Temple Sword

Chapter 129 Fighting for Whom
The barred door creaked and then clicked shut.Deprived of his official position, the commander of the Levice garrison knelt on the damp straw of the dungeon, his body dirty and torn.

The corners of his mouth were black with clotted blood, and his right arm and left thigh were cut slightly, but blood was still oozing.Jiuluo dismissed the guards with a wave of his hand, looking sullenly at the imprisoned man.

"Is it worth it, Francis?" he asked, shaking his head. "Is it worth it to defy my orders?"

"At least I did something useful," the disgraced soldier spat at the castle lord, "unlike you, cowardly bug!"

"You took more than 50 people to die," Gyula Kistaborchani said coldly, "you did it, you killed them."

"If you give me a hundred men as I ask," growled another, "and open the gate when we get back..."

"You disobeyed my orders!"

"...then there will be no problem and we will come back with nothing to lose," Francis finished. "The murderer is not me, but you."

"So you think so?" Jiuluo sighed, "I'm a coward and a murderer. Unlike you, with a little cavalry, attacking 3 people, attacking the king's army."

"King?" Francis snorted coldly, "I support Lord Mate Chuck, you traitor!"

"I see, now I'm a traitor again." The castle owner laughed. "Well, you know what, I was a huge supporter of Matt Chuck until the end of his life.

And I feel like I'm a good person, God is watching me and He knows I am.And I'm still guarding his castle, but I don't know why.

Mate Chuck is dead, leaving no heir, to whom do I obey now?Could it be Stephen Sternberg?But who is he to me?Moravian brother-in-law of my dead lord?He doesn't even have the same blood in his body. "

"Admit it, you damn bastard!" Francis roared hoarsely, "You decided a long time ago that you're going to hand over Levice to the Anjou family!"

"If that were the case, I would have opened the city gate long ago." Jiuluo said. "I just want to find out what's going on here, who we're fighting and why..."

"Who are we at war with and for what?" asked the disbelieving question echoing off the dull musty walls. "Are you mad? The opposing king is at the gates of your castle, and you're still thinking..."

"Against the King," the Castle Master snorted, shaking his head slowly and laughing wearily. "Francis, my dear boy, I don't know where you've spent the past few years, but whether we like it or not, Charles Anjou is no longer a rival king.

He defeated all his opponents until he became the sole claimant to the throne.And he has been crowned three times, the last time wearing Istvan's holy crown.There is no longer any claimant to the Hungarian throne, are you still talking about a rival king here? "

"Traitor," grunted the captain, "you are a traitor! I tell you, you are a traitor!"

"Suppose we could hold the castle with our weak defenses and meager supplies," he murmured calmly, "for a whole month, say, so what?
The king is in his own country, and his army has inexhaustible resources.Even if he doesn't poison our wells and catapult corpses into the castle, there's still a plague outbreak here.

Even if he doesn't dig tunnels, he doesn't tear down our walls.Assuming our food supply is plentiful and we lack nothing, we also have more than two thousand arrows.Let's have fun together, if everything goes like a fairy tale..."

"What are you trying to say?" asked the prisoner, frowning. "I don't understand what you mean."

"You will soon understand," Gyula replied, "if everything is as I have just said, Levice can hold on. A month, two months, half a year, or who knows how long, What happens when Charlie abandons the siege and moves on?"

"I still don't understand."

"Don't think the king will stop before he has ruled the whole kingdom completely, Francis! He will take Trenchin, don't think he won't! One by one he will take the castles of the Highlands, and nothing will Stop him, he and his army have proven it. Then what fate awaits us?

Our continued allegiance to a dead man?Like an island in an endless sea, surrounded by enemies?Both the Czechs and the Poles made peace with the House of Anjou, and even allied with him.Do you really not understand what I'm talking about?What is the real problem?What should we be fighting against? "

"You're crazy, you old fool!" Francis stood up from the wet straw and rushed to the door, blocked by the iron railing. "Are you planning to betray Levice like this? Betray your own people? If you dare to do this, you will die! The bow commander and the centurions will not let you do it!"

