THE WINTER CROWS: Volume IX; Karl II - That Poor Boy

[Nectorist 12869]

THE WINTER CROWS: Volume IX; Karl II - That Poor Boy

Written by Demetrius Barrow

 

---

Karl II - That Poor Boy

“Our kingdom is corrupted to its core.” - Count Aldrik of Ayr in an unfinished letter to his brother, c. 1659
 

 

Few monarchs would have been prepared to handle the myriad of problems that plagued Haense during the middle of the 17th century, but formally putting that responsibility in the hands of a seven year old Karl Marus elevated danger to catastrophe. Much like Marus I or Petyr II, the events of Karl II’s reign were far beyond his control. This was partially due to his inheritance coming during his minority, and was partially due to the fragile state he inherited. This chapter is less about the person of Karl Marus, who lived and died too young to make his mark on history, but rather about the tragedy of his country and of his life.

 

Born on the 11th of Harren’s Folly, 1648, to King Otto III and Queen Ingrid, it was not expected that Karl Marus would eventually take the Haeseni throne. His older brother, Otto Stefan, was a healthy child, and his father’s realm was at peace both internally and with its neighbors. The calamities that would strike within five years were far from the minds of the Haeseni, who enjoyed the comfort and stability that had been delivered to them by Otto II and maintained by his successor. Gifted a childhood of splendor and security, Prince Karl would want for nothing in his first few years.

 

Prince Karl is mentioned sparingly in the historical record, mostly as a point of reference to his older brother. Where Prince Otto was “demure, mindful, and contemplative,” Prince Karl was “loud, talkative, and quick-tempered,” in the words of Breckenridge Stahl, an Adunian groundskeeper who frequently saw the children at play in the Krepost. The “tall, lanky” Otto and the “short, squat” Karl had the run of Markev along with their sister, Princess Amaliya, and the three were reportedly close. 

 

By the time of his ascension, Prince Karl was still quite young to have received a formal education, so most of his time would have been dedicated to play. His curriculum would not have gone far past reading and writing, basic arithmetic, and some instruction on dancing. While he was always closely shadowed by a nurse, priest, or tutor. His parents, far too young to be equipped for raising children, did not feature prominently in his early life, but he found family in his siblings and pupils in the court of Haense. Of the few words we can conclusively trace to Karl II, his fond remarks about his childhood are one of them: “With Otto and Amalyia, life was pleasant.”

 

The beginning of the Czena War in 1653, and the Great Plague of 1655 brought a sudden and shocking collapse in Haeseni fortunes. In a matter of two years, northern Haense had been depopulated, with only burned villages and keeps left to tell the tale, and Markev’s population had been cut to nearly a fourth. The royal army had functionally ceased to exist, with command devolving to local captains and noblemen who struggled to fight back against Renatian raids and bandit attacks. The economy went into freefall as trade stagnated and artisans, farmers, and consumers alike perished. The leading figures of the realm, who could be trusted to ensure its survival, either perished or retreated to their country estates. Come the summer of 1655, Otto III, Queen Ingrid, Crown Prince Otto, Prince Robert of Bihar (the Lord Palatine), and Ser Geralt Rouen (the Marshal), had died or been permanently incapacitated by the disease. The golden age that Prince Karl had been born on the cusp on had, seemingly overnight, given way to the ‘Dark Decades’.

 

There is almost nothing written about Karl II’s coronation in 1655, which means that it was certainly a brief, private ceremony presided over by the local bishop. There was simply no money, will, or even people for anything larger. There was no regent, no Palatine, no Queen Mother, not even a marshal or local commander that could be relied on to steer the government in these bleak days. What administration existed was concentrated in the hands of the surviving council members and Markev officials from Otto III’s rule. With few proven, readily-available men and women to lead the realm, they turned to Prince Franz Jakob, the younger brother of the previous Lord Palatine, Prince Robert of Bihar. Only twenty two when he was asked to serve as regent and Lord Palatine, Prince Franz was far from a known quantity, but the complete dearth of able, loyal men had forced him to step forward and take charge of the realm.

