We might still yet!
In all seriousness though, I'll have another post up in a day or two
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In all seriousness though, I'll have another post up in a day or two
All hail the new Emperor, may Pepin's reign be as glorious as that of his father's. Time to begin said rule by kicking the blasted Nordic raiders back to their homelands eh?
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I'm very excited to start hearing more from Pepin's children!
As for the Northmen, Pepin will have to find a more permanent solution to their raids if he wants some peace of mind. Perhaps a great Christianization mission to become Pepin the Pious? Otherwise, it seems like the other borders of the empire are rather stable.
As for the Northmen, Pepin will have to find a more permanent solution to their raids if he wants some peace of mind. Perhaps a great Christianization mission to become Pepin the Pious? Otherwise, it seems like the other borders of the empire are rather stable.
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802CE, Northern Francia,
Unbeknownst to the next lot of Norsemen who had decided to try their luck savaging the soft, unprotected coasts of the southlanders, their activities had drawn the attention of the folk who ruled these vast, lush lands with warm climes and long rich summers.
In November, Pepin received word of a host of Norsemen engaged in raiding the coastal villages east of Neustria. Aware that as a new Emperor he needed to assert his strength, he took this as a perfect opportunity to do so.
Alfgeir, the leader of the Norse raiders, had believed that he and his horde would be ravaging the territories along the Rhine with impunity, as they had done when the southlanders were busy with their wars in the south, it was a shock to him, therefore, to hear word of the outriders approaching their positions along the right bank of the Rhine, and that a military force flying the imperial colours was not but three miles from their position.
Discussing his options, Alfgeir’s comrades advised him to leave. They had a reasonable haul, and the seasonal weather was still on their side to beat a hasty retreat if they wished. But the raider had grown bold from his prior success, and wished for the glory of a victory in open battle over this small force of southerners who had brusquely mustered to oppose their efforts. He believed that the roughly equivalent numbers, and the natural bravery of the Norsemen compared to the softer men of the south would be enough to secure the victory.
He was tragically mistaken. When the Emperor realised his outriders had been seen, he drew his forces up for battle and dared the raiders to come forward and fight, guessing that the Norsemen would be flush from their raiding of villages.
Having gathered the levies of Paris, Vermandois, Amiens, Aachen and several other places along the way, Pepin had at his disposal over five thousand men, just slightly more than the Norse, but the Emperor deployed his lighter infantry in the entre, hoping to strengthen his flanks with the heavier infantry to protect from an envelopment.
When the Norse came charging towards them, yelling their war cries, Pepin grinned beneath his helm. They had fallen for it.
The Norsemen had fanned out and attempted to strike the Frankish flanks, only to discover that the Emperor had placed his heavier, more experienced troops there, and met them in fierce hand to hand fighting.
Meanwhile, the Emperor placed himself in the centre, directly behind his weaker forces to stiffen their resolve. When the thinner section of the Norse line crashed directly into the centre, Pepin personally directed his centre to push through.
After barely half an hour, they broke the Norse centre, and then the Frankish outriders, newly reformed into their squadrons, charged the Norse on both flanks, obliterating them.
Alfgeir himself ended the day in a cage, and the Norsemen’s ships were plundered of their stolen gains in the days that followed. Pepin, buoyed by the victory, staged an extravagant celebration reminiscent of a Roman triumph through Parisian streets and markets on his return, having Alfgeir publicly beheaded and his head placed on a spike adorning the top of the city’s newest batch of walls, built by his father. He then made a public show of holding court, loftily returning the property plundered and stolen by the Norse to its ‘rightful’ owners in accordance with his council’s deliberations and judgements on the matter, and accepted the cheering of the crowds in response.
Though Norse raids would remain a fact of life for many years to come, the new Emperor had given them a bloody nose, and proved himself equivalent to the Herculean labour he was now beginning to undertake…
OOC: A coronation and an early victory over a persistant Norse irritant, but more challenges from the Northern pagans will come and Pepin's sons are starting to grow up
Will have either a weekend post as usually or one early next week, depending on my time juggling writing/other commitments
Thanks as always for reading.- 2
A good start to Pepin's reign! Although a smaller raid like this will pale in comparison to some of the later invasions.
