Of Pride and Power - 46. Chapter 40: “Disdain things you cannot have, ignoring them is the best revenge”

In my timeline, Bruges and Navarre were territories that frequently switched between different factions during the wars involving Spanish, Bourbon French, Dutch Republican, and English forces. Conflicts like the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) exemplified this territorial fluidity. Understanding the transitory nature of these gains, I aimed to secure strategic holdings for England and its allies. Unfortunately, despite extensive contingency planning, Bruges was impossible to hold against the Habsburg Empire, which, much like their German counterparts during the two World Wars in my timeline, easily invaded the territory.

Our plan for a surprise breakthrough from Habsburg territory involved Dutch President-General William retreating northwest by sea toward Amsterdam, which had joined the Dutch Republic during the 1566 riots against Habsburg rule and was their largest seaport. By consolidating our defenses with English naval power, we hoped that relocating to Amsterdam would mitigate the loss of Bruges, though it did result in the bifurcation of land trade routes. However, as the adage goes, no plan survives contact with the enemy. I only later learned how deep the Habsburg military invasion into Dutch territory had gone. Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma and cousin to Emperor Philip, not only occupied Bruges but also captured the Zeeland peninsula and the city of Rotterdam, which lies south of Amsterdam. Only the deliberate flooding of the marshlands using dikes slowed his advance, buying time for a proper defense of Amsterdam. Had the plans in Paris succeeded in killing Robert and me, I doubt any semblance of a Dutch nation would have survived due to the troops transfers later.

Navarre, in contrast, was a planned withdrawal and maneuver operation after the purges of recent months. Francis, Robert, other advisors in the royal court, and I had been secretly coordinating with Navarre’s Basque population, which made up two-thirds of the region’s inhabitants. Queen Regent Jean assisted us in smuggling equipment and materials into the Pyrenees Mountains, where small fortresses were constructed within the rugged terrain. We essentially prepared for a long-term insurgency, aiming to tie up the Spanish army. Moreover, with Aquitaine—on the opposite side of the Pyrenees—being a major hub of Cathar groups loyal to me due to their fair folk origins, we had no issues with reinforcements and supplies. Some historians later claimed this was a brilliant tactical move by my government to drain Habsburg power through a decade-long insurgency, but I cannot take credit for it. In my timeline, my home nation, the United States, and its rival, Russia, both lost major wars of attrition under similar conditions in a nation northwest of the Kashmir basin called Afghanistan. No one ever learned the lesson about fighting wars in mountainous terrain with friendly borderlands capable of sustaining an indefinite insurgency. Even if Spanish troops occupied the palace and capital of Navarre, the extensive and heavily fortified mountain range, defended by Basque, Cathar, and English Royal Marines, remained impenetrable. We could bombard and ambush Spanish troops at our discretion. Thus, when I heard they had invaded Navarre, I remained optimistic.

When I later received reports from Francis and the troops in the field, I learned that the Spanish invasion of Navarre had been an utter disaster. As expected, their land forces seized Pau and St-Jean-Pied-De-Port, but they were soon subjected to a relentless artillery barrage. In the following days, the Spanish troops quartered themselves in commoner homes and farms, using the Basque population as human shields to counter these attacks. However, this only enabled the Basque insurgents to carry out clandestine guerrilla warfare against the occupying forces.

Worse still, the Spanish fleet, which was supposed to supply the occupation forces with a secure sea route, was sunk off the coast of Navarre’s only port city, Bayonne. I had sent just twenty ships with Francis and Henry Bourbon—a mix of five transports, six Ark Royal-class heavy cruisers, and nine Hornet-class torpedo cutters—against a Spanish fleet of fifty-two ships. The Hornet-class ships were based on captured Russian missile boat designs, but I could not synthesize or salvage enough of the materials the Russians used for their invisibility screens for my entire fleet. Instead, I opted for heat-dispersion materials. The Ark Royal cruisers, being hybrid missile and gun platforms designed for long-range combat, pulled back upon sighting the Spanish fleet's approach.

