It was believed that Frederick at first went with Otto to his secondary estate in Königsberg, further south in the periphery near the Sottl border with Hungary. Frederick liked his uncle, who had a mischevious, youthful streak despite being well into his fifties. Most importantly, he was far more lax than Frederick's mother, though, like a woman, he invested a great deal of time into gossip. Hence, Königsberg, even more remote than Pettau, quickly bored both man and boy. And so the pair traipsed back up through Styria and returned to Ehrnegg itself, near Carinthia in the Jauntal. A reassurance was given to the boy's mother that Frederick was thus learning the dull, rote responsibilities of lordship, combat, stewardship, recknoning, a little bit of politics, responsibly, of course, unlike how it went with the boy's father.
But then, a few years passed and word came to the Pettaus by accident, by way of a tired guest passing south to Rein, that Frederick was in Graz, the Styrian capital, engaging in more exciting knightly affairs - training and tournaments and feasts. He behaved, as far as his mother was concerned, as a squire under auspices of the duke, despite belonging to Salzburg. This worried Benedicta, who waited day after day for a messenger to arrive with news of the archbishop's obvious displeasure, but for whatever reason, this never happened. Envoys came and went, dealing with other matters such as dues, political reports, and, more frequently, the right to mint money, but no word ever came about her son.
Many times there were discussions of sending Ermenrich, Sigismund or Faroald up north to see what the boy was up to. And one time, Faroald did go to Graz, only to discover that Frederick was not there, but at Ehrnegg. As though he'd known of the visit beforehand. No better than a child who rushes back to bed upon hearing the footsteps of their parents, thought the chamberlain, bitterly.
The only person who knew where young Frederick of Pettau had run off to and what he got up to, was Frederick himself. His mother, too concerned with matters of status, made a mistake by sending the boy to live with his uncle instead of to relatives on his Pettau side, or to the court of Salzburg directly. Otto of Ehrnegg was no dull border castellan, but a man from the highest echelons of society, one who had just emerged from a scandal that involved the heavy hand of the Emperor Barbarossa himself. Despite his asking, Frederick never fully gleamed what, exactly, happened. A bit of stolen land from the Bishop of Gurk, a bit of retributive castle destruction and imprisonment for him and his accomplice, the ducal ministerial Reinbert of Mureck.
And then one day, the light of freedom owing to a charter signed by the emperor, the old dukes of Austria and Carinthia, the Gurk Provost, countless others. For what purposes the land had been stolen and why the bishop chose such heavy-handed retribution remained a mystery. Honor and forgiveness now bound such details to the past. What Frederick knew, however, was that Otto came from a free family, owned property strategically, was important to the security of the Empire, and had, as a younger man, been more involved in moving the great levers of the world. After the ordeal, he wanted to spend more time indulging in the twilight of his status, one not to be available to the rest of his family, who would marry into the unfree classes. His nephew just happened to follow him around.
And so, Frederick was in desolate Königsberg, overseeing the rebuilding of the castle. Frederick was at wealthier Ehrnegg, sitting around Otto's dull court, sparring with a marshal far more incompetant than his beloved Ermenrich, listening to the stories of travelers passing from Styria to Carinthia, most of which were angry diatribes about money and honor, sometimes about the Holy Land. Then, finally, Otto deemed his exile somewhat ameliorated, craved courtly life once more, and the two went to Graz. In Graz, Frederick received a high-quality military education from some of the best combative minds in the Austrian ranks. In Graz, he met the sons of men who would become his political allies and friends throughout his life: the Murecks, the Unterdrauburgs, the Mahrenbergs, the Saldenhofens, all members of the Trixen clan of Styrian ministerials.
In Graz, he went with Otto to the court of Duke Leopold, traveled with him and the duke and five hundred other knights to the emperor's great Diet in Mainz, ate resplendent food and heard transcendent stories from the best poets, lived among indulgent finery and beautiful women. In Graz, he cavorted in halls in which everything was gilded and dripping with gemstones and sumptuous, albeit differently, taverns and whorehouses alike. And, above all, in Graz, he learned of the deeply incestuous politics of Empire. This delighted him to no end. Leopold was married to Helena, daughter of the King of Hungary; his uncle was the Bishop of Friesing, and his grandmother's first marriage brought into the world none other than the Duke of Swabia, whose son was Frederick Barbarossa. Who wasn't Leopold related to? William of Montferrat, by marriage to one aunt! The Duke of Bohemia, by marriage to the other! And they all took up the cross together, where they had even more relatives off in Jerusalem.
