​​​​​​​THE WINTER CROWS: Volume XI; Sigmar I - Silver-Tongue

[Nectorist 12869]

THE WINTER CROWS: Volume XI; Sigmar I - Silver-Tongue

Written by Demetrius Barrow

 

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Sigmar I - Silver-Tongue

“If he can talk his way out of every problem we’ve suffered in the past twenty years, I’ll accept a lost battle or two.” - Vladimyr Minathief, a tax collector in Markev, c. 1676

 

For the first four years of his reign, Sigmar Lothar did not step foot in his own kingdom. Recognized only by himself, his wife, Sophia Chivay, and a handful of supporters in Haense, the man who would come to end the Dark Decades, lay down the foundations of the Seventh Empire, and cement House Bihar as the ruling dynasty of Haense into the 21st century, was at his furthest from his throne on the 25th of Tobias’s Bounty, 1666, the day his uncle died at the hands of Aurelius, King of Renatus-Marna.

 

Born to Prince Robert of Bihar and Caterina vas Ruthern on the 17th of Sun’s Smile, 1643, Prince Sigmar of Bihar faced no expectations of inheriting the throne of Hanseti-Ruska. The chapter of Otto II was ending with domestic triumph, and with plenty of heirs, the mainline Barbanovs were under no threat of extinction. The Pertinaxi were not a feared power, but rather an afterthought, and if there was any man who could claim to be the first among equals in the realm of man, it was the King of Haense.

 

Not much has been left to us of Sigmar’s early life. He would have spent his early years in Markev and in his father’s estates just outside of the city. His brother Edvard-Audemar, born in 1645, was a close companion in childhood, as were dozens of other children of the nobility, with whom he frequently came into contact with. Even at an early age, he was noted to be a popular, gregarious nobleman. In one account, given to us by Ser Oswyn Brash, a knight in the service of the Count of Metterden, a seven year-old Prince Sigmar told his friends a joke so funny that it spread throughout Markev, where it eventually reached the ears of Otto III himself. The typically-stern King Otto is said to have laughed so tremendously that he fell off of his throne. Unfortunately, we are not told what this joke was.

 

Beloved by his peers and doted on by his family, the one place that Sigmar lacked any warm reputation was among the ranks of his tutors. He was not an exceptionally bright or hard-working pupil, instead preferring to sneak off by himself or with some friends. He rarely applied himself in his studies, never reading more than a few pages of any book or bothering to grasp the most basic concepts of mathematics, geometry, astronomy, poetry, finances, or even the Raev and Naumerian languages, which he, of any King of Haense, spoke the most poorly. Even age did not steel his aptitude; his teenage years were spent chasing girls and drinking liquor.

 

Uninterested in military matters and pious only on holidays, the one possible calling that Prince Sigmar discovered in his early years was music. Possessing a rich, strong voice and a talent for the lyre and the lute, he dazzled with his performances, which he often put on during holidays. He even tried to play in the tavern, but his father forbade him from doing so, refusing to have his son play the role of a common bard. This did not fully extinguish Prince Sigmar’s libertine tendencies, but he did not embarrass himself in front of high society. In a large field of young noble men and women, he would not have been particularly debaucherous, while his natural charisma and kind nature endeared him to all but those who had the misfortune of trying to teach him.

 

 At the age of 16, he went on a tour across Atlas, a curiosity given the ongoing Atlas Coalition War, which involved nearly every organized state on the continent. Given how little is known of Sigmar’s travels, which would come to last nearly eleven years with only occasional returns to his homeland, and how much of the available evidence is fragmentary and from Sigmar himself (who was known to add a dramatic flair to his tales for entertainment), we must draw some assumptions. In all likelihood, he used an alias, possibly as a wandering bard, in order to travel around Atlas without attracting any unwanted attention. According to the future king himself, he played in the court of the King of Santegia and made a small fortune as the head of a troupe that made the rounds to every tavern, manor, and town square in the Heartlands.

 

As Sigmar briefly fades from the texts of history, generally unaffected by, but not oblivious to, the events of the Dark Decades, we return to Haense on the 31st of Tobias’s Bounty, 1666, the day after the funeral of the murdered Franz II. 

 

For years, the thinning of House Barbanov, and the uncertainty it brought to the line of succession, was at the core of factional politics within Haense. The old order of the nobility and the Church had put its support behind the mainline Barbanovs and Karl II. Upon the boy-king’s death, it was House Bihar and Franz II, backed by the army and House Ruthern, who forcefully took power in the realm. Now, the latter king’s death had not only opened up another vacuum of power, but also deprived the primary power players of Haense of any viable candidate for whom to channel their support.

 

Prince Robert, Franz II’s elder brother, was acceptable to most, especially the old nobility and the bureaucracy, but his near-death from the Great Plague had rendered him frail and sickly. 

 

Prince Edvard-Audemar, Prince Robert’s son, was capable, but he was a stern, serious man who focused on performing his duties as seneschal, not building a base of political support. If there were any who would support his claim, they did not make their opinions known.

 

Prince Sigmar was even less of a consideration than his father and brother. He had spent his years safely away from the tragedies that had ripped Haense at the seam and ended the lives of so many in his family. No one had a good thought to spare for the prince who was currently galavanting around the lands of their enemies, wooing lasses with his lyre and earning minae with his voice like a common minstrel.

 

In this air of uncertainty, it was Franz II’s widow, Queen Tatiana vas Ruthern, who, much like her husband before, ruthlessly and decisively took power. Although she was by no means a popular figure, having lived in general obscurity before her marriage to the future king, she was an intelligent and cunning political agent. Taking cues from her late husband’s success in acquiring immediate power, she won (or, according to her detractors, bought), the loyalty of the army, presenting herself as the natural successor to her husband’s method of government, which had, above all else, favored the imposition of the army into civil life, rather than the other way around. Within days, Markev was indisputably under her control, the nobility were not in position to act, and she had installed herself as regent and her lover, a Rothswood monk named Karl, as Palatine of Hanseti-Ruska.

