​​​​​​​THE WINTER CROWS: Volume XIII; Marus II - The Vainglorious (II)

[Nectorist 12869]

THE WINTER CROWS: Volume XIII; Marus II - The Vainglorious (II)

Written by Demetrius Barrow

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Marus II - The Vainglorious (II)

 

“People say: How can I aid in this war against tyranny? How can I fight evil? You do so by mentoring a child; by going into a depressive’s home and [sic] say I love you.” - Another of the many gaffes of Lord Leopold Stafyr, c. 1716

 

The years 1711-1715 were the most peaceful of King Marus’s reign. 

 

Defeated on all fronts by the Emperor, alienated from the other vassals of the realm, and reduced of his great prize of Adria, the king withdrew from both public life and all but the most necessary government matters, mostly those in relation to the Royal Army. When not inspecting his soldiers or overseeing his defenses on the border, he was away hunting in his country lodges, or acquiring horses to be bred in his royal stables. King Marus had always been fond of horse breeding, and he spent great sums of money importing various breeds from across Arcas. While some horses were bred for a military purpose, most were for competition.

 

Marus II’s family life did not enjoy the levity with which he granted himself during these years. Queen Klaudia was a competent woman who lent her talents to the stewardship of Reza, which she personally oversaw, but her ambitions were limited, and she and her husband were never like-minded. From the beginning of their marriage, King Marus gave his attention to his mistresses more than to her, and he would sire several illegitimate children in the process. The couple did have four children: Andrik Lothar (1710), Matyas Arik (1713), Aleksandr Marus (1717) and Adryana Eleanor (1717), but shared parenthood did not bring them closer together. The king was always more comfortable in the presence of his councilors and soldiers when discussing matters of state, or with mistresses when discussing matters of the heart, and so the relationship between king and queen was cold.

 

Even Marus’s children did not experience anything close to parental affection. Not wishing to be caught in the constraints of fatherhood, he shuffled his sons and daughters off to the care of tutors, nuns, and governesses. He had his eldest daughter, Princess Mariya, sent to be a ward in Muldav as soon as she was of age. His second daughter, Princess Sofiya, was sent to Vidaus, as a small token of recompense to the Duke of Vidaus. Even his son and heir, Andrik Lothar, a happy, strongly-built boy made in his own image, did not interest him. The royal household, which had traditionally been the moral and cultural heart of the realm, dimmed as its patriarch had neither the desire nor the energy to ensure it remained a fixture of courtly life.

 

As slowed as King Marus personally was during this time, the world around him was not idle. Throughout most of Haense, but especially Leuven, the people regarded the destruction of Ves as a moment of martyrdom- not only for the Adrians, but also for the liberal ideals that they were associated with. It was understood that the Haeseni Duma was a powerless body, but what if it could be transformed into an effective instrument of the state? Only in the Crownlands, where the influence of the Pertinaxi was heaviest, were these ideas suppressed. It would only be a few years before they too felt the winds of change. 

 

Other developments around the Empire encouraged the growing body of dissenters. The Imperial Legion, once feared for its nigh-invincibility, was struggling against an increasing number of bandit attacks and peasant rebellions. The Reivers had regrouped and struck back with a fury, sacking and burning several towns and manors across the northern Crownlands, while uprisings in the outskirts of Norland tied down more legionaries. Several untimely resignations and deaths among the senior officer class also left the Legion with a dearth of reliable, experienced leaders. The legitimacy of the Pertinaxi’s iron fist had been predicated solely on their military superiority. If that was gone, what reason did the vassals of the Empire have to heed their orders? Why tolerate the madness of Antonius’ faltering reign?

 

King Marus was not oblivious to the dissent against the Pertinaxi rule, nor the crumbling foundations which the Emperor’s reign now trembled upon, but he misdiagnosed the desired remedy. Through his absolutist outlook, he perceived the core problem of the Pertinaxi Empire to be one of competence: Antonius was not the diligent administrator his father was, nor the crafty strategist his great-grandfather had been. His brutal suppression of his subjects in Adria and elsewhere had brought him the ire of the Heartlands and beyond, and his meddling in elven affairs had earned him enemies outside the Empire. The Imperial Legion had fallen into decline during his rule, he himself had been embarrassingly captured by the Reivers, and he had ordered the bloody sacking of Ves. “What many believe to be an iron fist has been greased,” Marus II supposedly ruminated to the Duke Varon of Carnatia, during a rare visit to his lands while on a hunting trip. “If it is not replaced, then it will lose its grip on humanity before long. The people of the Empire beg for stability: it will be the strongest, then, who must take the mantle.”

 

While King Marus was correct insofar as Antonius being the most reviled man on Arcas, he did not recognize that he did not fall far behind. To the Adrians, he had betrayed them, first in disrespecting their customs, and secondly in allowing the Legion to descend upon Ves and turn the Golden City into a plume of red flames. In the eyes of his former subjects, his crimes were all but equal. To the Curonians, he had been an early aggressor, breaking the goodwill that had been established by his father in the twilight of his reign: King Marus’s hand had been shown from the start. To the Norlanders, and the myriad of other small vassals around the Empire, he was simply unreliable. Even in Haense, where he still had overwhelming support from his subjects, the liberal intellectuals thought him too despotic, the commoners tired of the expenses they paid towards his (thus far) failed adventurism, and the nobility were upset at the elevation of newer families like the Kortrevichs at the expense of the Rutherns and Kovachevs.

 

Despite his obvious ideological differences with the majority of the factions aligned against Emperor Antonius, no rebellion could take place without the powerful Haeseni army. Dates for this period are difficult to be certain of, but sometime in late 1713, contact was made between Lord Palatine and elements of the fomenting rebellion. Soon, the Lord Stafyr informed his king of the developments, and after back-and-forth communication, it was agreed that the parties would gather at Nenzing Castle, the home of House Stafyr, to organize a plan.

 

Sometime in the month of Harren’s Folly, 1714, King Marus and a few of his closest associates: Lord Leopold Stafyr, Lord Otto Kortrevich, Prince Georg Alimar, and the Red Prince of Muldav, gathered at Castle Nenzing to meet with the principal conspirators who aimed to topple Emperor Antonius’ regime. Over the first day of their planned meeting, the parties slowly trickled in: Count Conrad of Leuven, Prince Alfred of Ves, and the Grand Prince of Fenn, Aelthir Tundrak. Negotiations dragged on for the better part of the week, held in utter secrecy, and what was discussed in specific can only be conjectured according to the actions taken directly before and after the ‘Nenzing Conspiracy’, as this alliance would come to be known as, was birthed.