The five transport ships were each equipped with cranes, grapplers, and 250 containers, each 10 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 8 feet tall, which served as barracks for the Royal Marines. They also had double-steel hulls and the latest piston engines for speed. Commodore Thomas Morgan ordered the torpedo cutters to rush the enemy fleet first, deploying heat-seeking missiles. However, the heat-dispersion material caused major issues for the primitive homing systems, rendering the missile volley ineffective. The torpedoes from the cutters, however, found their marks, sinking fifteen Spanish warships. This forced the enemy fleet to shift their formations, attempting evasive maneuvers and resetting their engagement with the missile cutters. As they tried to regroup, the unarmed transport ships advanced toward the slower Spanish battleships. Using their grapplers and cranes like medieval trebuchets, the transports launched containers at the Spanish capital ships. Despite the containers not being explosive, the barrage damaged launch tubes, communications, and other systems on these warships in the heat of battle. Due to the threat posed by the torpedo cutters, the usual screen of destroyers and similar vessels protecting the battleships was out of position. Finally, the Ark Royal heavy cruisers, with extreme accuracy, picked off the damaged battleships and other capital ships in the fleet after the transports had safely withdrawn. It was an embarrassing defeat at sea, and the failure to capture Bayonne limited their logistics to land supply routes across the insurgent-held Pyrenees mountains. I could imagine Francis with a slight smirk as he sent the coded radio message, my cold and efficient yet devoted lover.

Beyond those two crucial theaters of war, my task and escape from Paris were child’s play, especially with the divine gift of control over time itself.

After Prince François offered an unnecessary apology, I approached the teenage boy, patted him on the back to soothe his guilt, and spoke to him.

“Prince François, my dear child, do you think I could have entered the Tuileries Palace without my abilities? The countermeasures your brother employed have failed to disrupt my powers. While I could escape Paris at any time, I came here to deliver a warning to your brother and mother about a plot uncovered by my agents, involving Swiss Guard Commander Strozzi and the Habsburg Empire against France. After delivering my warning, I shall leave the city with you and deal with the forces arrayed against my kingdom.”

With those words, I managed to alleviate Prince François's concerns and handed him a letter to be delivered to Henry III and Catherine de Medici. I instructed him to take the letter to the royal chapel, where the French king and Queen-Dowager would be attending a private service for Saint Bartholomew’s Day. I also advised him to have his servant request a meeting with them in the audience chamber to discuss the evidence mentioned in my letter regarding the conspiracy between Commander Strozzi and Henri de Lorraine, Duke of Guise.

Although I lacked concrete evidence of the conspiracy beyond my knowledge of the deaths of Prince François and King Henry III in an alternate timeline, I knew the letter contained enough details, drawn from English intelligence on the Duke of Guise’s dealings with the Habsburgs, to make both Henry III and Catherine wary. Despite Catherine’s hatred of me as the murderer of her eldest son a decade ago, her longstanding mistrust of Habsburg intentions—fueled by years of bad faith under Uber-Kaiser Philip—made her cautious. Furthermore, a sudden retreat by the French royal family from a Catholic service would undoubtedly raise suspicions among Commander Strozzi’s Swiss Guards, who were stationed in every corner of the Tuileries Palace. This action would likely arouse his suspicion, and I anticipated that Commander Strozzi would appear with his troops to view the evidence and eliminate any witnesses upon hearing the subject of the meeting.

I waited at the meeting location with Prince François, accompanied by the triplets who acted as my guards. Each of them was armed with assault rifles for close-to-intermediate-range fire support. Due to their metal refinement industrial limitations, most French soldiers were equipped with standard repeating rifles based on the Leroux magazine gun, which had a 36-round cartridge. However, despite the large magazine, these weapons had a dangerous tendency to jam and overheat due to the lack of air cooling or thermal release, limiting their rate of fire. In contrast, the Swiss Guards, as part of the Habsburg Empire, were armed with repeating rifles based on the German Mauser-designed Gewehr 1898, one of the best bolt-action rifles of my timeline. As a result, the Russian Empire and the Ming Dynasty of China also used bolt-action rifles based on the Mosin-Nagant, which were easier to mass-produce than Mauser rifles but had a maximum range of only 900 yards compared to the 4,000-yard range with scopes of the Mauser rifles. However, based on the rate of fire in a confined area, my assault rifles were a far better defensive weapon compared to bolt-action rifles.