 

Although Franz II had bequeathed his wife the most powerful faction in the realm, he had also left her with a host of problems to face. During his reign, he had aligned Haense with the restored Kingdom of Courland, and its king Tobias II of House Staunton, who pledged to replicate the stunning conquests of his ancestor, Tobias the Conqueror, and dismantle the Pertinaxi Dynasty’s authority over humanity. Unfortunately, 1665 had seen Tobias II fail to replicate his grandfather in any manner, delegating the task of raising an army to his council and vassals, and failing to do anything as Aurelius gathered his legions and allies in Carolustadt. It was only by his Staunton name, and the diplomatic efforts of Franz II, that a coalition of their own had been assembled, namely from petty feudatories that dotted southern Atlas, rogue dwarven clans, and the feared Reiver Company.

 

Even with an army that had been greatly-diminished since the days of Otto III, Queen Tatiana may have been able to adequately defend the northern border from Renatian incursions while aiding her Courlandic allies to the east. However, the Rothswood clans, who had been a constant source of turmoil and royal breakdown in the west, resumed their banditry and raiding soon after hearing about Franz II’s death, as he was the only man in the realm they could trust to respect them and their interests. Tatiana hoped that her appointment of Karl of the Rothswood to the office of Palatine would mollify them, but Karl was a commoner, not a recognized member of one of their clans, and his life as a monk had kept him from forging many of the important familial ties that were so valuable in the region. The revolt resumed, forcing crucially-needed soldiers to be deployed to bring order to the western parts of the realm.

 

Finally, albeit of little fault of her own, Tatiana’s rule had no basis besides the support of the army, whose word was effectively law. Haeseni tradition did not permit the reign of a woman, never mind one who was not related to House Barbanov, and there were theoretically available heirs. However, the regent did not hold her competition in high esteem. Prince Robert was physically unfit, Prince Edvard-Audemar was too inexperienced, and Prince Sigmar was, in her view, a rodent who had fled the realm before the trouble had really begun. If there was someone to lead the realm through the crises of the Dark Decades, it would be Tatiana vas Ruthern, not another man of House Barbanov, who had failed the realm when it needed them most.

 

Fortunately for the Bihars, Queen Tatiana was not well-connected with the court, was not a particularly staunch ally of the Church, and, as stated previously, had no real ability to outright claim the throne. An opposition to the regent, primarily centered around the nobility, grew in the weeks after her seizure of Markev. Some were staunch traditionalists who wanted to follow the existing, if vague and unclear, line of succession. Some feared that she may rule with an iron fist, particularly aimed at the nobility who had failed to support her late husband. Some simply could not accept a woman in the highest office in the land.

 

Prince Sigmar, now in Carolustadt, became the focal point of the restoration of the Bihars to the throne. Having briefly returned to Haense in 1665, just before his uncle’s takeover of the kingdom, the wandering prince had made contact with a number of influential families sworn to House Bihar. In his meetings with them, the little-known Sigmar impressed them with his confident, open-handed demeanor and, in the words of the Baron of Drena, “an irresistible charisma that drew in even the most cynical of us.” While there, he also charmed the most important woman of his life, a bastard of the ancient, once-glorious House Chivay, named Sophia of Castor. The two would be wed in private, then travel back to the capital of Renatus-Marna, where they would live in a small, comfortable apartment made possible by their anonymity and Sigmar’s earnings from playing in the households of the city gentry.

 

Of the many outlandish tales from Sigmar’s early life, the most popular at the time (as well as the most unlikely) claimed he leapt into a pit of lions on a dare but was able to avoid being harmed because he smeared feces across himself so that he would be an unappealing meal.

 

Debate exists as to whether Prince Sigmar’s quiet claim for the throne was driven primarily by himself or by the Biharist supporters in Haense. It is clear that he came to the forefront of the movement in 1667, as Queen Tatiana and Palatine Karl released the scathing Edict of the Krepost, which has now been lost to us, legally banishing Prince Sigmar from the realm on the grounds that he had abandoned his kingdom in his darkest hour. It also rebuked his claim to the throne, though he had not yet announced it, and reaffirmed that the powers of the monarchy were invested in the regent. Few openly resisted within Haense, for Queen Tatiana still held the support of the army, and with them at her back she could enforce her will.

 

Unfortunately for the regent and her lover, the coming war against Renatus would utterly ruin their credibility with the army, not to mention the rest of Haense. In the spring of 1667, Aurelius and his allies divided their army into three, invaded Courland, and put its primary cities to siege. The lords of Renatus’s southern marches, eager to sink their steel teeth into the hide of Haense’s exposed north once again, scoured the borderlands to repeat the cycle of pillage and raiding that the realm had come to know. The war that the world knew was to come had now arrived, and it would again fall to Haense to lead the war effort against Renatus, whether it had been their design or not.

 

Unlike the two prior wars, Haense’s army was better-prepared, and the fortifications built by Karl II provided safety for thousands in the northern plains of the country, but her allies proved to be more hindrance than help. Tobias II had spent his time before the war hunting rather than fortifying his defenses and directing the many allies that the late Franz II had helped win over. In less than a month, critical towns and fortresses across Courland were overrun by the Renatian onslaught, while a sizable army of 8,000 sat within the walls of White Peak. Most disastrously, Tobias II failed to reinforce his Reiver allies as they did battle with Aurelius’s legions, leading to their defeat at the Battle of Hickory Hills on the 21st of Owyn’s Flame, effectively knocking them out of the war. By the end of the year, an army of 12,000 men led by Prince Tiberius, one of Aurelius’s sons, had penetrated deep into Ostmark and surrounded White Peak, putting it and its inhabitants, among them Tobias II and his army, to siege.

 

As their allies to the east floundered, Queen Tatiana and Palatine Karl scrambled to put together an effective response. The most pressing question before them was whether to defend their northern border, effectively dooming the wider war effort while saving many Haeseni lives, or marshaling their forces to relieve White Peak, thus leaving the northern communities to their fate. Ultimately, the two decided on a mixed strategy, wherein Rhys var Ruthern, Count of Metterden, was given 2,000 men to drive back the Renatian raiders, while Palatine Karl would raise an army of 4,000 to shadow White Peak and look for an opportunity to relieve the city. 