 

The motivations of King Marus have already been discussed in length, and need only a cursory reminder here. He desired to- in practice, if not in name- dominate the Empire, as his ancestor, Stefan I, had done a century before.

 

Aelthir Tundrak had united Elvendom beneath the might of the snow elves, whose armies were considered to be equal to those of Haense, if not superior in regards to their cavalry. The strong alliance between the Empire and the high elves of Haelun’or, Fenn’s oldest enemy, was a roadblock to any true peace. Fenn wanted an independent Elvendom, with the snow elves taking their place as hegemon, while the Empire wanted a subjugated Elvendom governed by the high elves. The Tundraks and House Pertinaxi also had personal enmity. Fenn had been the last major realm on Arcas that had not submitted to the might of Aurelius, and since the 1690s, each subjected the other’s borderlands to frequent raiding. It was also an open secret that Prince Aelthir was the most important sponsor of the Reivers.

 

Alfred Myre was a prominent liberal, one who ruled as a limited monarch in Ves, but despite his compatibility with the political attitudes of his subjects, he faced similar pressures from multiple factions in the realm. Much of the Adrian aristocracy, the Sarkozics, Tuvyics, Varoches, Helvets, etc., wanted revenge for what was done to them years earlier, and believed that through war, the tyrannical Pertinaxi Emperors could be replaced with a liberal sovereign who could rule in the Vesian example. The people of Ves proper, led by their municipal government, were less-inclined to support a war, instead wishing to rebuild their homes and lives, but they were at least willing to support a quick and decisive revolution if possible.

 

Conrad de Falstaff was the most committed ideologue of the Nenzing Conspiracy, as he possessed no direct grudge against the Empire (with the exception of the harassment of some of his caravans and subjects by the Emperor’s Dragon Knights). Much like the Prince of Ves, he believed that a limited monarchy was the best path forward for keeping the Empire intact, and that House Pertinaxi was incapable of adapting to that reality. Although merely a vassal of the King of Haense, the Count of Leuven was among the richest men in the realm, had an ample strategic position to stage an attack against the Crownlands, and was the cousin of the one man who had what they needed most to justify an uprising against the Emperor: a claim to the Imperial throne.

 

Joseph Marna, a foreign-born descendent of King Frederick Horen of Marna, had arrived in Leuven years before, where he began his career as an author, philosopher, and member of the local council of Scherpenheuvel-Zichem, a small town sworn to Lord Conrad. He had made a name for himself within Leuven as one of the leading advocates of a liberal Empire led by an enlightened sovereign, even before the influx of Vesian refugees to the area. His experience in governing was limited, but his intellectual principles appealed to both the Count of Leuven and the Prince of Ves, while his benign and peaceful outlook assuaged any concerns that Prince Aelthir may have had. King Marus, who had not known Joseph Marna personally, believed that he would be a pliable figure atop the throne, one who would neither interfere with the conduct of the war, nor what Haense made of its result. Sometime around the 15th-20th of Harren’s Folly, 1714, the parties of the Nenzing Conspiracy pledged to champion the cause of House Marna when the time came for war (whether they actually swore fealty to Joseph Marna is still disputed).

 

Over the following months, the reinvigorated King Marus and his allies prepared for war. The Duma, urged on by the Alimar brothers, voted for three war taxes for the Baron of Koravia to raise another 3,000 soldiers, bringing the Royal Army’s total numbers up to 10,000, not counting the levies that could still be fielded by the rest of the realm, which could bring that count up to around 15,000. Publicly, the king claimed that it was to aid the Legion against the Reivers. Unbeknownst to anyone but he and the Lord Palatine, the Grand Prince of Fenn had already secured the support of the mercenary company in the upcoming rebellion. Elsewhere, in Norland, Krugmar, and Curonia, the Count of Leuven’s spies reported promising developments in the pro-rebellion factions in each.

 

There were some signs for concern. Despite the precautions they took, the Nenzing conspirators could not hide that war was on the horizon. Various Renatian generals, independent of their Emperor, had begun to raise more forces, as had some of their smaller subjects and allies who had yet to be plied to Marnan cause: the tribes of the Kadarsi, the high elves, and the lords of the Crownlands, minor as they were, seemed to be firmly loyal to the Pertinaxi. In Haense itself, most of the lords had received their cues from the Lord Palatine to begin gathering their own hosts, but a few had been exceedingly slow to act. The Duke of Carnatia had failed to respond to any correspondence from the Aulic Council. Jan Baruch, the Count of Ayr, had responded, but only to inform them of ‘crucial delays’. Most disturbingly, Ser Cassius Kortrevich, who was serving as his cousin’s castellan in Koravia, was outright refusing to muster his house’s forces. Ser Rodrik Kortrevich, the Knight Paramount and Ser Cassius’s brother, volunteered to travel to Koravia himself to see that the defiance was swiftly ended.

 

These mild disturbances did nothing to delay the progress of the conspiracy, which by the year’s end had reached its completion. King Marus, the most eager of the primary conspirators, urged his allies to push the date for the rebellion to early 1715. Even though it was characteristic of him to demand action, the choice was also pragmatic. The paralysis of the Imperial government had enabled them to operate and organize with impunity, but it could not be guaranteed for long. Many in Helena still held their loyalty to the Pertinaxi, but no longer to the one who ruled them. A plot was certainly underway to replace the hated Antonius with a figure who would be in a better position to combat the rebellion.

 

On the 6th of Harren’s Folly, 1715, Joseph Marna stood within the Basilica of Fifty Virgins, surrounded by a crowd of tens of thousands outside of the holy temple. Most of the onlookers were Haeseni, owing to the coronation being in Reza, but the magnates and dignitaries of Ves, Leuven, and Fenn, and even some Crownlands and Norlandic houses, were in attendance. Kneeling before the High Pontiff, Everard V (himself a Haeseni man, from House Wick), the obscure radical from a small town tucked away in his cousin’s lands, yet also the heir to House Marna, was crowned as Joseph I, Holy Orenian Emperor. Standing nearest to his new liege, King Marus was the first to pledge his fealty, followed by hundreds of the nobility of each region of the Empire, significant or otherwise. The War of the Two Emperors had begun: the battle for the fate of not just who would rule humanity, but what humanity would be, would consume Arcas for the next six years.

 

Although Leuven was Joseph I’s homeland, and a strategic launching point for an invasion, it was Reza that was the center of the Marnan Empire. Haense was the largest of the rebellious states, and could support the large armies that would soon flock to the new Emperor’s banner. Additionally, Joseph I had positioned his court in Reza, as it was far away enough from the front lines as to not come under direct threat, yet close enough to quickly respond to any developments there, while also showing favor to the most powerful of his supporters. King Marus may have been sworn to Joseph I, but the Emperor was effectively his guest until Helena could be taken.

