Swiss Arms

Swiss Arms

Chapter 96

-VB-

Isabella von Fluelaberg

"And you just reached too far," Hans said to her without any emotion.

It didn't feel like she was being ridiculed for wanting to learn how to fight with a blade. Or that she was a woman trying to fight with a blade. The way Hans taught was…

"Faster," he told her blankly, and with inhuman speed, tapped her wrist with a thin stick that was as long as his arm was. He tapped her just lightly enough that she felt a sting but it didn't leave a mark, not even a red spot.

He was very hands on.

Her wrists, helbows, shoulders, waists, and knees were all lightly throbbing with the hits she took over the last week, and since he always made sure to rotate where he struck each day by changing the type of exercise, she always had a "fresh" spot ready to go for him to tap away at if she didn't react quickly.

When he said that he wasn't going to go easy on her, she expected a lot of stances, sword swinging, and forms. Instead, it was sparring everyday with active "encouragements" so she fixed her errors quickly.

Apparently, this was better than what the rangers were used to, and a few even gave her looks of jealousy. Unlike with them, he was being extra gentle with her. Her pregnancy was probably one of the main reasons for that gentleness, but her arms had nothing to do with her pregnancy, so it might be less related than anyone thinking about her pregnancy might think.

She yelped when she got a hit to her ankle, a new place for her.

"Thrust out after you have a stable footing, not after," he hummed.

She glared at him. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?" she snapped.

He raised an eyebrow. "Not at all. I would rather be building a new log cabin so that I can make love to you inside of it."

She blushed. "Not in front of our retinue!"

"They hear us have sex anyway when we're back home. Neither of us are exactly quiet, you know?"

The blush creeping up her face turned into a landslide. Everything became too hot, and she felt anxious and almost panicky. "Stop! Stop talking about it!"

"You're the one who asked what I would rather do," he shrugged. "Alright, let's keep going. Give me a side step. In three, two, one -."

And when he swung, he swung fast. She could barely track the stick in his hands with her eyes. But she dodged out of the way by sliding to the side. Then she struck. Her feet ground against the ground as she spun and lashed out with a stab toward his neck.

Hans easel parried her attack. And then he smiled. "Good. You didn't overextend yourself this time and put your back into the attack."

She huffed. "But I couldn't get you to dodge."

"Hon, a squad of rangers can barely make me sweat. Don't worry about it."

She glanced over her shoulder and saw the rangers accompanying them nodding in agreement, though some of them looked uneasy about sparring with Hans.

"Alright, let's go for a few more dodge and strike practices before we move to parry practices. After that, it should be time for dinner."

She nodded and took a deep breath in as she held up her sword again.

"Good. Dodge and counterattack."

He stepped forward once and struck out with his stick toward her core, and she stepped to her left. Instead of striking, though, she took another step back.

Why?

Just because this was a "Dodge and Counter" practice did not mean that her husband did not prepare traps. He could, and did, counter the counter, often times hitting her harder than normal to "dissaude her from forming a habit of always countering after one dodge or parry."

Having dodged to her left while she held her sword in her right, she was not ready to attack unless she was also prepared to take a hit, and Hans always said: "if you are prepared to gamble with a fatal hit, then you weren't prepared enough to fight."

Which neatly didn't apply to him because he was some sort of supernatural human who could shrug off steel with his skin!

"And again."

This time, she didn't wait for him to attack. She dove into his attack (slowed for her sake), and "punished" him for the attack. He looked at her with momentarily surprise before he schooled his face and -.

She looked at him with wide eyes as her sword arm got flung up without the sword. There was a whirling hiss above her head before she heard it sink into the ground with a sharp thuck. She looked over her shoulder and found her sword sticking out of the ground.

"Very nice," he complimented her as if he hadn't just moved so fast that she couldn't even figure out what happened. Or that the rest of the spectating rangers had gone still after looking and trying to process what they saw just as she was trying to process it. And they were all failing.

She … She saw his arms drawing back. She got that much.

