LETTER TO ALL VANDERS

[Trenchist 864]

 

 

 

 

LETTER TO ALL VANDERS,

 

Elim, Priest of G-d, a Waldenian of the tribe of Königsberg von Senntisten, by blood, and a spearbearer of the Lord in youth, fashioned Vander by creed, sent not by king or steward, but by vocation, by the soul that yearns, and all the brothers and sisters in Faith with me,

 

To G-d’s holy people in Reinmar and the Vander folk, to the priests of the churches and lords of the courts and the knight riders and the field farmer, among the Faithful in Canon in the Principality and abroad;

Grace and peace to you in the name of G-d our Lord and the Horen the Father;

 

  PRAISE be to our Lord G-d without peer who has blessed us with heavenly benediction and bestowed upon Horen, man and nation alike, His word of Virtue, His blessing to all living things;

 

  FOR in the creation of the world, holy and blameless, He has chosen us to carry His benevolent will in mercy upon earth;

 

  IN HIM we have redemption through love, the forgiveness of our sins, the wisdom of the stars and the rolling hills green, the bounty of the field and the peace of the Skies; 

 

  WE thankfully acknowledge that He is the Lord G-d without peer and the G-d of our fathers and our Father first:

 

  YOU ARE the strength of our life and the shield of our salvation in every generation; 

 

  FOR YOUR miracles that are with us daily, morning and noon and night; 

 

  FOR YOUR beneficences and wonders which never cease, and should they cease, so would creation and existence;

 

  FOR YOU who Is the unmoved mover, the creator, the protector, the life, the love;

 

  WE are slaves to Your will, for you are our Lord G-d, the Lord G-d in Truth.

 

IN HIM we were chosen and predestined in accordance to His plan divine and uninterrupted, in conformity with the natural order bestowed upon us in total conformity with virtue, the foundation of the Estates of men and the halls of the Courts of justice. And among the tapestry weaved in mankind by kings just and warriors holy, the House of the Vander Creed, exemplary among the nations of the world in the pursuit of the Lord’s Justice ceaselessly, in ardent marriage of the sword and the cross, has proven century again and again that before the Lord stands none and the Host of the Lord gives no respite to the wicked.

 

FEW are the zealous, the crossed, the penitent warriors who carry the Lord’s will on their shoulders, laden in toil and in blood and in death, in the trade of the blade, in risk of the greatest sacrifice of them all; martyrdom; in the working of His name eternal, and who among the nations of Horen today are unequal in zeal. I have not stopped giving you thanks, remembering you in prayer, and asking of the Saints patrons; of the sword and the quill, of five centuries past or five centuries hence, who on their shield or cape reared the Eagle or splayed the Red Cross or the Black or the Green or the Yellow, to endear to you the spirit of wisdom and prudence in our time.

 

I write to you humbly in search of likened soul and likened grit, in light of the affairs of the worldly stewards of Horen. I divine not the coming of the morrow, and as goes the saying of the qalasheen; know not the way the bird shall fly in the wind; whether up or down or to or fro. But know I that the Lords of the Vanders have valued amongst themselves and the nations of their peers the admonishment of the imperial, and the despot, and the warhawk. And the dove of Horen’s peace I send by way of the Vander in a bonded heart and a prudent mind, for I rejoice! Say I, yes! For nowhere truer does echo the CREED OF THE VANDERS than in the dispensation of justice on the unjust, on the machinator, on the snake in the grass and on the clenches of despots unchecked.

 

And rejoice with me too I know the Horen peoples of the highlands and the lowlands, westerly and easterly, and along the river and at its mouth and at its source. I know not the man among Horen’s courts all whose hands relish despotism and whose lips whisper tyranny. I know not the man among Horen’s courts who would see the Eagle and the Dragon and the Tower and the Horse and what-have-you become one, without color, without tint, an amalgam of legacies and tapestries turned to naught overnight. I know not the man who relishes in totalitarian uniformity, who wishes to quell the Reinmaren from the Petran from the Haeseni. Should one point to this man, who has been made manifest by whispers of paranoia, fear unfounded, I shall take the helm in his rebuke, so too shall Canondom united.

 

I shall in my efforts thus betroth the creeds of the Vander and the principles of the Church, and defend by quill and breath the lasting of the two, for set betwixt the Estate and the Faith they are one in the same. I shall entail the grievances I have heard in mine own ears levied against the Church, and endeavour to dismiss the misplaced fear, that cloud of distortion and miscommunication and misconception that had set division and suspicion among the lords of the realm.

 

On the Crusade of the Edelites

“To Persevere to the End Any Enterprise Begun” - Vandercode

That of the The Eternal War on Evil, Duty Eternal of Canondom

 

“The Lord saw the penance of Owyn, which was the death of the unrepentant; 

And Owyn was made again as the light of his blade, and the great city was destroyed.” 

