Rome AARisen - a Byzantine AAR

Nehekara - Oh, what's so disturbing about young Andronikos' tendencies? Perhaps Manuel's sobriquet should have been "the Gardener?" It seems to be one everyone likes to apply to him now... and its fitting and filled with lovely irony

Laur - I'd say another thing that brought an end to successful dynasties was usually the dynasty itself... success breeds competition, and dynastic competition (often coupled with other events) leads to instability that can shake a state to the core....

Leviathan07 - There are quite a few very long lasting dynasties out there. The Japanese imperial family claims descent from a progenitor very very long ago (7th century, IIRC?), but the claim is, obviously, unsubstantiated.

Tommy4ever - It's what CK and hillbillies have in common! :rofl:

von Sachsen - One would hope. There is the matter of that little curse though...

Basil II - By the end of the CK era, there literally wasn't a noble alive in Europe that wasn't distantly related to the Megas... when your dynasty lasts this long, there are more than enough daughters running around to wed even lowly counts on a budget... and enough lowly sons far removed from the imperial lineage to take miscellaneous counties no one wants. IIRC there was a Komnenid count of Skane in 1399, as well as Komnenid Dukes of Argyll and Vitebsk. Those are just the weird ones I remember off the top of my head...

Hawkeye1489 - That's pretty much what happened. There was no co-Emperorship in game... CK doesn't have the mechanics to simulate such an arrangement (despite the fact a fair number of emperors and kings crowned their designated heirs during their lifetime and "split ruled" with them).

Saithis - Not totally, just mostly.

4th Dimension GUIDE TO KOMNENID SPEECH, PART IV

I am displeased with you: The subject will produce a knife and glare threateningly.

I am pleased with your actions: The subject will begin to hump your leg.

Sudaxe - We're inching towards the moment when it happens. I did post a little musical preview of it sometime back...

humancalculator - I didn't... this whole time Seyfuallah in game was ruling his Portugal/Mauretania combination, and Thomas III was ruling in Konstantinopolis. To be completely blunt, the truth of Thomas III's reign in game was that it was boring... outside of major construction project screenies, I have, maybe, five screenshots of worthy things. There were few wars apart from the occasional whack-a-vassal, and even those were so dispersed and ludicrous (Really, Sinai is a threat to Konstantinopolis? Really? ) that they would have been a letdown to mention. Other than Thomas going nuts and building things he didn't do much... so we needed a Komnenid for the Komnenid story! Seyfuallah got a positive reaction, and fit where things were going better than other options for the Komnenid-in-chief... for all his brilliance and deviousness, Albrecht couldn't fully be it... his German last name bans him from being more than the power-behind the throne, and Persia needed a better explanation for separation other than "Holy crap. I just took Persia. That was easy. I'm bored. I'll make it a kingdom to see what flag it gets."

In terms of gameplay, the mid 13th century was the doldrums for me, especially resisting the urge to go all out World Conquest. But I was good, and by the latter half of the century I'd found ways to amuse myself in ways that made good screenies for the AAR. Interestingly, it wasn't until about 1300 A.D. in the actual game that I started writing the original story of Demetrios ascending to the throne as Prince of Kappadokia...

Enewald - I juggled the idea of that, before I dismissed it. As exemplified by the Spanish and now Persian Komnenids, while the vast family shares the same name, they definitely don't share the same culture-apart from backstabbing and sex...


Next update is about half done. I'm hoping to put the finishing touches on most of the text tonight, and working on the graphics tomorrow. To be honest, I'm a little frustrated with it, mostly because I can't work on it when I want to! For the past couple weeks, my work rarely called me in... I have money saved up, so it wasn't a problem, and the upside was I got lots of time to update (Hence the recent update explosion). Now, for some reason, I am deemed indispensible to the point of overtime (No one's been fired, no changes have been made in policy, I've just suddenly gotten scheduled ALOT)... $$ is good, but it crimps my writing time, and nothing is more annoying that sitting at work, having the most wonderful idea for a scene in the whole world, not being able to write it down, and then forgetting by the end of the worknight.

Augh.

/end of rant.

