Buda, the capital of Hungary.
The terrace of the royal palace looked down on the Danube, and though the air of spring was fully upon it, the atmosphere that hung there was colder than the dead of winter.
The master of the terrace, Sigismund von Luxembourg, sat buried deep in a lavishly ornamented chair.
Fifty-two years old. For a man of the medieval age, an age that had already entered its twilight.
Yet his eyes still burned like a bird of prey's, and his red beard carried the dignity of a lion's mane.
The son of Charles IV, the man called the father of Bohemia.
At the age of twenty he had stood against the great host of the Ottoman Turks at Nicopolis, and he had convened the Council of Constance to reunite the papacy that had been split in three: the arbiter of Europe.
No one in Europe could raise an objection to his authority, and even the Pope had to read his mood. The summit of secular power.
"Your Majesty. An urgent report has arrived from Prague."
Sigismund idly turned the golden cup of Tokaji wine in his hand and asked.
"Speak. Now that my brother Wenceslas is dead, have those heretics at last announced their surrender?"
A leisurely smile hung at the corner of his mouth.
His elder brother, Wenceslas IV, had been incompetent and idle.
Now that such a man was dead, the crown of Bohemia returning to its rightful successor, to himself, was as natural a principle as the sun rising in the east.
Granted, some soldier for the ages named Jan Žižka had come leaping out of nowhere and the crusade he had so lovingly assembled had been broken like a dog...
But that was only because he had let his guard down for a moment, and there would not be a second time. Of that Sigismund was firmly convinced.
But the words that came out of the messenger's mouth shattered the emperor's expectations into fragments.
"Th-that is not it, Your Majesty... the Count of Šternberk..."
"Šternberk? Ah, you mean that boy Ulrich? I hear he somehow drove off the Hussite army that stormed his castle. Has he caused some sort of trouble?"
"That man... has raised himself to the throne of Bohemia."
CRASH—!
The golden cup slipped from Sigismund's hand and fell to the floor. The red wine soaked the marble like blood.
Silence flowed. It was a suffocating silence.
"...Say that again."
The messenger swallowed dryly.
The man before him was the cold-blooded creature who had put Jan Hus on the pyre and slaughtered thousands of heathens. One wrong word and his head would come off.
"The C-Count of Šternberk... proclaimed himself king in the Old Town Square of Prague."
"King?"
Sigismund's mouth twisted.
"The crown of Bohemia is mine. From the moment my brother died, that crown became a sacred object that only I may wear! And now some scrap of a backwater count, a man whose very lineage is uncertain, dares to usurp the title of king?"
"B-but, Your Majesty... the citizens of Prague are calling him the King of Bohemia and going wild for him."
"King of the mob?"
Sigismund let out a hollow laugh.
"Who is king? I am the rightful King of Bohemia! He is nothing but a heretic and a usurper of the throne!"
"I-it is the truth! The Count is..."
"He is not a count!"
Sigismund kicked himself up out of his seat. The chair toppled backward with a clattering din.
"Does he not know that even that title of count was granted by my recognition! And still he dares to betray me? That thief... that pretender... that Heretic King!"
Sigismund glared at the map hanging on the wall and shouted. His gaze was fixed on the heart driven into the center of the map: Prague.
"Scribe! Take up your pen! Send a letter to the papal court in Rome. No, issue a decree to every prince in Europe!"
His voice struck the high ceiling of the palace.
"This is no longer the mere suppression of a rebellion. This is a holy war!"
"Y-Your Majesty... do you mean to proclaim a crusade?"
"I do! Those filthy heretics have stolen my crown and usurped the title of king! My rage will not be quenched until I have carved the flesh from their bodies and ground their bones to powder!"
Sigismund drew the sword at his waist. The livid blade flashed as it caught the light of the chandelier.
CRASH!
He drove the sword down. The point pierced Prague on the map exactly and buried itself in the table.
Sigismund's eyes narrowed like a snake's.
"Summon every prince-elector of the empire. Albrecht of Austria, Frederick of Saxony, Frederick of Brandenburg... scrape together every soldier that can gather beneath my banner."
With a trembling hand, he gripped the hilt of the sword driven into the table.
"Go and tell him. Tell him the emperor is coming. Tell him I will cut off his head and hang it on Charles Bridge, so he should wash his neck clean and wait for me!"
"I-I obey your command!"
The messenger fled the audience chamber as though escaping.