For many years, Frederick stayed in Graz. Sometimes he traveled with the duke to Vienna, which was even bigger and full of more thrills and temptations. But, after acquiring enough skill and self-confidence, the young man had a desire to visit the Lungau, where his family kept their ancestral holdings, where there existed a castle called Stein, the founding castle of the Pettaus, which he wanted to see. A rite of passage, of sorts. A secular pilgrimage. His mother and father often spoke of castles and fiefs managed in absentia, near the monastery of St. Paul, castles and fiefs over which his father, long ago, had gone to war with his own uncle.
These things, being worth perhaps everything, Frederick desired to reinforce as being his. He wanted to surprise whoever was there with his presence. You will see, the Lord of Pettau, albeit a boy, he thought, is already mired in political affairs. He will not be his father, but he will not be passive and uninvolved either. He will be different. You will perhaps like him more. And so, he asked permission of his uncle to travel with Reimbert of Mureck, who was serving as an envoy from Leopold to Italy, his son of the same name, and two other boys from the same clan - Alfred of Mahrenberg and Gottfried of Trixen.
With this leave granted, the party set off for the west. They took the Jauntal route, as the Trixens wished to pay visits to family they had not seen in quite some time. All of their castles were situated a few miles from one another along the Drau. They controlled everything there, and it was not easy, as the Drau route was particularly suceptible to brigandry. Thus, the Trixens acquired rather militaristic personalities, and their castles were less devoted to delicate arched windows and tapestries and more to high, precipitous towers from which could be seen the whole landscape. Every day, they descended from their hills, patrolled the river, sent men into the woods to root out bandits and question travelers. Such hard work, as hard work does, later lent itself to play, abated what was miserly in such a family.
Hence, Frederick found himself well-fed and well-wined in the Trixen estate of Mahrenberg, where Alfred was gratefully reunited with his mother, who to his chagrin, kept him there. It was here that the young man learned of the Unterdrauburg daughter for the first time, though he did not see her, as she was in her own castle, still very much a girl, too young for any man's liking. A few days were spent hunting in the rich Styrian woods, and many great fish were caught in the river and prepared for dinner. Then, the group continued on, journeyed passed Klagenfurt where they replenished thier supplies, to fortified Hollenburg where Frederick met a ducal ministerial named Swiker with a brigand's persona and an eye for trade. Hollenburg watched over the whole world from its strong perch, and anyone wanting to venture south from Klagenfurt into Carinthia had to do so under its auspices. This made the ministerials there extremely rich. In this household, Frederick and his companions stayed for a week, after which everyone left remembering one another.
At Hollenburg, the time had come for the young lord to part ways with his Trixen comrades. Frederick, despite being only sixteen, asked solemn permission to go alone, and it was given, along with a warning - the feud his father waged was not forgotten in the Lungau or in the St. Paul fiefs, and safe passage would not be ascertained until he got closer to Salzburg proper. Or, in Swiker's words, "a boy his age would fetch a pretty ransom." Swiker lent the young lord five men, armed them, provided them with packmules. Stein was two days riding, including some backtracking, and Frederick passed the time in a state of anxiety about how he would be received. Word of mouth and intution led them to the foot of the castle. Small, Stein was, nigh windowless, oriented around a single tower. The men approached it. They carried Hollenburg flags, knowing that to carry Pettau flags through those parts was to risk an ambush, not that they had any. Frederick himself wore his uncle's escutcheon on his surcoat.