I'm also curious to hear more about his "Herculean labour"!
I'm also curious to hear more about his "Herculean labour"!
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Good early victory, but a host is not the sane as a Norse kingdom. Thank you for updating
At the moment there's little interest in conquests up there, too cold and dismal, and Hispania is still a constant battleground closer to home
But if and when massed Norse invasions get started, yes, then he might have bigger problems
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Huzzah! What a victory to start Pepin's reign. I too am curious as to what this Herculean labour is gonna be.
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Glorious to see norse raiders getting what they deserve, a early reign with a victory over the northern invaders, this really cement the authority over the imperial lords.
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Imperial lords were mostly frightened of Karloman, so we'll see if they behave as well for Pepin. Though victories on the battlefield always help
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Emperor Pepin was quick to discover that the challenges of Empire could not all be solved with steel and blood. The powerful, sprawling Nibelung clan, which had caused occasional problems for his father, had fallen into a state of intercenine dispute over the inheritance of the family’s lands, with all coveting the lustrous prize of Neustria. Three of the family’s members, from their dukedoms in Burgundy, Berry and Chamavia, had escalated their pursuit of their lands. Karloman had been content to let the powerful family bicker amongst itself to minimise the threat to the crown, but shortly after his death, the dispute broke out into open violence. Neighbouring lords complained of crops being stolen and peasants assaulted in their fields merely for proximity to disputed lands, and the violence threatened to escalate.
Thus Emperor Pepin was compelled to play mediator. The risk in doing so was that the Nibelunging’s might use the truce as an excuse to patch up their differences and begin directing their grievances at the Crown, but given the situation had escalated into open warfare, Pepin found himself with little choice.
He summoned the four quarrelling lords to court in late 803, intending to devote several weeks to the resolving of the dispute. He had no intention of letting any one of them carve off Neustria in order to enhance his own dominance, so he aimed to try and end the war with a “status quo” situation.
Clodios, Duke of Berry was among the hardiest. A tough, ambitious and martial-minded man, Pepin knew subtlety would not work on him, not because the Emperor was incapable of it, but because Clodios was so lacking it that none of it but raw military strength would dissuade him.
Tedouin of Burgundy won friends easily, and from Pepin’s wry observation he hadn’t missed many feasts. But diplomacy was his forte, and for the Emperor to get him to concede, he must be made to realise the cost of continuing the conflict would be higher than the prize of success.
Duke Chamavia, the brother of Clodios, was as different from his brother as a horned ox was to the thinnest of rabbits. A gentle, scholarly man in his private life, his benign demeanour masked a superlative cunning on the diplomatic side of events.
“You can sit in on the meetings,” Pepin told Prince Renaud, his eldest, now almost of age. “We’ve got a nice different group of lords here to deal with, and its vital you get a sense of how these meetings are done.”
“Can Maurice come as well?” Renaud asked, always eager for an opportunity for his younger brother to join in any activity.
But the Emperor shook his head. “Maurice is not my heir. The Empire shall be yours one day, and it’s you who needs to learn to rule.”
Renaud, Prince of the Empire and eldest son of Pepin, was diligent and growing into a physically imposing young man, but he hides a secret his father would not abide…
The first weeks were all posturing or speeches, so Renaud reported back to Maurice later, hoping to alleviate his younger brother’s hurt at being excluded by making it sound as bland as possible.
“But you’re THERE”, Maurice responded sullenly, “In the room, with father, making the decisions.”
“I don’t make any decision,” Renaud told his brother, softly touching his arm, hoping to alleviate his sullenness and improve his mood. “Father does the talking, I simply watch.”
“And before long, he’ll be marrying us both off, separating us forever.” Maurice replied, gripping his brother’s hand firmly. “I would not have it so.”
“Nor I,” Renaud smiled, but for a different reason. In truth, he had little desire for marriage to a woman. The only woman he had ever felt significantly for was his mother, Elodie, whom had raised him and his brothers closely throughout the years, and whom he still considered the finest of that sex because of her abundance of moral virtue. But when his tutors had spoken about the sincere, physical sense of love between man and wife, Renaud did not know how to respond. He had never felt that way about women, not once, and wasn’t quite sure why or what to do about it.