The stick did something funny, though. As he drew it back, he was making it spin? Yes, he made it spin in his fingers.

Then there was something that happened between the stick caught her sword and when her sword was sent flying.

He spun a thin stick in his fingers and then … did something to send her entire arm flying along with her sword.

"I think that deserves a reward. How about I cook tonight's dinner?"

Everyone in the clearing cheered.

-VB-

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Swiss Arms

Chapter 97

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

I stared at the packed snow that hadn't melted.

To be fair, it wasn't at the bottom of the valley and sat at the foot of the mountain slope (probably fell or slid down from mid to high elevation), but the problem of the matter was that it was summer right now, and even snow this high up would have melted by now. It was melting but it wasn't melting quickly enough.

I wasn't sure what this meant, and coupled with the glacier I saw before arriving at Chur, this whole ice and snow business set off alarms in my head.

But it was something I couldn't do anything about right now.

The village of Tosana*, which belonged to the Prince-Bishopric of Chur, was suffering from a minor drought, according to the local elders. The Hinterhein river that ran through the town was shallower and weaker than they ever remembered it being. It was also far colder, too. There wasn't as much rain as before for the season, and the grass's slow return was impacting the livestock.

None of these were things I could change.

None of these "problems" were yet problems, but people got worried and they asked me to take a look because I was the "wise lord."

I was a wise-ass hermit-wannabe who couldn't even become a hermit.

Ugh.

It was at times like these that I felt not so kind things about my position but one that remained just that: feelings and thoughts.

My current personal problem, though, did not arise from Tosana's people asking me to do things. No, my personal problem stemmed from the fact that despite the fact that I have more or less toured the entire southern half of the Compact, I hadn't found a single location suitable for a getaway vacation home where I could tinker in peace.

Tosana - and the village of Splugen, which was the village where one of the Swiss-Italy passes went through - was a bit busy for it to be a quiet getaway location. The valley between Chur and Desantis Abbey was also not quiet enough with a number of travelers passing through. Neither location possessed good variety of materials, which meant that even if I did manage to squirrel away, I would be forced to come back out to gather more materials that I couldn't get.

So I was just a little miffed. One of the main reasons for why I took this tour of the Compact was slowly starting to look unachievable. That I had fooled myself into thinking I could go back to my (brief) hermit days.

All of the facts and conditions above didn't even take into account what Isabella wants and what would be best for my future baby.

Because, by God, I was going to be a good father!

I sighed.

… What made it worse was that the second reason for this tour was also a bust.

The Swiss Alps was just not a good place for mining. There was a small (miniscule) gold mine next to Chur but all of the areas southwest of Chur was, as far as I was concerned, a mining dead zone. So there was no resource to be found in this area, and what resource there could be couldn't be assessed because they were in the Lordship of Sax and County of Belmont.

This only made me appreciate the fact that I pushed the people of the Compact towards becoming manufacturers instead of resource diggers.

"Honey?"

I looked over my shoulder and saw Isabella waiting for me with some of my retinue.

"Coming, coming," I yawned as I turned around and made my way toward them. "Just a little bit disappointed by the … disappointing quality of the soil here."

Which was also another downside. Like most of the local valleys, soil quality was awful for farming. Perfect for grazing, though. They'll just have to focus more on that, especially goats for their milk. Not that they needed my advice for that. That's what they were already doing.

It's just that farming was worse than before.

"... Maybe I could yelp them develop their fertilizer processes," I hummed as I reached Isabella.

"What was that?" she asked.

"Ah. Just thinking about what I can do to help the people here," I replied. "Since they are already utilizing their lands optimally with their focus on grazing, the only thing I can help is by teaching them how to make good fertilizer. Nightsoil is good, but there wouldn't be enough of it for their farms if they don't organize how they gather it. So I'm thinking about a communal toilet and …"

-VB-

A/N: not all problems require a fantastical or high tech solution. Communal toilet with a dedicated worker can make some good fertilizer. Or a communal toilet attached to a pigsty also works.

