Temple Sword

Chapter 180
AD 320 came unknowingly when old friends of the Soubis family, the Kurjakovic family, turned against each other in the south, and towns such as Split and Zadar rebelled from the kingdom and joined the Republic of Venice.

During the month of Mother of God (January), Queen Elizabeth's belly was too big for the road, and since she was pregnant with the child of the most important person in the land, everyone cared for her as if she were something. Bubbles that burst when touched.

Although the queen dislikes being protected as a weakling, and in the end she needs to be accompanied even when she rises from her chair, she knows the importance of the matter: her upcoming fetus may be the first legal birth of the king of Hungary. The heir, who will soon be approaching 40, has to take every opportunity he gets.

The first month of the year has also been different for Demeter Neksey from the Abba family.In the Christmas month of last year (December), the king summoned the bishops and lords of the country and presented them with a plan to mint new currency and add a new form of taxation to the Crown (Jura Regalia) to replace the previous exchange. currency tax.

All members called to the council agreed to these reforms, and while the proposed innovations may seem complicated at first glance, they will certainly make the kingdom's economy more prosperous and transparent.Therefore, on the new year's public holiday, Charles announced his plan to his people, informing them that a new era in the Kingdom of Hungary had begun.

The mint soon began minting new dinares, which were modeled on the small silver coins minted by Bela IV and of similar weight.

The king also entrusted the task of minting coins to the cabinet, so as to accelerate the speed and quantity of new currency circulation.At the same time, the kingdom began to recycle other currencies, three Viennese dinares could be exchanged for one newly minted dinari, and one Czech Groschen could be exchanged for three new dinaris.

As for the weight of the silver coin, the Cabinet determined that five pence (Pensa auri) was equal to one mark, according to the Budai márka (Budai márka).

These contents are also written in the charter. Demeter Nexel has been waiting for this for several years. He looked at the king's seal on the charter with tears of joy, and had no idea what kind of hardships he would have to go through in the future. Dangerous obstacles will give the kingdom's new currency any real value.

Charlie was on the road all the time, going back and forth between Timisoara and Visegrad.He felt a strange excitement at the thought of moving his entire court back to the center of his kingdom after 11 long and bloody years.

What a different man Charlie was then than he is now! A 23-year-old man, ready for any storm, he's young, he's strong, he's not afraid of anything.

He has already been crowned king three times, and the war against the rebellious provincial lords has only just begun.Mate Chak, who was still alive, was so rampant that he led his army southward, burned villages, occupied towns, and then directly attacked the city walls of Buda in the summer of 1311. Although the siege lasted only a few days, the fighting was extremely fierce .

Charlie remembers everything about the Siege of Buda: the Templars rushing to their death, the battle-hardened Eastern Lion William Barto leading the defenders, the mysterious archer who suddenly appeared and then disappeared without a trace...

Thanks to God's providence, the Anjou family is victorious, but Charlie also realizes that he is no longer safe in the heart of the kingdom.

Although he never revealed it to anyone, in fact he always regarded the move to Timisoara as a kind of exile, but he had to wait there until the day when he fully consolidated his kingship.

At the beginning of 1323, he already owned the whole of Transylvania, the highlands, and most recently the south.He also maintained good relations with most of his neighbors, and he strengthened his alliance with the King of Poland with a marriage, thank God he did not regret this choice at all, because the Piast family brought him a man whom he had always dreamed of. queen.

As for the Habsburgs... well, he doesn't know what his relationship with them is now, especially after the defeat at the Battle of Mirdorf, the Austrian Duke who came to Hungary in the winter for help disappointed him.

With or without the support of the Habsburgs, Charles was strong enough to end his exile in Timisoara.At the same time, he has no intention of returning to the old city walls of Buda, his former home, the Karhof Palace, because he thinks it will remind him of his hot-headed self in his youth.

So he chose Visegrad, which is as beautiful as Buda.Bella IV built an impregnable twin castle here, which Charles wanted to spend the rest of his life transforming into a royal center of splendor and opulence, a spectacle that would leave the wealthiest foreign lords tongue-tied.