Of course, most Royal Marines were armed with variants of M1903 Springfield bolt-action rifles, which remained important staple weapons for our forces. The maximum effective range of 5,000 yards could outperform their Habsburg counterparts. In contrast, after the success of the battles in 1558-59, the Royal Marine assault rifles based on my timeline's Sturmgewehr 44 became a major issue. These assault rifles were logistically difficult to maintain and had too much recoil which led to lower accuracy compared to bolt-action rifles at intermediate-range combat of 400 to 800 yards. After the 1569 attempted coups, Robert and I decided to transition away from Sturmgewehr 44 assault rifles for the Royal Marines and Aelfric Guard platoons. Robert, my knowledgeable partner, persuaded me to adopt the Russian standard assault rifle that had been in continuous service from 1948 until the time of my death nearly eighty years later. Despite not being designed by a mechanical engineer, the Kalashnikov automatic rifles prefixed with “AK” were easier to mass-produce, repair, and operate in adverse conditions, with low rates of fouling or jamming. In a military engagement, my troops would be far better armed than their French or Habsburg opponents.

When my abilities detected the approach of King Henry III and Queen Dowager Catherine, I directed the triplets to position themselves in the corners of the audience chamber. I didn't expect they would be necessary, but I want them in flanking positions with their weapons just in case. Prince François and I stood before the French throne to greet the royal family.

Upon seeing me standing in the middle of the room with her youngest son, Catherine screamed hysterically, “How did you get into the Palace? Get away from my son!” followed by a series of vulgar French obscenities that I would rather not repeat for the sake of my descendants.

My first sight of King Henry III of France was bizarre. He was dressed in full royal regalia—golden robes, a silk shirt, and jewels adorning him from head to toe, as one would expect from someone of his station. However, beneath his large golden robes that concealed his lower body, I noticed three pairs of legs. Two of the pairs were unmistakably those of children. A fleeting image came to mind of an English Christmas morality tale from my timeline, involving the Spirit of Christmas Present haunting a wealthy miser who hoards his ill-gotten wealth and mistreats his staff. In the tale, the spirit later reveals two children hiding beneath his robes, claiming they are the offspring of mankind: Ignorance and Want, destined to destroy humanity if left unchecked. I doubted this hedonistic French king had any moralistic reason for hiding two young children within his oversized robes. More likely, they were the kidnapped boys from rural villages that Francis had reported. Yet, despite his evil nature, I couldn’t let this man fall victim to the Duke of Guise and the Habsburg plot.

Ignoring his mother, King Henry III slowly made his way to his throne, occasionally smiling with signs of pleasure. As he ascended the dais, two naked, pale-skinned, dark-haired boys emerged from beneath his robe and positioned themselves beneath the French throne. They became King Henry’s footrest in a scene that would be criminal in any era. Seeing those innocent boys, I was deeply relieved that Jamie and Will were safely in Bristol, under the protection of my guards. At that moment, I silently vowed that if Henry Valois ever tried to lay a hand on one of my sons, I would cut off his balls and feed them to him.

Without shame, King Henry placed each of his bare feet in front of a boy, who began to clean them with their tongues. As the obscene scene unfolded, King Henry III of France pointed at me and said, 'You are Aelfric Elias Tudor. I heard you were half-woman and half-man, but your breasts don’t even compare to some of my rotund boy pillows. I wonder if your male parts are as inferior as your female parts.'

To be fair, I’ve heard similar jabs in my past life as Eric Meeks. Being intersex, most people didn’t understand that body development isn’t uniform. As an Omega, Jack’s genetic engineering granted me two-stage biological changes. My penis is naturally average or slightly above that of normal males during my non-reproductive period, or after I have had a child past six months. However, when I am pregnant, my penis doesn’t easily become erect, and my breasts increase in size from an A-cup to a D-cup in under a week. For my female and omega descendants, I understand how much such a transformation affects your back and posture, so make sure your partners support you during pregnancy. Of course, I didn’t share any of this information with the despicable King Henry III, despite his curiosity.

As I noticed Commander Strozzi’s troops approaching the audience chamber, I smirked and said, 'I believe we should get down to business, King Henry Valois of France. You’ve read my letter, and I have evidence proving that Henri de Lorraine is conspiring with the Habsburgs against you. As we negotiate the union of our houses, I am duty-bound to share this with you.'

