Chapter 16: Arni Ascendant (October 1080 – July 1082)
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On Viking: October 1080 – April 1081
The raid of the Tulunids in Tunisia continued with the latest sacking in Bizerte revealing a key for the latest mysterious locked chest. At least this time it wasn’t just a pile of mouldy rubbish …
In Italy, Ofeig’s army arrived in Rome on 9 October to aid Jarl Toke of Lothian’s siege. Urbanus would be made to pay further for his earlier impudent and foolish tilt at France.
The earlier funds invested in Council influencing paid off in mid-October when the Loyalist faction reached sufficient strength to send the latest legal change to a vote. The Steward, young Jarl Karl of Rostov fell to cancer. He was replaced with Arni’s very loyal (from being made Jarl of Itil after that conquest) uncle Prince Borkvard. He was only a capable rather than exception money manager, but could be thoroughly relied upon to support his similarly-aged nephew.
The most powerful magnate in the realm after the Emperor, King Oddr of Lotharingia, won his war with King Þorsteinn of Sviþjod – the third most powerful – before the month ended.
In November, the Tulunids had finally managed to assemble a force large enough to threaten the raiders in Tunisia. While they could have combined to fight them, there was no desire to risk heavy casualties, even in a winning battle. For now, the raiders would seek to finish their current well-progressed sieges and then take to the boats before the Tulunid armies could close with them.
The raid of Bizerte finished on 19 November (2 holdings, 138 gold, 918 men lost) and Mahdia the next day (2 holdings, 249 gold, no casualties). The whole raid had produced over 1,000 gold since September 1079, not including ransoms countryside pillaging along the way. By 28 November, both fleets were heading back to Amalfi to bank their loot.
The fleets docked between 11-15 December, providing a considerable boost to the treasury and helping Holmgarðr’s slow economic recovery from the plague.
By 25 December, the raiders (over 15,000 strong in total) were ready to head off again for another raid – this time headed for the other end of the Tulunid realm in Palestine.
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The new year of 1081 began with more good news for the Fylkir: the birth of his fourth son, Einarr, to his ‘cold consort’ Pulcheria.
It took the Vikings until the third week of February to reach their new targets in Palestine: the wealthy counties of Sur and Acre.
No longer faced with the hard choices of the days of Hel’s Breath, Arni lost his reputation for arbitrariness in March 1081.
By mid-April, as the raids continued in Palestine and the siege work in Rome, complaints became louder from the 14 vassals whose levies (ships and troops) had been raised (8 x -10 malus, 6 x -4). Arni decided it would be wise to rest them after the current raid and war for Rome
[+66% war score by then] were over.
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Rome Falls - Again: May to December 1081
The Council vote on execution sovereignty had fizzled earlier in the year (for some arcane reason: the personnel hadn’t changed) but now, with an absolute Loyalist majority now supporting Arni, the vote was restarted in early May. By mid-June the latest clawing back of Imperial prerogatives had succeeded.
During that time, a very strange episode occurred when the Völva Yrsa burst into the Fylkir’s private bed chamber with an alarming waning.
Devoted as Arni was to the Gods in most of their manifestations, this was one rabbit hole he was not prepared to leap down, valuing his relationship with the Empress more highly. Though of course both parents would now worry for the rest of Asa’s pregnancy, in case Yrsa’s prediction became true!
On 2 August 1081, the Imperial-backed Lothian siege of Rome had not reached its final stages (3 holdings taken for Lothian, 1,473 combined casualties) yet but it was enough for the Pope to despair and offer to capitulate of his own volition. Naturally, this offer was accepted by the Emperor on Toke’s behalf. The Pope was now unseated!
While still the fifth most widespread religion, Catholicism had virtually no moral authority left. And four different heresies also fragmented and sapped its remaining strength.
King Oddr, well advised and a promising prospect even as a youth, made a betrothal proposal in mid-August that Arni was happy to accept, to an aunt who was in fact two decades his junior. This would ensure Oddr’s arm was not raised against his liege in the future, whatever other factional problems might arise.
Ofeig’s army in Rom, numbering a little over 11,000, had soon invoked the sacred raiding toggle and was soon marching north to support High Chief Falki of Kola’s prepared invasion of Italy against Duchess Margherita of Latium, joining the Kolans for some siege work in nearby Orvieto, which would begin on 30 August.
Meanwhile in Palestine, substantial Tulunid and Radhi (vassal) forces had gathered around the northern raiding army in Sur by 10 September. Birger’s larger army in Acre broke off its looting (4 holdings, 310 gold, no casualties) to reinforce their comrades in Sur.
This caused the Radhi army to break off its advance on Sur, while a smaller Tulunid army skirted around the raiders to the east.
The vassal-led expansion in Italy continued with Toke now setting his sights on Cinarca in southern Corsica on 20 September. By this time, after the recent conquest of Rome, the threat posed by Arni had run back up to near maximum again.
Two days later, a quickfire series of assaults ordered by the Kolans saw Orvieto’s 5 holdings taken between 30 August and 12 September for the combined loss of 1,049 men. After that, Ofeig had tried to raid in Firenze, but for some legalistic reason his army was not able to loot, despite bordering Russian territory. By 2 October, he was headed to Venetian-owned Bologna instead.