But then, the most curious thing happened, as though in a dream. The men called out to the castle, presences were announced. The gate remained closed. They knocked. They heard nothing. No signs of life. Frederick grew nervous, thinking this to be an omen, or worse, that the castle was now in hostile hands. Not even birds twittered. The wind itself lurched into stagnancy. The young men stood there for a long time, unsure of their next steps. It dawned on Frederick slowly that people weren't hiding from him - no one was there. The castle stood abandoned, an empty husk, air passing in and out, bereft of souls. Behind the gate, though he didn't know it himself, was a layer of soot two fingers deep on every stone surface, the whole face of the castle a black, empty maw, because Frederick's father had burned it according to the same petty, self-destructive logic: better there be no history, no ancestral place of Pettau return than one beholden to an enemy.
Frederick sat on his horse for at least an hour, at a loss for what to do. He wasn't traveling as a Pettau, and as a young boy, had no recourse. Even though his family held more land in the Lungau, he hadn't a clue how to find it. Asking would have raised suspicions. Besides, he was tired and disappointed, vexed by the mysterious emptiness of the world he'd traveled through. The world of so many high family stories, only to find it desolate, full of treacherous mountain passes and strings of farms no different than those surrounding Pettau. This disappointment made it clear that his aims and those of his father, would be very different. Frederick understood that the future lied in the cities, in politics, not in piecemeal feuds and squabbles, not in ambitious plans tackled by way of individual means in strung out lands, but through decisive, singular moves forward. He needed big others. He needed to be everywhere and anywhere, with everyone and anyone. And so, he decided to go to Salzburg to finally meet his suzerain. In other words, to become known. He began, once more, on another journey.
The terrain was difficult, and resources were quickly exhausted. Desperate, Frederick and the Hollenburg men were relieved to see the familiar flag of the archbishop flittering atop the keep of a large castle built from dark gray stone. This was Katsch, near the Katschburg Pass deep in the Alps, and it was here Frederick met a rather morose yet colorful young man a few years older called Ortolf. Ortolf of Katsch, last of a free family, married a Salzburg ministerial, a quiet, elusive woman named Gerbirg, and thus, against his will, became a Salzburg man himself. In Katsch, Ortolf, happy to receive him, regaled Frederick with the many stories he had heard in passing from French crusaders, though the stories fell a bit flat without the accompaniment of song. He told these stories as quickly as possible, as though afraid of forgetting them. Stories of dwarfs in the Rhine, dragons and dragon slayers, the usual tournaments with a thousand participants jousting on the same field.
Many of these Frederick had heard told differently at Leopold's court. Others were extraordinary love stories truly in the French tradition. The most salient involved two lovers willing to stab one another's eyes out for being unfaithful. More of interest to Frederick, however, was Ortolf's political situation. Bitterly, he told Frederick that, in exchange for a large sum of money, two castles were being built in the Diocese of Gurk under the auspices of the Archbishop. Rather near Königsberg, it turned out. "Will you move there also?" Frederick asked, hoping for a new neighbor. To which Ortolf looked nervously towards his wife and said, "I would prefer to stay in Katsch, but it is not my decision." Ortolf, too, lent Frederick some men, including his heavy-set marshal Dietrich. This pleased Frederick, as an archiepiscopal accompaniment would help smooth matters over with his betters.
Hence, a week or so later, Frederick entered Salzburg and joined the stodgier, less beautiful court of the archbishop Adalbert, who was touched by the story of the young man's journey. My lord, said Frederick, down on one knee, I traveled all the way here from Graz and Vienna, where my uncle kept me in the court of the Duke of Austria, which I knew, despite my having no say in what my uncle chose to do with me as his squire, was the wrong place for me to be. And so I asked permission to travel across all of Carinthia, through mountains, and in lands that are held by enemies of my father, borrowing men along the way despite my youth, to see you here with my own eyes for the first time since my father's passing. I have done this in atonement for my father's actions, and with the blessing of my noble mother.
Begrudge me, my lord, if you will, for traveling with men of the duke, but do not begrudge them, as they are friends of my uncle, whom you know is free, and thus they guarded me well. Ortolf of Katsch as well should be commended for also aiding in my protection. He sends his warmest regards. I must now ask humbly if these men can stay at your court and rest as compensation for delivering me safely. I present myself, Frederick III of Pettau, to you not as a young lord, but as a squire in search of service, and in such service know that I am yours, my lord. I am.
