Days, weeks, and months passed. Today is the fourth of January, 1526.

The bitter cold of winter swept through the Swabian Valley. However, inside the lord’s private quarters, a different kind of noise filled the corridors.

"Ahhh! Damnit! Make it stop!" Isolde’s ragonizing screams pierced through the doors of the private chamber.

Out in the chilly hall, three women sat in a deeply uncomfortable silence.

Mathilda, the Dowager Baroness and Konrad’s mother, gripped her rosary so tightly her knuckles turned entirely white.

Elise, Konrad’s younger sister, sat beside her, flinching with every fresh scream that rattled the door hinges.

Sitting upright in a chair opposite them, calmly sipping a cup of hot spiced wine, was Lady Katarina of Bavaria.

"This is a curse..." Mathilda muttered bitterly, "A mockery of our ancient house. A common spymaster, giving birth to a bastard in the lord’s own bed. The Emperor’s Diet will laugh at us."

After hearing such words, Elise finally looked up from the floor, "Mother, please... keep your voice down. If Konrad’s guards hear you speak like that, he won’t care that you gave him life. You know how he is."

"Let him hear me." Mathilda spat, though she instinctively lowered her tone, glancing nervously down the hall. "That child will bring nothing but ruin upon us all. Mark my words, Elise. God does not smile upon a house built on heresy and printed lies."

Thus, the tension in the hallway grew even thicker, heavy enough to be cut with a sword.

Katarina simply smiled over the rim of her silver cup, looking unbothered by the screaming or the Dowager Baroness’s religious dread.

"You worry far too much, Dowager Baroness," Katarina said, "The child is a shield, as your son so bluntly put it. Whether it is born of a low-blooded spy or a true queen, it serves a necessary purpose to keep the Swabian Council from partitioning the lands. You should be praying to your God that it is a healthy boy... a dead infant is of no use to us."

Mathilda glared at the Bavarian noblewoman but didn’t dare argue back.

Everyone in the keep knew Katarina held the keys to the eastern supply roads, and her starving Bavarian halberdiers were the only thing acting as a buffer against the Pope’s wrath.

"Ahhhh! I’m going to kill him! I swear I’ll gut him!" Isolde shrieked from behind the door.

Elise buried her face in her hands. "How long does this take? It’s been hours..."

However, the father of this highly debated child wasn’t pacing nervously outside the delivery room. He wasn’t praying, nor was he biting his nails in anticipation.

Konrad von Frundsberg sat rigidly at his desk in his private room, located just a short walk down the hall.

Dozens of crumpled, torn pieces of expensive Hanseatic paper littered the floor like fallen snow. His fingers were stained black with charcoal dust.

"No... this pressure ratio is wrong," Konrad muttered to himself, scratching out a drawing of a brass valve.

Even so, the screams of Isolde occasionally bled through his door.

He briefly paused, his charcoal hovering halfway over the paper. He blinked, staring at the door for about two seconds, before looking back down at his schematics.

He grabbed a fresh sheet of vellum, his hand moving to sketch the new design.

The current production of his black-armored Reiters and his heavy twelve-pounder cannons was reaching a hard bottleneck.

It wasn’t a limit of Fugger silver, nor was it a limit of trained men... the water wheels of his paper mills and forges froze solid in the winter. The horses used to pull the iron ore carts needed far too much grain.

Furthermore, to truly mass-produce the refined saltpeter from Master Heinrich’s lye wash, he needed pumps that never tired.

Pumps that could drain the deep copper mines faster than fifty serfs hauling buckets... he was trying to invent an atmospheric steam engine!

Another piercing scream shook the walls, followed by the frantic shouts of the midwives.

"Come on, push! Damnit, give it one more push!"

Konrad gritted his teeth, he redrew the large boiler at the bottom of the page. Then, a pipe leading up to a thick brass cylinder. Inside the cylinder, he drew a piston connected to a massive rocking wooden beam.

"The heat turns water to steam, pushing the piston up... the cold water spray condenses it, dragging it down..."

He sat back, staring at the last torn piece of paper on his desk.

The primitive model of the steam engine was finally taking shape... it was crude, incredibly dangerous, and would likely explode in a shower of boiling iron if Master Klemens didn’t cast the metal thick enough.

But if it worked...

If it worked, the Swabian forges wouldn’t just hold off the Holy Roman Empire. They would leap three hundred years into the future!

"Viscount! Lord Konrad!" Heavy footsteps pounded down the hall, followed bydesperate knocking on his study door.

"Enter," Konrad said, not taking his eyes off the blueprint.

The door creaked open. One of the midwives stood there, her white apron stained with fresh blood, her chest heaving as she caught her breath.

"My... My Lord!" the maid gasped out, "The child is born! Lady Isolde has delivered safely!"

Konrad finally set the charcoal down. He calmly wiped his dirty hands on a linen rag.

"And?" Konrad asked. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

"It... It’s a boy, My Lord! A healthy, strong boy!"

After hearing such words, Konrad nodded.

The Swabian Diet couldn’t legally partition his lands or claim his forges now that he had a male heir, illegitimate or not.

He stood up and walked past the maid.

When he stepped out into the hallway, Mathilda, Elise, and Katarina were already standing outside Isolde’s chamber.

"Congratulations, Lord Konrad," Katarina said, her voice dripping with noble etiquette. "Your bloodline is secured."

Konrad pushed the door open and walked right into the birthing chamber.

Several servant girls were hastily cleaning up the bloody linens and carrying away buckets of water.

In the center of the large bed, Lady Isolde looked dreadful. Her dark hair was plastered to her pale, sweaty forehead, and dark bags hung under her exhausted eyes.

Wrapped tightly in a fine wool blanket in her arms was a tiny, red-faced infant, wailing at the absolute top of its lungs.

Isolde looked up as Konrad approached the edge of the bed.

"It’s a boy..." Isolde rasped, her throat hoarse from the screaming.

Konrad looked down at the screaming infant.

"You did well, Isolde," Konrad said.

Isolde let out a weak, breathy laugh, her eyes fluttering slightly. "Are you going to hold him... or just tally him in your ledger?"

"There is no need for me to hold him right now," Konrad stated. "If he catches a chill in this drafty keep and dies, all your screaming today will have been a waste."

Isolde rolled her eyes, far too tired to argue with his logic.

Konrad turned around and walked out of the room, leaving the new mother and the wet nurses to rest.

As he stepped back into the hallway, Katarina fell into step right beside him, her skirts swishing quietly.

Even so, his mind was already racing right back to the torn papers on his desk. The heir was handled.

The Bavarian alliance was holding steady... the Reiters were actively bleeding the Teutonic supply lines dry in the north.

They walked in silence until they reached his study door. Konrad placed his hand on the handle, but before he pushed it open, Katarina leaned in slightly, closing the distance between them.

"You’ve secured your lands for now, Konrad," Katarina said softly, "But Duke Wilhelm, expects my own marriage to you to take place before the spring thaws. He wants his legitimate grandson. When will this happen?"

Konrad pushed the door open, his eyes falling upon the charcoal drawing of the primitive steam engine resting on his desk.