Of Pride and Power - 30. Chapter 28: “Do not commit to anyone.”

In the fall of 1563, after the Act of Primacy was passed by Parliament and the garrisons in London left, Francis Walsingham returned to my side from Navarre, along with the nine-year-old prince Henry Bourbon, who was nominally sent to my court for education by his mother. In truth, Henry left Navarre due to a planned coup d’etat by Philip II of Spain, who wanted to end the threat of a possible schism between the French line of succession due to Henry’s nominal position as fourth in line to the French throne. Through his wife Elizabeth Valois, Philip also had a claim to the French throne through any children they may have as well, but Salic law gave priority to male descendants like Henry over Philip. One of the few times, the sexist European law of kings was useful in inhibiting a quick union of my enemies. Charles V at 63 years of age was gradually releasing his authority to his son Philip, who I assumed was also someone from our timeline based on his moves.

One of Charles’ moves was directed towards England. Overtures were made by the German Imperial Ambassador, Papal Envoy, and English ambassador for a formal meeting between me, Charles V, and his son, Philip, in the border territory of Western Flanders. It was an understanding that I was now a regional power; perhaps not as great as the forces of my opponents, but they needed peace with me to secure their other gains.

At the same time, radio intercepts had indicated that their proxy war between Oda Nobunaga’s unified Japan and the Ming Chinese had reached a point of stalemate at this time. Like the Imjin war that would have occurred in the 1590s from my timeline, Japan had defeated the Joseon kingdom and occupied the Korean Peninsula. The Yalu River became a natural defensive frontier for the two opposing forces. A ceasefire was needed for the entrenchment and development of acquired territories. Chinese forces reinforced their traditional territories and headed westward through the established fort system of the Silk Road into the steppes of central Asia. The Chinese forces reached as far west as the Caspian Sea and south to the deserts of central Persia. In India, Habsburg Imperial troops under the Portuguese flag had finalized territorial occupation of Goa and the western Indian coast. They had already secured the Middle East initially for their supply of fossil fuels, so they extended their frontier across the Arabian Sea establishing a contiguous land connection from Morocco in North Africa to the western tip of the Indian subcontinent. Indian forces in contrast began an eastern expansion campaign, securing the eastern Indian coast and most of southeast Asia’s continental territory. Additionally, new radio signals were intercepted from the direction of Novograd and Moscowy, which indicated the Russian faction had also established itself. They captured the nations of Poland and Lithuania to the west and secured territories from the eastern Urals to the Pacific Ocean. While claiming the territory of the Russian Empire at its height might be impressive, when they were compared to the equally massive Chinese and multi-continental powerhouse of the Habsburg Empire, they were inferior.

Essentially, all the factions were fighting amongst themselves. It was a complex geopolitical mess created by these future factions, each trying to create their ideal nation or empire based on historical expansion routes. I don’t know the entire story behind their reason for taking such an absurd turn to travel back to this era, but I had to be vigilant.

Another reason for having Francis by my side along with Robert was to make sure that we were prepared for any conventional and unconventional actions from Charles V. As far as I knew, no other future faction had individuals with knowledge-related abilities like the fair folk, nor do they possess supernatural abilities like me and Robert. Of course, I couldn’t bring out all my cards, three dreadnaught class battleships were built, but I only wanted to showcase the original during our meeting. Curt and Ken, two of my secret mecha-warrior knights, were moved to Nieuwpoort, in their guise as Gargoyle statues, to be a rapid response force since their specialty was escort duty. They also served to provide logistical support for the royal marine detachment, through the use of radio messages. Gard and the other mecha knights wanted to join us as well, but he was knight commander and I wanted a substantial military presence that could safeguard my kingdom, even if he would likely just appear like a normal statue at the rebuilt Whitehall palace. As for the military detachment, Frances and the Royal Marines were my best military force. During the last war, only 1,000 of them were able to occupy the coastal city of Boulogne and defeat a French army thirty times larger than us. The force had grown over the years, rising to 30,000 by this point, equivalent to all the forces that I used to defeat Mary and her allies five years ago. Due to the cost of transport and the need for various military engineering projects around the country, I would only send 1/3^rd of the Royal Marines for our meeting. Both I and Charles V knew that this meeting would be a show of force as much as it was a diplomatic overture between heads of state, so I expected him to bring a Sky fortress along with a sizable army as well. As I was bringing a dreadnaught-class battleship with comparable firepower, my royal marines were expected as well. However, I had a surprise for Charles V.

