"...I don’t mean to throw off the yoke of faith, Mother, I only mean to take it from the priests and use it myself."

He reached beneath the desk and drew out a bound book. He slid it across the wood to the Baroness.

It was not a Latin Bible... It was a newly made book, struck from the new printing presses at the forge. The words were printed in plain German!

Mathilda stared at the book as if it were a lit powder keg.

To give the holy words to the common folk in their own tongue was the highest heresy. It cut the priests out entirely.

"You have ordered the printing of forbidden sacred texts... this is the beginning of a real schism," Mathilda whispered, stunned.

Rustle... He opened the cover and turned to the Epistle to the Romans. He tapped his finger against the thirteenth Chapter.

Conrad said in his lecture, "The words strongly command obedience to the ruling masters, state that all earthly authority is from God, and decide that whoever stands against the earthly master stands against the will of God, and will suffer swift judgment."

He looked up, "The Church in Rome has hoarded these words, using Latin to hide this strict command for earthly obedience," Konrad said. "By giving the plain text to the workmen, I forge a chain upon their own minds. The toilers will read that their bowing to my rule is God’s will. They will keep their own peace."

"..." Her mother’s heart, bruised by weeks of his iron rule, cried out one last time.

She needed to believe this dark heresy was but a desperate flailing against the crushing weight of a doomed realm.

"Konrad," Mathilda pleaded, reaching out to grasp his shoulder. "I see the heavy burden of your rule. I know that saving these lands demands dark deeds. But you risk your eternal soul... I beg you, tell me you feel some dread for what you bring upon this house."

Konrad felt her hand upon his shoulder and deemed it a useless touch. He stood up, slipping from her grasp.

"I know all I must of the Emperor’s roads, the strength of our wheellocks, and the reach of our great guns. My soul is a useless thing here on Earth."

Tap... tap... He tapped the cover of the German book. "I give you a new task. You shall cease your vain fasting in the chapel. You shall take this translated book. You shall gather the wives of the smiths and oversee their reading. You shall ensure the teaching of absolute obedience to the earthly lord is rooted in every home before the season turns."

Mathilda stared at him. Knowing no pleas would sway him, she slowly took up the book. She gave a stiff nod, turned, and left the room.

Konrad unrolled a fresh sheet of parchment and began charting the lessons for a gathering of the smiths.

...

A few hours later, down in the damp heat of the great forge...

Konrad stood before the newly built printing presses, watching the men ink and pull the heavy blocks.

Konrad walked to the master printer, an Augsburg man named Johannes, bought with a great sum of Fugger silver.

"The work must change at once," Konrad ordered over the roar of the mill. "The Pope’s men gather a vanguard. Holy words of obedience are no longer enough to bind the minds of the people."

Johannes wiped a mixture of black ink and sweat from his brow with a rough rag. He bowed stiffly.

"The presses run without pause, my lord," Johannes reported, "We strike four hundred pages of the holy writ every day. To change the carved blocks now will halt the work for three hours at least."

"Halt the work," Konrad commanded.

He drew a tightly rolled parchment from his satchel and unrolled it across a table.

"This is the new writ... It lays bare the true greed of the Bishop of Augsburg. It tells plainly that the priests mean to tear down this mill, strip the silver wages from these men, and force them back into the dirt as starving serfs."

"..." Johannes stared at the dense German words.

"I require ten thousand of these writs sent out within four days." Konrad commanded.

Johannes’s eyes widened. "Ten thousand? My lord, the men already toil from dawn deep into the night. Their bodies are breaking. If we force more upon them, they will drop dead at the presses."

"The work shall stretch to eighteen hours a day. You will ask the master of stores for a greater share of salted meat and strong ale to keep their strength.

Any man who fails to meet the new tally shall be stripped of his silver and sent to the brimstone pits. See it done at once." Konrad stated.

Johannes swallowed hard, "It shall be done, my lord."

"See that it is." Konrad replied, turning his back on the weary men.

He left the stifling damp of the mill and returned to the stone keep.

Konrad entered his study.

Lady Isolde was already waiting. She stood by the desk. "I have set spies and false tongues within Augsburg itself, beneath the Bishop’s very nose, and another ring within the Emperor’s Diet at Nuremberg."

"How do you send the printed writs?" Konrad asked, walking behind his desk and studying a drawing of a bursting shell.

"We use the Fugger merchants," Isolde explained. "The Bavarian and Hanseatic roads are choked by the inquisitors’ men. Yet, the priests dare not halt the Fugger silver wagons, lest they ruin their own purses.

My whisperers have hidden the writs beneath the silver in the strongboxes. The words are already passing among the city guilds and the sell-sword captains in the south."

"The trap was well set, great work," Konrad agreed.

He marked a tally on his slate. "When they read that the Bishop means to seize our forges and hoard all the wealth, they will see that the priests’ victory leaves no coin for them. They will hold back their swords."

Isolde stepped a hair closer to the desk, "The peasants beyond our borders hear the words as well, my lord. Our writs tell these poor men that marching upon our valley means fighting against the highest silver wages in the Empire... We are breeding desertion by the simple promise of bread and coin."

"...and certainly, blind faith cannot feed a hungry crowd."

konrad raised his head, "You truly serve this house to the fullest extent... Is the child still strong?"