Because of this, he did not hesitate to set off in the harshest winter, riding on his horse for several days, regardless of the pain in his knees, and personally overseeing the construction of the future capital.

King Bela's sprawling fortifications consisted of a grand castle and a low castle built on the banks of the Danube, the two castles connected by a tall stone wall of towers that stretched along the entire mountainside, creating a rock-solid impression.

It was a complex that would make a traveler at the foot of the mountain feel small and insignificant, and when its keepers were reduced to ashes and dust, Visegrad's twin castles would still stand majestic like this.

Charles first wanted to renovate the castle on top of the hill, extending the palace and building a second enclosure around the existing walls.At the same time, he also ordered his men to rebuild and expand the castle, and then refurbish the famous Solomon's Tower to make it worthy of the restored fortress.

For a while, he even wanted to rebuild the old castle on Heberic Hill, a fortress built under the Roman emperor Constantine the Great, which was destroyed during the Great Migration, and now only the weedy fortress remains. ruins.

But this is just a fleeting romantic idea. The ruins are far outside the city, and their strategic significance has long since ceased to exist, and there is no value for reconstruction.

He decided to build a city palace for himself and his family on the banks of the Danube, and spent a fortune on the renovation of the Church of the Virgin Mary, because a capital of a Christian kingdom must have a decent place of mass for worship.

In this way, castles and cities entered a stage of rapid construction and beautification, and the population began to expand as a result.

Every capable person longs to be bathed in the glory of the royal family. Before the construction was over, Visegrad was planned out as a separate Hungarian city and a German city. Too much time is wasted in endless quarrels between two peoples.

In addition to the citizens, nobles also appeared in the new royal city, and they hoped to become a part of the new court as soon as possible.Among them was the Drooger family, who had supported and accompanied the Naples claimant to the throne since he was a child.

For the past few years they had been serving in the eastern part of the kingdom, far away from the monarch. Their arrival surprised the king, and Charles expressed the hope that they would protect the crown of St. Stephen, which had been transferred to the old tower in Visegrad.

On the No. 2 day of Ramadan (February), Charles arrived in Pétervárad. Under the organization of Nexel, he met with the Habsburg nobles, of course, with those who were not ruled by Louis. The Habsburgs in prison.

Holy Roman Emperor Louis Wittelsbach captured Frederick Habsburg, Duke of Austria and Styria, and King Johann Luxemburg of Bohemia took Frederick's brother Henry.

In order to counter these two powerful monarchs, Charles Anjou decided to form an alliance with the remaining Habsburg members. In return, he asked the Habsburgs to return Pozzoni to Hungary.

The negotiations turned out better than Charlie had expected, the initial tension was quickly dissipated, and they went straight to the point without any detours and came to an agreement without any difficulty.

The meeting ended in the afternoon, and Charlie returned to his royal quarters in the city, sat down in front of the steaming stove, stretched his legs, and massaged his knees, hoping the pleasant warmth would ease his pain.

But he had never been able to really enjoy the quiet atmosphere of being alone. He had just closed his eyes when a sound of horns woke him up from his dream, and a cavalry team had arrived.

The uninvited guest who came to see him was none other than Thomas Szechenyi, which surprised the king. He didn't know that something was so important that the governor of Transylvania came to inform him in person instead of a The courier sent a secret letter.

Governor Thomas knelt on one knee in front of Charles, panting and flushed.The winter winds had taken a toll on his ride, the man's frozen beard was only now beginning to melt, and his limbs were visibly shaking.

"Your Majesty!" the governor tried to control his excited panting, "Your Majesty, I have received important news from Timisoara about the queen..."
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1323, Great Ramadan (February)
Timisoara, Hungary
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In the past few days, everyone has been preparing nervously.They knew that the queen might go into labor at any moment, and that the whole court waited with anxious anticipation, wondering whether the child would survive the delivery, or whether Elizabeth herself would survive.

Charles Anjou had lost three wives, all of whom died to bear the offspring of the Hungarian king, and all died with their Tarr.

Although Elizabeth survived her only childbirth, she also failed to provide her husband with a living heir after a long and horrific ordeal.