I was greeted by Count William at the dock. Though William was originally Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, a position given to him by Charles V personally; his family’s hereditary rank was that of Count. He took a major demotion in accepting my entreaties for him to declare independence from Charles V and create a new future for the Flemish people. William had already begun to question Charles V and his son Philip’s actions after the destruction of Dresden, but there was no other person or power with equal ability. I presented him with a good alternative and demonstrated equal force to impress on him that I was capable of matching the German Empire and its allies. After his announcement, Bruges, Zeeland, and Holland sought to join William in an open revolt against Imperial rule. Nominally, the peace treaty only recognized Western Flanders's independence, serving as a neutral territory under English protection, but these provinces had very good harbors, and England’s naval power was without peer. A small naval presence existed as a result that deterred Imperial forces nearing the coastal town.

While William and I exchanged pleasantries, Curt and Ken, disguised as statues, were unloaded from a transport ship. I claimed they were Gargoyles from an ancient English church that brought good luck. We would be loaning them to the territory, while we were visiting Western Flander, then take them back to England when we return. Both knights communicated to Frances through coded radio to keep our forces updated. In addition to my mechas, 1,000 tanks with the T-34 chassis with 4 crews each were organized into a tank regiment to be my honor guard. To command armored forces effectively, Frances, with some historical lessons from me, further divided the forces into 250 platoons of 4 tanks each. The tank company had 5 platoons, so there were 50 tank companies. A tank battalion had 5 tank companies, so there were 10 battalions. A tank brigade had 5 battalions, so there were 2 brigades. A tank regiment was formed by 2 brigades. The remaining 6,000 troops would be arriving by our trucks with 90 horsepower engines and 8 tons of capacity, these trucks also carried an additional surprise for Charles and Philip at the meeting.

After a day of preparation, we departed for Aalter, a town between Bruges where William had his seat of government, and Ghent, the birthplace of Charles V and nominal imperial administration for Spanish Flanders. To send tanks and trucks to the meeting place, we had to make a roundabout journey through the southeast to circumvent the forest and limit speeds to 40 kilometers per hour, extending the journey by 4 hours. Upon arriving outside the forest of Flanders near Aalter, we encountered the Imperial army and a sky fortress as expected.

The German Imperial army was several times larger than my own, 50,000 compared to my own 10,000. However, most of the imperial troops were armed with straight-pull bolt-action rifles versus semi-automatic assault rifles with fully automatic functions. The tank comparison was just as stark between our forces, while I had noticed imperial forces had begun to use tracked vehicles, the center of gravity for turrets and suspension was inferior. These issues stem from the industrial material quality problems they had. These problems limited their tank’s speed and gun turret caliber. Their field guns could do real damage to my tanks, so it wasn’t one-sided. Even though their weapons were equivalent to World War I artillery, the power of artillery from 1914 to the 21^st century was less about the destructive potential and more about the accuracy of the weapon. Even an M1-Abrams tank could be disabled by a British 7.2-inch World War I howitzer, the variables between victory and defeat were a matter of the gunner's experience and the tank’s operator skill level. As the German troops were veterans of a decades-long civil war, it was likely their experience level would surpass my troops, whose brief combat experience against Mary’s lesser forces would not be comparable.

Even without my knowledge, Frances had noticed they had nearly 10,000 artillery guns, so she ordered a command to spread out each tank platoon by several hundred yards to form an inverted crescent. Tanks, like armored cavalry, could be concentrated for breakthrough attacks and spread to avoid concentrated firepower, the latter lesson was learned by the French knights at the Battle of Agincourt who were massacred by English longbowmen. Despite Frances’ lack of experience with tanks and modern military tactics of my world, some lessons can be applied universally throughout history, especially for good military commanders. Despite how unconventional it was to have a woman leading a military force, let alone the elite troops of a monarch, she was the right person for the job.

An exchange of messengers from both sides occurred, and then a tent was set up jointly by our representatives in the middle of the open land between our forces. It was like Francis I and Henry VIII had historically set up their meeting in 1520, which my history knew as the Field of the Cloth of Gold due to its excessive displays of both military and economic power. We brought forth several modern conveniences, such as several diesel-powered portable electric generators, short-range radios, refrigeration units with food, gasoline burners for cooking, and Bone China dishes with exquisite floral designs against a pure white backdrop. Charles was no less extravagant with what he brought; though their portable electric generators were much larger than ours, their other goods were a showcase of the vast Habsburg Empire. Steel utensils, Aluminum cans of preserved foods, various aromatic blends of Teas and Coffees, hard-paste porcelain from Asia, and the finest linens of cotton, satin, and silk.