Sudaxe - I'd definitely love any help I can get with the EU3 portion... CK leaves that region fragmented to hell, it's going to need some cleanup. Levi

Basil II - Probably a very unfortunate kingdom of of implosions...

Leviathan07 - And claiming to remember their names, and that those people were Emperors even then, also makes it unique!

AP & Avalanchemike - I've thought of doing that, but unfortunately the nature of my job (unloading trucks/loading dock work) means that I can't really carry a notepad, let alone be able to jot ideas down when they hit me. I'm sure the supervisors wouldn't like it if I dropped moving some piece of heavy freight because "Ooo! I have an idea on how Gabriel gets killed!" :rofl:

I know why you're here, so here is the update!



August 29th, 1258

Konstantinopolis

Gottfried von Franken, Megoslogothetes of the Roman Empire and heir apparent to the bureaucratic empire of his father, Albrecht von Franken, sighed, and rubbed his eyes.

Megoskyriomachos was a position of immense power, weight, and authority, but Megoslogothetes, despite its grand and imposing name, was no more than a glorified clerk. Gottfried stared once again at the pile of papers on his desk—all items that were supposed to meet the attention of his father, but were deemed too insignificant for the great Albrecht von Franken’s attention. Gottfried rubbed his eyes again, and cursed.

He’d been his father’s assistant since 1232, and had been appointed Megoslogothetes twenty years ago. Ever since that day, he’d bee handed the detritus of empire, the reams of parchment for pensions, appointments, and bribes that kept the wheels of government turning, but were excessively boring.


Gottfried stared out the window at the setting sun, over the beautiful vista that was Konstantinopolis. For not the first time, he sighed, wondering if this is what the name ‘von Franken’ was destined for—bookkeepers and accountants? From a family that were once the Kings of Germany, Italy and Burgundy? Surely Gottfried and his sons were intended for more? Yes, his father said Gottfried would inherit his political connections, his allies, his organization, but Gottfried didn’t want to be the power behind the throne… he was of imperial blood, he deserved the throne in Aachen, the one stolen from his grandfather!

Gottfried hissed audibly as the sun sunk lower on the horizon. Instead of tending his imperial roots, Gottfried’s father was content to be an assistant—which is what []Megoskyriomachos[/i] had been reduced to under Nikephoros—and to not pursue his own crown. Instead of using his power, his influence, to make the mightiest empire in the Known World help him regaining his throne, he was coddling that brat!

What made Andronikos so special? Gottfried growled to himself as he went back to work, sighing as his quill scritched across yet another meaningless document not worth his father’s time—Assistant undersecretary to the Chair of Philosophy at the Deukalion. Why was Gottfried being handed the meaningless, the boring, the worthless, while that eleven year old was being fawned over! Gottfried was his eldest son, his true son, not some step-son!

Gottfried knew the answer—Politics. Always politics. The younger von Franken hashed over the arguments he’d had with his father over the years on the subject… Albrecht felt the Western throne was untenable—to dangerous to hold, and out of realistic reach. Gottfried felt—no, he knew—that if he could get a Roman Emperor to back his claim, the Arpads would not matter! They would be swept aside into the sands of history like all usurpers! Instead of being hereditary clerks to the Romans, the von Frankens would be emperors in their own right!


Gottfried just needed a Roman imperial puppet to do all of it—someone more malleable than Nikephoros IV, and less unpredictable than Thomas III. Gottfried moved to yet another document, a list of ships set to dock in the Boukoleon today. He knew of someone—someone stranded in Persia because that vile Hohenstaufen woman couldn’t keep her legs closed.

Gottfried read the next parchment, and smiled.

The letter was nothing special—a request with the seal of Segeo Komnenos requesting that the ship Kronan from Azov be allowed special permission to tie up to the quays of the Boukoleon Palace docks in two days. Yet in those bland and official words was the means of Gottfried’s own rise to power. The younger von Franken smiled thinly as he read the usual formulaic greetings and saluations—Asbjorn, Gottfried admitted, was clever. Stupid Segeo had agreed to the plan, not knowing what Asbjorn had truly intended—and he’d even instructed the majordomo of his Konstantinopolis to lend his seal to Asbjorn’s fellow in the city!

The idiot!