 

The Great Plague was devastating not only in its death toll, but also in the economic damage it caused. Farms were left abandoned, traders fled Haense, and taxation ground to a halt. The tools needed to overcome the worst consequences of the plague were utterly removed by it, condemning the path of Haeseni recovery to be long and fraught with setbacks, much to the frustration of the regency council and King Karl.

 

As Franz Jakob briefly ruled as Franz II, he is entitled to and will receive his own biography, so this author shall not spend long on his background. Prince Franz was an ambitious, ruthless man with an authoritative bent. He had been well-educated in his youth and had served with distinction as a captain of cavalry during the Czena War. He was no ‘perfect prince’, and in fact he was a somewhat obscure cousin of the royal line before his appointment to the realm’s highest office, but his background was not entirely lacking.

 

With the plague dying down, only because there were so few lives left to claim, Prince Franz set about rebuilding the government and the administrative state. In 1656, he disbanded the Czena Confederation, which had been rendered virtually useless by Santegia’s defection and Curon’s inability to continue fighting. Not long after, peace with Renatus was in hand, and what few refugees remained could return north to put their lives back together. More importantly for the Lord Palatine, he could devote the tattered army to restoring order.

 

In Karl II’s time, the roads of Haense were at their most dangerous. Robbers and broken soldiers haunted each dark path, for the goods of others were their only salvation from the plague. Minor rebellions broke out frequently, primarily due to famine or wandering ‘holy men’ who claimed that the plague had been a curse of God against House Barbanov. Most dangerously, the old clans of the Rothswood- Tosali, Dune, Grimrich, Blackwood- had risen up themselves, citing their own animosity towards House Barbanov, who they felt had yet to repay them for their service during the Greyspine Rebellion. Under the leadership of Andrik Tosali and Andrei Dune, they had occupied several stretches of Western Haense, which was heavily forested, sparsely populated, and mostly outside of Markev’s control.

 

The king was well-removed from the efforts to restore order in the wake of the great plague. The regent did not take a personal interest in Karl II’s tutelage- the two hardly interacted, owing to the matters of immediate importance that threatened the realm- so the direction of his education was left to his cousin Edvard, who was one of Prince Franz’s nephews and his seneschal of the Krepost. Prince Edvard, himself only eighteen, delegated this task to Father Wiktor of Houndsden, who made sure that the boy-king received an acceptable education. Geometry, history, philosophy, ethics, logic, physics, cosmology, and dancing were part of his daily curriculum. Karl was described as an adequate student, but little else is known. 

 

Fear of yet another king’s death gripped the royal court and dictated the restrictions it placed upon the young king. He was kept within the Krepost at all times, his only reprieve from its cold, brick walls being the enclosed garden within. No one who spent significant time outside of the palace was permitted contact with the king until they had been quarantined for a fortnight and been tested for the plague. Lessons on swordplay, horse riding, and archery were suspended indefinitely so that he would not risk injury. Karl II had dreamt of being a knight from the moment he knew what a knight was: when he was denied the opportunity, he sunk into a deep melancholy.

 

Few could blame the king for the way he quietly moped around the silent halls of the Krepost. His regent made sure he was generally informed, but took no great lengths to invite him into the governing process. He had a rotating cast of tutors that could only see him for a few days at a time until they were forced to quarantine after some excursion outside of the walls. The only person his age, his sister, Princess Amaliya, brought some reprieve from the boredom that defined his waking moments, but the proud, energetic prince that the palace staff knew just years before had been suppressed beneath the constraints that ensured the survival of his body but not his character.