He dare not reveal the details of his feeling to anyone, even to his beloved brother, for though he wasn’t sure why it happened to him, he had heard tales of others to whom this was the case. Sodomites, the priests called them, and said that God’s law was that such things were unnatural. And an Emperor was God’s entity on earth.
He could not rule if he shared that secret, this much he knew, even this young, so whether by instinct, or by a naturally quiet, unassuming disposition he buried the secret, and not even dear Maurice, his brother and friend with whom he shared everything, suspected him of hiding anything.
“Cheer up brother, you’ll get your turn soon enough,” Renaud clapped his sullen little brother on the back to attempt to lighten the mood.
Sometimes his brother really reminded him of grandfather…
Prince Maurice, second son of Emperor Pepin. Hardworking and clever, but sullen and resentful.
But it was several further weeks of negotiations before Emperor Pepin had managed to resolve the crisis. In the end, all three of the would-be usurpers of Neustria were forced to back down, amidst rumors of cutthroat trading of both gold and favours among them and the Emperor’s courtiers as a consequence of the deal…
Clodios had wanted gold, for he was simple and unsubtle, but Chamaiva and Tedouin of Burgundy had assiduously cultivated from the Emperor promises of future favour in exchange for ceasing their aggression in Neustria. Pepin had little choice but to grant them, and hope the price extracted, when it came, would not be too high…
OOC: And now we start introducing the children and some other of the major lords, who already are jostling for position in the new imperial way of things. Renaud's sexuality may or may not be revealed to Pepin, but it will certainly make things interesting, though he does have a friend in his brother. The younger children will get their own focus as well in the story, fear not
Also, here's what the world looks like as of December 25th 804.
The Abbasids are in massive civil war, the Byzantines have stabilised their territories and basically wiped out the Iconoclasts as a political force (Eirene ruling for such a long time helped with that). The Carolingians rule in Western Europe and the Norse are just starting to awake to their raiding days. While the Umayyads have lost territories in Hispania, the Kingdom of Asturias is only just holding on, protected by the marriage of Pepin's sister to the King Froilo II and the subsequent alliance with the Carolingian Emperors. Whether that's enough to save them remains to be seen.
Thus Emperor Pepin was compelled to play mediator. The risk in doing so was that the Nibelunging’s might use the truce as an excuse to patch up their differences and begin directing their grievances at the Crown, but given the situation had escalated into open warfare, Pepin found himself with little choice.
He summoned the four quarrelling lords to court in late 803, intending to devote several weeks to the resolving of the dispute. He had no intention of letting any one of them carve off Neustria in order to enhance his own dominance, so he aimed to try and end the war with a “status quo” situation.
Clodios, Duke of Berry was among the hardiest. A tough, ambitious and martial-minded man, Pepin knew subtlety would not work on him, not because the Emperor was incapable of it, but because Clodios was so lacking it that none of it but raw military strength would dissuade him.
Tedouin of Burgundy won friends easily, and from Pepin’s wry observation he hadn’t missed many feasts. But diplomacy was his forte, and for the Emperor to get him to concede, he must be made to realise the cost of continuing the conflict would be higher than the prize of success.
Duke Chamavia, the brother of Clodios, was as different from his brother as a horned ox was to the thinnest of rabbits. A gentle, scholarly man in his private life, his benign demeanour masked a superlative cunning on the diplomatic side of events.
“You can sit in on the meetings,” Pepin told Prince Renaud, his eldest, now almost of age. “We’ve got a nice different group of lords here to deal with, and its vital you get a sense of how these meetings are done.”
“Can Maurice come as well?” Renaud asked, always eager for an opportunity for his younger brother to join in any activity.
But the Emperor shook his head. “Maurice is not my heir. The Empire shall be yours one day, and it’s you who needs to learn to rule.”