Henry Valois glanced at his mother, Catherine de Medici, who nodded. They were unaware that Prince Francois had already revealed their betrayal of the marriage pact with England, evident in their invasion of English allies in Le Havre and the siege of Boulogne. Although my entry into the Tuileries Palace might seem suspicious, it could be justified if I knew about the Duke of Guise’s planned coup against them, which in turn was a Habsburg plot to betray New Rome under the Medici family.

Under a 16th-century mindset, noble conspiracies and betrayals were natural. As Niccolò Machiavelli wrote in The Prince, 'It cannot be called a virtue to kill one's fellow citizens, to betray friends, to be without faith, without mercy, without religion; by these means, one can acquire power but not glory.' European nobility and royalty understood that betrayal was a possible means to acquire power, though one would lack legitimacy afterward unless backed by an entity like the Habsburg Empire, which could create legitimacy by replacing ideals such as faith or mercy by controlling the Papal throne. By removing the Valois-Medici dynasty in France—which controlled territories across France, Poland-Lithuania, Italy, the Baltic states, and the Eastern seaboard of North America below Nova Scotia—the Habsburgs would consolidate power under their private rule. Uber Kaiser Charles had not wanted to overextend his nation with such a vast administrative burden, but his son, Uber Kaiser Philip, was far less reserved in his belief in Imperial exceptionalism, much like some of my former countrymen in the early 21st century.

King Henry III’s expression shifted at my words and his mother’s acknowledgment. He smiled at me and said, 'We are pleased to receive such information from our friends in England and would love to see your evidence of Henri de Lorraine’s treason against France.'

Sensing Commander Strozzi’s presence beyond the doorway to the audience chamber, I loudly exclaimed, 'King Henry III, I must inform you that my evidence of this conspiracy involves Commander Strozzi and the Swiss Guard, who are your guards within this palace. Shouldn’t you order French troops to secure your safety and that of the Queen Dowager?'

At my words, Commander Strozzi burst into the audience chamber with a dozen of his men, their bolt-action rifles pointed at everyone.

Philippe Strozzi laughed when he saw me. 'Well played, Mr. Humes, but your revelations come too late for you and the Medici puppet faggot,' he sneered, then turned to his soldiers. 'Kill them all!'

Bullets flew from their rifles, but before they could hit their targets, they froze in mid-air under my command. The Swiss Guard and the French Royal family were stunned by my display of power, which had not been reported by the survivors of Radclyffe’s coup. As far as they knew, I could only remove objects, not manipulate physics.

In an instant, I reversed and altered the bullets' trajectory, causing them to strike every member of the Swiss Guard except Philippe Strozzi.

Fearful, Strozzi pulled out a Core and ordered, 'Incinerate the area 200 cubic meters in front of me.'

Of course, the phantom energy the Core could control was overridden by me with a dramatic wave of my hand, dissipating the fiery wall he attempted to create. While my abilities weren’t naturally as powerful as I was presenting, the effortless display was intended to terrify both sides of my enemies.

With another wave of my hand, Philippe Strozzi was lifted into mid-air as I used attraction forces to seize the Core from his grasp.

I mocked the floating Strozzi, 'You know nothing about me or my abilities, despite traveling nearly five hundred years into the past. I’ll release you from my power to send a message to your masters, Duke Henri de Lorraine and Uber Kaiser Philip von Habsburg. Tell them they have violated the peace and will be punished accordingly.'

I released the Swiss Guard commander from his suspended state. He fled the palace, ordering his fellow Swiss Guard members to join him before the French royal troops arrived. Strozzi wanted to organize his forces and warn his co-conspirators about my power, which could not be suppressed using the Cores as their scientists had theorized. Although the Swiss Guard and Duke of Guise’s forces were significant within Paris, the French royal army—originally intended to hunt me and my entourage down—was three times larger and controlled all strategic points. Looking forward into the future, I knew what will come of allowing Strozzi to escape. Fearing my power and knowing I could not be contained from Strozzi's message, Henri de Lorraine will divert his forces to Paris from the siege of Boulogne, which had not truly begun. His treachery was exposed, and Boulogne was likely my destination after leaving Paris. What I demonstrated in Paris would make him want to change his targets to the less powerful Valois forces in Paris. Though I could not normally predict the future with such accuracy, the space-time rip and phantom energy had enhanced my analytical abilities, granting me an astounding level of prescience.