“Segeo’s about to have the world come crashing down on him,” Gottfried muttered under his breath, the smile growing even wider. The entire mess would have Segeo’s seal on it, not Gottfried’s, nor Asbjorn’s. And from there, the word “Havigraes” would break the delicate political balance in the Roman world, allowing Gottfried von Franken, not his soon to be derelict and friendless father, to build the new world in his image using his father’s own puppet Thomas!

“Father will soon learn I can run puppets too,” Gottfried said quietly, looking out the window. The rising sun was blocked by the shadow of the immense Kosmodion Palace. It looked as if the huge structure was surrounded by a lurid, bloody halo. It seemed completely appropriate for what would soon be coming. From somewhere down below a horse whinnied, and Gottfried smiled.


A harsh rapping on the door to his chambers broke Gottfried’s reverie. The Megoslogothetes frowned—he wasn’t supposed to have any visitors this afternoon! Gottfried quietly slid open the left drawer of his desk. The silver sheen of a dagger glinted red in the setting rays of the sun.

“Yes?” Gottfried called, sitting rigid in his chair. He tensed as the door opened slowly, but all of that tension bled away as the head of his majordomo, an Arab named Isa, poked his head through the door.

“I’m sorry sir,” the servant said quickly, “I know you said no interruptions, but Chillarchos…”

“Lord von Franken!” Gottfried heard a familiar roar from somewhere outside the doors to his chambers, and sighed.

He knew this day was coming, but he’d hoped it’d be his father, not him, that would have to deal with Chillarchos Harold Godwinson of the Kyriotsekouri tagma.

The Kyriotsekouri (“Axe Lords”) were one of the newest units in the new Nikephoran army—since the arrival of the Steppe Danes, enterprising Sortmarkers had migrated south, offering their skills with axe and sword to the Emperors of the Known World. The numbers had been sufficient to not just rebuild the fighting skills of the Varangoi and Angeloi, but also to form this new regiment, the first that saw the Danes mounted. They were slated to be deployed that fall to the Hispanikoi Stratos. But before they left…


Gottfried watched as his servant blanched, then quickly disappeared before a looming shadow darkened his doorway, then a tall blonde giant straight from some minstrel’s yarn barged into his room.

Chillarchos Harold Godwinson was a colossus of a man, nearly six and a half feet tall, with piercing eyes the color of the sea and a vast mane of blonde hair. Unlike many of his fellow Sortmarkers, he’d partially given in to Roma fashion and shaved most of his beard, yet leaving a great mustache that bristled furiously as he stormed right up to Gottfried’s desk. The smell of horses and sweat ingrained in the man’s harsh battle armor and muddy field cloak filled the Megoslogothetes’ nose.

“Lord Gutfried!” the man roared out the Megoslogothetes name in his distinctive northern accent, his long mustache twitching in anger.

“Chillarchos Godwinson?” Gottfried blinked. As von Franken watched, the Sortmarker’s fists opened and closed as he calmed himself down from one of his infamous rages.

The chillarchos sighed, closing his eyes tight, his breaths large and deep. “Why,” the Sortmarker said quietly, before suddenly pausing with a wince. Another breath, another attempt. “My lord,” he began again, “I have served you Romans for many and good a time. I’ve seen battles in Persia, and battles in Italy.”

Gottfried nodded. Godwinson did not know it, but the Megos Domestikos had actually recommended to Gottfried’s father and the Megas Komnenos that the man should be given a red cape. Gottfried resisted the urge to wince—his father had been the one that’d stopped the promotion, a move Gottfried approved as well. It wasn’t because of Godwinson’s background—Romanion had raised many non-Romans to military command—it was… something else.

Likely, Gottfried knew, the reason for the chillarchos’ unplanned visit.

“So, my lord,” Godwinson raised a hand to his temple, pausing again. His breathing was faster, harder, and Gottfried saw he could see in the man’s body language the moment when he threw off the coat of civility. “Why in the name of God’s green earth is de Normandie the strategos of my tagma!”