A/N 2: Tosana: old name of Thusis, a town in Switzerland and close to two passes - Splugen Pass and San Bernadino Pass - that led into Northern Italy/Southern Switzerland respectively.

-VB-

Swiss Arms

Chapter 98

-VB-

Henry of Gorizia

Duke of Carinthia, Margrave of Carniola, and Count of Tyrol

Stams, Tyrol

He walked down the corridor of a Cistercian abbey toward a room that he had very few connections with. But saying that about his mother would be harsh. It's just that he had very few memories about her. He was only three years old when she died at the tender age of forty-six years old. His father, Meinhard of Gorizia, lived to be fifty-seven, though he had also been ten years younger than his mother when they married, and passed away only eight years ago.

His mother's passing hadn't been impactful as his father's death, but that was simply because he had been too young.

Apparently, his older sister had been much more dramatic, according to his father.

But he was a dutiful son and so he would pay his respects to his mother who brought him to this world.

As he stepped into the chapel that housed both his mother and father, he allowed himself to relax a little. The Stams Abbey was not a particularly populated abbey and he'd asked that no one follow him into the chapel.

He walked up to the two long tombs that were side by side to each other and … just sat down at the foot of them both.

"Hello, mother and father. It's been a while since I visited you both," he began quietly. "I don't know if Otto and Louis* visited you lately, but I know I haven't visited you in half a decade. I'm sorry about that."

He couldn't even say that he had been busy because, well, even if he had been, was it still not a son's duty to come and see his parents once in a while? Stams was less than an hour away by a galloping horse. He could have certainly visited them when he passed Stams to visit Isabella, but he hadn't.

He didn't have an excuse.

"... If you are wondering how I am, then I can tell you that I am doing well," he continued. "I even made a friend with a commoner, if you can believe that. He's a baron now for his role in pacifiying the Upper Rhine Valley. He's a tall and strong fellow who goes by Hans." He paused. "He's also the one now helping me beat our rivals to the north. The Wittelsbachs have been taking liberty with their neighbors, and marched an army through my lands with barely a prior consultation to attack my friend and cousin-in-law. I also discovered that they also used my friend for their gain, which makes me more than a little upset. To that end, we are working together to depose him and put his older brother as the sole duke of the Upper Bavarian Duchy."

He smirked. "It's actually funny, you know? The plan Hans came up with. Using his resource as a rich man - richer than I am, actually - he wants to mint fake coins with the markings of Upper Bavaria, use those to purchase goods through middlemen, and slowly chip away at the financial foundation of the Bavarian Wittelsbachs. He even has the support of Imperial Cities to help facilitate that transfer of subpar coinage." He shook his head. "As if that isn't enough, he also proposed that we ally the Wittelbachs enemies, the Habsburgs. While my sister agreed as she is the wife of the current emperor, her all of her sons - Frederick, Henry, Rudolf, and Leopold - are friends with Duke Louis, which makes future alliance with Habsburg tenuous at best. Or so I think. Hans doesn't think so. According to him and the imprisoned Duke Rudolf, Louis is greedy and will want to take bites out of Habsburg holdings if he can get away with it. All they had to do was ensure that he couldn't.

"Hans is a smart man, and I think I should be happy I am nominally his ally through his marriage with Isabella. Speaking of which, yes, it was Isabella who got married to him. Apparently, the girl traveled all the wa from Gorizia to some alpine village to find the source of luxury goods and found him instead. I feel bad for her father. He always doted on her but now, she's far away from his grasp."

He paused. "Oh! I also received a letter from Isabella. She's pregnant! I'm a little sad that she didn't marry him matrilineally, but at least the child's birth will cement our two house's alliance, so I will be happy for her and Hans."

"Oh, Isabella is pregnant?"

Henry stopped talking and looked over his shoulder and saw Otto. "I didn't expect to see you here," he said.