And so, for some time, Frederick kept by the old man's side, tended to the Archbishop's men who came in need of assistance, listened to lesser poets, ate lesser meals, heard lesser gossip, delivered lesser gossip of his own, though there were, of course, real moments of politics in which Frederick participated as a mere observer, knowing that his time had not yet come. At any rate, the duke and the archbishop - two cousins! - were mere rivals, certainly not enemies. Adalbart, indulgent Bohemian that he was, seemed more interested in the trappings of the duke's court and his plans for going on crusade than any trenchant political intrigue. In those months spent with the Archbishop, Frederick envisioned himself as a kind of dog, sitting loyally beside the Archbishop's throne, his sovereign's wrinkly hand atop his head, signet ring flittering between strands of black hair. Nothing more, of course, than a young squire.
But, it should be said, Frederick proved himself an exceptional squire, especially in a tournament setting, and they did have tournaments from time to time in Salzburg. He could arm and disarm a knight quickly, fashion a tourniquet tightly, paint a spear with precision, wrangle a traumatized horse. Brave owing to his wit and the emerging, broad-shouldered strength of his body, even in adolescence, he could hold his own in a fight, especially hand-to-hand. He loved the sport of combat and the combat of sport. He exuded competence. Rarely a braggart, especially not in front of anyone important, he could remain extraordinarily calm. Violence ceased to faze him after a certain age, for years of exposure had inured him to it. He winced often, vomited little. Strong stomach aside, he avoided judicial duels unless he particularly loathed one of the participants. There was something ugly about two men praying to the same God for deliverance dressed in the trappings of vengeance. Hangings were more dignified in the theological sense. And all that blood, pouring from necks and helmets.
No, he prefered the show and drama of the tournament, where nothing particularly serious transpired, and when it did, it was only ever the fault of the incompetent participant and everyone felt pity. Tournaments were hotbeds of good and bad speech. They were beautiful to watch: silken tents, caparisoned horses, artfully wrought armor, women in their best dresses, people dancing around each other demurely, the glee of sport. While other squires vied for attention and merit, Frederick knew that humility was always best rewarded, and nothing could be more valuable than merely standing around and eavesdropping on whoever one found interesting.
Socially, Frederick knew exactly how obsequious to be in any given situation, and thus, everyone liked him. He was someone and no one, belonging to everyone and belonging only to himself. Few truly knew him, which protected him from slander. Those who did know him were also known enough by him to keep them bound in a pact of mutual complicity. He never went to a whorehouse alone. To stranger and friend, he lied easily and guilelessly. He lied as a child lies, supplicating his stories to fit each conversation, adding small embellishments to flatter and entertain, amending the truth in ways plausible enough to evade consequence. His was a languid confidence. His was a way with words. Pleasant, people called Frederick, and extremely bright. And he was those things.
But within him, there existed a fundamental separation, a detachment. An outsideness, or perhaps an interiority. Everyone else seemed to throw their lot in with one another, drank until the point of madness, fell in love. But he always seemed to be watching. If he ceased his interminable observation for even a moment, dread pulled him back in. Hence, he found kinship in learned people and priests, those who kept hidden instead of being flung from conflict to conflict, passion to passion. The latter only ever ended in disaster. Perhaps, he often wondered, this was the lesson he learned from observing his father, who devoted himself monomaniacally to the cause of Hungary and died young and on bad terms. Like his father, fighting aroused a powerful frisson in Frederick, but it wasn't as though he lacked feeling in the first place. While he envied the prosaic emotions of the court poets, he felt real tenderness for his family and friends and gratitude towards his uncle and admiration for the Duke and skepticism towards the Archbishop. Shame and embarrassment were such strong emotions to him, he structured his very life around never having to experience them.
He was an ordinary man, felt ordinary desire for tavern girls, maidens, and whores. He could even be sensual, enjoyed music, art, physical touch. And yet, still, this implacable distance. This sense that he could not give himself away to anything or anyone completely. It became most apparant to him when he began engaging in sexual intercourse, something he did with a yearning to be overwhelmed, unmade, completely subsumed by another, which he never was. He felt pleasure, enjoyed it, and yet, when he approached his moment of climax, it took nothing from him. In fact, he became the most aware of himself, mind expertly cloven from body. He would look down at the woman beneath him, thinking, Oh, it is happening now, isn't it? Then the pleasure came and he watched it pass with little more than a sigh. And he enjoyed it. He was thankful. He sought more of it, wondering whether the next time, it would be different.