Although Pertinaxi propaganda would denigrate the Haeseni conduct throughout the war, reality was far less simple. Although the Reiver mercenaries boasted the best soldiers, man for man, the Haeseni Royal Army was the single largest fighting force, and the knights of the Marian Retinue were considered second only to the remnants of the Imperial Dragon Knights, of which few remained by 1715. King Marus’s focus on the military had transformed it from a small, bumbling home guard into a force capable of leading the war against the Pertinaxi.

 

During the initial weeks of the war, the respective sides gathered their armies. King Marus, more prepared and with a more professionalized fighting force than his allies, was ready to strike from the start, but he was forced to delay to wait on Vesian and Leuven soldiers to gather. Much to the king’s dismay, Emperor Joseph did not give him command of the newly-formed Marnan Field Army, either out of reluctance to concentrate too much power in the hands of one man, or because his chosen appointee, Arthur de Falstaff, had more command experience. De Falstaff, cousin of the Count of Leuven, had never led an army as large as the one that was now gathering in Reza, about 11,000 in total, but he had fought in many of the smaller skirmishes and raids against the Reivers in the years prior. For a rebellion that had few seasoned commanders at all, he was the Emperor’s most loyal and reliable pick.

 

Part of the reason the Emperor had his doubts with King Marus must have certainly been several key defections within the realm at the war’s outset. Only partially-surprisingly, soon after Joseph I was crowned in Reza, Ser Varon Kovachev, Ser Jan Baruch, Ser Rodrik Kortrevich, and Ser Cassius Kortrevich fled to Helena, taking their most loyal retainers with them. All four were made Dragon Knights and honored as loyal defenders of House Pertinaxi, while in Haense they became reviled, their names synonymous with treachery. Ser Nikolaus Kortrevich, brother of Ser Cassius and Ser Rodrik, took command of his family’s armies and, wishing to prove his loyalty to Haense, occupied Ayr. Ser Dominic Grimm, the Baron of Lizat, was sent with another army to occupy Carnatia in the name of the king. Varon Kovachev and Jan Baruch were stripped of their lands in titles as a consequence of their treachery, but the blow to Haense had already been dealt.

 

The betrayal of some of King Marus’s more prominent vassals was an embarrassing episode, but it did not hinder the advance towards Helena, which began on the 28th of Sigismund’s End, 1715. Led by Arthur de Falstaff, and with the Emperor personally in attendance, the army of 11,000 marched with the intent of quickly seizing Helena, which was rudderless and in disarray. Leading his own soldiers along with the Lord Marshal, King Marus reiterated to the Lord Palatine that “a quick strike is the correct course of action. There will be no effective response from the Imperials, led by the quivering lizard [Antonius].” He would soon be proven wrong, but it was for reasons that few at the time could have predicted.

 

Along the road to Helena, riding ahead of a march that was slow and plodding, owing to the size of the army and the logistical difficulties that transporting it brought, Lord Leopold Stafyr received shocking news from the capital. Emperor Antonius had been killed in a palace uprising during the 4th of Horen’s Calling, and in his place an emergency regency council of several prominent generals, ministers, and family members had been hastily-assembled. This council had crowned Godfrey of Cascadia, the six year old nephew of Antonius, as Emperor, and they had empowered Sir Martinus of Styria, one of Renatus’ more successful generals, with the authority to wage the war as he deemed necessary. The young, charismatic general had united several factions beneath his authority and had cobbled together an army to face the Marnan host. There would be an effective response after all.

 

On the 30th of Horen’s Calling, 1715, the army of Joseph Marna, numbering around 11,000, met the army of Sir Martinus Horen, numbering around 7,500, outside of the town of Rodenburg, just fifty miles from Helena. While the Marnan ranks were organized beneath a thousand different banners, and mostly contained soldiers who had not seen battle, the Imperial Legion they faced was a shadow of its former self. Lord Otto Kortrevich, leading the Haeseni infantry, made up the center of the Marnan army and led his soldiers well against the raw, demoralized legionaries. After just two hours, the Renatians were wavering, and the well-drilled Haeseni soldiers were creating, then exploiting, gaps in the line. 

 

King Marus, in command of around 600 of his finest mounted knights, was eager to join the fight before it would be over, but he remained a disciplined general at heart and awaited the signal from Arthur de Falstaff. The order to charge finally came at noon, as the Renatian left, led by Yury Horen, the Margrave of Styria, who had sacked Ves and ruined the Adrian countryside with impunity just five years earlier, was showing weakness. Leading the Marian Retinue on a wide, sweeping flank, Marus II circled around the battlefield before crashing into the margrave’s rear. The sudden charge from behind caused panic among the Styrian ranks, and when Yury Horen fell to the lance of Wilheim Barclay, a squire of Ser Otto Alimar, brother of the Red Prince of Muldav, they broke entirely. 

 

The Margrave of Styria’s death triggered a rout among his men, and a simultaneous flank of the Renatian right by the Fennic cavalry caused the enemy to dissolve into a desperate mob. Sir Martinus Horen was captured during the retreat, while thousands of Renatian soldiers were cut down by Marian knights. By the day’s end, barely 400 of Joseph I’s soldiers lay dead, 200 of them Haeseni. The bodies of 2,000 Renatians lay around them, while another 3,000 were strewn along the road back to Helena. The Battle of Rodenburg, the first combat of the war, had been an overawing victory. King Marus, jubilant at the excellent performance of he and his soldiers in their first battle, magnanimously knighted fifty men on the field, with Wilheim Barclay being first among them.

 

The sweet taste of the trouncing of a fight did not last long. At a council of war convened by Arthur de Falstaff the next day, the Marnan general informed the assembled commanders that they would withdraw to Leuven while leaving a small garrison to guard a bridgehead across the River Roden. King Marus immediately, and reasonably, protested. They had shattered the only army in their way and captured its commander. Helena would be stormed with ease, and the opportunity to take it with minimal fighting could not be counted upon to present itself again. De Falstaff countered, pointing out the poor state of the army’s logistics and their lack of siege equipment, as well as winter’s approach. A back-and-forth argument between the two ensued, and it was broken only by the Emperor’s intervention, which was recorded by the Viscount of Grauspin:

 

“What a grisly spectacle befell the fields of Rodenburg, yet it is a mere inkspot! I am indebted to the Lord above all, yet second am I to the blades whom His strength imbued, owing to their righteous cause, with the precision of a butcher’s cut. Slaughter, Your Majesty, is the word I hear from the lips of my outriders, as they ride to the citadel of our enemy. Revenge, Your Majesty, is the word I hear from the common infantry. I cannot mark my ascension with a deed that will dim the horrors of Ves. I am not another Antonius, for it is my mandate, bestowed upon me by the people that acclaimed me their Emperor, to rule otherwise.”