Gottfried sighed. He was right. He was. Yet the Prince of Asturias…

“The man is a fat, greasy lout!” Godwinson thundered his complaint, “He spends all his time jousting and drinking, but he never actually sees his own damn troops! He never leads them in drills!” the Sortmarker began to pace, gesticulating angrily, “He never shows his face to his men! Yet we must follow his every whisper! His every thought even, despite the fact the man knows less about tactics than the present I left for the crap-boy in the latrine this morning!”

The Megoslogothetes winced. Godwinson was being charitable, actually.

“Why…” the chillarchos started to roar another complaint, when Gottfried’s raised hands brought his thunderous complaining to a halt. The blonde giant folded his hands in front of him, but rocked on his heels in impatience. Gottfried sighed, and took the small window the silence gave him.

“Yes, Chillarchos Godwinson, Prince Guillaume of Asturias has been placed as your superior officer,” Gottfried said. He raised his hand quickly, before the giant could even take in a breath to begin his verbal assault anew. Godwinson’s hands transferred to his hips—the Sortmarker glared down, shaking his head slowly in displeasure.

“However, My father,” Gottfried squarely placed the blame where it belonged, “placed de Normandie as your commander precisely for one reason.” Gottfried sighed, looking up at the Dane looming over him. “You,” he pointed up, straight at Godwinson’s chest.

“Me?” the huge Varangian’s eyes seemed to bulge out of his head. “Why… was this a jape? A bloody terrible one it was, milord!” Godwinson’s shocked voice was quickly regaining its explosive volume. “A terrible jape! A jape worthy of the crap-boy, and not…”

“It was not a joke!” Gottfried held up his hands, trying to calm the chillarchos down. To his amazement, the Dane stopped in midsentence. The Varangian’s hands flying to his hips, though, told Gottfried he had better make his explanation quick, or a new outburst loomed on the horizon.

“You are among the most respected chillarchoi in the entire army,” Gottfried said quickly, while he had the momentary silence. “My father knows, and I know, that you are the only one who could have kept a tagma in fighting shape with such a piss-poor commander!”

Godwinson paused momentarily at the compliment, but Gottfried girded himself. Godwinson was an excellent commander—and he wouldn’t take the appointment of de Normandie laying down, not when he assumed his men’s lives were on the line. Which they weren’t—Gottfriend was fairly sure the moon would fall to the earth before Guillaume de Normandie actually took the field beside his official command. He was, however, an excellent politician, and the unofficial leader of the Latins of northern Spain. Appointing him, knowing he’d never actually take the field and order men around, was a cheap bribe—Gottfried agreed with that.

“Then why did de Normandie get his red cape?” the Varangian sputtered, his voice quieter but still near dangerous.

Gottfried thought for a second of explaining the complex interplay between Roman and Latin in Spain, the history of mistrust and rebellion, or the simple fact that for all his incompetence the man’s daughter was a friend of the Kaisar, but stopped himself before the words even crossed his lips.

“Politics, dear chillarchos,” was all Gottfried said to sum it up.


August 31st, 1258

Baghdad

Gabriel Komnenos wanted to stretch, but there was no room on the divan. Sourly, it seemed even in the sinfully ornate apartments that had been his prison for the past ten years, there wasn’t enough room for Gabriel. Once, Gabriel Komnenos had been the most feared Roman general alive—the Conqueror of the Mongols, the Persian Lord—his list of accolades seemed endless, until another title was added.

Excommunicated.

On that dire news, everyone had abandoned him—even his own sons. They had been the cruel minds that had decided, unable to commit patricide, that they would lock him away in one wing of the sumptuous Palace of Baghdad, walling up the lower windows and ringing it with loyal guards. For a Lion such as Gabriel, the fate was almost worse than death.

But Gabriel had survived.

The decade in his gilded prison had left Gabriel past plump. The once-Emperor of the Romans had gained forty pounds in the ten years locked away, fed by a continual supply of the best and finest dishes the East had to offer. Gabriel ten years ago had grumpily accepted the meals as he had once accepted wallowing in debauchery, but the older, wiser Gabriel—he knew what it was for.

His men wouldn’t recognize him. He now looked anything but martial. Confined in marble halls with gilded candlesticks, he had no place to exercise, and remove the weight, so it piled on, turning him into simply another plump noble the soldiers would despise.


