavily. "This is an urgent report from Duke Odo at Calais. The Holy Order army is completely halted. They need your response. The knights are dying, and the siege towers are destroyed!"

Emperor Louis unrolled the parchment.

Duke Odo explained that the Northern barbarians, led by Commander Bjorn, did not use swords or arrows. They used heavy brass tubes called cannons.

The letter also detailed that the enemy had three thousand soldiers holding smaller iron tubes called muskets.

The letter continued to explain that when the Frankish army tried a night raid, the Vikings shot buried clay jars filled with black powder. The explosion vaporized one thousand light infantrymen instantly!

Furthermore, the Vikings fired canisters filled with scrap metal that killed four hundred knights.

Duke Odo ended the letter by stating that the remaining knights were currently starving, sick from smoke inhalation, and refusing to fight. Odo begged the Emperor for a new strategy to take the city.

The twenty men in the court started shouting in panic.

Heavy cavalry was the foundation of the Frankish military. It cost one hundred and fifty silver coins to train and equip a single knight with steel plate and a warhorse.

If a simple peasant from the North could point an iron tube and kill a fully armored knight from two hundred and fifty yards away in one second, the entire economic and military structure of the Frankish Empire was completely obsolete!

"This is impossible!" shouted Bishop Thomas. "God is supposed to protect our men! These Northern demons are using dark magic. We must order the men to pray louder and march again!"

"If Duke Odo marches the men again, they will all die. If we lose that army, we have no defense left for the capital." Emperor Louis replied.

General Lothar stepped forward. He was the commander of the capital defense forces, responsible for the remaining ten thousand reserve soldiers.

"Your Majesty, we cannot simply tell Duke Odo to surrender. If we surrender Calais, King Ragnar will have a permanent fortress on our mainland. He will bring more of these cannons. He will march on Paris, and then he will march on Frankfurt. We must send reinforcements. I can gather five thousand spearmen and march north tomorrow."

Emperor Louis shook his head. "General Lothar, a spearman needs to be within fifteen feet of an enemy to stab him. The musket kills at two hundred and fifty yards. Your five thousand spearmen will be dead before they even see the whites of the Vikings’ eyes."

The Emperor sat down on his chair. He rested his chin on his hand.

"We need to steal their knowledge." Emperor Louis announced to the court.

The court fell silent.

"Messenger," Emperor Louis said, pointing at the man on the stone floor. "You will rest for five hours. Then, you will take a fresh horse and ride back to Duke Odo at Calais. You will give him my exact orders."

"Yes, Your Majesty," the messenger said. "What are your orders?"

"Duke Odo is to completely stop all direct attacks on the stone walls of Calais,"

"He is to maintain the siege camp at a safe distance of one mile. He will keep the Vikings trapped inside the city, but he will not engage them in combat. Instead, he will focus entirely on capturing a single Northern soldier alive, preferably one holding a musket. I do not care how many gold coins he has to spend to bribe local smugglers, or how many spies he has to send into the city through the sewers. I want a musket brought to Frankfurt."

General Lothar nodded. "If we have one of their iron tubes, our blacksmiths can take it apart."

"Exactly," Emperor Louis said. "We have hundreds of blacksmiths. If King Ragnar can build an army, so can I."

The Emperor stood up from his chair. "Even if I have to copy every single blueprint King Ragnar ever drew. Send the messenger!"

The advisors bowed their heads, feeling a sudden surge of hope.

***

In a small, quiet duchy located in the southern territory of Francia, Queen Ermentrude sat on a wooden chair.

The wooden chair was pushed up against a long table in the center of a simple stone house.

Queen Ermentrude was the mother of Louis the Stammerer.

Sitting on a bench across from the Queen were her four other children. Charles the Younger was sixteen years old. Carloman was fourteen years old. Rotrude was an eighteen-year-old princess who was currently sewing a plain wool tunic.

Gisela was the youngest princess at twelve years old, and she was eating a piece of hard cheese.

The door of the stone house suddenly opened.

A loyal servant named Pierre walked into the room. Pierre was a spy who worked for the Queen’s family. He gathered information from the local taverns and brought it back to the stone house.

Today, Pierre looked incredibly out of breath and very excited.

"My Queen!" Pierre said, bowing his head. "I bring massive news from the northern coast. The Holy Order army has been completely defeated at the city of Calais!"