Because he had been gone for so long, everyone at home was very curious about Frederick's exploits. Ermenrich wished to know more about the young man's training, from which he walked away highly skilled. And so Frederick told him: "My uncle had made for me sets of armor as I grew from boyhood, even full mail hauberks, down to my knees, mail hose and shoes as I aged and became more capable of carrying it. It took me some time to get used to the shield, as holding the sword one-handed makes me less agile. Lance-work, horse-work, wrestling, in those great tilting fields of the duke, I whittled away at it all. I trained with a man named Sigiboto, one of the duke's marshals, a friend of Rainbert of Mureck. He had seen much conflict over the course of his life, as testified to by a large scar above his eye.
A big man, Sigiboto was, as wide as he was tall. He had a good sense of humor, I think. He laughed too much, however, when people got hurt. I trained alongside the Trixen boys, and we became quite good at sparring with one another, holding nothing back. But the method itself was not so different from yours, Ermenrich, all those little routines that eventually become a language. When we were wearing Norman helmets, it was easier to see our opponents, but then the barbiere came into fashion - I see it has done so here as well - and our mouths were suddenly covered by more than just the coif, which at first made it hard to breathe.
I should say, despite our decadence we were not trained so much in tournament fighting. If a man wanted to learn how to joust sportingly with a lance, or perform little tricks, stealing rings off of perches and the like, he had to do so on his own time. This never interested me, though it charmed many others. We were trained for war, where the rules of courtly honor are unfortunately more lenient. Many injuries were had in our sparring, especially broken noses and fingers, even with the gloves. My shoulder was thrown out of joint, my ankle turned. Once, my eye was swollen shut for at least a week after a run in with a stray pommel. Some scars grace my arm from the bite of others' swords. Yet here I am.
You know, borrowing from the French, they wear images from their crests on their helmets now, the high princes and ministerials. Our crest is so complex, all I could think to do was fashion a wooden arch for the top of my helm, though I never got the time to execute such a thing..." Ermenrich listened to such talk, enraptured. When Frederick finished his chatter, he always said something to the effect of, "As I was learning, I thought of you often." And it was true. Of all the people he had tenderness for, Ermenrich, a second father to him, was among the most esteemed.
Sigismund, meanwhile, asked Frederick to tell him more about the inner workings of all the castles and courts he'd been to, the conditions of their peasants. And so Frederick told him: "I can assure you, Sigismund, that you are not lacking anything in the way you conduct your business. The only differences are differences of scale. The duke's lands are so vast, their inner workings are unknown to me. His castles have immense cellars, endless servants coming to and fro with lanterns in thier hands. Every room has a hearth. The forests are strictly managed, with many kept private for only the duke's pleasure. His court is large and filled with finely made couches, with room for hundreds of people at once.
A city is not the same as a town like Pettau. The duke collects tolls and other such taxes to help pay for the costs of running his army and court, and this is perhaps something we should think about for our Pettau, through which so many people pass. Income comes, too, from minting coins. As far as his harvests, I saw nothing save for the goods that arrived by the cartload. I doubt Leopold or any other lord is fairer to his peasants than we are to ours, though I heard rumors of new ways of measuring grain being devised, ways less prone to dispute. When we send Siegfried to Graz in a few years, he will learn more about such things.
It amazes me most of all how Leopold could coordinate so many different servants, the attendants for the ladies, a hundred pages tending to the feasts. His stewards had stewards. It was easy being a page there, I must say. One didn't have to do so much work, as the work was distributed fairly. Our pages, on the other hand, have to sweat for their bread. What we should invest in, however, are some quality squires. I grow tired now of the roughness of the sons from the garrison ranks. We Pettaus hold other estates - why not solicit the company of our castellans' sons? Besides, I could stand to hear from our men at Katzenstein one of these days."