 

Later allegations by the Biharist faction would claim that this was merely a cynical ploy by the regent to curry regional support in the north while abandoning the allies her husband had pledged himself to. However, more sympathetic interpretations point out that Queen Tatiana displayed a wise foresight at this juncture: the war was lost the moment it began, and there was no hope that she could save her allies, but a slim one that she could save her people. In the following months, these hopes bore fruit. The Count of Metterden drove back the Renatian marcher lords in a series of brief skirmishes, effectively securing the north for the rest of the war. Meanwhile, Palatine Karl led his portion of the army to the outskirts of White Peak, where he shadowed Prince Tiberius’s besieging forces.

 

Not a military man himself, the Palatine could not make much of the little he was given. He and King Tobias could not effectively coordinate any kind of joint-attack against the Renatian siege lines, nor did he harass the enemy camps or foraging patrols. As the months of 1668 dragged on, bringing with it first the bitter cold of winter, then the muddy showers of spring, then the burning heat of summer, hundreds in the Haeseni ranks fell from sickness or desertion, all without so much as unsheathing a blade. News of the wider war was even less encouraging. The prominent cities of Arbor, Cyrilsburg, Jornburg, and Ashwood were all close to surrender. An outbreak of dysentery had ravaged the Courlandic ranks within White Peak. Key allies were cutting deals with the Renatian coalition to save their possessions from the threat of invasion. 

 

On the 5th of Godfrey’s Triumph, 1668, Tobias II’s body was found in a pit trap. He had tried to flee to the Haeseni camps overnight but had fallen in one of the traps constructed to ward off any Renatian harassers. His body was found by a Black Reiter cuirassier, who paraded it before the walls of White Peak. A fortnight later, the demoralized city surrendered, bringing an end to the bloody siege and forcing Palatine Karl and his army to retreat back west. As 1668 rounded out, the lands of Ostmark and Curon were subjugated by the Renatians, who stamped out the last of the Staunton resistance and sent the dynasty, which had once conquered all the known world, into permanent seclusion, relegated to the glories of history books.

 

Back in Haense, news of the defeat was met with outrage. Although Haense had not suffered so greatly during the war, especially compared to the previous two, it was yet another defeat in a long, unbroken string of humiliations since the beginning of the Dark Decades. Queen Tatiana’s basis for rule, the strength of the army backing her, was called into immediate question. Her decision to put Palatine Karl in command of half of the army was also met with scrutiny, as his inexperience was apparent, and his mismanagement had led to the wasteful death of hundreds of fighting-age soldiers without so much as putting a dent in the Pertinaxi legions. The ultimate peace agreement, made on the 1st of Sun’s Smile, 1669, was just more salt in the wound. Queen Tatiana agreed to deconstruct the realm’s successful border defenses and pay massive amounts of tribute, despite an empty treasury, in exchange for peace. The final insult came when Aurelius announced just a week later that he would be extending the grain embargo on Haense, which he had initiated at the start of the war, into perpetuity.

 

The sting of humiliation and rising grain prices culminated in a series of riots against the regency that had to be suppressed by force. The rebellion of the Rothswood clans to the west had also not seized during the war, and soon the realm began to devolve into the same situation that it had found itself in just three years earlier: a food shortage wrecked Markev, the west slipped out of government control, and the kingdom was diplomatically isolated. Three tenuous years of the rule of Queen Tatiana had only gone in circles, leaving Haense little better than where it had been before.

 

It was in this context that Sigmar’s prospects to rule, which had seemed so dim just a few years earlier, began to shine. Notably, many of the characteristics that had made him seem so unappealing to begin with were now viewed in a different light. Where before his lack of military prowess was a sign that he did not have the strength to defend Haense, now it was an indication that his rule would be focused on improving the lives of his subjects rather than hunting for glory. Where before his avoidance of the Czena War and the First Atlas Coalition War had made him a craven who abandoned his people, now it meant that he was the only Barbanov who did not have a slew of enemies in the Heartlands. Where before his carefree, amiable disposition had left him unprepared to rule, now it was the desirable personality of a king who would not impose his will upon the people where unnecessary.

 

Sigmar was not blind to the growing desire to see him take the throne. Believing Queen Tatiana to be a tyrant, and Palatine Karl to be a cynical climber, he wasted no time contacting his supporters in the realm and making his intentions clear. He would return to Haense to save it from the unstable cycle of child-kings and strongmen or die in the attempt. Convincing the nobility of Haense was not a difficult task, nearly all had been supportive of the return of House Bihar to the throne since the beginning, but the army was another question entirely. The recent war had been lost, yes, but would that be enough for them to support a man who had never fought and bled within their ranks?

 

On the 15th of Tobias’s Bounty, 1669, Sigmar, Sophia of Castor, and a small group of supporters crossed into Haense and traveled south, stopping at every small village and keep they came across the announce the realm’s liberation at the hands of King Sigmar of House Bihar. Moving at a lightning pace, accepting hundreds of oaths of fealty each day, only news of their impending arrival could travel faster than them. Fearing her nephew’s rapid advance, Queen Tatiana sent three different armies to arrest him, but each time he was able to sway them with his silver words and earn their allegiance. With the bedrock of the regency’s support abandoning it, the other enemies of Queen Tatiana emerged, throwing their support behind Sigmar. By the time he reached Markev on the 5th of Sun’s Smile, 1670, the King of Haense found the gates of the city wide open. Not a soul stood atop the city’s walls in opposition to the Biharist restoration.

 

By the evaluation of the Count of Ayr, who had accompanied King Sigmar on the last stretch of the march to the capital, the judgement of the newly-seated monarch was “just and merciful, as he had promised in confidence to us peers, for he had no wish to spoil his coming coronation with the blood that our kingdom could ill-afford to spill.” Pardons were issued to all of his subjects, save the Palatine Karl, who was beheaded in the middle of the city, and Queen Tatiana, who was sent to a convent to live out her final years. She would eventually die sometime between 1672 and 1675, evidently still bitter at the treatment of her husband’s legacy but at peace with her own deposition.