 

If Prince Franz had thought that he was to be given ample time to deal with the internal unrest within Haense, he was sorely mistaken. The Czena War had left Haense diplomatically isolated and bordered by hostile neighbors with far fewer domestic issues dragging them. The regent found allies in the Sohaer of Haelun’or, who did not approve of Renatus’s alliance with the wood elves of the Dominion, and the King of Norland, a nominal vassal of Aurelius who chafed beneath the rule of the Pertinaxi. It was necessary to keep Haense afloat, but it consequently drew the ire of Renatus and its allies, who declared war in the spring of 1657. Only months after a tenuous peace had been signed, the banners of Renatus and its many vassals flew above Haense again as raiding bands poured in from the north. 

 

The dismal state of the royal army in 1657 can be surmised in the fact that there was officially no marshal to lead it. While later historians have tried to attribute the marshalcy to Harren of Metterden, the hero of the Greyspine Rebellion, this is a simple impossibility, given how Harren of Metterden perished during the Siege of Fort Vanir in 1636. Other names have been put forward as possible candidates, such as Rhys var Ruthern, the Count of Metterden, but we know that he was not appointed until 1670, during the reign of Sigmar I. The most likely explanation is that there simply was no single, recognized leader of the army, and command was divided between high-ranking officers and members of the nobility. Aldrik Baruch, the Count of Ayr, and the Count of Metterden were two of the last nobles with any significant influence left, and they possessed strong retinues of their own that would have given them leverage in commanding soldiers sworn to House Barbanov. Elsewhere, nameless captains and petty knights with their meagre hosts answered the call to arms beneath the banner of the crow. 

 

For Karl II, the First Atlas Coalition War, which would dominate most of his reign, gave him an experience that his father had likely felt before him. From 1657-1660, the scouring of northern Haense caused another, smaller, refugee crisis in a repeat of the Czena War. As the regent frantically tried to assert control over the roving bands of soldiers operating in the name of the king, but not necessarily on his government’s orders, both Renatian raiders and Rothswood rebels expanded their control. Borders were porous and unofficial during this period, but modern estimates regard the extent of Karl II’s authority as quite limited beyond Markev itself. “We are many things, Your Majesty-” remarked Prince Edvard during his weekly briefing with the king, “-but prepared for a war, we are not.” 

 

Karl II, in disagreement with Prince Franz, maintained the freedom of the press that his father had granted. Although most newspapers had collapsed during the Great Plague, the few that survived continued to publish. The treasury’s perceived wastefulness, as necessary as it may have been, was a constant source of critique, especially as the kingdom found itself drawn into foreign wars for the defense of others.

 

Obliged to defend its allies, even if it stretched the realm’s resources to a breaking point, the Haeseni council approved the outfitting of an expeditionary force to join the King of Norland in his defense of a Renatian invasion, which was expected to occur in the spring of 1660. 1,000 soldiers were sent to Norland under a nameless commander (the Count of Metterden is known to have been with them, but he probably did not possess sole authority). The brunt of the war would have to be borne by Norlandic spears and high elven magic, bolstered by a few mercenary companies they had hired. Haense did not fully avoid the consequences of war, far from it, but it did not face the immediate threat of a Renatian offensive.

 

While the coalition forces in Norland were getting battered around by Aurelius’ legions, the king was finally permitted to leave the walls of the Krepost. The decision was not made because it was safer- the plague had died down, but the forces of the Margrave of Styria, one of Aurelius’ most powerful vassals, frequently raided close to Markev- but because it was necessary. Now twelve, Karl II had not been seen by his people since the beginning of his reign. With a string of Renatian victories in Norland beginning in 1660, and the breakdown of royal control across most of the kingdom, it was imperative that the image of the King of Haense not be equated to absence and inactivity. Karl II’s presence did not amount to much beyond presiding over civil ceremonies and army demonstrations, but the boy-king was naturally a sympathetic figure, so even as more bad news from the front poured into the streets, the people held faith in House Barbanov.