Faroald tried and failed to seek the latest political intrigue, realizing rather soon that Frederick was far too intelligent to tell him everything. Lothar sought lurid details about the women. The girls wanted to know about the fetes and parties, and Henry and Arnold, contrary to their priestly fates, wanted to hear about the tournaments. And so Frederick told them about the Mainz feast. "Let me tell you about the most splendid thing I have ever seen with the eyes God gave me. In Mainz, the emperor sought to hold a feast at which he would knight his two sons. And to this feast the duke was invited along with five hundred of his men, among whom was my uncle.
And each of these knights had to rouse for themselves an entourage of pages and squires, attendants for the women, as is customary for any other gathering. However, this being the emperor's feast, nothing was spared in matters of pomp and expense. Never had the wives, daughters, and seamstresses of the world been so employed as they were then, producing clothes to the best of their ability. To their great praise, the clothes our men wore exceeded all previous finery. I was outfitted with a squirrel-lined mantle, a silken surcoat bright yellow in color that hung high enough to see the the best parts of my legs, if you don't mind me saying so. My sleeves, I must confess, rivaled those of a woman. And this was only me, a squire!
Me and my companions spent day and night packing mules and horses, caparisoning the chargers, painting lances for the tournaments, readying the tents which were as big as houses, all fashioned from brocaded cloth, damask on the inside. The duke made quite an image when he left Vienna - we were in Vienna then. You can see from our towers how the Drau shimmers, a big mirror forged in the middle of the world when the sun arrives at a specific place in the sky near evening. We were like that as we flittered from town to town in our armor, peasants and vassals alike stopping and staring at us all the while. So many people there were, it was as though a whole country was on march, and many fields were left trampled in our wake, the roads worn better than if by draughthorses. When we arrived at Mainz, we were not the first. On the contray, whole plains were covered in tents. There were innumerable people on that field, more people than could be reckoned by Sigismund or even the great Saracen reckoners of the east."
"But not beyond our Siegfried," said Benedicta sweetly.
"Yes," mused Frederick. "Where is Siegfried? And Walther. You should go fetch them, Henry." And so Henry found Siegfried and Walther and together they all sat at the table in the great hall while Frederick continued his tale.
"The Duke of Bohemia was there, as was the Landgrave of Thuringia, each with a thousand knights, and the emperor's brother Bernhard, Count Palatine, brought another thousand more. Along the horizon, one could see the most fabulous constructions. No extant castle could house so many knights, and there was never enough time to build out of stone, and so an entire palace, as grand as any other, was made from wood, complete with a great church and living quarters for all the imperial princes. An entire city was erected for the chickens alone, coops as tall as a bergfried. The livestock surpassed people, entire fields crammed with pigs - pink as far as the eye could see, like a great tongue.
Enough wine flowed to form its own river, or replace the Drau. On Whitsunday, I saw him for the very first time, the emperor. The field parted for him, a thousand men lined up in rows to get a look at him, and despite his age - no more red in that famous beard - one could not help but stare in admiration as he walked, draped in ermine and gold, the beautiful empress by his side in fabric that shone like the sun itself. His son Henry was there also, young and bright-eyed, already wearing the topaz-coated German crown. Barbarossa was blessed in a great ceremony, though I stood too far to see anything in detail.
"Then the feast began. What a sight it was, the endless array of foods. Chicken, pork, quail, pheasants from the north, exotic dishes and spices from the east, wine, sweet breads, dates from the Orient, vegetables I'd never seen before, not a pea in sight. Even us squires were spoiled, sitting at tables a mile long. I ate until I could eat no more, until my body hung heavy on my bones, and I drank well beyond the point of stumbling, helping my uncle all the while, whose consumption surpassed even mine.
The next day, the imperial sons, Henry and Frederick, were knighted, though I didn't see this. My task was to help the emperor haul all of his gifts - horses, mantles, cloth, gold, silver, jewelry - out to be distributed among the guests. The finest went to those who had suffered harship or had been captured in the Holy Land, though I know more than a few gemstones were pilfered by naughty squires. I myself was given a lovely girdle with a gold buckle. I saw little of the most lavish gift giving, as I had to ready the duke's horses for the game of that day, which was a game of horsemanship, where men do tricks with lances, aim at targets, collect rings. How exhausting it was, working that day. Twenty thousand men, all in need of a squire's services."