 

Sigmar’s coronation, held on the 6th of Sun’s Smile, 1670, was a hastily put-together event. Part of this was due to immediacy- King Sigmar and Queen Sophia only had the resources of Markev available to them- and part was due to their shared opinion that extravagance was unnecessary. Haense and her people suffered from the crippling grain embargo, and the series of wars and economic crises had drained the pockets of nearly all. Displays of grandeur would only alienate them from their new subjects and remind them that they had avoided the worst of the Dark Decades. 

 

Although Sigmar I intended to keep to his promise of maintaining Queen Tatiana’s government, he had executed her Palatine, albeit to no one’s protest, and needed someone to fill the office. For the post he tapped an old ally, Ser Matthew Colborn, who was well-regarded by the kingdom and signaled the change that was to come under King Sigmar’s reign. Ser Matthew’s orientation towards peace, diplomacy, and internal development promised a different path forward for Haense than had been the direction under Karl II and Franz II. 

 

Sigmar’s foreign policy began to see its successes play out during the first year of his reign. After brief negotiations with Aurelius, the grain embargo against Haense was lifted, allowing food and other goods to flow freely from Renatus again. The hunger that had struck the land was alleviated by the end of 1670, and the new peace brought an opportunity for the realm’s farmlands to be restored and repopulated. Haense would never experience a famine again on Atlas, and it was not long before “King Sigmar’s Peace” became a popular cry in the taverns of Markev and the towns beyond. 

 

While King Sigmar had won peace with the rest of the world, he still dealt with internal struggles related to the Rothswood. Haense’s returning stability and lessened economic woes had made the revolt of these clansmen less appealing to those on the edges of society who had otherwise been strong supporters, but they still proved a danger to many of the outlying villages in the western forests of the kingdom. The army remained an important political force, but it had been shellacked by the defeats it had suffered during the Dark Decades. Not a military mind himself, the king turned to the Count of Metterden to be his Lord Marshal and rebuild the army. The old veteran set about his task with diligence, but the endemic corruption and poor leadership meant that it would be a years-long project.

 

The disaster of the reigns of Karl II and Franz II had given Sigmar and Lord Palatine Colborn a sweeping mandate to enact reforms as they saw fit, with which they reopened the economy and exerted royal control back over the entirety of Hanseti-Ruska. However, within a year the old nobility began to voice their hesitancy towards any move that would encroach on their privileges. Sigmar had ascended to the throne not on his command over them but on their assent to him. Some centralization was needed to steer the realm towards recovery, but the proud peers of Haense warned their king and his Lord Palatine that they were to keep their levies, their taxes, and their lands. One unsigned letter in particular enraged Sigmar so greatly that even Queen Sophia was astonished at his outburst:

 

“Your Majesty,

 

I must first commend you on the wisdom by which you have led our people out of the turbulence of your successor’s reign. Your adroit hand has brought food to the bellies of your subjects and coins to the coffers of our enterprises. You shall have my everlasting support as you continue to navigate the ever-present challenges that we collectively face, and know that the estate of the sword will be the bedrock of your long and successful rule. 

 

That being said, I must advise against the unchecked expansion of the powers of the Markev bureaucrats and attendants. Many from that class work solely to further their ambitions, subverting the directives of the Crown when it may suit their interests, much to the detriment of House Barbanov and the greater realm. I fear that many of your councilors deceive you, and should their policies continue unchecked, the greater part of the nation shall rise up to see them replaced. With our realm so recently patched together after the wars of your predecessors, I should hope that you take the action needed to see this course averted.”

 

The letter was unsigned, but the threat and origin was clear. Elements of the aristocracy were not keen on the expansion of royal power, even in this time of need, and the crown did not have the strength to enforce its order. If King Sigmar was going to continue to reform the realm, even if his changes were incremental, he would have to prove his strength to his subjects. For nearly all of Haeseni history, this was done through victory on the battlefield, which, aside from a few indecisive engagements during the Czena War, had eluded the realm since the Third Crusade. Peace around the continent had given room for King Sigmar to divert his attention away from defending his borders and towards internal opposition.

 

Most of the old Haeseni aristocracy, qualms aside, remained loyal subjects of the crown. However, the Dark Decades had led to a weakened grasp on much of the provincial nobility, who were markedly less powerful, often newer members of the peerage, and far less obedient to the crown when they felt it did not have their interests at heart. In the west, it was the Rothswood clans that proved most difficult, but in the east, in a rugged, barren region known as the Sleetfalls, a wealthy landowner named Georgiana of Mehran had hired a company of mercenaries and taken possession of the small fortress of Leeuwenhof. From there, she declared the region’s independence from the Haeseni Crown.

 

Georgiana’s Rebellion has rarely been studied by historians of Atlasian Haense, leaving a dearth of proper scholarship. This is mostly due to the limited written record of the brief war, its rather limited impact, and the fact that there was little desire to sponsor research into the setting of one of Haense’s most embarrassing defeats. Time and distance from the event, necessary remedies for undesirable historical narratives, leave us with near-unanswerable mysteries. In the case of Georgiana’s Rebellion, the central mystery, debated more now than then, was whether it was sponsored by Aurelius or happened organically.

 

While most of King Sigmar’s council was in support of war, led by Lord Palatine Colborn himself, who argued that the rebels in Leeuwenhof were isolated and far easier to decisively defeat than the Rothswood clans, the Count of Metterden hesitated. Lord Ruthern noted that the mercenaries hired by Georgiana of Mehran were numerous, around 2,000 in total, and reportedly well-equipped and disciplined, especially for a company with little reputation. Calling themselves ‘Camel Bandits’, they neither rode nor used camels, had virtually no history, and were of an unclear origin. The Count of Metterden hypothesized that they were an elite core of Renatian soldiers, covertly sent by Aurelius to aid Georgiana of Mehran, while others believed they had been hired from overseas. Both propositions were paid some heed, but King Simgar and Lord Colborn both believed that it was an absolute necessity to recapture the Sleetfalls, and the advantage in manpower Haense possessed would overwhelm the Camel Bandits.