 

Karl II even joined his army on a few occasions. With the majority of the royal army in the north, suffering defeat alongside the Norlanders and high elves, new forces were conscripted to manage the defense of the homeland. This band of a few hundred foot soldiers, made up of white-bearded veterans and green recruits, saw very little action, as it was far slower than the professional knights and freeriders under the Margrave of Styria, and had it faced them in battle it would have been cut down to a man. Regardless, its presence in the region prevented a more committed invasion from the ambitious margrave, who had the will and the army to do so. With their king within their ranks, this small defense force maintained enough cohesion to endure the hardship of the war and provide critical aid to the people and villages that had been affected by the constant raids.

 

The Sack of Ruriksgrad in 1662 completed the Renatian conquest of Norland and brought a close to the First Atlas Coalition War. The few Haeseni who survived the two years of constant fighting up in the north were imprisoned by the King of Renatus and only freed after peace negotiations concluded by the winter of that year. Karl II, old enough to be informed of the negotiations, but not old enough to spearhead them himself, gave what advice he could. His time spent in the field with the army, meeting the distraught refugees of the war, had given him a much-needed perspective on the state of the realm. He urged that peace be made at a reasonable cost so that the realm could begin to heal and the rebels to the west, who had only grown more emboldened throughout the war, could finally be quelled.

 

With a suitable peace in hand (Haense only ceded some small border fortifications and a few bridges along the Czena River, along with trading rights for Renatian merchants), Prince Franz earnestly refocused the government’s efforts inwards, with King Karl now formally presiding over the government. The young monarch was still inexperienced, but a combination of his education and natural intelligence allowed him to maintain his footing in the many discussions and debates of the council. The handlebars of the regency had not been removed, but over time it was evident that any policy that would come to pass would also have the king’s marks on it. This subtle struggle for power never put the king and the regent at great odds- it was obvious that drastic measures would have to be taken in any event- but two strong personalities in the room meant that every detail of every plan, no matter how nuanced, was contested in some manner.

 

Unfortunately for the two, plans formulated did not always mean results on the ground. Having endured almost ten straight years of war, with a devastating plague in the middle of it, most soldiers in the royal army were exhausted and did not renew their service. Even local militias and noble levies found difficulties with desertion. The men and women who had fought for Haense traded their swords for scythes, or abandoned their homes in the burning north or uncontrollable west of the country and fled elsewhere. At best, that somewhere was Markev or one of the larger towns, at worst, it was to Renatus. 

 

A demobilized and demoralized military was ill-suited to deal with the insurgency in the west. The Rothswood clans ambushed patrols, poisoned wells, and burned farmsteads before slipping off into the night. Andrik Tosali, avoiding capture at multiple turns, also possessed a few strongholds that the royal army did not yet have the means of taking. The roads were choked, stifling trade and tax collection, so even as Markev put more funds towards the army in the hopes of restoring order, its operations only saw diminishing returns. By 1664, Prince Franz wanted to negotiate an end to the conflict, but Karl II, now sixteen and of majority, denied it. The fight would continue for the rest of his reign.

 

The Rothswood clans had provided issues for previous rulers, such as Stefan I and Otto II, but under the reign of Karl II they presented a far more dangerous threat. Although they would never come to conquer any of the larger keeps or fortified cities of western Haense, they were the de facto authority in the region for over a decade, always eluding royal control while easily enforcing their own.

 

Although available finances were in short supply during this time as the realm’s economic recovery stagnated, in late 1664 Karl II initiated an ambitious border defense project that would simultaneously re-establish firm control of northern Haense and rebuild the forts and redoubts that had been destroyed during the war. A lack of builders and architects made the process slow and extremely costly, forcing the treasury to take out multiple loans from Santegian bankers, but the defensive works, which would be finished by 1668, provided enough security to encourage several refugees to finally return to their farms and begin to repopulate the most fertile stretch of Haeseni land. 