"Why wouldn't I?" his "big boned" and much more debaucherous brother asked. "It's not like I have things to do, unlike you. You're always busy." He came over and sat down on the hard grey stone floor. "... Hey, mum and da."

Henry rolled his eyes. "You always were the most informal of us all."

"And despite being the youngst, you're the most stuck-up out of us all."

It descended into a friendly brotherly argument from there.

It was nice.

-VB-

A/N: I know, there are a lot of Louis's, but this one dies quickly (d. 1305) so leave him be. He aint showing up in this story.

-VB-

Swiss Arms

Chapter 99

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

Compared to the election of the prince-bishop, the tour of the Compact took far less time and elicited less stimulation. Eventually, our caravan came back around through the same path we took on the tour but in reverse.

We went from Splugen to Thusis. Next, from Thusis to Vaz. Vaz to Chur. Then, from Chur to Klosters. And finally, from Klosters to Davos-Fluelaberg.

And by the time we reached home the first snow of the season had fallen, though it was just one day of snow and it was still sunny.

"It's really one town now, huh?" I asked Isabella as we looked trotted forward on the road that once had nothing on either side. Now, there were farms and houses on either side of the road, and there was a building every hundred feet or so from Davos to Fluelaberg. There were even some getting built right now as our caravan was passing by.

"It is," Isabella hummed. "Does this mean that you'll start taking over Davos's administration as well?"

"Nah," I replied quickly. "Davos is a member of the Compact. They will rule themselves as they see fit. It's not my place to tell them what to do. But Kraft and I will have to get together to demarcate exactly where Davos ends and Fluela begins."

For a while, there was only the clip-clops of trotting horse hooves on the paved road and lighter thumps of marching soldiers and the creaks and grinds of the cart and carriage wheels. To our sides were the narrowing and ascending Fluela Valley, still full of trees but also growing farmlands whose operations have halted for the year as winter was beginning. Livestock continued to graze, however, and I found myself rather satisfied by the number of sheeps, goat, and cows leisurely roaming the fields.

It was awesome to see how big of a positive impact I have had on the people here.

"Hans?"

"Yes, 'bella?"

"What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing much. Just happy to see that everyone is doing well."

"They should be with how good you are as a ruler."

"... Thank you."

"Your welcome," she replied with a smile. "... But i do have something I want to talk to you about."

"Hmm? About what?"

"I know that you are … sympathetic towards some heathens, particularly the Jews and the Saracens."

I raised an eyebrow as I looked at her. "Sympathetic would be an overstatement," I replied. "As long as they follow the law and don't proselytize in public, then I don't care if they worship the Lord differently."

"Are you not worried about what the clergy would say about that?" she asked more pointedly.

I blinked. "Why would I be?"

"Because the pope might not take kindly to having pagans and heathens in the empire?"

"... Hungary has pagans and heathens in the tens of thousands, Isabella," I pointed out. "They have their own villages, too."

She looked at me in complete surprise. "They do?!"

"Yes. Compared to them, I don't even have a hundred people to worry about. Hell, I don't even have Muslims or Jews in any official position while Hungary does."

She looked shocked by what I just revealed. "I … I never knew. I mean I knew that the Cuman did get briefly excommunicated for something like it but…"

"The Cuman?"

"Ah. My father told me about him. He was the king of Hungary … thirteen years ago. He had a few pagan mistresses."

I shrugged. "Well, that's the first time I've heard about that. I guess it's not exactly something the kingdom cares to talk about. Especially with the current interregnum."

Indeed. Right now, there was a three way power struggle in the Kingdom of Hungary. Charles Roberts of Anjou (maybe fitten years old now), Wenceslaus of Bohemia (a sixteen year old), and the oligarch nobles of Hungary. This, of course, completely ignored everyone who wasn't actively involved in the succession crisis like Duke Otto III of Lower Bavaria of House Wittelbachs.