"Twenty thousand?" Interrupted Siegfried with obvious numerical skepticism.
"Yes, twenty thousand, Siegfried. You can ask anyone else who was there, and they would say the same. So much motion all at once, so many people, so many horses, so many voices, it overwhelmed me. In truth, despite the splendor, I did not like that event at all and wished I could have hidden somewhere. I fell asleep in my uncle's tent before sundown and without dinner."
"And then what?" Asked Clothilde. "And can you please tell us more about the ladies?"
Frederick smiled. "I will get to that. But the next day, something terrible happened. The wind blew horrendously, and the wooden church collapsed, along with several buildings. Some men perished. Luckily none of them were ours. It was a strange thing to see, helplessly, too, a whole building swaying to and fro like a maiden. Sadly, there was no tournament after, and everyone left. What politicking happened between the duke and the emperor, I'll never know, but for long stretches of time, all the most important men gathered to discuss matters of empire.
I, however, did what any young squire would do when presented with a fete. Spar and cavort with my friends, charm ladies. And the ladies were splended, Clothilde, their sleeves trailing all the way to the ground, their gowns made of velvet, their trains carried by two, sometimes three girls, their hair in elaborate braids and barbettes and veils, their faces powdered and lips painted, their hands covered in jewels. I am proud to say that I danced with some beautiful second daughters, always on my best behavior, stealing not even a kiss."
"And then?" asked Walther, his eyes as big as saucers.
"And then, it ended. It took a day and a half just to pack our belongings for the long march home. And all the while, I thought to myself, when I speak of such events, not one of you will ever believe me, but I swear on my life that what I've said is true. That the vastness was as vast as I have portrayed. For the rest of my life I will think of that feast, and now I have imparted it on all of you."
Training, stewardship, finery, Benedicta was less interested in such matters. What did you do? That was her only question. Often she found her eldest son at the table in the great hall, bent over a chessboard, and the sight of him never failed to move her. He'd left her a boy and returned a young man, handsome and powerful, and yet still her Frederick, always such an easy child, clever, genial and loving, the right amount of brave, well-behaved towards others. But even when he was little, she'd gotten the sense that something in her son did not belong to her or her husband. That Frederick's progress was a progress of severance beyond ordinary adolescent independence. This feeling was inarticulate in Benedicta, and if she could articulate it, it came in the form of, "he is hiding something from me." She did not trust him. She wanted to trust him. And so under the spans of arches, she sat beside her son at the table, wrapped her arms around him, rested her head on his shoulder. He smiled, covered his mother's hand with his own.
"Are you playing against yourself?" She asked him.
"No, no. Merely thinking. I wish I came from the class of people who could render truth in images, but alas, this is the best I can do."
"About what are you thinking?"
"Would you chastise me if I told you Hungary?".
"No," said his mother, "I suppose it is your right."
"There is still friction between King Béla and the duke despite the impetus to take up the cross. They are in dispute over the border further north, which has taken some of the pressure off of us in Pettau. Neither party has forgotten the episode with the Béla's brother Géza's imprisonment in Bohemia. Géza being thrown in jail wasn't necessarily the problem for Béla, it's merely that Béla preferred to be the one doing the imprisoning. You remember that, as punishment for the capture, the emperor stepped in and dethroned the Bohemian duke in favor of our archbishop's brother Frederick. This was bad enough, but ordering Leopold to invade Bohemia after the fact? Béla threatened retaliation, which would have had horrific consequences for us, but thanks to the petition of his ministerials, especially those from Styria, Leopold decided to stay his hand. Now, Béla and the emperor will reconcile, or at least I assume. But between Hungary and Austria? Things are not quite right there. It also bothers me that the pope and emperor are both so old and that the emperor's eldest son has always been sickly."
"I know the history. I lived through it," reminded his mother. "You are meandering, my love."
"Put more simply, the distraction of the Holy Land could leave both the duchy and the Salzburg border vulnerable to Hungary. I have no control over such things, but they are on my mind. Perhaps right now, a more pressing question for me is, how on earth shall I raise all the funds and men necessary to depart on crusade myself?"