"I know," the old lord smiled wearily, "I say such stupid things because the heat of the battle has long since subsided on me. Maybe I... maybe I'm really a coward, who knows..."

"Don't doubt it, you're a coward!" cried the captain, pressing his face between the rails, as if wanting to smash the iron with his skull. "A cowardly traitor! You son of a bitch!"

"I'm pitting a castle of the dead against a castle of the living, and there's a bunch of stubborn fools like you in it." Gyula turned his back on Francis, ending their conversation. "It's like a bad, bad joke. But at least I'm not a murderer, and that's what you're charged with. Think about it here, there's nothing else you can do anyway..."

The captain, deprived of his rank and dignity, shouted for a long time behind his castle lord, cursing him, calling him a coward and a traitor, but Gyula Kistaborchani ignored him.He hurried upstairs, wanting to leave the dark dungeon as soon as possible.

When he reached the empty inner courtyard, he could no longer hear Francis' voice. Maybe he was far enough away, or maybe the guard who returned to the dungeon silenced the man who led his men to death.

Gyula crossed the inner courtyard, past the nervous crowd, climbed the stairs leading to the east wing, and walked hurriedly to his tower room.He wanted to be alone, to process his noisy thoughts, if only for a moment.He was trying to figure out what to do. He had been a castle lord for 30 years, but he had never felt that he was in such a difficult situation.

When he took the last step and was about to open the door, there was an excited shout from behind Jiuluo, and someone called his name.

"Master Jiuluo! Wait for me, my master, wait!" A young guard soldier ran towards him, panting and flushed. "It just shot into the castle, and the damn thing almost shot Cripple Parker!"

The boy handed him a scroll of parchment, bound to an arrowhead, bearing the king's seal.

"A letter," said the Castle Master. "They want to negotiate our surrender."

"You can read it!" The blushing soldier grinned reluctantly, but the smile disappeared in front of the old man's gloomy expression.

"How many people know about this?" Jiuluo asked.

"Just Lame Parker, Smokey John, and me," replied the soldier. "Just now, when they shot the letter in, my lord, I tell you that they almost shot Parker, and I will bring the letter to you immediately."

"Listen, boy, I don't want anyone to know about this!" Gyula ordered solemnly, "or you, Lame Parker, and that Smoky John will actually be shot with bows and arrows, you understand? "

"Of course, my lord, we shall be as silent as the grave. But can you tell me what is said in it?"

The old man made the young soldier shut up immediately with a sharp look in his eyes.

Gyula's heartbeat caught in his throat, he sent the boy away, then locked himself in his tower room, carefully opening the king's seal after making sure no one was lurking nearby.After reading a few sentences, he immediately realized that he had not only a persuasive letter, but also a key to solve all problems.

-

Francis, who was responsible for the deaths of more than 50 people, was hanged the next day in front of the castle's people.Under cover of darkness, a young messenger arrived at the king's siege camp and delivered a short letter directly to the king.

No one knew of the existence of the letter, written by the lord of Levice himself in his room, nor how satisfied Charles Anjou was when he read it.

On the tenth day of the month of St. Jacob, the crusade army of 3 people disappeared under the castle of Levice and continued to march towards Trenčín.

Not long after, the archer commander of the castle turned pale while eating grilled fish, and died after a while. He must have been stabbed.

A few days later, the centurion fell ill with a strange high fever, and the unfortunate fellow died overnight.

By the time autumn came, the towers of Levice were already flying lily banners, announcing the eternal peace brought by King Charles.

Gyula Kistaborchani relinquished his long-standing post as lord of the castle and moved to Bakabanya with his family and servants.The Hund silver mines he received in the summer of 1321 from the Hungarian king in a letter of gift tied to an arrow allowed him to enjoy a royal life for the rest of his life.

(End of this chapter)