Renaud, Prince of the Empire and eldest son of Pepin, was diligent and growing into a physically imposing young man, but he hides a secret his father would not abide…
The first weeks were all posturing or speeches, so Renaud reported back to Maurice later, hoping to alleviate his younger brother’s hurt at being excluded by making it sound as bland as possible.
“But you’re THERE”, Maurice responded sullenly, “In the room, with father, making the decisions.”
“I don’t make any decision,” Renaud told his brother, softly touching his arm, hoping to alleviate his sullenness and improve his mood. “Father does the talking, I simply watch.”
“And before long, he’ll be marrying us both off, separating us forever.” Maurice replied, gripping his brother’s hand firmly. “I would not have it so.”
“Nor I,” Renaud smiled, but for a different reason. In truth, he had little desire for marriage to a woman. The only woman he had ever felt significantly for was his mother, Elodie, whom had raised him and his brothers closely throughout the years, and whom he still considered the finest of that sex because of her abundance of moral virtue. But when his tutors had spoken about the sincere, physical sense of love between man and wife, Renaud did not know how to respond. He had never felt that way about women, not once, and wasn’t quite sure why or what to do about it.
He dare not reveal the details of his feeling to anyone, even to his beloved brother, for though he wasn’t sure why it happened to him, he had heard tales of others to whom this was the case. Sodomites, the priests called them, and said that God’s law was that such things were unnatural. And an Emperor was God’s entity on earth.
He could not rule if he shared that secret, this much he knew, even this young, so whether by instinct, or by a naturally quiet, unassuming disposition he buried the secret, and not even dear Maurice, his brother and friend with whom he shared everything, suspected him of hiding anything.
“Cheer up brother, you’ll get your turn soon enough,” Renaud clapped his sullen little brother on the back to attempt to lighten the mood.
Sometimes his brother really reminded him of grandfather…
Prince Maurice, second son of Emperor Pepin. Hardworking and clever, but sullen and resentful.
But it was several further weeks of negotiations before Emperor Pepin had managed to resolve the crisis. In the end, all three of the would-be usurpers of Neustria were forced to back down, amidst rumors of cutthroat trading of both gold and favours among them and the Emperor’s courtiers as a consequence of the deal…
Clodios had wanted gold, for he was simple and unsubtle, but Chamaiva and Tedouin of Burgundy had assiduously cultivated from the Emperor promises of future favour in exchange for ceasing their aggression in Neustria. Pepin had little choice but to grant them, and hope the price extracted, when it came, would not be too high…
OOC: And now we start introducing the children and some other of the major lords, who already are jostling for position in the new imperial way of things. Renaud's sexuality may or may not be revealed to Pepin, but it will certainly make things interesting, though he does have a friend in his brother. The younger children will get their own focus as well in the story, fear not
Also, here's what the world looks like as of December 25th 804.
The Abbasids are in massive civil war, the Byzantines have stabilised their territories and basically wiped out the Iconoclasts as a political force (Eirene ruling for such a long time helped with that). The Carolingians rule in Western Europe and the Norse are just starting to awake to their raiding days. While the Umayyads have lost territories in Hispania, the Kingdom of Asturias is only just holding on, protected by the marriage of Pepin's sister to the King Froilo II and the subsequent alliance with the Carolingian Emperors. Whether that's enough to save them remains to be seen.
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If Maurice is the second coming of Karloman, then Renaud needs to watch his back. The heir off to the church would be unusual, but appropriate. Thank you for the update.
#4 son is landed?
#4 son is landed?
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Renaud and Maurice make a cute pair and I hope they won't be torn apart by power. I forsee some scandal in Renaud's future but I hope he'll be safe, he seems like a good lad.
Wow, Asturias is really pathetic in this world, I wonder if Pepin will choose to strengthen them or just get rid of the liability
Wow, Asturias is really pathetic in this world, I wonder if Pepin will choose to strengthen them or just get rid of the liability
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Hey everyone, had a busy weekend but am definitely still working on the next update, which I hope to have up by tomorrow I haven't gone walkabout, rest assured
Thanks for your patience.
I haven't gone walkabout, rest assuredThanks for your patience.