 

The Sleetfalls was a rugged, sparsely-populated region of eastern Haense that had numerous petty lords resist the authority of House Barbanov, not just Georgiana (although she was the most infamous and dangerous). Even by the end of Sigmar’s reign, the Sleetfalls were little more than nominally a Haeseni province.

 

On the 12th of Harren’s Folly, 1672, a Haeseni army, with their king at its head, marched out for the Sleetfalls. Banners of the Golden Crow of Barbanov, the Grey Mountains of Ruthern, the Red Griffin of Kovachev, the Black Serpent of Vanir, the Grey Bear of Baruch, and the Yellow Hawks of Stafyr, among dozens of other noble insignias, fluttered in the crisp northern winds, leading forward a green army of unshakeable morale. It had been promised that the campaign would be quick, decisive, and easy: it was the exact sort of victory that the realm so desperately needed after the myriad of disasters during the Dark Decades. As their march met little resistance, and the Haeseni army neared the castle of Leeuwenhof on the 30th of Harren’s Folly, the men and women in the camps began to truly believe that the promises made might just come true.

 

Septimus Aldin, a soldier in service to the Count of Metterden, was one of the few to note the problems that would doom the brief campaign in the Sleetfalls. 

 

“An illness that had stricken my lord [Rhys var Ruthern] deprived our army of the one commander who may have guided us away from the ruination of our army. Despite the brevity of the march, we found ourselves ill-supplied. The spirits of the soldiers were lifted by the immanence of our victory, but this supply of confidence, which was in far greater store than food and weapons, gave for lazy officers to issue lazy orders. Camp was not struck in an orderly manner, nor were any siege weapons prepared: we were told the intent was to storm the fortress.”

 

While King Sigmar may have felt the pressure to quickly end the rebellion, the decision that he and his advisors made to immediately commit to battle played right into the hands of the Camel Bandits. On the morning of the 31st of Harren’s Folly, 1672, the lumbering ranks of the disorganized Haeseni army started shambling out to their designated positions in front of Leeuwenhof, where only a few ladders had been made to be used during the assault. The deployment, which should have taken no more than two hours, instead took nearly four, meaning that it was midday by the time the army had assembled into formation. Owing to the narrow space to assemble, this process was not done unimpeded, and all throughout the morning the Camel Bandits had harassed the army with arrow fire.

 

Not long after the army had assembled its ranks, it was met with an unexpected sally from the castle that crashed into the front lines and sent them into disarray. King Sigmar was forced to commit himself and his bodyguard to the center to prevent it from breaking, while the left and right wings of the army, already close to the walls of the keep, were ordered to break their assault to save the flailing front lines. Unbeknownst to them, a small, hidden force lurked in the nearby woods. When the ladders were dropped by those rushing to throw themselves into the fight, this hidden force of Camel Bandits emerged from the woods and began to hack the ladders to pieces. Once this was done, they wheeled around and attacked the Haeseni army from behind.

King Sigmar’s council, fearing that this flanking force was larger than it actually was, urged their king to fall back to safety, which he did only after the insistence of the Lord Palatine. 

 

Unfortunately, as he and his bodyguard were turning to evacuate the field, the royal standard fell to the ground. The soldiers of the front lines, whose morale was only kept afloat by the king’s presence, mistakenly believed that this meant he had been killed. It took only minutes for the panicking Haeseni to begin fleeing the fight in a panicked rout. Disorganized flight poses a great danger to an army wishing to keep its members alive, but the thick woods and rough terrain turned this danger into one of the worst defeats suffered by Haense in its history. The surging Camel Bandits, lustful for the blood of their fleeing foes, took no quarter as they kept an hours-long pursuit. By the time that night came, the broken Haeseni army, which had numbered between 6-8,000 that morning, could only count 1,000 who returned to Markev. Sigmar only narrowly avoided capture: his signature fox-tail cape was torn from his back by a pursuing Camel Bandit, but he had shoved the man away before he could strike him.

 

The Siege of Leeuwenhof was catastrophic for the Haeseni army and King Sigmar’s image. Without the hindsight to see that his reign would eventually mark a period of stabilization, the defeated Sigmar locked himself in his chambers for two weeks, fearing that he would soon be deposed like his predecessors before him. In this time, he spoke to Lord Palatine Colborn once, to order that Rhys var Ruthern be named Duke of Vidaus, either as an apology for the debacle or a measure to stave off dissent. Only Queen Sophia’s coaxing could get him to finally emerge and grasp the reins of government again; she urged him to “remain faithful to the spirit of our people, which will not fail us in this dark hour.” 

 

The king and his council quickly concluded that raising another army to resume the war would be impossible under the current conditions. In the west, the Rothswood clans had formed an official armed organization, the Red Cloaks, which fielded a well-equipped, sufficiently-organized group of zealot opponents of House Barbanov. Under the leadership of Andrik Tosali, the wealthiest of the Rothswood landowners, the Red Cloaks had begun to attack army patrols in the region and raid fortified settlements with great success. To the east were the Camel Bandits, who were encouraging Georgiana of Mehran, almost certainly paralyzed with indecision in the aftermath of her stunning victory, which had been as unexpected to her as it was to the soldiers of Haense, to march on Markev and deliver the killing blow to the Crow.

 

As serious as the threat of invasion may have seemed just after the debacle at Leeuwenhof, neither foe had the capabilities of seriously threatening the Barbanov Dynasty. Dropping the sword in favor of the olive branch, King Sigmar keenly identified the weakness within the ranks of the Camel Bandits: their employer. Georgiana of Mehran had no real desire to topple Haense, much less serve as some sort of figurehead for the rule of the Camel Bandits, or for their hypothesized Renatian backers. The height of the “Countess of Mehran’s” ambitions was recognition of her noble standing from others, which Sigmar was eager to give in return for her submission to Haense.

 

On the 27th of Sun’s Smile, 1673, the woman who had defeated the King of Haense a month earlier knelt before him, swore her fealty, and pledged to end her contract with the Camel Bandits. Unable to use Leeuwenhof as a place to strike at Markev, the Camel Bandits were forced to withdraw, where they eventually disappeared from history entirely. Less than a year later, Georgiana of Mehran would reportedly be killed by a disgruntled farmer, or, according to alternative sources, a pet bear in her possession. Her title was quietly sent into abeyance and her lands were divided among three barons in the Sleetfalls.