"You have Sigismund for that," said Benedicta with a certain coldness.
"You do not wish me to to go," Frederick observed.
"I have only just gotten you back." She kissed his hair. "Though what woman would say no to her son taking up arms for God? I merely wish you were a little older."
Frederick said nothing.
"You still haven't told me about your travels, where you went with my brother. I was saddened that he didn't return with you."
"Well, you will be happy to know that I spent some time with the archbishop," answered Frederick, knowing this would mollify his mother. And Benedicta did brighten considerably.
"You did? For how long?"
"Half a year or so. I asked my uncle's permission to go." This was a lie, of course. Otto found out about Frederick's journey the same way most people did: by way of a Salzburg messenger.
"How is he, Adalbert?"
"Same as always. Supercilious, stubborn. Not much happened there, mother, I was passed around as squire, held court, and then returned to Ehrnegg."
"There were negotiations over the independence of the diocese of Gurk," the lady offered cautiously, "With consequences for Henry and many of our relatives, who could have gained significant advantages from there being a new archdiocese, as you know. Henry an archbishop instead of a bishop or provost, should all go to plan. And yet I recieved word that the negotiations failed despite the broad support of us ministerials. Did you by chance witness these discussions?"
Frederick bristled. "They were after I left," he lied. "It's a pity that independence wasn't granted."
But Frederick was there, and in order to ingratiate himself with the archbishop, abstained even when asked his opinion, saying, I am only a squire. Which meant: I will do as I am told. Perhaps this, more than anything - more, even, than his final promise to the archbishop to go on crusade - kept him in the good graces of his sovereign. Frederick sensed that the Gurk conflict would reopen once Adalbert died and that Hungary proved the more pressing issue. A stronger border meant an immediate expansion of wealth and power, and regardless, if he married into the Trixen family, his kinsmen would already hold most of the major fiefs of Gurk without being under the yolk of the archbishop himself.
Power could be secured autonomously through blood ties rather than through concentrated, albeit bloodless struggle. Frederick also kept close his friend Ortolf of Katsch. They should all pay me a visit, thought Frederick, the Trixens, Ortolf. He rued the complexity of the world in that moment. Intelligent as he was, it was all too hard to keep track of. Hence the chessboard. Me, Rainbert, Alfred, Gottfried, Ortolf, the duke, the archbishop, the bishop of Gurk, the king of Hungary, all tethered to one another... As he thought this, a certain clarity struck him. He began moving pieces around, lips pursed, which only seemed to further irritate his mother.
"You are still my son," said Benedicta firmly, letting go of him. "And this is still my estate. This secrecy of yours is beginning to upset me. All these vague gestures of where you were. With the duke? With our archbishop? And you say nothing happened there? When I see my brother again, you know that he will tell me everything, though I prefer to hear it from your lips. Now tell me: you left, alone, to go to Salzburg? Or did Otto go with you?"
Frederick thought to himself: Surely Otto will tell you what he knows. But he does not know everything and so your threat does not upset me. Still, he decided to answer this last question truthfully.
"I went with Rainbert of Mureck, who was sent as an envoy to Italy, his son of the same name, and a few other Styrians."
"Salzburg is not on the way to Italy."
"And so I picked up men near Klagenfurt, stayed in Salzburg castles."
"You traveled alone, which did not befit someone of your age nor status."
"Yes, I concede. But imagine the impression it had on Adalbert for me to arrive like that, just to see him."
This angered Benedicta even more. "What luck you have that the archbishop did not see such an act as a challenge or insult. Whoever heard of a rogue squire? You are already behaving like your father."
This wounded Frederick, and he wasn't above ceding control to his quick temper. He rose from where he was sitting and said, "It may not be apparant to you now, but I am fixing my father's mistakes. He left everything in pieces and me with the task of mending them. Your opinion on how I do so matters less to me than you think." The young man did not wait for his mother's response. His heart was pounding. He'd alighted upon something, sitting there at the chessboard. And like a hound, when something entered his field of vision, he would not rest until it was bleeding in his jaws.
For more information about this chapter and for a changelog regarding previous chapters, see Siegfried Weblog 2: The First Retconning!