This was relevant to both Isabella and I because her family in the House of Gorizia and our ally Henry of Tyrol both bordered Hungarian lands in Slovenia and Croatia. On top of that, Upper Bavaria and Lower Bavaria was ruled by the Wittelbachs, whose house was the rival of the Habsburgs, the house of the emperor and Henry's older sister married into said house.

Personally, I didn't care too much about the situation over there. It would be best for me if Charles Robert of Anjou got the Hungarian crown because it wouldn't change anything. If Wenceslaus got Hungary, then he would have both Bohemia and Hungary under his rule, which would alter the balance of power. If the Hungarian oligarchs managed to win… Well, that would be chaos that would certainly spill over into Gorizian and Henry's lands. If it got too rowdy, then there were sure to call me for help.

However, there was a scenario that was unlikely to happen but also possible. One of the claimants of the Hungarian crown was Otto III of House Wittelbachs, one of the co-Dukes of Lower Bavaria. He was also the one that I mentioned to the emperor to persuade him as Otto III was offered the Hungarian crown by some of the Hungarian nobles because he was the grandson of Bela IV of Hungary, who was in power only thirty-three years ago.

If the Wittelbachs got the Hungarian crown, then there was a high possibility that the Habsburgs and the Wittelbachs will go to war, especially because the Habsburg's Duchy of Austria would sit right in between the larger Hungarian lands and the Wittelbachs' Bavarian lands.

And obviously, I would get called up for war because I was a direct vassal of the empire and famous for my martial exploits.

Never mind the fact that an empowered Wittelbachs was a potential ally of Duke Louis of Upper Bavaria, also of the Wittelbachs.

"Anyways, yes. If Muslims and Jews can have whole villages in Hungary and the pope doesn't do anything about it as long as they don't attain extremely high positions in the kingdom, then why can't a few live in my barony? Besides, most of the Jew and Muslim men have joined the militia as well."

"I didn't know," she muttered. She looked contemplative as she looked forward. "But is it really alright?"

"Hmm?"

"Won't your people be upset that you are allowing the Jews and Saracens?"

"If they feel that upset, then they can take their property except land and leave. Because if they try anything violent or even attempt to pressure me to change, then I will punch each and every one of them very, very hard. No one tells me what to do without a good fucking reason… Actually, yeah. I'm going to make that a punishment. Stupid people get stupid punishment. Like my fist to their face."

"Hans! How is that stupid?" Isabella whispered.

"Because that's not what Christ asks of us."

That brought the rest of the caravan to look at me.

"Christ's greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all your body, mind, and soul. The second commandment is to love your neighbor. Nowhere in the Bible does the Christ say to only love fellow Christians. No, Christ says to love your neighbors as you love yourself. Anyone who says otherwise is using God's name in vain."

"... which verse are those, milord?"

I looked over my shoulder and saw one of my rangers.

"Mark chapter 12 verse 30 and 31."

The rest of the travel up to the town wall was in silence.

-VB-

A/N:

*Ladislaus IV of Hungary, the king who got excommunicated for putting a former muslim as the palatine of Hungary but which still pissed off the pope, had pagan Cuman mistresses, the pope planned a crusade against him, but died to three Cuman assassins at the age of 27.

-VB-

We're here! Chapter 100! And also 2.5 years old. Thank you for everyone who's been supporting me on Patreon and Ko-Fi and the readers who's been following me on QQ and SB.

So. Let's get it on.

-VB-

Swiss Arms

Chapter 100

-VB-

Ping!

It's been over a few months since I last heard that.

[Quest: The Way of the Blade (COMPLETED)

Your wife wants to learn how to fight herself! This is a good thing, and you will support her all the way.

Pre-requisite:

*Isabella von Fluelaberg (IVF) must take up a blade as her weapon. (COMPLETED)

*IVF must learn how to use her weapon with at least intermediate (LvL.10) skill. (COMPLETED)

*IVF must reach this level before the birth of your child. (COMPLETED)

*IVF must live to the end of the quest. (COMPLETED)

*IVF must not leave you before the end of the quest. (COMPLETED)

Reward:

*Skill: Teaching + 10 Teaching Skill LvL

*Increased relationship with Isabella (obviously)]

Ping!

