September 787, Tunis, the Sultanate of Ifriqiya.
All was not well within the Sultanate…
The Sultan was going mad, increasingly confined within his palace, with both his guards and his senior advisors content to keep him that way while they amassed more and more of his duties and powers. Having ascended to the throne as a tender child, the young Sultan Alim had been effectively shut away by his courtiers, and his regent, the Emir Azim.
The Grand Vizier of the realm, and forty years the Sultan’s senior, it was a common saying that Alim reigned, and Azim ruled, a joke that filled the locals with much delight, for the Grand Vizier was a known quantity in the way that the young, unpredictable and frequently deranged Sultan was not. The old Vizier was a man of charm, patience and generosity. He abided by the principles of charity, and gave much of his money to the poor, and always had time to stop and speak to anyone, even the poor and lowly if they approached him with some problem or another.
So naturally, it was the Vizier who had overseen the details of the Sultan’s annexation of Sardinia, seizing it from the feeble grasp of the Roman Empire, with Constantinople roiled by religious turmoil and internal intrigues, the island’s small, poorly equipped garrison had not had either the time or the patience needed to resist a sustained assault. A brief conquest had ensued, but the Vizier had given orders that pillaging be kept to a minimum, and churches and places of other worship for infidels were spared from destruction. Only an additional tax on those who refused to convert had been imposed on the island’s inhabitants. Wars may have won empires, but clemency and mercy helped you keep them.
At least from the inhabitants, Vizier Azim reflected gloomily. For word of an outside threat now had come, the King of the Franks, with the blessing of the Christian Bishop in Rome, had authorised an invasion of the new territory in Sardinia, seeking to reconquer it. It was unfortunate timing, the levies that had partaken in the conquest had been disbanded and returned to their own homes. Many would now have to be recalled, and sellswords hired to cover the rest of them who could not be.
Nevertheless, the Vizier had begun to steel himself to his duty. The infidel had to be driven back and the island held until the work of Allah could be fulfilled. He would not fail…
Milan, Northern Italy.
Shadows lurked in the dark, this Bertrada knew. The Italian lords were up to something, whispering behind their jeweled goblets and gloved hands. Despite the wealth of Empire and conquest being shared with them as well, many among them chafed under what they saw as Frankish dominion.
But there were no named players yet, no firm leadership she could identify. Only hints and dark whispers carried on the wind by her spies. A weapons shipment going missing there, a lord who disliked another lord being spotted chatting feverishly with him in hushed, fervent whispers behind their hands at a feast. All circumstantial, yet all enough to set off the chill in her gut.
For the Empress-Mother knew her time was drawing near. Her bones chilled more easily these days, and her fires had to burn higher in her chambers to keep her warm. Winter was harsher, and the extremes harder to bear. Her mind remain untroubled, but her flesh could not hold out forever.
It was crucial to unravel this plot then, before her time was done and she went to join her husband. One last grand conspiracy to unravel, one last defence of her husband’s dream of a stronger Frankish Empire, the dream he had not lived to see done, but the dream of which she had never forgotten.
It was why she tolerated their son, even after everything. Why she helped and protected him. All for his father, all for Pepin and his dream. All for his legacy to be safeguarded and his vision to be realised.
And it would not be left to a few renegade Lombards to bring it crashing down… Not on her last breath.
She would remain in Milan a month or two longer, and then return, to await her son’s triumph in Sardinia, a triumph of a type he was very good at securing. But when it came to the more imaginative arts… well, there was a reason he kept her around…
November 787-January 788.
The voyage of the fleet to Sardinia had been fraught with difficulties. Karloman, as it turned out, had overestimated the number of ships he might be able to call upon for the campaign, forcing him to cut the numbers of his levies. His planned army of ten thousand was cut to a size of six thousand, with the others being dismissed and sent home for the season, with some grumbling at the lost prospects for booty and plunder.
But even then, his ships could barely ferry three thousand of his troops at once, and thus once this diminished force set out, it would likely be dependant on the swift arrival of Prince Pepin and the rest of the army.
For a week, the Emperor sat below deck of his own ship, trying to grit his teeth and ignore the churning, rumbling stomach that reminded him of why he so badly hated sea voyages. He made a mental note to only campaign on land in future…
Despite the discomfort however, the fleet made good time and arrived on Sardinia to make landfall by January. Within a day, his men had an army camp established with trenches and rudimentary palisades up, and the ships had been sent back to sea to Marseilles to transport the rest of the army.