 

King Marus responded, far more polite in tone than he had been with Arthur de Falstaff.

 

“Your Imperial Majesty, forgive the brusqueness of my words, for opportunity, which we of the martial disposition know to be scarce and valuable, dwindles with the sun, setting over both armies, we who are here, and they who are elsewhere, with a sole promise: tomorrow is a new day. I would permit a dozen cities to suffer the same fate as Ves in the pursuit of a conclusion to the war more ultimate and necessary than the consideration of our principles. Should the opportunity for a quick victory now be denied, in the name of sparing the people of Helena, then we will condemn tens of thousands more to the grueling fate of a protracted war.” 

 

The King of Haense’s words roused the Vesian lords, who until then had been quiet, for as novices of war, they had let the discussion of strategy fall to the side, yet the invocation of their city from his mouth struck them deeply. One of their generals, Solarius Watanabe, rose to speak for them.

 

“Do not use the name of the people you left to be slaughtered, and now use for your war, as a pawn of strategy! You may speak of rationality, of making difficult decisions for the sake of the greater good, but when have you ever made a choice that puts your own kind, even yourself, at a disadvantage?”

 

However logically sound Marus II’s arguments were, the reality was that the Marnan army likely did not have the capability of taking Helena (which was already being fortified before Sir Martinus departed), and the Emperor’s word was final. A few days after their victory at Rodenburg, the armies of Joseph I withdrew back to Leuven, then even further to Haense. A small garrison under the command of Ser Nikolaus Kortrevich was left along the west bank of the River Roden, so that when the next year’s campaigning season arrived, an enlarged, better-equipped host could advance to Helena without difficulty. 

 

So far as aborted campaigns went, the first Marnan incursion into the Crownlands had not been a completely hollow victory. The pro-Marnan faction in the hitherto neutral Curonia overthrew King Jarrack, replacing him with his son, the twelve year old Alfred. Prince Ecbert, King Alfred’s uncle and the leader of the Marnan faction, was declared regent and immediately pledged Curonia’s support for Joseph I. The regent of Curonia did not have unanimous backing, as the kingdom’s war with Adria and near-war with Haense were still recent, but for the time they tepidly backed the war. 

 

King Marus’s personal fortunes also rose after the Battle of Rodenburg. Although the victory had been in the name of Joseph I, and commanded by Arthur de Falstaff, the Royal Army had made up the overwhelming majority of the Marnan forces, and King Marus’s charge had been instrumental in triggering the Renatian rout. Hailed for his prowess in battle, his past mistakes washed away beneath the outpour of jubilation from Reza and beyond, the king was cheered as he rode through the streets of the capital, and the Duma voted another war tax (levied upon the realm’s farmers) to help bolster the construction of siege weapons for the next year’s campaign, which was certain to end the war decisively.

 

United as his own realm was, the Empire that Marus II now provided the backbone for was not nearly as unquestionably deferential. Soaring after his victory even more than his subjects, Emperor Joseph issued the Proclamation of Nenzing on the 12th of Godfrey’s Triumph, 1715. Laying the foundations of what his reign would encompass, Joseph I enumerated three inalienable rights to be guaranteed to all subjects, great and small: The Right to Life, the Right to Liberty, and the Right to Trial. These articles were generally expected, as they had been a frequent topic of conversation within the Emperor’s inner circle, but they nonetheless presented a glimpse into the world of Joseph Marna, one where even sovereigns ruling in the name of God were bound by laws above them.

 

Even many of the more reformist lords in the Duma (though the king had made sure there were few of them) balked at the thought of future challenges to the feudal order that could come from the Proclamation of Nenzing. Marus II, a touch more cynical than his vassals, believed that they were wholly unenforceable. What could not be denied by either party was that the ‘Rights of Man’ became a rally cry among the city burghers, the country gentry, and the rural peasants alike. Emperor Joseph had not gone so far as to call for a radical upheaval of the social order, but anyone could read what they wished in the proclamation. The ascension of House Marna to the Imperial throne was not just an opportunity for the high lords like King Marus or Count Conrad to shape the political scene in their image, it was an open door to the voices of those previously overlooked and disempowered by the feudal order.

 

More of an immediate problem to King Marus was the first experiment of the Rights of Man in the trial of Sir Martinus Horen. The king had been in favor of his execution from the start, arguing that Renatus needed to be deprived of its best general. Joseph I disagreed, as he believed that he, as sovereign of Oren, needed to demonstrate his commitment to his own principles above anyone else. Without room to openly oppose his liege, Marus II was forced to look on in horror as Sir Martinus was found not guilty of treason and allowed to return home to Helena, where he would continue to lead the Renatian war cause. During the autumn of 1715, the freed Pertinaxi general would negotiate the support of Norland, the hordes of Krugmar, and Haelun’or, lead the reformed Imperial Legion to push out Ser Nikolaus Kortrevich’s garrison along the River Roden, and defeat a Vesian army outside of Caer Bann.

 

For as much influence as Emperor Joseph, Vesian intellectuals, and liberals within the Royal Duma had in promoting enlightened government and the Rights of Man, it was the local literate class- parish priests and town scribes- that did much of the legwork in turning the ‘Marnan Revolution’ into a popular movement. Across Haense, schools for the rural peasantry were established, farmers collectivized their labor and produce to meet tax requirements, and old town militias, disbanded after the Dark Decades, were reformed. 

 

The year had not ended as perfectly as many hoped, but there was plenty to be hopeful for at the start of 1716. Owing to his successes, King Marus was given a place in the Emperor’s war council, where his voice soon found itself the very equal of Arthur de Falstaff, due to Joseph I’s inexperience in martial matters. Continuing to argue for a swift, decisive end to the war, King Marus proposed that all available resources be devoted towards Helena. Few in the room disagreed, as he had been proven correct the year prior, and Arthur de Falstaff drew up a plan for the spring’s campaign. As the bridgeheads over the River Roden had been retaken by the Legion during the last autumn, the Marnan army, having swelled to around 24,000 in and around Reza (15,000 were Haeseni), would need to travel north of the capital, which was mostly flat plains dotted with country manors and small towns. The army would then circle back east, where they would begin to siege Helena.