[Teaching] LvL.11

Hmm. Maybe. That is a novel way to think about things. Have you also tried to think of it like this?

Helps facilitate better learning in students.

*1% reduction in student stress gain from studying per level

*0.2% increased EXP gain for students in an area of study the TEACHER excels at per level]

… It was useful skill, but like anything else that my Gamer provided, I needed to level it up a lot before it could be truly gamebreaking.

Ah, I made a pun.

'Aw man, that's a pun people aren't going to get for several hundred years…' I thought to myself.

[Character Status]

Name: Isabella von Fluelaberg nee Gorizia

Age: 19

Title: Baroness

LvL: 10

HP: 480

MP: --

ST: 8

(-1 pregnancy)

STR: 9

END: 11

AGI: 10

(-1 pregnancy)

DEX: 9 (-1 pregnancy)

INT: 13

CHA: 13

I couldn't see anyone's skills with my Observe, which was unfortunate, but at least I checked today and knew that Isabella was having a bit of a trouble from just being pregnant. And I supposed that it made sense because, well, big tits already hurt women's backs, so why wouldn't something that weighed more than their tits not make their lives harder?

"Are you alright?" I asked her as she walked out of the bathroom, which had an indoor plumbing. Sewage was not yet becoming a problem for Davos-Fluelaberg, but that was because I got ahead of it and started a very rudimentary sewage system. Even if for most of the village, it was literally just outhouses at intervals and people paid to collect the mixture of urine and feces for the farms. My castle, however, had sewage system that pumped the wastes out of the castle and into a collection duct using a bit of the stream water that runs through the center of Fluelaberg. All of this happened before we left for the tour, but it was nice to see that my people finished it by the time we came back.

"Just … tired," she grumbled as she came back to sit on the bed. Unfortunately for us, the morning sunlight cleared over the mountaintops, which meant that it was way over 8 a.m. in the morning and thus late when it came to morning activities. "I didn't think that pregnancy would be this much trouble. I hate being constantly needing to piss."

I yawned as I got up. Yeah, we needed to get up.

"It could be worse?"

"How could it be worse…?" she asked.

"A lot of women have morning sickness, remember? Having to use the bowl more isn't that bad compared to that. That's something almost all pregnanty woman experience but not every woman experience morning sickness.

"Ugh. I know that!" she hissed at me.

I could have mentioned that hormonal imbalance also made many a pregnant women sensitive but pointing out how sensitive a person was to a sensitive person generally didn't go well for anyone. Also, happy wife, happy life, you know? Making her unhappy by being a smartass when she's carrying our baby was a mean move.

Worse, I might make her cry out of nowhere. It's already happened before, and I wasn't keen on making it happen.

"Wnat breakfast in bed?"

"... I want to," she whined even as she stood back up. "Can you call Alleria in? We should get dressed."

"Alleria," I called out, and she walked in. "Can you help my wife with her dress?"

The lady-in-waiting who came with Isabella from Gorizia gave me a shallow bow before moving to help my wife. As for me, I chose to wear something more in line with the local attire instead of the clothes I made myself. I reached into the drawer and pulled out a bright yellow pleated cotehardie, a plain cotton shirt to be worn underneath that, and a periwinkle blue hose pants.

If anyone from 21st century saw me, then they would have been shocked by combination of bright yellow cote, deep blue hose pants, and a bright red cap I would have worn if it was any colder. But it wasn't cold enough to warrant wearing a cap yet, though I wasn't sure if it would be the case in a few weeks.

Yes, I realized that despite the fact that modernity had more colors, just like the British with their lack of spices, most people stuck to calmer and dimmer colors.

The people of this era? They would make any piece of their attire bright if they could help it. Not always and not for every occasion but definitely so for every day clothes.