After Strozzi’s departure, my attention turned to the French royal family. "King Henry and Queen Dowager Catherine," I said, "I will be leaving your city with Prince François. He will be well-protected under my care while you address this rebellion."

King Henry frowned and kicked the two young boys at his feet in frustration. "You can't leave Paris! You must fix what you started here!"

At this point, I had heard enough from this petulant pederast. "As the monarch of England, Cornwall, Wales, Ireland, and our dominion territories, I can do as I please. Let me be blunt, Henry Valois," I dropped his title for emphasis and pressed on, "I am aware of what your forces did in Le Havre and the Norman Dukedom. However, they are an independent state with no English troops or representation in my realm, so I am leaving that travesty alone. I also know that the French royal army in the city was initially deployed to eliminate me and my retinue, but I will assume that it was the work of Henri de Lorraine and the Habsburg Empire. Despite your and your mother’s potential hand in these dishonorable actions, I will show magnamity to you or your troops. Moreover, I will even share a piece of intelligence that I recently learned: Henri de Lorraine is ending his siege of Boulogne and will be marching his army towards Paris to secure the throne. With his forces within the city and more troops on the way, you will need your manpower to suppress his forces in Paris to secure your capital or escape to rally more troops. Under such a circumstance, I am protecting your younger brother against your various enemies. Those are my gifts to France."

With those words, we left the Tuileries Palace with Prince François, using the catacomb network. Prince François stayed close by me throughout our journey through this grim underworld of decaying corpses. At some point, he pleaded for us to take a surface route away from this macabre scene through hell.

I examined the ceiling with my analytical skills and shook my head. "Up there right now, French royal troops are fighting Swiss Guardsmen and the Duke of Guise’s sympathizers. It’s a chaotic scene with severed limbs, headless bodies, and burned-out buildings. Your mother and brother have taken my warning seriously and ordered their forces to hunt down and eliminate all Habsburg-aligned nobles as well. It’s truly a massacre."

Prince François gripped my forearm tightly and asked, "How will we escape Paris amid such chaos?"

I held up the core I had acquired from Philippe Strozzi. "This should provide enough power to create a Russian invisibility screen with the equipment we brought. We’ll travel in the fuel truck we brought with us; Robert can refuel us as we head to Aquitaine, where additional resources should be available."

The fuel truck, nearly empty of diesel at this point, could accommodate my entire royal retinue and Prince François. It was built from scavenged material of the Russian fleet captured off the coast of London, so it was equipped with a reversed-engineered invisibility screen. While not luxurious, it would be quite safe.

After regrouping with Robert, Puck, Eddie, and the rest of our forces within the parish church, I asked Puck to prepare a quick catalyst to enhance bacterial growth, which he claimed would likely have no measurable benefits. To convince him, I showed my current enhanced ability by accelerating the melting process of a wax candlestick within seconds. As Puck began work on a catalyst, everyone else prepared for our imminent departure from Paris. The truck, which I had displaced near Eddie's humble home, was restored by me amid the upheaval between the French forces of various factions. The triplets fired their automatic rifles and I blocked all incoming attacks as the truck made its way back to the parish church. After gathering everyone at the church, we set fire to the building to hide our activities and drove off towards the southern gate under the invisibility screen. As we neared the Seine River, I threw Puck's concoction, contaminating the water supply. Regardless of who controlled Paris, both sides would soon seek me out once it was confirmed that I hadn’t traveled to Calais, because I doubt this trap in Paris was all that my foes had prepared. I used my current enhanced temporal ability to accelerate bacterial formation within the river, cultivating nearly 100,000 colonies. After a few days, the bacteria should number in the millions and affect the main water supply. As this was a type of biological weapon, a practice that I will explicitly outlaw, I limited the bacteria to only E. coli strains, which cause symptoms like diarrhea, nausea, lightheadedness, and tiredness.

With that task completed, we departed the city and spent a week traveling across France.