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The new Emperor’s attention was soon turned back to the old battleground, Hispania. News came in 803 that the Umayyad Sultan Zeyd had died, poison was the rumor, though none could confirm it, and his eldest son, Yahd, only just seven years of age, and son of one of his lesser wives, ascended to the throne of the Umayyad Sultanate. But it was not Pepin, but his half-brother, Nikolaos, newly ascended Emperor of the East, whom found his territories targeted. The Baelaeric Isles, last of the territories remaining to the Romanoi from Justinian’s conquests centuries ago, were lands that the new Sultan was determined to seize for his glory, and with the Emperor in Constantinople being distant and rather removed from Western affairs, and suspicious of his half-brother in Paris, the time was ripe to strike.
But if the Sultan expected the Eastern Emperor to simply give up the islands for a loss, he was sorely mistaken…
Once word reached Konstantinopolis in November of 804 that the Moslem invaders had overran Mallorca and killed the Romanoi garrison stationed there, Emperor Nicolaos Karling sprang into action. His courtiers, more cautious and conservative to a man, urged him not to succumb to Justinian’s folly, writing off the islands as too far away from the Empire’s main territories to be properly defended, and deeming it too much of an expense to the treasury to justify trying to hold them. But the Emperor, young, new to his throne, and eager not to look weak to that pit of vultures that was the imperial court, did not heed their warnings, summoning and army and the Empire’s formidable fleet for a campaign in faraway Hispania. Within just two months of Mallorca’s occupation, the Emperor was sailing off to war.
805CE
Since he had neglected to inform his partner in Paris of these events or his plans, it was not until January that Pepin heard of any of this, assuming, like most, that Mallorca and the other islands under Romanoi control were simply too far removed from the Empire’s heartlands in Greece and Anatolia to be worth the trouble of defending.
“But now, my dear half-brother has assembled himself a fleet of ships and a force large enough to drive the Moors off of his islands, and probably to inflict some punitive measures in response as well,” Pepin reported to his council. “It seems for once, it’s not us who shall spill blood over contests in Iberia.”
Some in the council shifted uncomfortably. Pepin’s own recent campaigns in Iberia hadn’t gone so well, with defeats on both sides, no new territory seized for the Empire, and ultimately the chance of victory being snatched away by Pepin’s own injury and by the death of his father. The wounds may have healed, but the perception from this that the new Emperor was not quite his father’s military equal had not.
Ebbon, Pepin’s newest Councillor, and Marshal of the realm shifted uncomfortably, eyes darting towards his fellows to see if any of them would dare speak.
“Sire,” he said, when none did, “It seems to me that there is a great deal of feeling among the lords that the preference is for another contest with the Infidel over Iberia. The last campaign there concluded indecisively, and the prospect of both plunder and glory still motivates many of them, since they had both aplenty during the reign of your father.”
Pepin looked surprised, it hadn’t occurred to him that many of them might be actually looking for a conflict. “Really? You think so?” and his courtiers murmured in agreement, for Pepin, while a capable commander once on the field, did not have the kind of mind that saw war as necessary for glory, or for prestige, seeing it as a necessary evil at best, he could not summon his father’s old detachment to the horrors of it, the lives it ruined, the lands it burned. It all seemed so… wasteful. Carry out his father’s commands though he always had done, now that he was Emperor, he had intended to pursue a more restrained course.
“We believe so sire,” Ebbon replied, emphasising the military nature of Pepin’s role with the informal and curt ‘sire’ rather than the more formal ‘sovereign’ or, ‘Emperor’ used for more courtly functions, “the feeling is very much that the expansion of the infidel should be restrained, and the opportunity granted by Constantinople’s war should not be underestimated”.
“I see,” Pepin cast a glance around the room, pursing his lips, “And you all feel as one on this matter?” he asked the others, to murmurs of agreement from his councillors.
That put Pepin in a bind, for he shared the views expressed in distant Constantinopolis that the East could not hold the islands so far from their own lands, that their fall, whether to the Umayyads or to the Franks, was inevitable at some point or another. But with an ally’s territory being attacked and his own lords clamouring for yet another conflict with the infidels, he would be foolish to disregard the opportunity.
