Chapter 12
The Disfigured
Once again under the Russian control. Taisto remembered a story his deceased father had told him. Juhani, the founder of the Sydänmetsä-dynasty and Taisto’s grandfather, had also once been a vassal of the Gardariki. Though Juhani did it voluntarily, Taisto still found some hope from the story. Juhani did after all become independent again, with more land than ever before. Taisto should also take an advantage of the situation, conquer land while being under the protection of Russians. And a lot of land Taisto had to conquer. He was merely controlling 4 counties, which was far away from the size of the former Kingdom of Finland.
But Taisto didn’t have enough soldiers for any wars, most of them had died in the war against the Russians. Instead, he decided to focus on diplomacy: securing good relations with his new liege and hopefully making new alliances.
Taisto had merely been a vassal of Arnbjörn for a month and he was already asking Taisto to become a general of Gardariki. Taisto accepted the offer, and so he was part of the Gardariki’s army. Hopefully he could spot the weak points of the Russian army while leading it.
In July Taisto tried to find a potential ally from the Western world. He only had one child to marry off, his heir Lemetti. Unfortunately, not many were interested in marrying an underaged son of a powerless duke. Nevertheless Taisto was able to find a betrothed for his son: the countess Hextilda of Derby. She was not the most powerful person in the known-world, well, she had little to no power. Taisto still wanted a betrothal between her and Lemetti because it was patrilineal: their future children will be part of the Sydänmetsä-dynasty, and so the heir for the county of Derby too. Soon a Finn will control land in the Anglo-Saxon land!
The spring was peaceful in the kingdom of Gardariki. But when the winter came and Finns were ready to celebrate another Christmas, Taisto received a letter from his liege. The lunatic Arbjörn had declared a war against Taisto’s brother, the duke Uoti of Satakunta! He wanted to conquer the county of Pohjanmaa, the place where the house of Sydänmetsä was born! Sadly Taisto couldn’t help his brother. Instead, as a general Asikko had to lead the Russians forward, to conquer the Finnish land.
The war had continued for almost an year when unexpected news reached the kingdom of Gardariki. The duke Uoti of Satakunta had died of cancer at the age of 24, and the Satakunta had elected a new ruler: Havu Sydänmetsä. He was a cousin of both Uoti and Taisto. He was a handsome man who was known to be kind, strong and chaste. He also was the same person who the late duke Erkki of Karelia had tried to make the King of Finland, twice. But only now Havu, at the age of 28, gained his first title. Even with a new ruler Satakunta was not expected to win the invading Russians though.
Couple months later, on 17th February of 938, Taisto’s only son, Lemetti, turned 16-years-old. He had finished his education in the ways of faith and learning. He was a humble and a temperate person, but from time to time little envious of others. The court wanted to know him well as he was going to the successor of Taisto oneday.
Taisto was still leading the Russian soldiers, from a battle to another. The king of Arbjörn had gotten into another war, against the Chiefdom of Merya, so Taisto had even more work as a general. News around the world reached him slower than usually. Nonetheless the news in April 938 were bigger than ever. The Finnish merchants that have visited the kingdom of Svitjod all told the same story: the King Tyke of Svitjod has converted to Catholicism! The whole Northern world was shocked, this happened so quickly. Nevertheless Taisto was really happy. Even the pagan Norsemen were able to see the light and start praising the only true God.
As Taisto had lead Russian soldiers with his liege King Arbjörn, he had learned a lot about this man. His personality and looks were really interesting. Firstly, he was one-handed and one-eyed, which made him look like a person who has experienced a lot in his life. Maybe because of that he also was a simply lunatic person. Sometimes his stuff made absolutely no sense, but everyone tried to understand and agree with him. He was the king after all, and a very stubborn one. If he wanted something, he got it. He was also a known drunkard: sometimes even on important days he was found drinking. His behaviour and manners were something you don’t expect from a king. But nobody ever told him that as he was the most powerful man in the region.
Unfortunately Arbjörn didn’t like Taisto much. Well, he almost hated Taisto. He even once said that Finns are simple and primitive people who always needs a protection of an outsider, like him. Because of this, Taisto hated Arbjörn back, but didn’t let him see that. When the war against the Satakunta was over and the county of Pohjanmaa was in the control of Arbjörn, Taisto personally handed him a gift, a pouch of gold. This of course made Arbjörn happy. He spoke good about the Finns for sometime. Couple weeks after the gift Taisto decided to try his luck and ask Arbjörn to give him the county of Pohjanmaa. It was a bad move. Arbjörn did not only decline, but he started to see Taisto in bad light again.
Everything was back to normal. Taisto was home and there were no wars in sight. Now he was able to relax a bit and forget Arbjörn for a little while. Unfortunately just for a short while because couple of months later, in June, Taisto received a new letter from his loony liege. And he couldn’t believe what the letter said. Arbjörn had announced a new law to the kingdom: The Hole in the Wall Act. It was an utterly hilarious law that everyone in the kingdom of Gardariki decided to ignore. Luckily even Arbjörn himself quickly forgot its existence and started thinking about new “great” acts.
In October the chancellor of Taisto informed Taisto that he has fabricated a claim for the county of Karelia. Taisto didn’t want to use the claim yet, as the duke of Karelia had a rather big army that easily rivalled Taisto’s. Luckily there was other targets. The duchy of Satakunta wasn’t a powerful one, and Taisto would probably win a war against it. Sadly his council didn’t want to declare a war. Even Taisto’s wife opposed any wars, even after receiving a big “gift” from her husband. Instead of using all his savings in a short war, Taisto invested a little bit of gold to develop the market village of the Käkisalmi. Taisto wanted to slowly make Käkisalmi the most important city of the North. It already had a Western like castle built by Taisto’s father, King Asikko.