 

For his part, King Marus volunteered to lead a diversionary attack on Dunharrow, the Norlandic capital, which would hopefully draw out part of the Imperial Legion, weakening Helena’s defenses.

 

The combined armies of Joseph Marna set out from Reza on the 30th of Harren’s Folly, 1716, marching west to close the final chapter on the Pertinaxi Empire. Crowds of Haeseni civilians, not just from Reza but also several towns and villages up to the border, swarmed out of their homes and hovels to cheer on the giant, rumbling host. Taxes had starved them, as had irregular harvests that the strife of Antonius’ reign had brought, but they nourished themselves on the hope of victory, and the promise that the fall of the Pertinaxi was promised to bring. Cries of “Justice for Ves!” and “For the Rights of Man!” left many lips, but neither could match the roar of “God guides the king!” Unbeknownst to the faithful subjects, their king was not traveling with the Marnan host, for the honor of leading the Haeseni contingent had gone to the Kortrevich cousins: Lord Otto and Ser Nikolaus. King Marus, leading 1,500 footmen and 500 of his Marian knights, was racing south to attack Dunharrow.

 

There were only the fading scrapes of sunlight on the 15th of Sigismund’s End, 1716, but King Marus and his 2,000 men, a mere ten leagues from Dunharrow, found themselves on the brink of battle nonetheless. A week of travel, and another week of pillage, had forced the King of Norland to confront the Haeseni in the field, but he had not come alone. A thousand riders under the command of Sir Martinus himself had arrived just in time to aid King Alvar, who had brought 2,000 soldiers of his own. The presence of the undefeated Sir Martinus may have compelled King Marus to withdraw, or even the greater number of the foe, but across the hills of Norland, illuminated by the setting sun and the scant light of torches coming to life, he saw, among the banners of his enemy, the red griffin of Kovachev, the black bear of Baruch, and the bull of Kortrevich, though it was inverted and colored yellow, not black. 

 

Against the advice of his officers, King Marus drew his ranks for battle. He split his cavalry between left and right, giving Ser Dominic Grimm command of the former, while he took charge of the latter, the place of honor. Duke Henry-Otto of Kvasz, the proud, aging Ludovar lord, was given command of the infantry. Sir Martinus had mirrored the Haeseni deployment. His more numerous cavalry were split in two, with himself on the right and the Duke of Carnatia on the left, while King Alvar led his infantry in the center. As dusk drew near, it seemed that the assembled armies would perhaps retire for the night, but Marus II would not have it be. He had seen an opportunity, and he was always loath to waste them, so he sounded the advance.

 

Both lines met in a great melee, as the coming darkness made both commanders wary of any complex maneuvers. The two armies kept each other in check, with Norlandic numbers, Renatian grit, and Haeseni skill all showing themselves to their fullest, but as the fighting continued to rage, casualties mounted. Ser Jan Baruch was separated from his men and struck down by Prince Otto Alimar with a mace to the head. Ser Dominic Grimm was killed in single combat against Sir Martinus, prompting his men on the left to flee the field. The center remained a stalemate for some time, but soon the Norlandic numbers came to bear, and Lord Ludovar’s soldiers buckled. 

 

The right saw the greatest success. The Duke of Carnatia, in the thick of the fighting, found himself surrounded by the Haeseni he had betrayed just years earlier. Martin Kortrevich, another of Lord Otto’s cousins, dazed him with a blow to the head. Ser Wilheim Barclay followed with a lance to the chest, which unseated the errant Kovachev. Finally, King Marus himself drove his own spear through a gap in the neck-plate of the duke, who was adjusting his armor as he tried to rise. His brother and standard-bearer, Vladimir Barrow, was felled soon after. The fall of the red griffin from the sky compelled the Renatians to flee the field and return to the safety of Dunharrow.

 

Varon Kovachev’s death brought the effective end of the great House Kovachev. Once the most powerful of the Highlands houses, the leaders of the first war against Courland, and a principal vassal of the King of Haense upon the realm’s founding, the Kovachevs had been an inseparable, indispensable part of the history of House Barbanov since their rise in the 1560s. Had it not been for Jan Kovachev’s grace, tutelage, and inheritance, Petyr Barbanov would have been an obscure footnote in history, just another of the many Highland soldiers who served under the Johannian Emperors. However, for as instrumental and necessary as the Dukes of Carnatia were to Haeseni history, no chapter may go on without the turn to the next. One betrayal of the family could be forgiven; a second could not. While Varon Kovachev’s successors would live, and fight with the Renatians to see their lands and titles restored to them, it would be in vain; never again would the family occupy a prominent part in history.

 

With the sun set over the hills, and the numbers of the Renatians overwhelming his army, King Marus was forced to withdraw under the cover of darkness. The Battle of Dunharrow was by all means a defeat- 300 Haeseni had been slain, while fewer than 100 Renatians and Norlanders had died- but he had accomplished what he had set out to do. Sir Martinus and his retinue made for Helena the next morning, but King Alvar, worried of another assault, recalled 1,000 of his own men that were on the way to the Pertinaxi capital in order to reinforce Dunharrow. After a week’s recovery in Leuven, Marus II and his soldiers slipped by Legion watchtowers along the River Roden and joined with Joseph I’s army outside of Helena, just in time for the beginning of the siege.

 

The Great Siege of Helena not only marked the turning point of the War of Two Emperors, a pivotal turning point in human history, but also the end of an era in humanity. In the carnage that would ensue, the feudal order of the Empire was nearly entirely killed off within the span of a week. It would take some time for the ramifications to settle in, but the world that would emerge after could not be any more different than what it had been before.   

 

The Great Siege of Helena, spanning four months, from the 3rd of Horen’s Calling to the 22nd of Tobias’s Bounty, 1716, was the climax of the War of Two Emperors. Joseph I’s army, numbering between 23,000-25,000, cleared the forests around the moat-city of Helena, using the wood for pontoon bridges, trebuchets, siege towers, battering rams, ladders, and other large weapons of war. Most of these were built by the 15,000 Haeseni that made up the bulk of their ranks, and so it would be to them, said Arthur de Falstaff, that the war would be won. 17,000-18,000 Renatians, Norlanders, orcs, and high elves huddled within the capital, fighting under Sir Martinus’s command. While these numbers were more than enough to stave off the Marnan host, the bulk of these soldiers were raw Legion conscripts, glorified civilians with ill-fitting armor, poor-quality spears, and a week of training. “They will crack under the first assault,” King Marus predicted. “Their lines did not hold long at Rodenburg, and the rabble they have put under arms now is half the quality, if thrice the numbers.”