Upon entering the tent, both sides gawked in silence at each other’s products. Both sides had agreed that this would be a formal dinner meeting between the sides, but neither side trusted the other to prepare the food, so we each brought our prepared food and drinks. As each of our parties sat down at the preset dining table, our royal chefs behind us prepared food. For the first course, English chefs prepared bacon-wrapped scallops with aioli sauce. The fragrance of the frying bacon covered the entire tent until a competing scent came from the German Imperial side. Preserved sausage, onions, and peppers were being cooked over a flat top powered by wood rather than diesel, creating a contrasting savory and spicy scent. Luckily, Samuel Youlden, “Sammy” to everyone at the Palace, our fair folk royal chef, was a match for Emperor Charles’ best chefs as he began frying traditional English chips with aromatic herbs that did not lose out.

It was an odd scene between the two sets of royal chefs preparing food for their respective heads of state in absolute silence, it was almost like watching a national-level cooking competition. Scenes from the manga and anime series “Food Wars” came to my mind, including the beautiful dishes, amazing cooking techniques, and sexually suggestive use of food. The series was food porn by any measure of entertainment, down to its orgasm sounds when people take their first bite. Jack and I spent hours watching the anime version from third-party websites, and then later, we attempted some of the dishes on our own with mixed results, sadly no food orgasms. It’s not that I fetishized food, believe me, there are better things to fetishize and enjoy, but Sammy with his red hair and cooking knowledge-ability made the comparison inevitable in my mind.

When the first courses were served, I did not hold back for etiquette and bit into the crunchy bacon-wrapped scallop. The bacon was glazed with honey and salt, so my first bite gave off a mouthwatering salty-sweet punch. Then, the second bite revealing the perfectly seared scallop was an explosion of umami. Sammy had marinated the scallops with lemon, which were grown in limited quantities due to the climate of my territories, making them expensive luxuries along with other crops in artificial greenhouses. The same was true with the freshly fried chips, which used herbs and spices. Even something as simple as pepper from peppercorn was a luxury that would be an expensive luxury import from the Habsburg Empire if you could gain a license from them or shipped from Greenland’s limited greenhouses that Robert and I built to make the island livable and self-sufficient with their trade products. As geothermal energy was bountiful, creating large greenhouse farms was economically feasible even though the production could never satisfy the demand in England completely due to the limited population tending the harvests.

Of course, the mere presence of so many luxury products by my chefs was shocking to the Habsburg party, who probably intended to use their access to global commodities as a means of discouraging their English counterparts.

As we were enjoying our first courses, Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, illegitimate grandson of Charles V, and Imperial officer, was the first to address my party in proper English, “It is impressive that there is enough diesel to maintain both your cooking fires and the engines of your warships. So much powerful technology, all dependent on such a resource.”

Alexander Farnese was someone that I knew would be one of my biggest opponents, immediately upon his first words. With just a few words, he calmly assessed my strengths and weaknesses. Despite the improvements to infrastructure with the use of the cores in England, I still faced a major issue of limited or inefficient fuel supply, requiring my or Robert’s ability. Until recently, refining plants for oil and natural gas had only met about 60% of the nation’s military needs as Robert did not have enough time or physical stamina to constantly create new equipment for extraction and refinement. As the factories were insufficient to accommodate all machine tool needs, there was just not enough production level to relieve my partner from all the tasks that his ability at matter manipulation and reconstitution could do. This limit meant our fleet had slowed down in terms of growth and civilian access to new technologies was almost nonexistent. Luckily, newer equipment from Avalon had improved fuel refinement and tool-making capacity. Unbeknownst to Alexander, England was moving towards fully meeting and exceeding fuel demand.

As for the cores, they were inefficient power sources for us as they were for the Habsburg Empire’s Sky fortresses. Within my industrial plants and weapons, their energy output was mostly lost due to the waste of thermal energy from the natural resistance found even in silver wiring. Unlike refined materials such as carbon nanotubes with superconductivity that Merlin developed in Avalon, forming the energy transmission systems of the mecha knights, we were nowhere near that level of material refinement. Avalon’s AI systems could produce some materials through fabrication, but they were limited in quantity due to the facility size and the needs of Avalon’s need to expand. Supporting other industrial plant’s needs, especially with the distance and lack of a logistic network was impractical for Avalon until the fabrication facility could be expanded. While I had some theoretical knowledge of how it could be done, we were nowhere near the point of creating superconductors or other nanostructure-created materials with England’s resources. If it weren’t for my ability to recharge the cores without the need for a charging station, more than half of the two hundred cores would have been depleted based on how we were using the cores in England. Alexander Farnese did not know any of these facts, but he did understand how resources operated and probed our ability to maintain our national defense policy.