 

The Red Cloaks were a more persistent nuisance, but King Sigmar found victory again behind the cloistered doors of diplomacy. Andrei Dune, the leader of Clan Dune, a small but well-connected Rothswood family, had remained largely sympathetic to House Barbanov, even marching under Sigmar I’s banner in the Sleetfalls Campaign. King Sigmar gave him a high-ranking position in the army, where he could assist in the ongoing reforms led by the Duke of Vidaus, in exchange for his clan’s assistance against the Red Cloaks. On the 15th of Horen’s Calling, 1674, a procession of Red Cloaks entered Markev unopposed, where they burnt a woman at the stake for “unnecessary fraternization with elves.” The mob was too small to take control of the city, and it soon melted away to the woods, but the message was clear: not even the capital could be considered safe anymore.

 

Acting decisively, knowing that his rule would be questioned if he could not even keep his own seat safe, King Sigmar wrote to Kairn Ithelanen, the King of the Dominion of Malin, warning him of a large, hostile force that had taken a decidedly anti-elven turn. He invited the King of the Elves to send an army south to assist him in dealing with the threat and tasked Andrei Dune with luring them into a trap. On the 6th of Godfrey’s Triumph, 1674, a large elven host, guided by Dune, met a rallying Red Cloak host at an unknown location northwest of Markev, where the latter had been told a far smaller Dominion patrol was en route to. The Red Cloaks were caught unaware and were put to rout within minutes; Andrik Tosali and over fifty petty lords and chiefs of the Rothswood clans were killed during the flight. As soon as word was sent back to Markev of the victory, the Haeseni army was sent to occupy the Rothswood and root out any last resistance. The threat of the united Rothswood clans, which had been a staple of the Dark Decades and an obstacle to royal control in the west, had finally been defeated.

 

Although he had returned to Haense with the reputation of a troubadour who lacked any political experience, a far cry from his militant brother, Sigmar I had effectively guided the realm through one of the most tumultuous periods in its history, when it seemed that the very survival of Hanseti-Ruska, as well as House Barbanov, was an uncertainty. Despite the setbacks he had faced, his gift for diplomacy, bolstered by his personal charisma, had allowed him to overcome them and retain the confidence of his subjects. The periodization of the Dark Decades is always difficult, as scholars are inclined to give several different dates, but 1674 marked a turning point, if not a complete reversal, to the long era of Haeseni decline and stagnation.

 

King Sigmar’s council was well-aware of the fact that they stood in a position to rebuild what had been destroyed and prevent the disasters of the past twenty years from occurring again. Lord Palatine Colborn appointed new tax collectors, bailiffs, and other officials in western Haense, where the law of the realm could be enforced again. The Duke of Vidaus, by now the preeminent soldier and nobleman in the kingdom, curtailed the power of the nobility in his army reforms, concentrating most of the right to field armies solely in the hands of the Crown. Prince Edvard-Audemar, the High Seneschal, put his energy into revitalizing Markev through several public works projects and tax incentives while reorganizing and recovering tax and property records that had been lost in the years prior. The rationalization of government would not be complete by the end of Sigmar I’s reign, but it was an important step towards modernizing and centralizing the realm.

 

The extent of Sigmar’s personal investment in his government’s reforms are debated. He was described by his brother, Prince Edvard-Audemar, as an “energetic and diligent man who solicited advice when necessary, of which was certainly the greater component of his decision-making, but did not fear to make his authority known.” However, he disliked many of the bureaucratic responsibilities of the Crown: issuing charters, holding court, settling legal disputes, etc, and often delegated those duties to his Lord Palatine. He was by no means incapable of handling these on his own, and when the occasion demanded he rose to it more often than not, but his interests were squarely outside of the traditional role of kingship, which he frequently derided as overbearing and stifling.

 

The greatest strength of Sigmar I was in his ability to win the unwavering devotion of the common man and woman. Described as affable, jovial, and above all indiscriminate in his selection of associates, a common refrain of Jolly King Sigmar was that “he held court in his tavern, issued law from the festival grounds, and directed the privy from his privy.” He and Lord Colborn found many capable officials within the classes of the commons and gentry. Brog Dhoon, a butcher, rose to become a popular Mayor of Markev and later High Seneschal under King Sigmar. Swithun Aldor, a cooper’s son who was afforded a brief education, became a prized royal scribe and eventually the High Justiciar of Haense. Both men, who would have otherwise been overlooked due to their ignoble origins, were able to become close confidants of the royal family and integral officials in King Sigmar’s administration.

 

It was difficult for contemporaries to not see the similarities between Sigmar and his predecessor, Otto II, who had also rejuvenated the realm through breaking the mystique of the regal veil and building personal, meaningful connections with subjects on various rungs of society. Both had also acquired reputations as troublemaking troubadours in their young lives, chastened only by the heavy demands of a kingship they had not expected to inherit. While this was not Sigmar’s intent (his well-documented personality was entirely authentic), he would have been aware of the reputation of his forebear, being born in the last year of his reign. Portraits of ‘Otto the Builder’ adorned the Krepost, and in 1674, Queen Sophia ordered the construction of a statue of Otto II, in the likeness of King Sigmar, to be built in the city of Torov. If the king wished to assure his subjects that the Dark Decades were finally past them, there was hardly a figure more fitting to draw a comparison to.

 

As the immediate crises of his early reign settled themselves, mostly for the better, Sigmar was allowed to devote more of his time to pleasantries. Never one to stuff himself at an office desk for hours at a time reading over documents, preferring instead to delegate that responsibility to secretaries, the King of Haense filled his schedule hunting, carousing, and the familial life. During his reign, he ordered the construction of four new palaces to suit these desires, building them by lakes, rivers, and ripe hunting grounds, primarily for the purposes of pleasure and enjoyment. This is not to suggest that idle pastimes were the sole focus of his efforts, nor that he was a slovenly monarch, but that his interests never lay in the minutiae of governing.