Sigismund dragged in rough breaths and looked down at the floor drenched with blood-colored wine.
"Ulrich von Šternberk......"
The sound of grinding teeth followed.
That red stain looked like the sea of blood that would soak the fields of Bohemia in the days to come.
"Fifty thousand."
Sigismund muttered.
"No, a hundred thousand. I will march with the greatest army in the history of Europe. Even if I have to fill the walls of Prague with corpses, I will hang your head in the middle of that square."
The red fox's eyes glistened with murderous intent.
***
The air of Prague Castle, where the excitement of the coronation had not yet faded, was still taut with a subtle heat and tension.
The royal palace where I now stayed was filled with a luxury that could not even be compared to the lord's chamber of Šternberk.
Instead of damp, gloomy stone walls, enormous tapestries embroidered with intricate work in gold and silver thread.
Instead of creaking wooden floors, Anatolian carpets that swallowed even the sound of footsteps into softness.
Even the windows were not oiled paper but real glass, transparent and well polished.
Luxuries that on their own equaled a full year's income from a small estate.
I crossed the room slowly and approached the window. Beyond the clear glass, the whole view of Prague spread out like a painting.
An endless wave of red tile roofs. The Vltava River cutting leisurely through them like a silver band. And hundreds of Gothic spires rising as if to pierce the sky.
The heart of this city, and now my kingdom.
The crowd that had been cheering itself hoarse for me only moments ago now looked as small as ants far below.
My reflection was faintly cast on the window glass.
A man dressed in luxurious silk, a jeweled crown on his head.
A man who only a few weeks ago had been a modern twenty-first-century person wandering an unfamiliar land, and who until yesterday had been the shabby country lord of Šternberk.
But now I had become the master of this palace and of the Kingdom of Bohemia.
'A king, huh...'
The cheers that had filled St. Vitus Cathedral. The roar of the crowd bursting out toward me.
That had not been a blessing. The masses had poured every last drop of their hope, their rage, and their expectation into the vessel that was me.
Because they needed a hero to save them from this hellish reality.
'And I gladly took the role.'
Once you stand on the stage, there is no way down.
Now there was only one thing I could do.
End this story with a conclusion that would satisfy everyone, and that I wanted.
That was when it happened.
Knock, knock.
A familiar knock broke my thoughts.
"Come in."
The one who opened the heavy oak door and entered was János.
He let his eyes wander over the lavish scenery of the room for a moment. In his gaze there was less admiration than that peculiar cynical glint, as though he were calculating how much all these luxuries would fetch at a pawnbroker's.
János soon bowed his head lightly toward me where I leaned against the window. The gesture carried more familiarity than courtesy.
"Do you like the new house, Your Grace?"
János said it shamelessly, putting weight on the words Your Grace.
Instead of answering, I pressed a hand to my forehead. The roar of thousands still seemed to buzz in my ears.
"Don't call me that. It's so awkward it gives me gooseflesh."
"There is nothing to be done about it, is there? Lord Ulrich has genuinely become a king now."
János said with a shrug.
"Outside the castle everyone is shouting long live King Ulrich. I felt rather proud myself. I served a country lord who did not have two coins to rub together and made him a king, so this János has a fair eye for talent, does he not?"
I snorted and asked.
"So what news has that fine eye of yours brought me? From your face, it doesn't look like you came only to congratulate me."
"Sharp as ever."
János came up to Ulrich's desk with that sneering smile of his.
"There is good news and bad news. Which would you like to hear first?"
I thought for a moment and said.
"The good news."
"A wise choice. One must take the sweet medicine first to swallow the bitter one more easily."
János caught his breath for a moment and then began his report.
"The good news is that the Prague city council has sworn absolute loyalty to Your Grace."
"Didn't we confirm that at the coronation? Though the noble lords all looked like they'd been chewing dung."
"That was nothing but political rhetoric. This is a practical gift."
János's eyes sparkled with excitement.
"Roughly two thousand men of the Prague militia say that from now on they will obey your orders as your own direct army. The city council has formally handed over command."
"The Prague militia?"
I asked back before I knew it.
Only a few weeks ago, the force he had at Šternberk Castle had been a mere thirty men. Even scraping together every estate commoner inside the castle, he could barely have filled a few hundred.
And now the soldiers who moved at a single word from me had risen to two thousand. To call it a world of difference was not enough.