Gone also were those days of debauchery. Early on, he’d waded into all the things Frederica’s mind could make, if only to distract himself from the fact he was confined here by order of his own sons. In his anger and resentment, he’d gone through his share of men and women, but each daily act felt duller to his mind. What was once sharp, crisp, intense, became muted, gray, worth little more than a sigh. As he slowly disengaged from the orgies, it seemed Frederica only increased in her romps. Gabriel frowned, a sour taste in his mouth. Even now she was likely in her quarters tarrying with several manservants. The image of her mouth, now missing teeth, and her boils and marks of disease on her body from years of misuse only made him recoil even more from the thought.

If the banality of the thing he once devoured wasn’t enough, he was still excommunicated, still banned from services, still persona no grata according to Holy Church. The Patriarch had refused to lift the proscription on Gabriel until he abandoned Frederica and his daughter by her and made penance—something Gabriel couldn’t do, no matter how much his political brain told him it was the easiest, and best, thing for him to do. The reason was currently below in her quarters, faster asleep.

Safiya.

His daughter by his brother’s wife.


She had all sorts of names outside the confines of Gabriel’s jail—most of them unsavory, the Whore-child being the most common. Yet whenever he saw her, Gabriel saw his chin, his eyes, his hair, and he couldn’t help but smile. While her mother was busily finding new mates to spread her maladies to, Safiya seemed destined for a bright future. Even though he saw her only rarely, he treasured the time he had with her. She was his blood, and he couldn’t bear to cast her or her mother out.

Not that it mattered—since his dramatic fall from grace, few cared much about what Gabriel Komnenos did inside his palatial cell. Time, it seemed, had moved past him. He was a dinosaur, a relic of a past age of war in this new age of peace…

Or was it?

The still-titular Emperor’s eyes looked up and down his opposite. Even three months after his arrival in Baghdad, Gabriel was still amazed how un-Danish Asbjorn Knytling looked. Gabriel had seen his fair share of Sortmarkers—tall, broad men, with long flowing hair and rangy blonde beards. Asbjorn was short—only five feet, at best—with raven black hair and sunken eyes that bordered on illness. His skin was pale even for the Danes, and he walked with a heavy limp—a gift of some long lost childhood injury.


“…can bring about change in Konstantinopolis,” Asbjorn was saying, and Gabriel nodded. It was rare for him to have such an esteemed visitor, or any visitors for that matter. His sons were paranoid that someone could plot their father’s release from his jail, and they harshly oversaw who went in and who went out of that wing of the palace. Today was different, however—for Nikephoros, at least, sat to his father’s right, listening to the same words from Asbjorn Knytling.

Part of Gabriel had wanted to refuse his son’s request that he ‘sit in’ while Asbjorn Knytling presented his case. After all, hadn’t Alexandros and Nikephoros jointly usurped him, and ran Persia for over a decade, only giving their father reports of how his kingdom progressed, but not letting him rule? Hadn’t they jointly bent over before Konstantinopolis and that snake von Franken? Yet the prospect Asbjorn offered—the end of Albrecht von Franken’s “reign” in Konstantinopolis, Gabriel rightly restored to Konstantinopolis—it was that, not Nikephoros’ desire that the nature of the talks stay secret, that had motivated him to agree that the negotiations would take place in his wing of the palace.

Yet Gabriel couldn’t completely hate his sons. Yes, they’d imprisoned him in this wing of the Baghdad Palace, guards loyal to them posted at every entrance, the people allowed to visit him strictly regulated. But as much as Gabriel hated them for what they did, he was also proud. The end of the wars in the East had seen Persia on its knees, and Mesopotamia strained to support the new Basilikon to Persios. But Gabriel’s sons (and, to a lesser extent, his brother-in-law Demetrios Scolari of Shirvan) had worked miracles. Gabriel was disinclined to believe everything he heard from his sons mouths when they spoke of the kingdom, but he could look out the window of his tower and see the markets. They were flooded, and the Emperor’s keen eye spotted the dress of men from Shirvan, Persia, Arachoisa, Trasoxiania, Romanion, and Arabia—and hordes of strange men in dress he didn’t recognize. That told him of prosperity. The increasingly ornate and formidable arms of his guards spoke the same.