No one can blame these people for their nervousness. Even the citizens of Timisoara outside the palace hold mass every day for their soon-to-be-born children.

Demeter Neksey did not accompany the king to Petrovaradin, and both of them thought that the presence of some members of the cabinet would suffice to conclude an agreement with the Habsburgs.

But Charlie didn't know that Demeter actually wanted to stay for the queen.Though the Chancellor himself was surprised by the emotion, he prevented himself from watching Elizabeth's every move with tender affection.

He personally supervised the preparation of the pregnant women's meals in the kitchen, and did his best to make perfect preparations for the confinement, and it was also his attention to move the midwives into the castle in the last weeks of labor, because if the queen felt pain in the middle of the night, she would soon be able to recover. Someone took care of the delivery for her.

In addition, Demeter hoped that the midwife would be with Elizabeth at all times and provide as much help as possible with her knowledge before the child was born.

No one noticed the fact that Demeter Nexel was overly enthusiastic. After all, he was Charlie's right-hand man, and there was nothing wrong with him taking care of the queen's health in the king's absence.

In fact, Demeter convinced himself that way. His heart beat faster and his head went numb when he saw Elizabeth. It must be because he is the most staunch and loyal follower of King Charles, and he is very concerned about the birth of the king's heir.Yes, for no other reason...

So Demeter hung on Elizabeth like an overripe apple, listening carefully to her every wish and sigh, slowly driving everyone in the kitchen crazy And the midwife was tortured to death with stern warnings that pregnant people were not ordinary people and that she had to do better.

The old woman was so tortured that she couldn't sleep, because she was constantly worrying about what the nervous man would do to her if the fetus was stillborn, even if she did her best to deliver the queen.

They ushered in the first day of Lent (February 2-April 22) in this tense atmosphere. Although it was extremely cold on this day, everything was exceptionally calm.The sky is clear and there is no wind and grass.

Queen Elizabeth was very tired, she had been pregnant for too long, and on this day, nothing could calm her restlessness and rare bad mood.She yells at everyone, pushes food aside, and even tells her favorite maid to shut up and stop reading poetry to her.

All day long she sat in front of her favorite altar, but the prayers that usually calmed her the most were of no avail, and in her agony she could do nothing but open and close the altar by staring at the icon above. Delicate gilt wicket to pass the time.

When evening came, the day seemed long not only to Elizabeth, but to everyone who had any brief contact with her during the day as if it would never end.

This is not the queen's style. She is always smart, cautious, calm and composed. At night, half of the Timisoara palace is praying, hoping that the queen can give birth to the heir to the throne smoothly, and then change back to her former self again.

This time, the power of prayer seems to be working.

Shortly after midnight, Demeter Neksey's door was banged on by servants.

"What's the matter?" The man was startled awake, "What's the matter, is there a fire somewhere? Where is the king?"

"My lord Demeter, the queen is about to give birth," a guard announced. "According to your order, we found you first."

The news hit Demeter in the face like a basin of cold water, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer immediately woke up.He jumped out of bed, put on his trousers, his shoes, his robe, and fastened his belt tightly.

In indescribable excitement, he rushed into the corridor, took the lantern from a guard, completely forgetting that his upper body was still in his pajamas, and sent his servants to wake the priest and the maids who assisted in the delivery, like a storm. Go through the castle in the night and wake the midwife yourself.

The poor old woman had barely fallen asleep when Demeter broke into her bedroom without knocking or any courtesy.

The midwife woke up from her sleep, only to hear the door being slammed against the wall with a deafening sound.That alone was enough to scare the old midwife out of her wits, but Demeter didn't stop there.

As the old woman sat up in horror, staring at the door with wide, bloodshot eyes, Demeter pushed the lantern into her face and began yelling excitedly, leaving the woman with one leg still in the dream Even more scared.

"Get up, old mother, for God's sake!" urged the man, "Get up!"

The midwife let out a heart-piercing scream, and the next moment, the sturdy white-haired woman grabbed her chest and fell to the bed to die.

(End of this chapter)