Scroll of Gospel, Book of Owyn, 19-20

 

A paranoiac has been led to dub the Church militant unfounded. And to the paranoiac, who fears that among the nations of Horen has sprouted a new sword, aflame in righteous fury, that so dishelves the agreed order of things, I say; who wants a Church disarmed? Man knows well thoroughly, by our shared histories, the implications of a weak, debased Ministry. We have known closely all the past five hundred years of the death of the Faith, the withering of parishes, the appointments nepotic, the bribed silence. G-d’s Law, just law, applied holy and benedictive has been the privilege of the machinations of princes in their pursuit of the Fidei Defensio, the titular defense of the faith, when the Church feebled. The Church was weak to invoke crusade, or holy war, unless a kingdom among the kingdoms housed the Pontiff in her bosom and lent to his cause men and swords, but only when their interests aligned, and it was comfortable to rebuke the blasphemous. 

 

But nay, I say, for the cause of the Pontiff is the cause of all Canondom, now as before. The vanquishing of the Edelites; schismatics, sorcerers, ibleesians and blasphemers, in the streets as in their lordly courts, needs no justification. As assuredly as a Vander knows his right from his left, the just cause of the recent Crusade goes without saying. But so to they who call the Church conquerors, in the riddance of the Edelites from the East, I say; would a humanity ever dispensed them of their own accord? Lest magickal boons and gifts formed shortly after the defeat of the Edelites, none would, if not by initiative of the Church. 

 

I fear that without the Ministry, that knows its right from left too, that loves Man and hates Man’s foe, the Edels of the East would continue promulgating worldly sin, tearing the perilous fabric between the world and the void, and even threaten the borders (and the heart, in the case of Hokhmat) of Canondom if allowed to reign unchecked. A Church is naught without the Sword of Owyn. The few instances when in unity the sons of Horen marched to rebuke evil together was done indubitably in the good faith and piety of her zealous Faithful, among whom the sons of the Vanders have never been without, but so scarce in occurence.

 

On the Mandate of Aaun

“To fear the Creator and maintain His Church” - Vandercode

That of the Equal Justice before the Lord, Cornerstone of Canondom

 

“The Lord is the Lord G-D without peer, but you fail in His Virtue, and neglect the good of G-D for what is forbidden. And this is a sin of sightless pride, for what the Lord bids, He has thus bidden.”

Scroll of Spirit, Epistle to the Godwinites, 7-8

 

Dei gratia, the divine right to rule is among the manifold blessings endowed by the Lord G-d, King of Kings, as instrument of just and prudent leadership since the begotten brothers were given their tribes to lord over and their lands to provide with. The blessed lines whose heavenly appointment was to rule the Estates of Man, whose bloodright is the anticipation of the Diadem of Horen’s, our father and his sons and their sons. The right to rule is inseparable from the divine, it is one in the same with the wielding of powers temporal as with the accounting of a ruler’s soul to own king, the Lord G-d. The King of kings did not devise the contract of the crowned to serve man alone, and never to serve the interests of the impassioned ego alone. 

 

On terra, the right to rule pours out wholly forth from G-d’s Church, who are the agents of the stewardry of G-d’s Word, and for that reason precisely they are tasked with the coronation of kings to begin with. This ensures that sordidness does not seep in the sanctified institutions of the crown, and that beneath G-d’s visage might not pass such a thing that blasphemes the source of the very right they are bestown.

 

And so, in the dereliction of the duties of the priesthood coinciding, hand in hand, with the growing impudence of princes, one king Charles stroke his brother own, put to the sword, in a square public and to the eyes of all, for upon his head nestled the crown of his forebearers, and no man on earth could rebuke him otherwise, that he is a kinslayer and his smirch is like the sin of Owyn upon Harren.

 

Whereby under the auspice of a Church that derelicts not its duties to man nor G-d, the just trial and the revokation of Citizen Charles of Aaun of his regal disposition ensued, by all the proper channels and by right of the laurels of the prophets, the Kingdom of Aaun in assent with its councillors was placed in Pontifical Regency until a time Godwin III, inheritor to his right of kingship could redeem his domain, at the age of his maturation in spirit. And yet, too, Godwin III derelicted in his duties, and by his absence was passed upon, for the true successors of Aaun were the assorted feudals who congregated under charge of the Duchy of Alba who today prosper unprecedently as wardens in the Lowlands, over the valley of their inheritance, redeeming in whole the sins of the nation in piety and in diligence, working the estates of man as decreed and willed by our Lord G-d, whose blessing is the fruit of the tree and the spring harvest.

 

The Church exercised G-d’s law for perhaps the first time in centuries, upon a king who considered himself either detached or superior from virtue and from the decreed laws of heaven, who stroke his brother in cold blood and in haughtiness felt no less innocent for it. A weak Church, as has existed for centuries through the vulgar indifferences and sins of princes past, sealed its lips under the key of its continued existence, and opted for the negligence of its mission on earth. The prime purpose of the Church is refused neglection today. That of the salvation of man, of peace between brother and neighbour, and the triumph of virtue over wickedness, by whichsoever form it dons. I know not an advocate against despotism and tyranny more blatant than the priestly delivery of justice in service of G-d solely, to Whom all is owed, and nothing escapes, as in the rebuke of Citizen Charles and the succession of Aaun into the prosperity of the Alban Duchy.