 

Of all the Kings of Haense, Sigmar enjoyed one of the more successful private lives, perhaps owing to his delegation of royal power to his subordinates. He and Queen Sophia, desiring a simple life at heart, shunned court politics and maintained a healthy distance from the gossip and intrigue that accompanied such activities. Treating the Krepost most like a home than a palace, the two built a royal atmosphere that was, in the words of Prince Edvard-Audemar, “more warm and inviting than the idealized rustic cabin in a snowy wood, though it did not lack for the splendor of the courts of the Heartlands.” It was a conducive environment to raise their children in, and it was of little surprise to their contemporaries that the royal family was a visibly affectionate one.

 

 The only significant source of tension within the House of Bihar were the many young deaths of the royal children. Of the seven recorded children of Sigmar I and Sophia, only three lived into adulthood (if one does not consider the audacious claim of Petyr Josef’s improbable survival, which was spread by the works of imposters claiming to be his sons, though that episode does not need repeating). Otto Sigmar (born 1665) was stillborn, while Petyr Josef (born 1671) and Thomas Odrin (born 1672), died during outbreaks of the plague. Their last child, Elizaveta Tatiana (born 1674), died of an illness less than a year after she was born. It was during these stressful periods that the relationship between the king and queen was put to the test, but each time they managed to reconcile.

 

Even before Sigmar I, it had been a established custom for royal children to receive a well-rounded education rather than solely a focus on either military or ecclesiastical studies. While Sigmar was no learned man himself, he appreciated the benefits a strong, multidisciplinary education would bring his children, so he encouraged each of them to pursue their studies to the fullest.                                                                                                                                               

 

Robert Lothar (born 1666), Andrew Stefan (born 1668), and Theodosiya Isabel (born 1669), were able to enjoy the active presence of their parents in their lives. Although the three still spent much of their time surrounded by tutors, for the responsibilities of the monarchy could not always be forgotten, far from it, Sigmar and Sophia took great care to ensure they did not grow distant from their children. The family ate together for breakfast and supper, vacationed to their country estates several times a year, and attended festivities and official ceremonies together. During the winter months, of which there were many in the south, the royal family could be found throwing snowballs and making snowmen out on the streets of Markev, where they were often joined by local children.

 

Despite not following the warrior-like example of Franz II, King Sigmar maintained an active physical life, taking great care to ensure that his more open-handed and jovial demeanor was not mistaken for softness, which would suggest a corruption of the body. He was a prolific hunter, and owned fifty dogs and thirty falcons, all personally trained by him. Over his many outings into the deep woods of Haense, he accumulated no fewer than five significant wounds, all of which came from a boar that Sigmar derisively named ‘Fattusk’, though it is under contention if his wounds, inflicted over a span of ten years, came from the same beast. Aside from hunting, Sigmar was an avid swimmer and rower: during the spring and summer months, he could be spotted in the Czena River, and during the autumn, he could be found in a canoe atop it.

 

The Renatian ambassador to the Haeseni court, the Count of Hekant, Thomas Roos, provides us with one of the more detailed physical descriptions of a Barbanov king from this period. On his first visit to Markev, in 1676, the Heartlandic ambassador wrote:

 

“The King of Haense presented a short figure, dwarfed by the large southmen that made up the guards around his dais, though his proud posture and well-proportioned features did not diminish his regal bearing. His brows, thick and dark, protrude over his large, aquiline nose which hooked at its tip. Pale blue eyes, a piercing quality of most of the Highlanders, were remarkably warm as they looked down upon his subjects: rather than ice, they were a cool stream’s rush. A thick beard covered much of his puffy face, and when his thin, pale lips parted one could see a gap between his teeth that he took care to cover with a constant flicking of his tongue. The king was a paunchy man, though not in such a way that suggested an insipid lifestyle, for his limbs, too long for his frame, moved with grace each time he gestured or strode.”

 

The purpose of the Count of Hekant’s embassy, the first permanent Renatian diplomatic mission in Haense, was to guide the realm’s future submission to King Aurelius.

 

Since the collapse of the Mardon Empire in 1638, Haense had eluded Aurelius's ambitions to reunite humanity beneath the flag of the Pertinaxi. Although it had found itself on the losing side of three coalitions assembled against Renatus-Marna, the large swath of territory within the realm made it a difficult and costly object to put under a post-conquest occupation. As long as the south posed no threat to Aurelius, and it remained a generally compliant trading partner in times of peace, then the King of Renatus had no qualms with allowing it to remain independent. However, as his age advanced, his obsession with restoring the Empire grew beyond political pragmatism. The weakened position of House Barbanov also made a renewed attempt of subjugation the dual-crowns a tantalizing prospect: between 1670-1677, the crown defaulted on its debts three times, much of the realm’s military power was in the hands of House Ruthern, and the Sleetfalls War and the Rothswood Uprising had exposed crucial flaws in the Haeseni army. For Aurelius, it was now or never to remake the Empire.

 

From the moment of his ascension, King Sigmar was fully aware of the looming threat that Renatus posed. Having come to his throne in large part because of yet another failed war against the Pertinaxi, it was core to his beliefs that Haense did not have the power to stand against the united Heartlands. On this matter, he, Queen Sophia, Lord Palatine Colborn, and most of the council were in agreement: the process of Haeseni renewal was not so much an effort of total self-sufficiency as it was a chance to bargain with Aurelius when the day came where he looked south again. Word spread like wildfire in the courts of Senntisten, and Queen Sophia’s many contacts in the Heartlands alerted her of Aurelius’s plans in early 1677. Weeks later, word from the Renatian capital arrived, informing Sigmar that the King of Renatus-Marna was willing to open negotiations for Haense’s submission to the Pertinaxi.

 

Ever a favorer of diplomacy, Sigmar I had already outlined his approach to the coming negotiations with Renatus. It was well-known the much of the Haeseni nobility and peasantry would balk at the idea of their home swearing beneath the Heartlands once again, but Sigmar’s position was such that he did not risk fomenting popular resistance against him; the same could not be said for a hypothetical Renatian administration. Additionally, he managed to mitigate the diplomatic effects of his kingdom’s prior defeats. When speaking with Renatian diplomats, he cited the depopulation of Norland, the destruction of White Peak, and the brutal treatment of Curon when doubting the efficacy of vassalage to Renatus, not fearing the reminder they ought to have given him of what came of Renatus’s staunchest foes. The bait-and-switch game he played worked masterfully: he was a willing and compliant future vassal, a defender of Haeseni autonomy, and a reasonably concerned negotiator all at the same time.