In my history, Alexander Farnese, best remembered by his title, the Duke of Parma, would be remembered as one of the best military commanders of the 16^th century and for two decades would bring about countless victories for the Habsburg Empire and Catholic Church that stood behind it. This person did not seem like a simple transplant from my timeline. In my mind, I felt like he was the real deal, a military genius who I needed to be very cautious against, like Rimuru’s relationship with the treacherous Yuuki Kagurazaka in the original web novel.

Francis, who was attending as a member of my court and ambassador to Navarre, countered Alexander without offering any answers, “We have sufficient fuel for our needs, my dear Duke. I suspect our ability to gain fuel was far less harrowing than the process your men had to pry tea leaves from Asia.”

Before this back-and-forth exchange of verbal snipes could continue, Phillip II interrupted the conversation, “Let’s cut the crap and stop pretending like we are really from the 16^th century. I could care less about your oil, since we now completely control the Middle East and the sand niggers are pumping for us like they’re getting 72 virgins,” he pointed at me, “I presume you’re Jack Humes, the famous fag, who found the cores and learned how to use them. Don’t think that you won anything with a few cores and railguns on your ships. The consortium’s charging station in Rome is under our control as well and almost none of your former allies side with you in the face of our overwhelming power. You should be begging us for a deal right now, so we won’t touch your pathetic little backwater island.”

I guess it was foolish to pretend that we were re-enacting a scene with a semblance of historic civility, but I had never expected that Philip II’s persona would be so openly aggressive. He used bigoted racial and sexual epithets without batting an eye, acknowledged enslaving local populations with religious belief systems, and tried to intimidate his opponents with a show of force. If this had been immediately after our victory in England, I would have been a little hesitant in engaging with the Habsburg Empire and its allies in prolonged discussions, but after the discovery of Avalon, my nation was on far stronger ground. We had modern industrial capacity at my disposal and a squad of mechas. I may not have the population, nor the resources, but the population growth of Omegas and the production run of Avalon’s fabrication drones with the untapped resources of Greenland can offset some of our disadvantages.

Before I could answer Philip’s provocation with a retort, Robert pinched my hand to signal me that he would take care of him, then proceeded to answer, “If we are all honest here, why should we make a deal with the Western Charter and elements of the Consortium? There are other factions with rival interests, charging stations, and cores. In a world where you do not hold absolute advantages, I doubt you can make absolute demands. After all, this is a meeting where all parties are equal, our war had ended with formal peace terms by each side.”

The insinuation from Robert surprised Philip into silence, but Charles V smiled and looked at me as he replied, “You would ally with them, Mr. Humes. I never took you for a fool.”

Robert and I had discussed using this meeting to create a false narrative that we had acquired a charging station from one of the other factions. By doing this, we could hide the fact that I could recharge cores without the technology, using an ability that should be impossible. I had to play my part perfectly.

I looked straight into the old Emperor’s eyes, “You left me no choice, except to follow the adage, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Charles’ grin grew wider, then he laughed without reserve before he replied in an icy tone, “A man who would work with anyone to get what he wants; you are Jack Humes,” he cackled, then continued, “When we first met, you were giving a lecture about the applications of the cores discovered on Luna. We all knew you tested your application for the cores on the Pacific Ocean and you removed 5 inches of water from the earth’s oceans along with several islands. As you spoke, I thought you were insane or naive for revealing such a powerful technology so openly, but later, I understood you were using all of us: CIA, FSB, MSS, NTRO, and all the major corporate entities to obtain as many cores as possible. The more that we brought in, the cores became more godlike objects through your research. However, the cores had a shelf life, and we could never be satisfied with what we could obtain. When you developed vacuum energy to recharge depleted cores, you made the ultimate addictive drug that no nation could go without, power itself. Too bad, your luck ran out.”

I answered him coldly, “From where I sit, I am fine and none of that matters to what exists today.”