 

Fatefully, King Marus was wrong.

 

The ease of resupply from the River Roden allowed the defenders of Helena to maintain themselves for a long siege, so after three months of battering the walls, sapping the gates, and scouting for weak points in the enemy defenses, the Arthur de Falstaff convened a council of war. Of the kings, lords, and generals present, all agreed in unison that it was time to assault the walls, for investment would go no further and winter was quickly approaching. Only Emperor Joseph dissented:

 

“I believe that my leal vassals and victorious generals mischaracterize the spirit of my subjects within those walls. I do not pretend that they harbor secret affections for myself nor my proclamation. That which will drive the men and women beneath my banner towards their deaths, being the love of my person, or the love of the redress for grievances which they hope to find beneath me, is a mirror of what has steeled the resolve of those within the citadel of Helena. Do not think for a moment that they do not love their boy-Emperor, or their Legion, or their homes, even if it is for a homicidal and tyrannical cause. I would instead think that we may march upon their allies, who are guided by the baser considerations of politics, and thus will be easier to coerce into surrender.”

 

Joseph Marna’s words were considered out of polite deference, but none championed them, and soon the Emperor fell quiet, for his strength, that being in the pen, did not lend itself to vigorous oratory, nor did he possess confidence in his own military assessments. After an hour’s further discussion regarding the particulars, Arthur de Falstaff set about drawing up plans. Within a week, the assault on Helena would begin.

 

The first of thirteen assaults against Helena began on the 17th of Tobias’s Bounty. Arrayed in dozens of different battles, soldiers and their captains, squires and their knights, and lords and their vassals assembled beneath the walls of the city. Cheers, war songs, and cries of premature victory rose from the ranks. The flower of the Empire, on both sides of the fight, met with their steel an hour after dawn. Haeseni, Leuvens, Vesians, Curonians, elves, Reivers, and the peoples of thousands of towns and fiefdoms, families and clans, clambered forward so that each could claim to be the first one over the walls. 

 

It would not be until the fourth assault, ordered later that afternoon, that a single Marnan foot, an archer from Curonia, would plant itself atop the walls. She was cleaved in the neck by an orc's ghastly blade, her limp body falling to join the hundreds of dead that littered the ground and waters beneath Helena, staining the grass red and tainting the water crimson. The company she was with was driven back into their siege tower, but the push of soldiers from behind kept them from finding safety within the engine, so they made for easy targets for crossbowmen atop the nearby towers. They followed the brave young archer in the shade beneath the walls.

 

As the siege struggled into the next day, King Marus resolved to commit himself to the faltering battle. He would inspire his soldiers and prove his valor, his might, and his mastery of war, by being the one to take the city walls, drive the defenders back, and pave the way for a general assault, which would end the war within a day. Although the cheers that greeted him as he and his knights rode to their designated siege tower were not as loud, nor as frequent, as he had grown accustomed to, he was certain that by the day’s end, his name would be a victory cry once more. 

 

Unfortunately for King Marus, his heroism, which had demonstrated itself twice before in the war, failed him a third time. Within an hour of he and his Marian Retinue beginning their assault, Marus II was speared through the thigh by a legionary recruit. The stab had come within an inch of being fatal, but he had to be dragged back to safety nonetheless. Artos Stafyr and Nikolas Grimm, shielding their liege, were both skewered by javelins. Elsewhere, the Baron of Koravia, Viscount of Grauspin, and Duke of Kvasz had all been wounded in the fighting as well. The ranks of Haense’s most reliable commanders had thinned; it would not be heroes who decided the battle, no romantic duels, but instead the resolve of the common infantry.

 

Confined to his tent over the next four days, King Marus was forced to bitterly watch as charge after charge slammed against the walls. The hundreds of dead turned into thousands, most of them his own soldiers, but each night, as the war council was convened, he never wavered from insisting that the attack resume the next morning. The pale, exhausted faces of the soldiers, and the quiet, unblinking stares that followed him did not deter his soul. The Renatians had suffered greatly as well, and if they would not break, then they could be ground down by a continuous battle of attrition. Even more than the Emperor himself, Marus II was convinced of an ultimate victory, no matter the cost.

 

It appeared that his prediction would come true on the 22nd of Tobias’s Bounty. During the twelfth assault, a company of spearmen from Muldav finally broke through the thinned Renatian lines atop the walls, creating a wide breach that Arthur de Falstaff began to funnel more soldiers through. Soon, they had driven the defenders back to the Imperial palace, where only a few hundred legionaries remained standing. Both sides agreed to allow for an hour to rest, pray, and administer the last rites for the dying. At noon, the hour was up, and the thirteenth and final assault commenced.

 

The fight for the Imperial palace lasted until the evening. The soldiers of Joseph Marna, beneath a thousand pennants, broke themselves against the Renatian shield wall, yet for every fallen man or woman, another took their place. As their flesh rent against the Pertinaxi steel, the dreams they held of an Empire ruled by Joseph I died with them. The Marnans broke as the moon rose above them, leaving behind thousands more dead and wounded. 2,000 remained in fighting condition, 800 of them being Haeseni, while 400 Renatians remained standing with their leader, Sir Martinus. Seeing the carnage that had been wrecked upon the city, his own camps, and his subjects, Joseph I found the strength within him to order a retreat from Helena the next morning. King Marus received the order with silence.

 

With most of his army dead or wounded, King Marus gathered those fit to ride with him and made a hasty return to Reza ahead of the retreating Marnan army. He would need to contain the political fallout of the shattering defeat and raise yet another army. Most of the lords of the Duma had been wounded or killed, providing him with the means of bypassing even the perfunctory processes of government to force through whatever measures he deemed necessary. Convincing himself that there was a sliver of opportunity in the dark cloud that now hovered above him and his allies, the king sent orders ahead to Reza to order a new round of conscription. As he would soon find, it would extinguish the last gasp of goodwill that he had with his people. Word from Helena had raced even faster than he had.

 

In the capital, his attempt to raise a new army was met with outrage from his subjects. The loss of life had been great, the Marnan war effort reduced to a desperate flight from Helena, yet King Marus was once again attempting to impose new taxes and raise yet more soldiers from a strained peasantry. In just two years of war, Haense had seen shops shutter, trade dwindle, universities postponed, and farms foreclosed. Over 300 knights and 49 nobles had lost their lives at Helena alone. Not only had the appetite for war been lost within a single campaign, but so too had the realm’s capacity to wage one, at least on offensive grounds.

