Chapter 13 — The Shadow of Rome
The storm came not from heaven, but from Rome.
For months after the Edict of Iron, the Papal Curia seethed in silence, their wrath cooling into strategy.
Then, in the spring of 1253, a new bull was issued—De Bellum Fidei, the War of Faith.
It declared that Leon of Aragon, "the forger-king and false prophet," was an enemy of Christendom, and that any prince who took up arms against him would earn plenary indulgence.
Thus was born the Holy League: a coalition of Rome, Castile, Portugal, and certain Italian states—blessed by the Pope, financed by gold from Lombardy, and armed with the conviction that they fought for God Himself.
But they were too late to understand that Leon had already changed the world.
The Leagues of Europe
In the courts of Europe, parchment burned as fast as powder.
Alliances were drawn and broken in the same breath.
In Paris, envoys whispered to Louis IX that Rome sought to reclaim its authority, not defend faith.
In Vienna, the Emperor—secretly favoring Leon's reforms—declared that "Aragon's king sins in theology but triumphs in governance."
Even the merchants of Venice, pragmatic as ever, began selling saltpeter and iron to both sides.
War, after all, was the only eternal trade.
Rome's Wrath
In the Vatican, Pope Alexander IV knelt before the Altar of St. Peter, his voice low, his heart furious.
"He who smelts faith into iron," he murmured, "shall be broken by it."
He appointed Cardinal Gregorio as Legate-General of the Holy League.
Under his seal, thirty thousand men gathered across Castile and Navarre—knights of the cross, mercenaries from the Rhineland, zealots drawn by promises of salvation.
Their banners bore the crucifix and the sword; their motto, "Deus Vindicat"—God Avenges.
Among them marched a young commander, Rodrigo de Avila, once Leon's childhood friend and now his sworn enemy, convinced that he fought to redeem Aragon's soul.
The Kingdom Girds for War
In Zaragoza, the furnaces roared day and night.
The Iron Guilds—now a standing arm of the Crown—produced cannon, arquebuses, and a strange new device of Leon's design: a rotary gun powered by foot crank and water wheel.
It was said that when one fired, the roar echoed like thunder rolling across a valley.
Fatimah oversaw the engineers; Tomas the chaplains who blessed every weapon before battle.
"Blessed be the hands that defend the innocent," was the prayer engraved upon each barrel.
And the people answered with a new creed, chanted in forges and fields alike:
"Faith is fire. Iron is will.
Let Rome speak. We shall act."
The Shadow War
Before swords clashed, daggers whispered.
Spies of the Holy League slipped across the Pyrenees—priests disguised as pilgrims, monks carrying poison in their rosaries, merchants whose ledgers hid coded letters.
Some reached Zaragoza itself.
But Leon's spymaster, Don Esteban, once of the Templar Order, had woven a web of his own.
For every spy Rome sent, two vanished into Aragon's cellars—never to be seen again.
Yet rumors persisted:
that an assassin had infiltrated the royal palace,
that gold from Rome was buying discontent among the nobles,
and that even within the Church of Iron, not all believed Leon's defiance would end in glory.
The Council of the Hammer
In the great hall of the Aljafería, beneath banners depicting the crowned cross and the forge-flame, Leon convened his council.
"We face a war of faith," said Tomas grimly, "and wars of faith do not end with victory—they end with ashes."
Fatimah unrolled a map across the table.
"The Holy League gathers in Pamplona. If they cross the Ebro before midsummer, Zaragoza will burn."
Leon's gaze was calm, almost resigned.
"Then we shall meet them not as heretics, but as believers. We will show them that God's will does not fear the anvil."
Don Esteban stepped forward, a grim smile on his lips.
"Shall I spread word among our allies in the Empire? The Lutherian princes will aid us if we promise trade."
"Send the message," Leon said. "And tell them this:
The age of parchment is over. The age of fire begins."
The March of the Holy League
By midsummer, the plains of Navarra shook with the sound of marching feet.
Columns of crusaders, their armor glinting beneath crimson banners, advanced toward Aragon.
Chroniclers wrote that the Pope's legate carried a relic of the True Cross before the army, believing no mortal power could stand against it.
But as they neared the Ebro, scouts brought back a vision none had foreseen:
the Aragonese army not in lines of knights and pikemen, but ranks of strange iron carts—proto-tanks—drawn by horses, their sides bristling with rotating guns.
The crusaders prayed.
The Aragonese loaded powder.
Faith was about to meet fire.
Epilogue of the Chapter
When the first cannon of Aragon thundered across the Ebro valley, the sound was heard even in Rome.
The chroniclers later wrote that it was "as if the heavens themselves had been torn apart."
The Battle of the Ebro would be remembered as the first war of the new age—
an age where piety met progress,
and where one king's defiance would reshape not only Christendom, but the very meaning of faith itself.
End of Chapter 13