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Then And Now.
Chapter 12: On the eve of battle

Chapter 12: On the eve of battle

[Alberto]

What am i going to do?! I can't join him on this upcoming battle! I don't want to die yet! But it's already decided that i should accompany the emperor which is doomed to be defeated anyway, I can't change history too much or it will deviate from the original timeline, if it deviate too much then my knowledge in history will become useless!

Damn it all, I'll just try to wing it in the battlefield and hope for the best, luckily I brought Anselm with me to be my military adviser while his adopted son is left guarding the domain, with Anselm around things won't be too bad I hope.

[Henry V]

Damnation! Because of those stupid priests from the clergy my empire is in chaos right now! With many stupid and incompetent buffoons in my court things are going from bad to worse! Thank God I met Alberto 4 years ago, he greatly helped me stabilize the economy with his good ideas but something smells fishy about him though, like he's hiding something and that he somehowc know what's coming, to clarify my suspicions I invited him in my court in guise of giving him an answer to his request.

When I denied him he was surprisingly composed at the same time quite transparent, his answer of accepting my decision with a heavy heart somehow shows me that he's an honest man maybe this man is worth trusting.

To address my suspicions of him knowing or at least hiding something I made him into one of my court advisers which drove the current court in an uproar because of his age.

Incompetent fools they have not even helped me with my current problems they still have the face to criticize my decisions. One day when this is all over I'll clean all of you from my court.

After appointing him as one of my adviser I ask him this "what should I do in a he current war?", when he heard the question his expression showed panic but he immediately hides it, Hahaha but it didn't escape my sights though so it just means two things whether he knows something and he does not want to say it or he does not know how to answer it.

With my knowledge of him it's 80% that its the former, his answer showed shrewdness though saying words like it's not his area of expertise or what not but it will now fool me.

while I was deliberating his character the stupid nobles comes again crying like a bunch of pigs, sigh why did my father used this stupid people in the first place and even left me a bunch of major problems before dying.

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Anyway I still need them because of their troops so I'll just stay quiet for now, to prevent grievances from them I refrained myself from continuing the matter and just told Alberto that he must join with me in the campaign with the courts acceptance of course.

But curiously when I said it to him he showed fear and dread, hmm why should he show those emotions though? From the information that I've gathered he's not a coward, maybe he really does know somethings so I should really bring him this time.

Maybe I should give him the duchy of Saxony to tempt him from revealing everything he knows? Away from the nobles eyes and ears though.

[Alberto]

Its finally the day before the battle, for those anyone who does not know why this happened it all start when Henry V, scion of the Frankish Salian dynasty and uncontested King of the Romans since 1106, had inherited both the Investiture Controversy and the Saxon conflict from his father Henry IV.

In 1110 he moved to Italy and, after negotiation failed, captured Pope Paschal II and several cardinals to enforce his coronation as Holy Roman Emperor. Having returned from Rome he was immediately excommunicated by the papal legate in Germany Cuno of Praeneste and again by Archbishop Guy de Vienne, the later Pope Callixtus II, which encouraged the Imperial princes in their rising against the emperor—most of all the Saxon Duke Lothair of Supplinburg and Archbishop Adalbert of Mainz, Henry's long-time supporter who after his investiture had deserted him.

Henry entrusted the Saxon affairs to his field marshal Count Henry of Mansfeld, a Saxon noble himself. However, though he had Adalbert imprisoned at Trifels Castle and forced Lothair to submit himself after a court hearing at the Imperial Palace of Goslar, the smouldering Saxon conflict broke out again in March 1113 over the succession in the Thuringian territories left by late Count Ulric II of Weimar and Orlamünde. In order to create an own power basis, Henry had made attempts to confiscate the county as a ceased fief but met obstinate resistance by Ulric's heir, the Count Palatine of the Rhine Siegfried, son of the Ascanian count Adalbert II of Ballenstedt. The insurgents gathered under the lead of the Osterland count Wiprecht of Groitzsch and the Thuringian count Louis the Springer, but were repulsed by Henry's troops under Mansfeld in a battle at Warnstedt near Thale. Wiprecht was captured and at first sentenced to death for high treason. Later he was reprieved, imprisoned at Trifels and divested of his possessions, which passed to the House of Mansfeld.

The next year Duke Lothair had to attend Henry's wedding with Matilda of England in a hairshirt. Subdued though not deposed, he had continued intriguing against Henry, who saw himself confronted with the increasing opposition of the Imperial princes. In October 1114 the conflict again culmulated in violent fights, when Rhenish insurgents led by Archbishop Frederick I of Cologne had attacked the Imperial troops in October 1114 at Andernach.

But because of me everything is going to change to either better or worse.