 

Upon the conclusion of negotiations in the autumn of 1677, King Sigmar had pulled off no less than a diplomatic masterstroke. In exchange for swearing fealty to Renatus, providing military service in the event of war, and removing all tariffs and trade barriers, Haense retained full internal autonomy, was exempt from all taxes, and was given the protection of the king’s legions. In exchange for what amounted to surrendering foreign policy, which was rendered useless at a time when nearly the entire world was controlled by a single man, Sigmar I had ensured that his kingdom’s recovery and growth would continue without interruption.

 

Sigmar I traveled to Aurelius’s court at Carolustadt, where he knelt before the Pertinaxi lord and pledged him his eternal servitude. The applause from the crowd of assembled lords and ladies from across Atlas had barely died down when a procession of sixteen priests, led by six children dressed as cherubs, who tossed ground herbs and copper into the audience, brought the crown of John V before Aurelius, who did not bother to even feign surprise. The crown was placed atop his head by the Bishop of Senntisten, who named him Emperor of Man, having only earned the title due to Haense’s submission. King Sigmar remained in the capital for the next week of festivities, where he was granted three private audiences with his new liege, and he returned home in good spirits.

 

Although some in Markev grumbled about the loss of Haense’s independence, and its role in the creation of a new Empire under the hated Aurelius, few could doubt either the logic or results of his decision. Under the umbrella of the Empire of Man, the spectre of the Pertinaxi was lifted, and the realm could enjoy the benefits of increased trade across all of Atlas. Santegia had been turned into a summer home for the Pertinaxi, Adria into a striking dummy for Dragon Knights, and Curon a centerpiece for its court schemes. Of the major Imperial vassals, Haense received the lightest burden of fealty, and within a few years it had recovered such that its condition was comparable to what it had been under Otto II. Sigmar I’s last major act of his reign not only completed his aim to pull his kingdom out of the Dark Decades and its aftermath, it ushering in another period of flourishing that would last for forty years.

 

In 1680, Sigmar I reshuffled his council. His brother, Prince Edvard-Audemar, had retired from the Office of the High Seneschal to manage his country estates, which had experienced financial difficulties after a few years of drought. Lord Palatine Colborn was named his replacement, and he then vacated the Office of the Palatine to Prince Robert of Bihar, Sigmar’s father who had recently returned to Markev after successfully recovering from his long battle with illness. For the last few years of Sigmar’s year, father and son governed the realm side-by-side, rekindling a relationship that had been lost for nearly two decades: reportedly, they had not directly spoken since the reign of Otto II, though they had corresponded plenty in letters. Both amiable, agreeable men, they continued to chart the realm’s course peacefully and competently, inviting neither scandal nor outrage for the rest of the king’s life.

 

Not even forty and in good health, it was expected that King Sigmar would have a long, stable reign lasting well into his sixties. However, on the 5th of Sigismund’s End, 1682, while swimming in the Czena River, Sigmar struck his head against a rock and had to be rescued by several attendants. Initially, it appeared that he made a quick recovering, as he awoke that evening, ate a small supper, and spoke with Queen Sophia briefly, making note of his headache but otherwise, in the words of his physician, a woman named Olga, “exchange pleasant little jokes, as he so liked to do with Her Majesty. There was no indication that he had suffered anything worse than a bruise atop the head.” As he went to bed that evening, wearing a cool, wet cloth over his brow, the King of Haense secluded himself in prayer, an unusual activity for a man who did not hold religion close to his heart. The next morning, the palace awoke to find him dead. A later autopsy found the cause of his demise to have been a bleeding of the brain, which had gone entirely unnoticed.

 

The funeral for Sigmar I was held a week after his death, and it is said that onlooking mourners numbered greater than the city of Markev itself. He had been a beloved king, most of all by his common subjects, and the stones of the capital were soon wetted by the tears of the anguished. Notable to those who had been present for the last several royal funerals, the sorrow was of a different character than before. Undergirding the tragedy of the young deaths of Karl II and Franz II was the fear of the imminent destruction of the realm, which seemed most at hand during the Dark Decades. Not only had the King of Haense perished, the nation itself was under threat of total collapse. In the case of Sigmar, his subjects need not have feared the future of the crown at that time, so they were allowed the grace of only needing to mourn the man who had departed so early.

 

Despite his simple words, owing to a lack of formal education, the Maer of Markev, Brog Dhoon, one of the commoners whom Sigmar I had raised to prominence, gave a well-remembered speech:

 

“I could not pretend that our lives were similar. It would be dishonest and presumptuous of me. Regardless, each time I spoke with His Majesty, I felt a warmth, a friendliness, that has only radiated from mine kin. Because of him, we have work, we have food, and we have peace. Stories of war-glory make for fine bedtime tales, but tales alone will not raise a family, and a family may be raised without them. He provided for us, his subjects, and allowed us to prosper instead of suffering for the cause of vanity. For this, he is the king we needed most, and he has made me proud to be a servant of the Crow again. He did right by us, so for his memory we will do right by him.”

 

Robert Lothar, now Robert I, was well-composed during the funeral, acquitting his conduct well at just sixteen. His father’s death made a pit in his stomach, one that he would take some time to crawl himself out of, but he did not fear the road ahead. His predecessor had paved the way for Haense to leave the turmoil of the past and propel itself into the future, but he had died before it had come to fruition. Emboldened by a sense of duty, rather than timid in the face of the responsibilities that came with it, Robert I prepared to finish what his father had begun.

 

Dravi, Sigmar I ‘Silver-Tongue’

17th of Sun’s Smile, 1643-6th of Sigismund’s End, 1682

(r. 25th of Tobias’s Bounty, 1666-6th of Sigismund’s End, 1682)

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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.

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The reign of Robert I shall be covered in the next volume of The Winter Crows.