 

The Alimar brothers, leading what remained of the Duma, did what they could to aid the king. After days of debate and cajoling, they approved funding for defensive fortifications around Reza, to be overseen by the Seneschal of Haense, Siegmund Corbish, but this time it would be funded by loans from the Red Prince, not through another round of taxes. What could not be negotiated was increased conscription, for the vassals of Haense were recalcitrant insofar as their own serfs were concerned. The king was able to circumvent this by drawing from his own estates, especially in Carnatia, but this would only bring the Royal Army’s numbers up to 5,500. Even the aggressive Lord Marshal recommended that a defensive strategy be prioritized.

 

As the Marnans waned, the Pertinaxi cause only grew stronger, as wavering lords flipped their allegiances as they saw the tides turn. Much of 1717 was spent fighting a losing battle. In the spring, Sir Martinus led a disjointed yet inspired army to victory against Arthur de Falstaff along the River Roden, where he was able to do what had been done to him two years earlier and secure both banks of the river. Freeriders scoured Ves and Leuven as towns were looted, keeps were burned, and surrenders were forced. King Marus, trapped between placating an empowered Duma, managing the realm’s catastrophic financial situation, coordinating with his rudderless allies (Joseph I retreated to his office after his defeat at Helena, issuing only vague orders to his secretaries henceforth), and finding supplies for an underfunded, poorly-trained, and demoralized Royal Army, had little time to address each calamity as it appeared. Lord Otto and Ser Nikolaus did what they could to buy time for the defenses, and keep the army generally intact through defeat, but there was no longer any clear-sighted goal by which to orient the actions of the realm. Survival was the only priority.

 

That autumn, the Marnan Army was defeated outside of Leuven by Renatus once again. While they had managed to minimize their losses by retreating to the safety of the city, the political ramifications were catastrophic. Arthur de Falstaff was killed in the fighting, depriving the army of its general who, though unsuccessful, was one of the few men capable of organizing such a force and mediating its many voices and factions. The defeat at Leuven also rallied the pro-Pertinaxi forces in Curonia, and they soon managed to overthrow Prince Ecbert in a palace coup and take control of the regency for themselves. The Curonian armies, reduced as they were, withdrew from Leuven and began regrouping along the Haeseni border, with the clear aim of retaking Pembroke.

 

The war had begun to spiral out of control. Trapped within the Prikaz Palace, Emperor Joseph and King Marus turned their enmities and blame towards the other. Any pretense of deference and decorum vanished beneath the mounting stress that both faced. The two argued furiously about the mistakes the other had made and the mistakes they were making. Notably, neither said a word of what could be done. It was perhaps a tacit agreement between the two, a single point of compromise and shared sympathies, that the war was lost. By the end of the year, the arguments had dwindled, and the halls of Prikaz, which had bustled with life and activity when the war seemed brightest, fell quiet.

 

On the 11th of Sun’s Smile, 1718, the Second Battle of Leuven was fought, opening the final stage of the war. With what remained of the Marnan forces under a divided command of local liege lords and army commanders, the hopelessly-outnumbered, bickering rally was crushed within an hour. To make matters worse, their lack of a clear command, or even a united battle plan, meant that they scattered upon their defeat, rather than returning to Leuven. Only the Haeseni forces under the Kortrevichs managed an orderly retreat, but even they had been battered in the brief fight. The Lord Palatine, who had been with his soldiers to bolster their morale, was killed during the retreat along with several Marian knights. Without any means of defending his city, Conrad de Falstaff was forced to surrender it to Sir Martinus and flee to Reza.

 

The gateway to Haense was now open, and before long the realm began to feel the wrath of Renatian raids, which they had not seen since the days of Karl II. The entire Haeseni countryside was burned, with the flames and billowing smoke from ruined farmsteads and small villages even visible from Reza. Lords and landowners fled to the capital, bringing their households along with them. Reza soon grew crowded with mobs of refugees fleeing the never-ending Renatian attacks, which stretched the city’s resources to its max. Food became scarce, for the farms that produced it had been destroyed, and the people who worked them were either dead or now drifting among the hungry masses that sought protection within Haense’s walled cities.

 

Leopold Stafyr, the Viscount of Grauspin, was found dead two days after the Second Battle of Leuven. As a sign of respect for his courage, Sir Martinus Horen ordered his body be returned to Reza, where it could be buried with dignity. Those who had perished at Helena had not been afforded the same- the Renatians did not possess the capability of doing more than tossing them into mass graves- but as the war came so a close, and Haense’s destruction became a priority of Godfrey II’s regents, the Renatian generals seemed reluctant to inflict cruelties.

 

In order to head off a coup from the nobility, or because he found the man to be a genuinely competent and trustworthy figure, King Marus appointed Prince Georg Alimar, the Lord Speaker of the Duma, to replace Leopold Stafyr. The new Lord Palatine was tasked with obtaining a peace that the king would deem acceptable: one that did not seriously damage Haense’s position. As Prince Georg looked towards the Haeseni frontier, where a desolate landscape of cinders and ash had replaced sprawling forests and healthy market towns, he knew that it would be an impossible task. If there was any way forward at all, it would involve breaking sharply from the Marnan cause, which had died at Helena and was now only dead weight on a war effort deprived of the hope of survival, much less the hope of a better Empire.

 

The end of Joseph Marna, whether merely as an Emperor or as a living man, is hotly-debated. It is nigh-unanimously agreed upon that King Marus was central to his disappearance. Urged on by the Aulic Council, yet almost certainly having reached the same conclusions as they had, the king determined that if he had no use for the Emperor, then the Emperor needed to be removed. Sometime between the 10th and the 15th of Horen’s Calling, 1718, Joseph Marna was no longer the Holy Orenian Emperor.

 

The primary contention is whether King Marus had his liege murdered, or whether he allowed him to flee into exile. The debate has been written on extensively by other authors, so this one shall not foray into the competing theories and evidence for what precisely happened. Instead, the position shall be stated plainly: this history has made clear many of the crimes of Marus, for he was not a man for whom slaughter was beneath, but the evidence weighs against his killing of Joseph I. 

 

The Marnan Emperor was purportedly plain of features, barely recognizable even when he began minting coins in his likeness in 1715. He had been seen in public, especially in Reza during his coronation, or when he joined his army from 1715-16, but those who had actually set their eyes on him were limited to Reza, Leuven, and some stretches of the Crownlands. Those who remembered his visage were fewer. Those who did and survived numbered in the thousands at most. There was no need to kill an Emperor who had no land to rule, no subjects to obey him, nor will to continue. It is likely that he became a monk at a hermitage in the far north of Arcas, where he spent the rest of his days.