Gabriel wasn’t sure, but it was apparent that Nikephoros and Alexandros had pulled Persia up from the ground, and grudgingly, Gabriel admitted that the decade of peace probably had something to do with it.


“Think on it!” the fourth man present burbled excitedly, and Gabriel couldn’t help but smile at the teen that would be his co-Emperor should Asbjorn’s idea come to fruition.

Thomas Komnenos (Gabriel hoped, for the sake of chroniclers, that his nephew would prove more creative in naming his offspring than his father or grandfather had been) was blonde like his uncle, with open, frank eyes that were often bursting with excitement. Like his father, he tended to babble on and on about what interested him at the moment, which varied by the moment. Like his uncle, he was stubborn once he committed, something that made handling the 15 year old especially onerous to his underpaid tutors.

“Now, if Asbjorn causes the confusion he promises,” Thomas said slowly, looking towards his cousin Nikephoros. Gabriel resisted the urge to grin slightly—the boy had pluck, assuming he could ram his idea into his equally stubborn cousin’s head. Konstantinopolis was as much Thomas’ as Gabriel’s, and Gabriel had no intention of unseating his brother or his brother’s son.

“Asbjorn,” Nikephoros coldly nodded to the Dane, “promises much, but he’s very shy on the details.”

So far, Nikephoros had been the only thing holding back the entire endeavor! Gabriel’s son had insisted on names, details, and plans in triplicate. Without these, he refused to move, and as the Persian army knew him, and followed him, it meant Gabriel was powerless to intervene…

“But it’s my throne!” Thomas snapped, his voice high and whiny like it’d been the last few days when Nikephoros had stonewalled. Gabriel frowned, then looked at his two sons. Secretly, the Emperor cursed his obese body! If he was lighter, if he was ten years younger…

“You forget, it’s his throne,” Nikephoros jutted a finger towards his father, “and my throne as much as it’s yours.” Nikephoros’ voice still had that damningly calm, cool tone it had since Gabriel could remember—nothing, not even his cousin’s whining, seemed to ruffle him.

“You have 100,000 men!” Thomas screeched angrily.


“Do we know who his friends are?” Nikephoros asked quietly, his hazel eyes showing gray.

“Does it matter?” Gabriel grumbled finally, shifting on his divan. It groaned in protest at his movements. “Asbjorn says they are powerful. We know for sure one is the King of the Danes, and another is Segeo from Tarraco. Even if they aren’t, if they only provide a distraction, we…” he added, before nodding towards Thomas to echo the Prince’s words. “100,000 trained troops? A goodly number that…”

“Only if we strip every border to the politkoi and nothing else!” Nikephoros complained, his voice growing stiffer. He was plainly mad, but a stiff voice was about the worst thing Gabriel’s son ever did. “What do you think Altani Khatun will do if she hears of our tagmata moving west?” Nikephoros snorted slightly. “How many of the hundreds of thousands the Spaniard could muster if he felt truly threatened could we stand?”

“She’ll raid, and your vaunted politikoi will blunt her movements,” Asbjorn said coolly, that famous snowy smile breaking across his equally snow white face. “Majesty, great gains are made with great risk, and the Spaniard has more enemies than you think. He has a paper army, no more! And to lose Persia but gain Konstantinopolis?” The Dane shrugged his shoulders. “A beautiful trade, My Lord! And all for the price of Azov, on our end…”

At first Gabriel had been amused that all of this plotting and confusion was over a tiny port he’d never heard of. Azov wasn’t particularly important—other than being the capital of a backwater theme it was only a minor port, little more, nothing compared to Theodosia or Tmutarakan, that was for sure. But Azov also represented the monopoly the Roman state held over the lucrative Black Sea trade—a monopoly that would be broken if the Danes, or anyone else, gained a port on that great body of water.


“A poor trade it would be, if we lost Persia, and gained Konstantinopolis only to lose our army,” Nikephoros replied, voice glacially cold. “How would we keep Konstantinopolis? No… we won’t summarily marshal our men, instead…”

“It’s my throne, you fool!” Thomas yelled. “Why won’t you move? Are you a coward? Is that why?”

