Chapter 1 : Arrival
I was in a tavern having a "interesting" conversation with a lady when two soldiers burst in to the inn. A quick thought... No, I haven't done anything illegal yet. So I continued my conversation but apparently I did something after all. So they dragged me off and I landed in a less pleasant place in Vidin. Actually, the whole town isn't pleasant but that was definetely the least pleasant place in it. The jail. So beaten up,( Sighing and putting your hands in front of you clearly means you're reaching for a weapon, It mean it couldn't mean i want to surrender now could it?) I had to spend the night in a cell instead of tavern room filled with roaches. Well i shouldn't complain, after all you Can talk with rats but Vidin roaches don't seem to be fun.
In the morning i was dragged to the duke's room ( Again the thought that the prisoner Can walk by himself was an absolute nuissance to them ) The almighty greek Duke looked at me with disgust probably beacause of Rat dung all over my clothes. After a while he spoke :
Are you the one that call himself Leopold fon Hapspurg?
It's pronounced von Habsburg my liege.
Yes, whatever. I have a proposition for you.
And what that proposition might be, almighty? - My good manners seemed to upset him.
You can choose between :
A death for your crimes or service to me.
(I think the first one would be easier on me) I choose the second option my Lord.
Good, you shall be granted the fief of Naissus and shall from now one serve me as my Spymaster.
You are too good sir.
You may now go away. Oh, and one more thing. If you would try to escape you shall have assassins after you.
I wouldn't dream of escaping from your beatifull lands my lord.
And so, covered in manure I became a count. Well not officialy, the official one was a bit nicer as I had clean clothes on me.
When I arrived in Naissus it could be described in one sentence.
A wooden palisade surrounded by a few wooden houses and one of the biggest forests on the Balkans.
Ain't that nice, i immediately ordered the people of my glorious town and a vast area covered in forests to build me a house. And as they clearly feared me the a medium wooden house was constructed only 1 year after.
The first year of my... "rule" was peacefull. The "town" had about 9 serbians, 6 hungarians and one pole in it so i understood the majority of my "serfs". The only one i didn't understood was the pole... but i don't think anyone understood him. Anyway he had a big sword and seemed to be loyal to me so it didn't bother to have him here, especially that the peasants were talking that really big wolfs lived in the forest. So, as I said everything was peacefull except one event.
One day I was called by the Duke ( He sounded like he was about to pee in his pants from excitment so i guessed it was something important) When i arrived at the glorius city of Vidin ( And I must say that opposite to my town it looks even worse in winter) I found quite a suprise. A messenger from the Emperor himself came, what he said wasn't so amusing. Emperor obviously heard of my superior skill of knowing 4 languages (Latin,Serbian,Hungarian and Greek) and being a master thief because he ordered the Duke to order me to go and steal something from the seat of the other Emperor, Franken in Germany. And so i was about to make a theft of the century. Emperor ( the greek one) ordered me to steal the remains of Pope Agapetus I which was given to the Emperor ( the german one) by the pope. It was supposed to humilliliate the HRE and make Hagia Sophia a little bit more fabolous.
And so i embarked on my first mission in service of the Greek Emperor.
My arrival at Franken wasn't special really... I just marched into the city, and i can't really see why this town is so special. I mean big churches and huge castle? I wonder if the germans ever saw the Buda or Pest. Hell, even Venice and other italian cities are better than this big palace that calls itself a town.
Every person that knows the trade knows that you can't just march in and steal something. First, because you would get caught. Second, because even if you managed to steal something like that it wouldn't look good in stories. So I went with the easy way, I have managed to get to the palace disguised as a Hungarian diplomat, then it was downhill. March into the church, act like you're an religious person and an idiot at the same time, wait till they show you the crypts, use something heavy to make the priest go to sleep and take the bones.
Yes.... To bad i got caught when putting the bones into my chest..... Well you can't have everything and i finally managed to lose the germans. And so i was going to back to Serbia on a carriage with a long dead pope as my companion.
After a few days i entered the fabolous Naissus forests spanning across about half of Serbia. What can I say? It's dark and who knows what lurks in the dark?