“I shall think on this,” was all the Emperor would say, and dismissed his council for the day…
And indeed he did, but for all the debate in his heart, he knew he had no choice. To refuse a war that his lords clamoured for would be to look weak, especially with the infidel already mobilising to fight another enemy on another front. How to deny them what would look like the chance of easy plunder and glory?
It had to be done, and he knew it, but he hated it all the same.
They have bent me to their will, and made me act to it. My father would’ve crushed them beneath his heel and made them his without them even knowing it. I haven’t his gifts, I know that now.
Not for the first time, he wished his father were still here…
There were others who wished their father were here to. Poor young Loup, whom Pepin had named Duke of Milan, was a mere child of 11. The Emperor’s fourth son, Pepin planned to slowly get the Lombard nobles whom had been so restive since his father’s conquests used to the notion of more direct rule by the Francian lords.
“I remember the sword and fire my father had to bring to Italia to quell the last rebellion,” Pepin had told his eldest, Renaud, when appointing Loup to the Duchy, “I shall not see it happen once more.”
So poor Loup, barely old enough to understand what a duchy was, had been formally named as the Duke, with a Lombard count holding the regency for him until such a day as he came of age to be shipped for there to rule in his own right. Rumor that the Emperor was also scouring Italia for a noble Lombard girl for his son to wed at the same time only made it more likely that the Emperor planned to bind Italia closer to the centre of the realm.
“The Alps separate us from Italia,” Renaud had reminded his younger brother, on a day when the younger boy didn’t understand why his father was saying he would soon have to be sent away. “But with you ruling them, the Italians will see we are one people, and one Empire now. They will accept this when they see a good ruler.”
“How will I know if I’m good?” the little boy had asked.
“You will be,” the Prince had assured him with a smile and a pat on his shoulder. “Italia under your guidance shall bloom into the ornament of our family brother, of that I have no doubt/”
The right words to say, even if the younger boy didn’t yet grasp them.
But neither was to know that it was Iberia, not Italia, that now echoed in their father’s mind, until word reached them that the Emperor had summoned his armies for yet another campaign in Hispania…
Prince Loup of Milan, whom the Emperor sought to use to draw Italia and it's territories closer to the imperial core.
But if the Sultan expected the Eastern Emperor to simply give up the islands for a loss, he was sorely mistaken…
Once word reached Konstantinopolis in November of 804 that the Moslem invaders had overran Mallorca and killed the Romanoi garrison stationed there, Emperor Nicolaos Karling sprang into action. His courtiers, more cautious and conservative to a man, urged him not to succumb to Justinian’s folly, writing off the islands as too far away from the Empire’s main territories to be properly defended, and deeming it too much of an expense to the treasury to justify trying to hold them. But the Emperor, young, new to his throne, and eager not to look weak to that pit of vultures that was the imperial court, did not heed their warnings, summoning and army and the Empire’s formidable fleet for a campaign in faraway Hispania. Within just two months of Mallorca’s occupation, the Emperor was sailing off to war.
805CE
Since he had neglected to inform his partner in Paris of these events or his plans, it was not until January that Pepin heard of any of this, assuming, like most, that Mallorca and the other islands under Romanoi control were simply too far removed from the Empire’s heartlands in Greece and Anatolia to be worth the trouble of defending.
“But now, my dear half-brother has assembled himself a fleet of ships and a force large enough to drive the Moors off of his islands, and probably to inflict some punitive measures in response as well,” Pepin reported to his council. “It seems for once, it’s not us who shall spill blood over contests in Iberia.”
Some in the council shifted uncomfortably. Pepin’s own recent campaigns in Iberia hadn’t gone so well, with defeats on both sides, no new territory seized for the Empire, and ultimately the chance of victory being snatched away by Pepin’s own injury and by the death of his father. The wounds may have healed, but the perception from this that the new Emperor was not quite his father’s military equal had not.
Ebbon, Pepin’s newest Councillor, and Marshal of the realm shifted uncomfortably, eyes darting towards his fellows to see if any of them would dare speak.