And then they waited…. And waited… and waited.
Weeks past, and the planned arrival of Pepin with the reinforcements came and went, with no ships arriving. Within days of their arrival, their foragers and scouts were facing attack from local inhabitants and the Berber garrisons that had been stationed on Sardinia. Wary of being ambushed, Karloman ordered the camp to pull up stakes and shifted them to higher ground several miles further east, giving them a natural defensive point. Larger concentrations of enemy forces began coalescing, and the element of surprise the initial invasion might have had was lost as the planned reinforcements did not materialise.
What had happened to the relief force? In his darker moments of doubt, the Emperor began to fear that his son had deliberately abandoned him, left him to die alone on this godforsaken island. But he shook himself free of such doubts. Pepin would not do that, it wasn’t his way. Something must have delayed him.
But it became harder to forage in the days to come, and with no sign of reinforcement or re-supply, discontent began to swirl within the army…
What had become of their reinforcements?
Marseilles, Francia, January-May 788.
Pepin had known immediately something had gone wrong on the night the storm passed through. Within two days, only a small dozen battered ships had limped into dock, their captains telling tale of how they were scattered and blown off course en-route, their timing, and the state of the ships now throwing off the projections for the campaign.
Cursing the weather and his luck, the Crown Prince swung into action. Both to alleviate their boredom, and to get the ships they did still have into shape, he ordered his men to begin assisting with repairs, giving the army something to do. Then he began the work of finding replacements.
Finding merchant ships capable of making the crossing wasn’t easy. Convincing their owners to part with them was even harder. Eventually, frustrated by his failure to barter an adequate price for a number of Pisan barges, the Crown Prince eventually ordered them seized by force, promising the wailing owner he would be compensated with booty once the campaign was won, which didn’t appease the fellow’s anger.
He seized a number of Venetian and Greek merchant vessels as well, reasoning that he’d worry about the diplomatic complications later. If his father and the army starved to death on Sardinia, angry Venetian merchants and complaint from the court of the Empress in Constantinople about their conduct would be the least of his problems.
By April, he finally had the ships to transport further supplies… and the rest of the army, about a month later than planned, so he hurried the army onto the makeshift vessels at a cracking pace that caused even some of the hardier men to grumble about how tough a drillmaster the Prince was.
It was early May when his rag-tag mess of a fleet finally made landfall in Sardinia, several miles west of the Porto Torres… His scouts reported his father’s army had encamped on the heights further east, and so the army moved to join them.
They found Karloman’s forces virtually surrounded, sick with disease, and beginning to suffer malnutrition. Fortunately, the arrival of reinforcements prompted the enemy to withdraw, allowing Pepin and his forces to relieve the beleaguered Emperor and his army.
“And now there are six thousand”, Karloman said with a smile when his son approached. The Emperor looked thin and gaunt, clearly the shortage of food had bitten him as much as any man in the army. “More than enough.”
“Sorry we’re late father,” Pepin grinned, happy to see him despite it all. “The ships were wrecked in a storm on the way back, it took a while to find replacements.”
“I knew you would come,” Karloman replied calmly, with a small smile. “It is no matter now, I have a plan for battle.”
The enemy had drawn off at the sight of reinforcements, but the Emperor knew they were not gone. They would be shadowing the army as it marched.
“We need to draw them into an open engagement,” Karloman told his son once he and his men had eaten their fresh supplies and he could think straight without hunger, “I don’t intend to be chasing our enemy across their own ground in this god-forsaken island trying to catch them. They know the country better than we do, so we have to draw them out.”
“Sounds familiar,” Pepin replied, grinning, knowing his father preferred pitched battles. “What’s the plan?”
“Besiege a target they can do nothing but defend, force them onto open ground and crush them,” Karloman pointed west, “The Porto Torres is the most significant target on the north of the island. It controls our sea supply line, and it prevents us from being re-supplied. If it is attacked, they will march to protect it.”
“When do we begin?”
“Tomorrow”, the Emperor replied. He turned to his son, and gave a slight smile, “It feels good to be in command again,”
“It feels good to be with the army again father,” Pepin replied, with a matching grin, relieved he and Karloman seemed to be getting along for now.
But the war in Sardinia had just begun.
OOC: Lots happening here, whispers of Italian intrigue, the war in Sardinia begins badly for the Franks, and first contact with the enemy is made. Let's see if their fortunes improve from here on.