Charles smugly replied, “You are right, none of that matters now. I just wanted to emphasize that we desire to survive with our true selves intact. If you desire to continue, then you should end all hopes of finding allies among the others. The Chinese and Indian factions are too far to render aid with their charging stations, so your only potential hope beyond us is the Russian,” he grinned, “Among all the nations that sought out the cores on Luna, the Russians were the most relentless and merciless. Despite their inferior technology, they sacrificed millions of their people to gain a single core. They deceived and stole cores from their allies, the Chinese and India respectively. Yet, you wish to ally with them. I warn you that this would-be ally will not tolerate your existence at all, and your pitiful two hundred cores will fall into their hands. If you accept our authority, you can survive.”

While I knew that he was coloring the truth slightly to dissuade any potential disadvantageous partnerships, the long history of Russia’s rise as a world power and for a time superpower was filled with similar consequential actions. It didn’t surprise me that in a race for the cores with their impressive utility, Russia would sacrifice its people, use subterfuge, and openly steal. During both the eras of the Czars and Politburo in my timeline, the ends always justified the means. It is not to say that Russia is evil incarnate as Charles was portraying or as my contemporaries argued often, but instead, the underlying ideal behind all these actions was driven to achieve goals without considerations. An amoral and unethical opponent like them thrives on conflict, so those seeking order are enemies. In conventional thought, it was a simple conclusion to view the Russian faction's expansive Eurasian Empire as foils to counterbalance the Western Charter’s global empire. However, the balance of power theory everyone believed in fell apart throughout history, despite all the proponents, due to the inability to reign in chaos. You can’t balance the unpredictable. Even so, I did not respond to Charles.

The second courses were served, ground beef, onions, and carrots stuffed in puff pastries for the English contingent and Schnitzel, tender fried pork and chicken cutlets coated with light panko rather than breadcrumbs, with mashed yams for the Habsburg contingent. For refreshments, we were served sweetened tea and iced wine made from a unique type of grape that was grown in the cooler climates of North America. Newfoundland and Nova Scotia were settled to provide support for Avalon, so agricultural production was prioritized to free up the greenhouse space for more commercial agricultural products. In addition, despite the colder climate, these areas could still produce unique products like frost-resistant grapes for sweet wine and sugar beets for granulated sugar. As it took 8 pounds of beets to produce 1 pound of granulated sugar, sugar was still a luxury good that needed significant inputs as we had just begun harvesting. On the Habsburg side, dark colored ales, and carbonated beverages, resembling cola, were served. At the sight of cola, I gave Robert a puppy dog look to make me some. We had dismissed manufacturing carbonated drinks as it consumed too many resources. He gave me the look that most spouses give one another, meaning “Are you serious?”. Despite the seriousness of this dinner meeting, it was a nice distraction that we had a silent argument about something like cola. Throughout the second course, no one spoke from either side.

The third course was dessert, Sammy made traditional English Trifles utilizing sugar, ginger, rosewater, egg custard, flour, almond milk, butter, and berries. The Habsburg chefs made apple pie and Chocolate ice cream, using compressed air created by a core to create ice cream in our presence. It was Robert’s turn to give me the puppy dog look because he was an ice cream fiend, who could never get enough of the stuff. Whether it was 100° F or 0° F, he didn’t care about the background if he could get his hands on ice cream. I knew I would be stuck sharing a few tubs of vanilla or cherry ice cream with him on our way back to London. He was going to hoard all the milk and dairy products he could find to create a massive stock of the stuff with his abilities. We could technically replicate the same thing with portable diesel power generators to create ice cream, but air compressors were not usually used for food preparation in England at this time. It was not like we had a host of 20th-century housewives demanding the latest kitchen appliances to make gourmet food, so the technology was just never developed. With Ice cream, the Habsburg Empire wanted to show off their wealth and power in these culinary displays, and I could not deny they had succeeded.

I broke the silence amid dessert, “I’ll consider your value judgment, but I currently do not need you. Since you are offering this meeting right now, you aren’t sure you can win against all your enemies, and worry I’ll stab you in the back. Even with my fewer cores, I have proven I can hurt your forces. Just accept the fact that I have not sided with your foes and I am not joining your side for now.”

Charles coldly answered, “Very well,” then he smiled and made a hand gesture to one of his subordinates who left the tent, “You should probably use your radio to contact your puppet William in Bruges. He’ll be getting a report soon from Zeeland.”

Upon Charles’ words, radio messages were being received, and reports of wide-scale destruction were being reported across the isthmus that connected the peninsular province of Zeeland with the continent. Massive tsunamis were swamping the two coastlines and destroying inland settlements due to a series of explosions offshore. Technically, Zeeland wasn’t protected under the peace treaty we had agreed to and it was in active revolt against Habsburg rule. However, as William had accepted their leaders among his allies, it was a meaningful strike and threat to rebel provinces in the Habsburg-controlled Netherlands. Additionally, I presumed it was meant to show that England did not hold ultimate power over the vast oceans of the world as these new sea-based weapons reshaped the shorelines in a matter of minutes.