“No, Thomas, I am not a coward, I am merely saying…” Nikephoros tried to speak.

“Yes, you are a coward! That’s why!”

“We do not have the resources, nor the power, to challenge Konstantinopolis!” Nikephoros roared, his voice thundering through the rafters of the apartment.

Everyone went silent.

Nikephoros never yelled.

The Autokrator’s eyes flashed around the room, fury boiling and apparent as he flew to his feet. “We muster more than we did years before, yes!” The eldest son began to stalk around the room. “We have coin, yes! We have the means of making war, yes!” He suddenly stopped, turned and glared at his father, at Asbjorn, at his cousin Thomas. “But why should we! We don’t have the means of holding the Empire even if we took it! We would be crushed by the next claimant to run along, and I need not remind you all of how many of those are out there!” he shouted again, knocking over a vase. Gabriel had never seen his eldest son angry. There were few things that would frighten Gabriel Komnenos… but his low, broad son, the look in his eyes absolutely murderous, made his resolve shatter as quickly as the vase once it hit the cold, marble floor.

“Albrecht and the Spainard have the state wrapped up neatly!” Nikephoros went on, “and regardless of what that man says,” he pointed at Asbjorn, “we can’t be sure the Spaniard will get laid low! Or even if he does, if Albrecht won’t simply steer things from behind his step-son!” Nikephoros looked down at the broken vase, and gave a sigh. His whole body seemed to deflate, the anger ebbing out through that noise. “Someone clean this up,” Nikephoros groaned, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“So what do we do then?” Thomas asked, cowed and quiet.

“We wait,” Nikephoros said, voice was once again quiet, but not nearly as serene as before.

“Wait?” Asbjorn asked, alarm plain in his voice.

“Wait?” Gabriel echoed, surprise echoing in his.

“It will give us time to see if this Dane’s plan works!” Nikephoros said, casting yet another suspicious look at Asbjorn. “Sortmark is great, yes, but I will not go lurching off to Konstantinopolis half-armored based on the mere promise of a Dane!” Nikephoros hissed, anger creeping back into his voice, “Or the words of his unnamed accomplices!”

“We don’t need accomplices!” Thomas snarled. “I… I mean we,” the young man hurriedly corrected himself, “have one hundred thousand men! Nikephoros is still reorganizing his armies! They are numerous, but they aren’t prepared! If we move…”

“They are great men…” Asbjorn began his defense once again, and once again, he was interrupted by Nikephoros, the true Autokrator of Persia.

“No, we wait,” Nikephoros grumbled, holding his temple even as his cousin continued on.

“…we can strike them low!” Thomas ignored Nikephoros.

Nikephoros might have been a broad, burly man, but stalked over to his cousin with the speed of a tiger. In a second, he loomed over the smaller, scrawnier form of Thomas.

“No,” he said simply, sharply, “we wait.”

Thomas looked up at his cousin, then over at Gabriel, fire in his eyes. Instantly the younger Komnenid was on his feet, staring up at his older, bigger cousin.

“Fine!” Thomas snarled. The teen roughly grabbed Asbjorn Knytling by the colloar, and stalked towards the great bronze doors that marked the boundary of where Gabriel Komnenos could go. “I’ll raise my own army!” he shrieked, “I’ll raise it with Sortmark coin, and I’ll take Konstantinopolis myself! You all can sit and rot in this hellhole if you want!”

“It will be your doom,” Gabriel heard his son utter quietly as his nephew stormed out.


So many more questions are raised than answers—chief of which, what or who is on that boat, and how will it shake the Roman world and cause the chaos everyone seeks? Why will Havigraes be the important word of the operation? Frederica’s excesses have caught up to her, but Gabriel seems to have calmed down? Or is this just temporary? And Thomas the Youngest, despite being so young, is determined to move on Konstantinopolis. Will he get the backing he thinks he will? Or is this just another crazy Thomas? Some explosive things come, next time on Rome AARisen!

As an aside, Harold Godwinson is a cameo homage to Aethellan: A Tale of Kings by AlexanderPrimus! He’s back, and updating again! If you like this AAR, you’ll love his as well (No Byzantines though, but we can overlook that “error.” )