It was a very interesting part of the culture that I grew up in, and it wasn't something I thought about a lot. It was also because of such desire for bright colors that dyes from across the world were so sought after.

And which was why Fluelaberg became rich by producing the periwinkle blue dyes.

However.

Because of how small periwinkles were and how much of the flowers we needed to make the dyes, the weed was quickly becoming extinct in the area. It didn't matter if it grew quickly; it didn't grow quickly enough for the dye industry.

As such, I needed to find a new dye to make from the natural ingredients native to the Swiss Alps.

"What brand new money maker are you thinking about?"

I looked over my shoulder from where I'd drifted off to look out of the bedroom window and saw Isabella completely dressed in the periwinkle's deep blue one piece dress. It was a more conservative dress that covered up to the lower neck and the cloth itself hung enough that it didn't hug her figure well. In fact, I would cal her dress breezy. "Are you sure you won't be cold in that?"

"I can take it. I want to look good, husband," she replied with a shrug. "Now. Let's break fast, yes?"

-VB-

Later that day, I found myself in my personal chemistry lab. It's been a while since I've been in here, so I went through the entire inventory of chemicals to ensure that they were all stable and nothing had broken.

And, well, some had.

The only pint of diluted hydrochloric acid that I had ate through the container's lid, and half of it evaporated. The evaporated hydrochloric acid hadn't done much, but it did contaminate and weaken the wooden shelves they sat at. The thin wooden shelves had to be replaced, which ate up most of my hours up to lunch, and now, I was back in here after a lunch with Isabella.

And right in front of me was a table that had nine rough watch glasses, each with its own unique material. They were all ground up and dried clay, minerals, or a combination of the two, and all of it had come from the the local mines and valleys. Why clay? Well, the essence of a clay was fine grain minerals. Clay, as such, could be used to make dye because mineral-based dyes were a thing.

Cinnabar, a mineral mined out of the earth, was often used to make dyes, though due to its mercury-content, people used it more for decoration than clothing.

So I was trying that here, except since most of the experimental dyes in front of me didn't have mercury, I was sure that there wouldn't be any issue. In fact, a good third of the dyes were iron-based.

I paused just before I started my experiment. This felt familiar.

Good.

… Relaxing.

I snorted.

Yes, I supposed that this was something I enjoyed.

And so I went and -.

-4 hours later-

I stared at the results in front of me.

My attempt at cobalt dye was … it turned out well, but my mines rarely pulled up cobalts. On top of that, even if the cobalt blue dye worked, I realized after dyeing and drying the sample cloth that it was almost the same shade of blue as periwinkle blue, just a bit darker. If I was going to do that, then I would just get more periwinkle or buy woad indigo from Piedmont, which was the closest center of blue dye production. But woad blue was lighter than my periwinkle without being bright. So my experiment to get a new source of blue dye close to periwinkle failed.

The second set of dyes was made from the red clay found in the valleys. Sienna, I think this type of dye was called, according to the merchants and peddlers. However, the sample of sienna-dyed cloth I had was far deeper than my attempts from multiple levels of roasted, unroasted, and mixed red clay dyes. It could still used to mix with other colors, though.

What was very successful was yellow ochre, or sometimes called "gold" ochre because of how close it was, even if it lacked the shine. It was a lighter yellow on the shallow end and deeper orange-yellow on the deeper end after a roast.

… Personally, I wasn't sure if I knew the value of these dyes. So I should go and ask Isabella. Coming from Italy, she should know more about their values, right?

… Maybe. The County of Gorizia was next to the Patriarchate of Aquileia and Margraviate of Carniola. Its position made it barely a part of Lombardy, the wider region that stretched from the edges of the County of Provence (southeast France) to Venice. Because it sat right at the edge of that territory alongside Aquileia, it was hard to say, especially since, according to Isabella herself, the people in Gorizia were more like the people in Carniola than they were to Aquileia.

Maybe we can even discuss how beneficial it would be to export it to Gorizia or even Venice.

-VB-

A/N:

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