"Yes. They are an elite force armed with money the wealthy merchants and guild masters of Prague raised of their own accord. Compared to General Žižka's Taborite army they are a rabble, but their armor gleams and their spears are well polished. Is that not a hundred times better than nothing?"
"..."
I tapped the desk with my finger without a word.
Two thousand men. That did not mean merely an increase in military strength.
It meant that the moderate nobles and burghers of Prague had not only reluctantly recognized me as king, but had now begun to bet actively on my survival.
'They must finally understand it too. That if I fall, they are next in line. That I am the only shield that will hold back Sigismund's rage.'
I smiled with satisfaction. Now I had a real card to bargain with.
"Not bad. So what's the bad news?"
At my question, the playful smile that had been on János's face a moment ago vanished in an instant.
"Sigismund knows."
"..."
At the thought that what was coming had come, the satisfaction of a moment ago cooled to ice.
"That's faster than expected. Wasn't the coronation held only today?"
"It does seem... that there is some rat inside passing information along."
It was not particularly surprising.
I had expected from the beginning that there would be a spy or two inside the Hussite leadership leaking information to Sigismund.
János stopped for a moment and studied my expression.
"They say Sigismund was enraged and has circulated a manifesto throughout the empire. He claims that Bohemia, fallen into heresy, has set up a false king and plots rebellion against the sacred order. In that manifesto, they say the emperor called Your Grace this."
János lowered his voice a further degree.
"'Ulrich, the Heretic King.'"
The Heretic King.
Quite an impressive nickname.
"Well, he isn't wrong. In the Pope's eyes I'm a heretic, and in Sigismund's eyes I'm a thief who stole a throne."
"That is not the important part. The emperor is appealing to every prince in the empire to muster a second crusade."
János spoke with a rare seriousness on his face.
"They say princes across all of Germany have begun gathering armies. The Elector of Brandenburg, the Elector Palatine, even the Margrave of Meissen... at the earliest in early spring, at the latest by summer, Sigismund will cross the border. And with an army the last one cannot begin to compare to."
It had been only a short while since the first crusade was crushed miserably at Vyšehrad.
But this time was different.
If the last one had been an expedition to punish the heretical Hussites, this one was a war to destroy a 'Heretic King' who had ignored the emperor's authority to his face and placed a crown on his own head.
In scale, in justification, and in cruelty, it was certain to swell to something beyond all comparison with what came before.
'Tens of thousands at minimum, and perhaps more than a hundred thousand.'
The force I currently commanded was two thousand men of the Prague militia and a few thousand of the Taborite army led by Jan Žižka, and that was all.
Even scraping together the private soldiers of the other moderate nobles, the total would be hard to push past twenty thousand.
'Even if Jan Žižka is an undefeated commander, will that reputation still hold now that history itself has changed?'
In the original history, Sigismund's second crusade did not reach Bohemia until the end of next year. Persuading the princes and gathering the armies had taken that much time.
But with a variable like me appearing, Sigismund's clock had begun to turn far faster.
It was certain that Sigismund would try to gather his army in far greater haste than he had then.
My very existence was the most lethal threat and insult imaginable to a Sigismund who coveted the crown of Bohemia.
'No matter how I turn it over, there is no winning on numbers alone.'
Jan Žižka's wagenburg tactics alone were not enough.
As had been proven at Šternberk, what was needed was technology that leapt beyond the age, overwhelming firepower that would break the enemy's will to fight.
And for that, money was needed. Vast funds to make steel, cast cannon, feed and clothe soldiers.
But right now the royal treasury of Prague Castle was empty.
The late king, Wenceslas IV, notorious as an incompetent tyrant. The only inheritance left behind by that ruinous ruler, who had spent his whole life sunk in luxury and pleasure, was an empty vault full of nothing but cobwebs.
Levy more taxes on the people? I had only just won their support and become king. Do that and my head would be hanging on the city wall the very next day.
In that case, only one method remained.
My gaze went far off, to the countless spires and bell towers visible beyond the walls of Prague outside the window.
Those arrogant, enormous structures adorned with gold and silver.
"János."
"Yes, Your Grace."
"From this moment, take down every word I say without dropping a single letter, make it a decree, and have it posted throughout all of Prague."
"...What is it you mean to say?"
A cold smile hung at the corner of my mouth.
"War requires money. And fortunately, though the late king emptied the vault, he left a great many very full piggy banks in the city."
Soon enough, gold would be overflowing in this Prague.