All seemed to be going well until one cold November morning. Taisto felt nauseous and not long after waking up, he was already vomiting. Taisto immediately asked his court physician, Bishop Jaakoppi, for help. Jaakoppi, after praying and asking advice from the skies, came up with a treatment. He simply drained a lot of blood from Taisto. Unfortunately it seemed to do absolutely nothing. The same day it came obvious Taisto also had diarrhea. He was suffering from food poisoning.
Jaakoppi told Taisto to spend more time praying and promised to come back with a treatment the next day. Taisto did as told, and spent all his time praying to the only true God, which made him magically feel little better. Jaakoppi came to see him the next day, as he had promised. Jaakoppi did not only come up with one, but two treatments. He said that the other one would be way more riskier, but if succeeded, it would surely cure Taisto from his illness. As a brave Finn, Taisto agreed to the riskier treatment which was a removal of a tainted tissue. Jaakoppi was sure that this tissue was the root of the illness. The bad side of this was that the “tissue” was Taisto’s face, which Jaakoppi “forgot” to mention. Luckily Taisto survived the surgery but he had to start wearing a mask to cover up the ugly result of the operation, a wound. Also the illness seemed to have gone, so things could have gone more badly.
Because of the pain in his face, Taisto wasn’t able to fully concentrate in his work as the King. He delegated most of his smaller jobs to his advisors and other important people. He still wanted to stay as the King: so he could make the most important decisions, like declare wars. He still didn’t have the approval of his council for a war though.
The year of 942 was really quiet in the duchy. Taisto wasn’t seen much outside of his castle. When the Christmas was close again, the wound from the operation was still looking bad. It had started leaking pus. Taisto was weaker than ever before. The court feared for his life. This Christmas was the saddest in ages…
A new year came, and one thing was clear: Taisto had become a different person . He was often angry, unlike ever before. He spent a lot of time thinking about the God: Why didn’t this Christian God heal him already? Why didn’t this God protect and help him?
But luckily, as the February came around, Taisto was getting better. He spent less and less of his time lying on bed and he was once again able to concentrate in his work. It seemed that the God had heard the prayers of the court and healed Taisto, even though Taisto had been rather skeptical towards him. Well, Taisto’s wound was still infected, but it didn’t prevent him from doing ordinary things anymore.
In March Taisto was fully back in the business, ready to govern his duchy once again. And the first month hadn’t passed when Taisto already received news from the Norse lands: news that shocked everybody. The King Bo of Danmark had conquered most of the Svitjod’s lands! Svitjod was nothing like a kingdom anymore, merely a memory of the past!
And luckily this King Bo wasn’t hostile towards the Finns like one of his ancestors, who tried to invade Finland, was. Instead, Bo was cooperative towards Taisto! He gladly accepted a betrothal between his only son, Ale, and Taisto’s sister, Maija. He even agreed to sign an alliance! Hopefully with the help of Bo Taisto can reclaim the Kingdom of Finland.
Confident of the strength of their duchy, Taisto’s council finally allowed him to declare a war: a war against his cousin the duke Havu of Satakunta. As the King Bo of Danmark was busy with his own war against an adventurer, Taisto didn’t call him to to the arms. Taisto was sure he could beat his cousin without a problem.
Taisto quickly gathered his soldiers to Käkisalmi. He didn’t take any generals with him as he was the best general of the North, who didn’t need the help of his subjects. He was ready to march to the enemy lands, but the enemy army was quicker and attacked his soldiers while they still were in the Käkisalmi. Even with a superior army, Taisto lost the battle. Most of the Finns knew why they lost: due to the lack of generals. Nobody dared to tell the truth to Taisto though.
The Finnish army had to flee to South. The pitiful cousin Havu quickly began besieging the Käkisalmi. Before Taisto had reorganized his soldiers, Havu had conquered both the ‘castle’ and the church of Käkisalmi. The war was lost. On 10th July 945, Taisto had to accept Havu’s demands: pay war reparations to him.
Taisto was really angry, wondering how he had lost the war. In the end he came to a conclusion that his spies hadn’t told him the true strength of the duchy of Satakunta. Couple of spies soon lost their jobs...
Luckily the Finns got something else to think about in the next February. Lemetti, Taisto’s only child, finally got married as his betrothed, Countess Hextilda of of Derby, finally turned 16 years old. Their wedding was held in the Anglo-Saxon land, in Derby. Because of this, Taisto and his court got a rare opportunity to visit a land of the West.
Unfortunately while in Derby, Taisto’s health started to go downhill once again. His face, something was happening to it. The infection had just gone away, but now it seemed like his eyebrows were… falling off. Something was wrong, and badly! Taisto was so worried that he wanted to go back to Finland immediately after the wedding. He also became scared of people seeing his face. He only let his court physician see him without the mask. As time went on Taisto also lost his eyelashes and his nose started to deform. It was clear he had one of the worst diseases one could think of: the leprosy.
Once Taisto was back home, he spent almost all his time in his castle. He wondered why the God had abandoned him. “Haven’t I been good Catholic?” he asked himself many times. But it seemed like Taisto hadn’t suffered enough: An year after the visit to Derby, Taisto’s long time ally, Duke Pierre of Burgundy, passes away. This only made Taisto even more worried about his destiny: his friends were dying, he was suffering from a disease and his court physician didn’t know how to heal him…
Taisto continued living his quiet life. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happened in an year. It was almost like the world had stopped… Until suddenly, on 18th November 948, he received huge news concerning.. Finland? The lunatic king Arbjörn of Gardariki, Taisto’s liege, has kicked the bucket! His big realm is now divided between the King Jedvard of Finland and the King Helgi II of Gardariki. And Taisto’s duchy of Pohjoismaa was left as a part of the, now weakened, Kingdom of Gardariki…