The next marcher lord to try his hand was Jarl Dyre of Moldau, who would attempt to wrest Meissen from the Hungarians. He may eventually need some help, given how many troops Hungary could muster, not even counting possible Orthodox allies who may aid them in the Holy War.
Arni’s seventh child – a daughter named Alfhildr – was born without any apparent problem on 6 November. No red eyes, forked tongue, cloven hoof or a tail! And the Rurikid military potential was higher than it had ever been, even if tax revenues had not fully recovered.
The raid in Bologna had started on 16 October: after the first holding fell on 3 December, the Fylkir was usefully hailed as Arni the Ravager.
The raid on Sur in Palestine was completed without further incident on 15 December (5 holdings, 385 gold, 1,364 men lost). A week later, the last of the troops and treasure were aboard the fleets and they were headed back to Italy: this time, to Rom.
Italian Adventures: January to July 1082
After a quiet January, in early February an urgent messenger arrived from the Kolan army in Monferrato: their siege had been interrupted by the arrival of a large Latin force. By this time, the Kolans had begun to flee the field of battle and were being pursued. Ofeig immediately lifted his raiding siege of Bologna (2 holdings, 119 gold, no casualties) and made for Monferrato to preserve the Kolan gains that had been made there and deal with this substantial threat.
The same day, the raiding party returned from Palestine. By now the vassals were getting quite irate, particularly those whose fleets had been raised for so long. The money was banked and all levied ships and troops disbanded by 10 February, as Birger took the professional Retinue and Jomsviking forces north to engage a small enemy army lurking in Orbetello.
By 23 February, the reduced Kolan army was fleeing to France and a Latin-allied army of 6,000 was in Monferrato and Ofeig was marching through Lucca on his way to Genoa. The loss had set back the Kolan war progress somewhat – something Arni was keen to reverse.
To the south, on 4 March Birger fell upon an army from Parma in Orbetello as the Norwegians (fight their own Italian campaign) fought a small Italia-Teutonic force to their north. By 19 March, Birger had won a devastating victory.
Just as that pursuit was finishing, Ofeig had closed with the Italians in Monferrato. The battle was sharp enough, with over 600 of the best Rurikid troops killed, but enemy casualties were far higher and the enemy fled in disarray, losing three senior officers captured in the pursuit by 4 April.
Ofeig stayed to raid in Monferrato while Birger had headed north after his victory in Orbetello to resume raid Bologna anew. He took one holding there between 29 April to 1 June for 57 gold. But at that point a Bavarian-led army was spotted heading to Orvieto. Birger quickly picked up and headed south to ensure the Kolan gains there were not endangered.
Sadly, a few weeks later one of Russia’s best veteran generals (and siege specialist) Momchil Bleik, Kraka’s father, died a natural death.
The next day, in a reorganisation Prince Falki took over the southern army, allowing Birger – the other remaining siege specialist – to join Ofeig in the siege of Monferrato.
The Bavarian-Italian army had only recently arrived in Orvieto when Prince Falki descended on them from the north in early July with the fury of a Valkyrie. The Battle of Amelia was more of a slaughter, with the latest threat to the Kola’s Italian campaign defeated by 25 July 1082.
There was grave concern in the Imperial household when Arni’s young son Toste was diagnosed with dysentery: as Arni well knew, this was often a fatal affliction. Naturally, the trusted Court Physician Chief Hysing Rurikid was called in to ply his trade. And fortunately, the case was deemed mild: still very serious for the boy, but not as bad as it could have been.
Even better, Hysing once again produced the goods, with a successful treatment ameliorating the worst of the remaining symptoms. There was every chance Toste would survive this nasty illness, but only time would tell. Old Hysing was once again rewarded by a grateful Fylkir.
By the end of July 1082, Poitou had broken away from Aquitaine as an independent Duchy. And its Duke, Ricard, followed the Lollard Catholic heresy.
In the wider empire, factionalism had virtually disappeared.
Over the last five years, revenue had generally risen up to January 1080, after which time it had plateaued. It was unlikely to recover much further until peasant resentfulness in the Imperial demesne counties dissipated, probably in around another three years. The main feudal taxpayers were listed in a report to the Fylkir: naturally, the four subordinate kingdoms and three largest jarldoms were the biggest contributors.
Expenditure fluctuated with whether Imperial levies were called out, but mainly whether the retinue required replacements and the rate of that replacement. As at July, a modest monthly surplus was again being delivered, while raiding and war settlements and a lack of new building had boosted the treasury to just over 4,000 gold once again. The threat level had decreased slightly but would inevitably rise again once some of the magnates succeeded in their expansion attempts.
On the religious front, the end of the Black Death, Rurikid expansion and the moral collapse of Catholicism in the west had seen fourteen counties from France to the steppe convert to Reformed Germanicism over the last five years. Most of these were in France, Italy, the Low Counties and Germany. The spread of Catholic heresies (which were being gradually eliminated in the Empire) in its former heartland saw the religion ever more fragmented: the new Duchy of Poitou had entirely converted to Lollardy, for example.
While disease had retreated somewhat in most areas of the empire by mid-1082, for some reason Scandinavia had remained a hotbed of slow fever outbreaks, with three separate ones since 1079 still spreading.
The closest had started in Reval just four months before but seemed to be spreading south along the Baltic coast rather than east towards the Imperial capital. Arni had no desire to close the gates or see his demesne ravaged by disease again so soon after the Black Death.
NB: This now brings the AAR fully back up to date with game play.