“Sire,” he said, when none did, “It seems to me that there is a great deal of feeling among the lords that the preference is for another contest with the Infidel over Iberia. The last campaign there concluded indecisively, and the prospect of both plunder and glory still motivates many of them, since they had both aplenty during the reign of your father.”
Pepin looked surprised, it hadn’t occurred to him that many of them might be actually looking for a conflict. “Really? You think so?” and his courtiers murmured in agreement, for Pepin, while a capable commander once on the field, did not have the kind of mind that saw war as necessary for glory, or for prestige, seeing it as a necessary evil at best, he could not summon his father’s old detachment to the horrors of it, the lives it ruined, the lands it burned. It all seemed so… wasteful. Carry out his father’s commands though he always had done, now that he was Emperor, he had intended to pursue a more restrained course.
“We believe so sire,” Ebbon replied, emphasising the military nature of Pepin’s role with the informal and curt ‘sire’ rather than the more formal ‘sovereign’ or, ‘Emperor’ used for more courtly functions, “the feeling is very much that the expansion of the infidel should be restrained, and the opportunity granted by Constantinople’s war should not be underestimated”.
“I see,” Pepin cast a glance around the room, pursing his lips, “And you all feel as one on this matter?” he asked the others, to murmurs of agreement from his councillors.
That put Pepin in a bind, for he shared the views expressed in distant Constantinopolis that the East could not hold the islands so far from their own lands, that their fall, whether to the Umayyads or to the Franks, was inevitable at some point or another. But with an ally’s territory being attacked and his own lords clamouring for yet another conflict with the infidels, he would be foolish to disregard the opportunity.
“I shall think on this,” was all the Emperor would say, and dismissed his council for the day…
And indeed he did, but for all the debate in his heart, he knew he had no choice. To refuse a war that his lords clamoured for would be to look weak, especially with the infidel already mobilising to fight another enemy on another front. How to deny them what would look like the chance of easy plunder and glory?
It had to be done, and he knew it, but he hated it all the same.
They have bent me to their will, and made me act to it. My father would’ve crushed them beneath his heel and made them his without them even knowing it. I haven’t his gifts, I know that now.
Not for the first time, he wished his father were still here…
There were others who wished their father were here to. Poor young Loup, whom Pepin had named Duke of Milan, was a mere child of 11. The Emperor’s fourth son, Pepin planned to slowly get the Lombard nobles whom had been so restive since his father’s conquests used to the notion of more direct rule by the Francian lords.
“I remember the sword and fire my father had to bring to Italia to quell the last rebellion,” Pepin had told his eldest, Renaud, when appointing Loup to the Duchy, “I shall not see it happen once more.”
So poor Loup, barely old enough to understand what a duchy was, had been formally named as the Duke, with a Lombard count holding the regency for him until such a day as he came of age to be shipped for there to rule in his own right. Rumor that the Emperor was also scouring Italia for a noble Lombard girl for his son to wed at the same time only made it more likely that the Emperor planned to bind Italia closer to the centre of the realm.
“The Alps separate us from Italia,” Renaud had reminded his younger brother, on a day when the younger boy didn’t understand why his father was saying he would soon have to be sent away. “But with you ruling them, the Italians will see we are one people, and one Empire now. They will accept this when they see a good ruler.”
“How will I know if I’m good?” the little boy had asked.
“You will be,” the Prince had assured him with a smile and a pat on his shoulder. “Italia under your guidance shall bloom into the ornament of our family brother, of that I have no doubt/”
The right words to say, even if the younger boy didn’t yet grasp them.
But neither was to know that it was Iberia, not Italia, that now echoed in their father’s mind, until word reached them that the Emperor had summoned his armies for yet another campaign in Hispania…
Prince Loup of Milan, whom the Emperor sought to use to draw Italia and it's territories closer to the imperial core.
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Three new rulers with much to prove are on an Iberian collision course and the Iberian populace will be the greatest losers. How did #4 son move ahead of his brothers to receive the Duchy of Milan? Thank you for the update.
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The others are in line for much greater prizes. Pepin palmed him off with something that needs doing in the long run but isn't going to be a larger prize than what his elder siblings get
Get used to it in this AAR. It happens a lot
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