You were wrong

To your dismay, you found out that you're wrong in your prediction. The shipment arrived in only three months. But to your pleasant surprise, the king sent 12,000 sets, wanting to mollify you. The armor, shield and saber sets were of high quality, almost as good as your own craftsmen could produce.

The Axum Empire's greed was matched by your own nobles' which quickly went into business to take advantage of the flourishing trade between both countries. While this was happening, you play the role of a righteous king, focussing on the security and welfare part of governing the country.

However, you have a less altruistic motive that you didn't tell everyone else.

You wanted your nobles to get comfortable with the idea getting rich is more important than following the papacy's dictum. This was evidenced by the effectively silenced objection to the trade with Axum by your nobles, without you having to **** the issue. Your nobles getting rich is not an issue, since you're also richer, having more tax revenues from them.

The real issue at hand was not the Papacy per say, but the Kingdom of Francois. The country has long shown an interest in expanding its influence to the region. While Papacy had negligible military power, it wielded vast influence. On the other hand, the kingdom, with its Capetian dynasty in reign just over a century, fielded a significant military ****, but had almost no clout around countries in the region.

You predicted the kingdom would be more than willing to 'punish' you on behalf of the Papacy, even if other countries weren't interested in doing so. After all, your agents told you the king and its nobles were getting jealous of your newly found prosperity. It's not your fault the king chased away the Axum emissary when he went there, so he shouldn't complain about the matter.