All was not well within the Sultanate…
The Sultan was going mad, increasingly confined within his palace, with both his guards and his senior advisors content to keep him that way while they amassed more and more of his duties and powers. Having ascended to the throne as a tender child, the young Sultan Alim had been effectively shut away by his courtiers, and his regent, the Emir Azim.
The Grand Vizier of the realm, and forty years the Sultan’s senior, it was a common saying that Alim reigned, and Azim ruled, a joke that filled the locals with much delight, for the Grand Vizier was a known quantity in the way that the young, unpredictable and frequently deranged Sultan was not. The old Vizier was a man of charm, patience and generosity. He abided by the principles of charity, and gave much of his money to the poor, and always had time to stop and speak to anyone, even the poor and lowly if they approached him with some problem or another.
So naturally, it was the Vizier who had overseen the details of the Sultan’s annexation of Sardinia, seizing it from the feeble grasp of the Roman Empire, with Constantinople roiled by religious turmoil and internal intrigues, the island’s small, poorly equipped garrison had not had either the time or the patience needed to resist a sustained assault. A brief conquest had ensued, but the Vizier had given orders that pillaging be kept to a minimum, and churches and places of other worship for infidels were spared from destruction. Only an additional tax on those who refused to convert had been imposed on the island’s inhabitants. Wars may have won empires, but clemency and mercy helped you keep them.
At least from the inhabitants, Vizier Azim reflected gloomily. For word of an outside threat now had come, the King of the Franks, with the blessing of the Christian Bishop in Rome, had authorised an invasion of the new territory in Sardinia, seeking to reconquer it. It was unfortunate timing, the levies that had partaken in the conquest had been disbanded and returned to their own homes. Many would now have to be recalled, and sellswords hired to cover the rest of them who could not be.
Nevertheless, the Vizier had begun to steel himself to his duty. The infidel had to be driven back and the island held until the work of Allah could be fulfilled. He would not fail…
Milan, Northern Italy.
Shadows lurked in the dark, this Bertrada knew. The Italian lords were up to something, whispering behind their jeweled goblets and gloved hands. Despite the wealth of Empire and conquest being shared with them as well, many among them chafed under what they saw as Frankish dominion.
But there were no named players yet, no firm leadership she could identify. Only hints and dark whispers carried on the wind by her spies. A weapons shipment going missing there, a lord who disliked another lord being spotted chatting feverishly with him in hushed, fervent whispers behind their hands at a feast. All circumstantial, yet all enough to set off the chill in her gut.
For the Empress-Mother knew her time was drawing near. Her bones chilled more easily these days, and her fires had to burn higher in her chambers to keep her warm. Winter was harsher, and the extremes harder to bear. Her mind remain untroubled, but her flesh could not hold out forever.
It was crucial to unravel this plot then, before her time was done and she went to join her husband. One last grand conspiracy to unravel, one last defence of her husband’s dream of a stronger Frankish Empire, the dream he had not lived to see done, but the dream of which she had never forgotten.
It was why she tolerated their son, even after everything. Why she helped and protected him. All for his father, all for Pepin and his dream. All for his legacy to be safeguarded and his vision to be realised.
And it would not be left to a few renegade Lombards to bring it crashing down… Not on her last breath.
She would remain in Milan a month or two longer, and then return, to await her son’s triumph in Sardinia, a triumph of a type he was very good at securing. But when it came to the more imaginative arts… well, there was a reason he kept her around…
November 787-January 788.
The voyage of the fleet to Sardinia had been fraught with difficulties. Karloman, as it turned out, had overestimated the number of ships he might be able to call upon for the campaign, forcing him to cut the numbers of his levies. His planned army of ten thousand was cut to a size of six thousand, with the others being dismissed and sent home for the season, with some grumbling at the lost prospects for booty and plunder.
But even then, his ships could barely ferry three thousand of his troops at once, and thus once this diminished force set out, it would likely be dependant on the swift arrival of Prince Pepin and the rest of the army.
For a week, the Emperor sat below deck of his own ship, trying to grit his teeth and ignore the churning, rumbling stomach that reminded him of why he so badly hated sea voyages. He made a mental note to only campaign on land in future…
Despite the discomfort however, the fleet made good time and arrived on Sardinia to make landfall by January. Within a day, his men had an army camp established with trenches and rudimentary palisades up, and the ships had been sent back to sea to Marseilles to transport the rest of the army.