 

Unfortunately for Karl II, the benefits of this policy would not be realized during his life, only the immediate effects of it, which were high inflation and the appearance that he was oriented towards the next war rather than recovering from the last one. Dissent ran through the streets of the poor and the dispossessed through Markev, culminating in a series of riots over the course of 1665. The last and most serious of these stormed the Krepost and nearly captured the king himself, but Prince Franz managed to rally a detachment of the city guard and drive them back. The riots ended that autumn, but it was a harrowing reminder that the realm could be upended at any moment should House Barbanov be incapable of restoring it.

 

The myriad of rebellions that the king faced, as well as Haense’s isolation on the world stage, shook him to the core. These were not problems of his own making, as they had been decided far before him, but each felt like a personal blow. There was hardly a window of an opportunity for him to assert himself as his own man. The realm limped along, caught between a Renatus that was only growing in power and internal dissent and stagnation that could not be quelled. “My kingdom is sand through my fingers. I wished to preserve its structure, but now I find myself grasping at every grain I can,” he is reported to have said to Prince Edvard.

 

The fatalistic sentiments that he held towards the end of his life may have very well been prophetic. During the bitterly cold winter of 1665, Karl II was stricken by consumption after he spent hours in the freeze reviewing some belated repairs to Markev’s walls. He was bedridden for several weeks, but the climate of Haense was not suited to a sound recovery. Battling for his life, he did not have the strength to lay out any plan for his succession. He had not married and had no children, so the matter of who would inherit the throne was an open question. Each day as he drew nearer to his death, the entire council sat by his bedside, awaiting even the slightest hint of who he desired to see to the throne, be it his sister, uncle, or cousin. That moment never came, and on the 14th of Sun’s Smile, 1666, King Karl II died in his sleep. 

 

The funeral for Karl II, held on the 16th, was modest- the state could not afford anything grander- but it was well-attended, with thousands in and around Markev witnessing the procession through the capital. Although his reign had been dominated by a regency, and he left little of an immediate legacy, the young king was admired as a symbol and mourned by most. As his coffin was displayed before the crowd in the center of the city square, several speeches were given. One, by Prince Edvard, has been recorded in part for us.

 

“For all that His Majesty endured: the Great Plague, two wars, rebellion, and strife, he never feared to do what he could to keep the realm together. Our continued survival is predicated on the unity he maintained, and it will be the duty of every man, woman, and child to ensure that his life was not lived in vain. The challenges our realm faces could not topple one young boy, and it cannot topple one people that are wholly driven by the wise, guiding hand of their sovereign. Heed Barbanov, you Haeseni, you Ruskans, and we will deliver to you the kingdom of Petyr, of Stefan, of Otto.”

 

Some theorize that Prince Edvard’s call for unity behind House Barbanov was done under the direction of his older brother, Prince Franz, who now held the keys to the kingdom but not yet the crown. If Haense was going to weather the storm of economic turmoil, foreign isolation, and internal dissent, then it would have to put its faith in him, the most apparent and qualified successor to King Karl. If Prince Franz was going to cement his hold on the realm, and perhaps claim the throne for himself, he would need to ensure the loyalty, or at least the compliance, of Markev.

 

On the 17th of Sun’s Smile, 1666, Franz of Bihar ordered the army to secure the streets of Markev and enforce martial law. His rule was set to begin.

 

Dravi, Karl II ‘That Poor Boy’

11th of Harren’s Folly, 1648-14th of Sun’s Smile, 1666

(r. 29th of Owyn’s Flame, 1655-14th of Sun’s Smile, 1666)

 

---

O Ágioi Kristoff, Jude kai Pius. Dóste mas gnósi ópos sas ékane o Theós. Poté min afísoume na doúme to skotádi, allá as doúme móno to fos tis sofías kai tis alítheias. O Theós na se evlogeí.

---

The reign of Franz II shall be covered in the next volume of The Winter Crows.

[Toffee 2843]

Spoiler

Nice read! Prince Otto sounds like he was very demure, very mindful