 

Despite having disposed of his liege, the situation did not significantly change for King Marus. His allies, those still with the ability to fight, had withdrawn their armies to defend their own homes. The Royal Army was in complete tatters, fielding a maximum of 3,000 soldiers. The Marian Retinue was nearly extinct, having seen over 90% of its knights killed during the war. Emperor Godfrey II, still just a boy in Helena, was governed by a regency council that wished for nothing more than the total destruction of Haense. The war would end when Reza was in cinders and House Barbanov dethroned. Until then, the deluge of legionaries, orcs, and Norlandic berserkers would continue to wash the lands of the Highlanders in blood.

 

For the final months of his life, King Marus was a husk of the man he had been, which was itself a husk, though one that sometimes brimmed with life, of the prince he had been. As Sir Martinus’s armies drew closer, the king busied himself by inspecting the Seneschal’s defensive works, writing a report of the war, and finding what solace he could in his personal chapel, finding God in the final hours of his life. The Lord Palatine managed what governance could still be had with a treasury bleeding money, a bureaucracy in tatters, and an Aulic Council that could not will itself to act. Most of Prince Georg’s waking hours were devoted to personally seeing to the care of the refugees in Reza, a task he took on with Queen Klaudia and the royal children.

 

On the evening of the 12th of Owyn’s Flame, 1719, Marus II took a stroll through the gardens of the Prikaz Palace, something he was always fond of, even before the war. He had asked to be left alone that evening, and, in a rare show of merciful levity, allowed his guards and councilors to retire early. He had received news that morning of Sir Martinus’s position. The Renatian army had encamped by the Silver Sea, just a fortnight’s march from Reza. The last days of Hanseti-Ruska would soon be upon them, and it would be Marus Barbanov, the man who brought it to its greatest heights, to be the one who saw its demise. As he paced around the gardens, walking the same path he did each day, he hoped his mind, which had been slipping from sanity, would soothe with the sound of the cool wind’s blow that rustled leaves and caused the grass to sway.

 

It was at this moment that King Marus of Haense was shot through the back of the leg by an unseen assailant. His sudden cry of pain was cut off a moment later when a second bolt, fired from a second crossbow, shot him through the heart. There was no great confrontation, no duel to the death, nor any recorded final words. In less than a minute, the King of Haense had been killed. 

 

The assassin attempted to flee, but he was soon caught by the Lord Palatine and his brother, Prince Godfric, who slew him after a brief scuffle. Marus II’s killer went unrecognized at first, but he was soon identified as Hektor Barrow, a sergeant in the Royal Army. He had been a part of all of King Marus’s campaigns, and had lost one daughter at Helena and two more at Leuven. His wife had been visiting her cousin in Ves when Yury Horen brought the force of his army upon the city, and she was among those killed. His farm, near Pembroke, had been burnt down during a small Curonian incursion, and his old father and two servants had been slain. Despite missing an arm and an eye, having lost the former at Helena and the latter during the Battle of Dunharrow, his shots had been nothing short of perfect. 

 

There were no resources to spare for a funeral for King Marus, though that claim was possibly a fabrication by Prince Georg (surely something could be scrounged). If the kingdom had entered its last days, then it may be best not to let them have the death of their king on their mind. Marus II would eventually be buried, but it went without the oratory that we are so accustomed to with the Kings of Haense. Thus, deprived of a useful retrospective, we instead turn to the assessment of Henrik Amador, the Baron of Mondstadt, written in 1750:

 

“Never again shall our kingdom see such a man sit atop its throne. In success, he could move mountains to see his uniquely-held ambitions actualized. In defeat, he could, until the very end, maintain his position until his strength had recovered. The face of Hanseti-Ruska was irreversibly transformed during his time, but his single-minded vision had ramifications that stretched across all of the continent, which will be necessarily considered two centuries from now, at the very least. Few who have the ambition to change the course of destiny do so in a manner so quick and so violent as he did.

 

However, his reign nonetheless culminated in the most catastrophic failure that the realm had seen since the Great Northern War, when the armies of Tobias Staunton swept across the mountains and forests of Axiosian Haense. He misunderstood that the realm he had inherited from his father was not solely structured out of idiosyncratic desires, but of real necessity. The state had become too large and wide-reaching to be guided solely at the command and direction of a single man and his vision. Respectable policy could not be intertwined with one’s personal whims, especially when they changed as frequently as they did. Tens were led to their deaths for his vain pursuit for mastery over humanity, and tens of thousands more died opposing it.

 

As Marus II found, it was not his own determination that powered his kingdom but instead the efforts and labors of its people. At times, this took the form of the poor nobleman or rich landowner, who traded the power of the sword for that of the pen, taking part in local councils, the Haeseni Duma, the royal bureaucracy, and other institutions of influence. The commoner class agitated for its own representation, and found that, when collectivized, its support could give the weight necessary to various actors and social causes. The winds of change blew, as much as Marus tried to resist them, yet in supporting Joseph Marna, he found himself swept up nonetheless, even as he believed himself to be in firm control of the rebellion. He discovered too late that the world could no longer be controlled by a single man: a more delicate balance between the powers that be would have to be struck.

 

Equally romantic and realistic, he had hoped to impress upon the world a glorious image of conquest and bravery, yet achieved through means that were wholly calculated. Nonetheless, he was a powerful king, adequate general, and fearless knight until the end. It can be reasonably argued that he lived the part more than he played at it. His greatest foe was always the future, as he undoubtedly saw in Joseph I the image of monarchy that would come were he to be victorious: a docile, distant bureaucrat spending his days confined within an office. Ironically, if not slightly unfairly, it would be Marus II whose name was synonymous with defeat and failure, while Joseph I became a symbol of humanity’s new, better era, one that King Marus had, in another bout of irony, accelerated.”

 

The morning after his father’s death, the nine year old Prince Andrik Lothar was hastily and quietly crowned within the Basilica of Fifty Virgins. The responsibility of running his kingdom naturally fell to the Lord Palatine, Prince Georg Alimar. Haense was now a mirror-image of what Renatus had been four years earlier. A boy sat atop the throne, a panicked regency council had taken charge, the capital was under threat of conquest at any moment, and their fate rested in the hands of one man: Sir Martinus Horen.

 

Dravi, Marus II ‘the Vainglorious’

16th of Sun’s Smile, 1684-12th of Owyn’s Flame, 1719

(r. 10th of Sun’s Smile, 1707-12th of Owyn’s Flame, 1719)

 

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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 Andrik III shall be covered in the next volume of The Winter Crows.