And then they waited…. And waited… and waited.
Weeks past, and the planned arrival of Pepin with the reinforcements came and went, with no ships arriving. Within days of their arrival, their foragers and scouts were facing attack from local inhabitants and the Berber garrisons that had been stationed on Sardinia. Wary of being ambushed, Karloman ordered the camp to pull up stakes and shifted them to higher ground several miles further east, giving them a natural defensive point. Larger concentrations of enemy forces began coalescing, and the element of surprise the initial invasion might have had was lost as the planned reinforcements did not materialise.
What had happened to the relief force? In his darker moments of doubt, the Emperor began to fear that his son had deliberately abandoned him, left him to die alone on this godforsaken island. But he shook himself free of such doubts. Pepin would not do that, it wasn’t his way. Something must have delayed him.
But it became harder to forage in the days to come, and with no sign of reinforcement or re-supply, discontent began to swirl within the army…
What had become of their reinforcements?
Marseilles, Francia, January-May 788.
Pepin had known immediately something had gone wrong on the night the storm passed through. Within two days, only a small dozen battered ships had limped into dock, their captains telling tale of how they were scattered and blown off course en-route, their timing, and the state of the ships now throwing off the projections for the campaign.
Cursing the weather and his luck, the Crown Prince swung into action. Both to alleviate their boredom, and to get the ships they did still have into shape, he ordered his men to begin assisting with repairs, giving the army something to do. Then he began the work of finding replacements.
Finding merchant ships capable of making the crossing wasn’t easy. Convincing their owners to part with them was even harder. Eventually, frustrated by his failure to barter an adequate price for a number of Pisan barges, the Crown Prince eventually ordered them seized by force, promising the wailing owner he would be compensated with booty once the campaign was won, which didn’t appease the fellow’s anger.
He seized a number of Venetian and Greek merchant vessels as well, reasoning that he’d worry about the diplomatic complications later. If his father and the army starved to death on Sardinia, angry Venetian merchants and complaint from the court of the Empress in Constantinople about their conduct would be the least of his problems.
By April, he finally had the ships to transport further supplies… and the rest of the army, about a month later than planned, so he hurried the army onto the makeshift vessels at a cracking pace that caused even some of the hardier men to grumble about how tough a drillmaster the Prince was.
It was early May when his rag-tag mess of a fleet finally made landfall in Sardinia, several miles west of the Porto Torres… His scouts reported his father’s army had encamped on the heights further east, and so the army moved to join them.
They found Karloman’s forces virtually surrounded, sick with disease, and beginning to suffer malnutrition. Fortunately, the arrival of reinforcements prompted the enemy to withdraw, allowing Pepin and his forces to relieve the beleaguered Emperor and his army.
“And now there are six thousand”, Karloman said with a smile when his son approached. The Emperor looked thin and gaunt, clearly the shortage of food had bitten him as much as any man in the army. “More than enough.”
“Sorry we’re late father,” Pepin grinned, happy to see him despite it all. “The ships were wrecked in a storm on the way back, it took a while to find replacements.”
“I knew you would come,” Karloman replied calmly, with a small smile. “It is no matter now, I have a plan for battle.”
The enemy had drawn off at the sight of reinforcements, but the Emperor knew they were not gone. They would be shadowing the army as it marched.
“We need to draw them into an open engagement,” Karloman told his son once he and his men had eaten their fresh supplies and he could think straight without hunger, “I don’t intend to be chasing our enemy across their own ground in this god-forsaken island trying to catch them. They know the country better than we do, so we have to draw them out.”
“Sounds familiar,” Pepin replied, grinning, knowing his father preferred pitched battles. “What’s the plan?”
“Besiege a target they can do nothing but defend, force them onto open ground and crush them,” Karloman pointed west, “The Porto Torres is the most significant target on the north of the island. It controls our sea supply line, and it prevents us from being re-supplied. If it is attacked, they will march to protect it.”
“When do we begin?”
“Tomorrow”, the Emperor replied. He turned to his son, and gave a slight smile, “It feels good to be in command again,”
“It feels good to be with the army again father,” Pepin replied, with a matching grin, relieved he and Karloman seemed to be getting along for now.
But the war in Sardinia had just begun.
OOC: Lots happening here, whispers of Italian intrigue, the war in Sardinia begins badly for the Franks, and first contact with the enemy is made. Let's see if their fortunes improve from here on.
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