Queen Ermentrude stopped resting her hands on the table. She leaned forward. "Defeated? By whom? How could heavy cavalry lose a battle?"

"They were defeated by the Iron Kingdom," Pierre explained, "The grand army of Francia is completely broken."

Queen Ermentrude did not care about the military tactics. She cared about her oldest son. Louis the Stammerer had fled to England months ago.

He had traveled to City Titan and had become the chief engineer for King Ragnar Ulfsson.

Louis the Stammerer was the man responsible for building the exact muskets and cannons that were currently destroying the Frankish army.

A joyful smile spread across Queen Ermentrude’s face.

"Do you hear this news, my children?" Queen Ermentrude said, "Your older brother, Louis, is a true genius! He went to the Iron Kingdom as a poor exile, and he has become a loyal and powerful friend to King Ragnar Ulfsson."

Rotrude stopped sewing her wool tunic. "Mother, do you really think King Ragnar is fighting this massive war just for Louis?"

"Of course he is!" Queen Ermentrude declared. She firmly believed this personal goal.

"Why else would a Northern king bring thousands of men to our shores? King Ragnar Ulfsson is an honorable man. Louis must have convinced him to cross the ocean and destroy the army of Emperor Louis the Germanic. King Ragnar is fighting this war to restore the throne of Francia for your brother! Louis will be the true King again, and we will finally return to the palace in Frankfurt!"

Gisela finished her cheese and clapped her hands.

"Louis is going to be the King! Louis is going to be the King!"

However, Carloman did not clap. The fourteen-year-old boy frowned and looked at his mother.

"Mother," Carloman said, "If King Ragnar is winning the war, that means Louis the Germanic is losing. When an Emperor loses a war, he looks for a way to force his enemy to surrender."

Queen Ermentrude’s looked at her son. "What do you mean, Carloman?"

"I mean that Emperor knows that our brother is the man building the weapons for the Iron Kingdom," Carloman explained.

"If Emperor Louis the Germanic wants to stop Louis, he will send his royal guards here. He will simply take us hostage. He will put swords to our necks and tell our brother to surrender, or we will die."

In the Carolingian Empire, taking family members hostage was the most common way to resolve a political dispute.

Emperor Louis the Germanic commanded ten thousand reserve soldiers in the capital. He could easily send five hundred men to this small stone house.

"You are right, Carloman," Queen Ermentrude said, standing up quickly from her chair. "...we cannot stay in this stone house for another day."

"Where will we go, Mother?" Charles the Younger asked, gripping the hilt of his iron sword. "I can fight them if they come!"

"You cannot, Charles," Queen Ermentrude told him directly. "We must go to your brother."

"We will pack our things immediately," Queen Ermentrude ordered, "Rotrude, Gisela, go to your beds and pack only your plainest wool clothes. We must look like poor merchants so the local patrols do not recognize us. Charles, you will take the leather bag from under my bed. It contains three hundred gold coins. That is all the wealth we have left. Carloman, you will help Pierre burn all of our letters and documents so the Emperor’s men find no clues when they arrive."

"How will we get across the water?" Carloman asked. "The ports are heavily guarded by the local Dukes."

"We will not use a main port," Pierre, the spy, answered. "I know a smuggler who operates a small boat in a hidden cove ten miles from here. His name is Jacques. For fifty gold coins, he will take us across the English Channel. It will be a rough journey, but the boat is fast and avoids the military ships."

"Excellent." Queen Ermentrude said. She walked over to a chest and pulled out a thick wool cloak. She wrapped it around her shoulders.

Within one hour, the family of Louis the Stammerer had completely packed their bags.

The walk to the hidden cove took four hours. They stayed hidden behind large bushes and tall grass every time they heard horses approaching.

Finally, they arrived at the hidden cove. A small wooden boat was tied to a wooden post in the shallow water.

A man with a thick beard and dirty clothes was sitting on a crate. This was Jacques the smuggler.

Pierre stepped forward and handed Jacques fifty gold coins from the bag. Jacques bit one of the coins to make sure it was real gold. He nodded and pointed to the boat.

"Get in quickly," Jacques said. "Sit on the benches and do not make any noise."

Queen Ermentrude stepped into the boat. She sat down on the hard bench.

Her children climbed in after her. Pierre untied the rope from the wooden post. Jacques pushed the boat into the deeper water and raised the canvas sail.

The wind caught the sail, and the small boat began to move away from the Frankish coast...