Yet, I wasn’t moved by his moves and Robert left the tent to give orders to Frances to make our prepared answer to Habsburg provocations. In a few moments, a loud series of explosions could be heard in the distance, causing the Habsburg troops in the tent to stand to attention, anticipating an attack. Philip pulled out a hidden dagger, which violated the terms of being unarmed, but my abilities could easily counter a single knife. However, Charles gestured for everyone to sit back down as he knew that the explosions were not meant to open hostility. The Kaiser wordlessly stared at me and finished his dessert.

I glared at Kaiser Charles and replied, “Your radio should be reporting explosions over the skies of Paris, Aachen, Stuttgart, Rome, Marseilles, Cadiz, and Madrid. While we may not have as many resources as the Empire, ballistic missile technology is well within our repertoire.”

With a range of 2,000 KM, the 7 ballistic missiles that I had brought with me were meant to be a demonstration of my ability to initiate retaliatory strikes. Launched from non-static platforms like mobile land launchers and warships, it added to the asymmetric nature of a confrontation against England. No nuclear warheads were used in these missiles, but my contemporaries will understand what the threat meant. In practice, it took 6,000 troops to assemble the launchers and prepare materials, along with radio communications for telemetry adjustments from the mecha knights through their cores, so it was not a realistic demonstration until we could miniaturize the components to lower labor requirements and automate telemetry calculations.

We ended the meeting without any conclusions, but it was an interesting first encounter with my nemesis. Charles V’s persona to me seemed like a pragmatist, probably an attitude built up from years of work in the intelligence service. While Philip II’s persona seemed like the stereotypical American entitled idiot with too much self-confidence and supremacy complex, his military commander counterpart Alexander Farnese was a careful analyst, who did not hold such notions. Despite having some advantages, the subtle and overt displays of power demonstrated that the sky fortresses were not their only card to play. My ballistic missiles were also a revelation that I had developed further than they knew as well. In the end, I achieved a secondary goal at least. Though not optimal, a balance of terror was created. In my history, the 48-year-long Cold War was proof that peace could be achieved through this kind of mutually assured destruction. Robert and Francis had to push me to accept this approach, they won the argument in the end.

After this encounter, there would be no active conflict or aggression between my side and the Habsburg empire for almost twenty years. A year after this meeting, an agreement between rebel provinces, except regions protected by an original peace treaty, and the Habsburg Empire was reached to accept suzerainty status with some limited autonomy and economic affiliations with Williams provinces. This agreement was possible due to an important event, Emperor Charles V died a year later during a visit to Spain. Charles V should have died of chronic health issues in 1558 in Spain after abdicating the Austrian throne to his brother, Maximillian who I had killed in 1558 battles near Niewupoort, and the Spanish throne to his son, Philip. Neither Philip nor Alexander expected his death due to the advanced medical knowledge they had, but I had already foreseen this probability. Upon analyzing Charles’ health with my ability, I knew he had several issues such as high blood pressure and clotting factors developing around his heart valves. It was a ticking time bomb that could not be easily fixed without pharmaceutical drugs and invasive surgeries. The lack of treatment for these innate health issues meant they had not been identified. In the end, despite his desires and experiences, Charles could not surpass the human frailty of the flesh.

The next shocking turn was another death that was recorded before my return to England, Mary Tudor, the prior reigning Queen of England had also died. Her health issues stemming from Ovarian Cancer would have caused her death in 1558 as well. However, whatever medication or dietary regimen that she was on ended with Reginald Pole’s death. As I saw her probability of death rising over the last five years, I gradually reduced her imprisonment provisions and terms for house arrest, since I knew that her lifespan would be short. Her freedom was a useful honey trap, both Charles Neville and Thomas Percy were constant visitors for instance. These two men were at the center of various plots against Elizabeth I in my history, including the infamous Northern Uprising that made its way into a movie. Noting them and their associates would help ameliorate any planned actions by the remaining Catholic-aligned factions in England. However, what I did not know at the time was that their support would be dramatically reduced with the death of Charles V, so they began gaining assistance elsewhere.

Perhaps, the deaths of Charles and Mary Tudor were too anti-climactic and the sudden peace too abrupt for me and my allies. We dropped our guard and the long peace left all of us open to the hidden dangers within our current world.