 

In the case of Aaun, the existence of Alba, a beating heart of Horenic tradition and virtue growing nearer by the day to resemble that extinct breed of Horenic gentry of noble spirit true, and wrought under the supervision of the Church in the Pontifical States, and yet, neither does a priest rule among them, but a noble Duke by Churchly blessing, whose virtue is expressant of his eligibility and right. There is no imposition on the right to rule by Canondom, and folly be to the priest who claims the secular powers of mankind’s estate are illegitimate in any form.

 

On the Penance of Balian

That of Subversion In Sin, Penance and Reconciliation

“To at all times speak the Truth” - Vandercode

 

“Those virtuous freedmen that remained were anointed as priests of G-D, and they bore the Virtue and the Spirit. Thus the Word of G-D was kept for a thousand years of His Silence, and man’s purity of faith and blood was so sworn.” Scroll of Gospel, Book of Owyn, 61-62

 

Out of the tomb of the corrupted monarchy of Aaun had arisen a formless spectre in a far more terrible guise than any of those which in former times wronged only the souls of its wicked victims in crime. Going straight forward to the end of things, undeterred by faith, unchecked by remorse, this phantom bellowed schism! and sacrilege! and encapsulated a conspiracy to murder the High Priest and install a pauper, whose word could never challenge the impudence of princes in their pursuit for worldly tyranny again. And by the virtuous deeds of simple and just men, the plan was foiled, and at its head was the king of the Balianese, distant cousin to the Citizen Charles, and he, too, in just trial was brought to heel, confession, submission before the Lord G-d and his Vicar and regency, under the helm of Cardinal Ivan, was placed in Balian.

 

Unlike the regency in Aaun, here the heir knew his right from wrong, and chose penance for the sins of his father, and had been crowned justly and rightfully when the seeds of corruption and descecration had withered from the halls of Balian. And to this due process, to this most just trial in historical memory, men still proclaim ‘Church overreach’? 

 

If about came the accusation that the Church has in its mind to usurp the secular and powers temporal that a king may reign with, then I say; King John of Balian, himself, was once an excommunicant. And yet the crown of rulership are upon his head again, and the Balianese dynasty in its rich legacy has endured by virtue, as he proved his character in diligence and humility before G-d’s virtue. The case from Aaun is differentiated only by the extent of the cooperation of the ruling dynasty, and their keenness to work G-d’s name in wisdom and good faith. 

 

The terror of tyrants and schismatics, liars, dividers and warmongers is the bright beacon of justice, and to this I err not in knowing Vanders herald, and for this too I count Vanders brethren in sword as in faith, resolutely.

 

I hope to have in these words, painting things as they are but perhaps not rightly communicated to the world, to dispel the cloud of uneasiness and suspicion. To uphold truth one must first know it, and I felt compelled to write to the people of Reinmar what I speculate you might hold in the periphery of cautionary thought. Iblis, cursed be his name, revels in diunity. In suspicion and fear. And to the end of his rebuke I adjoin with you and with Canondom whole. Our strength is in our unity, under G-d. To the extent of my ability as a minister in the college of cardinals, henceforth, I shall embark on every effort to maintain friendship with Vanders close and far, and entreat many times more such heartwarming gestures as the grant for the Monastery of Saint Calliope and the blessed readings emanating from the Sholastic Fraternity of St. HP Caius-Brandt.

 

To the Prince Erwin and the Esteemed Lords of Reinmar,

To the Waldenic Diet and her Electors,

To the Priesthood of the Vanderfolk,

And all those whose way is the Vander Creed.

Please, write in earnest!

In dearest thanks, brother in Vander,

Cardinal Elim

 

G-tt mit uns

Emmanu El
 

 

 

 

[DuhPuhWuh 1282]

✠

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The Lord Vandalore, Friedrich von Augusten, in his ailing state, was brought forward the letter during one of his reposes. He was laying homey, yet haggard, in his margravial chambers. He looked raddled but his grizzled gaze was poised intently as he observed the letter. To himself, he made a few unintelligible grumbles between each line he read. Upon his attention for the letter spent, he passed the missive aside and turned his grey face to the traceried windows of the chamber. He pondered the nescient words of the cardinal, yet he could find no words to explain how little the letter had inspired his inner Vander, so the elder margrave huffed, wearied, and returned to resting.

[BlauRps 545]

The elderly Waldenian farmer, Hildibrand Brawn, would take the missive from a young Reinmarien farmhand he had employed due to his century-aged body. His eyes skimmed through the missive as he read quietly to himself, his Vander spirit came out but not as what the Cardinal would have want…

”He calls ‘imself a Waldenian aber he does nicht write ‘he full name o’ GOTT  ‘pon ‘is missive? Say HIS glorious and powerful name with your chest, lad!” The elderly Brawn Patriarch would say to himself, raising his voice a bit like a disappointed father.