PART THE SECOND: IN WHICH PERISLAV BECOMES JEALOUS OF THE ROMAN EMPEROR, AND MUCH SWORDPLAY AND LYING TAKES PLACE
After a suitably distressing absence, I have returned, dear reader, to continue the tale of Vikan Vojislavljevic. Unfortunately, Vikan has decided to continue his narration…
Ah yes, now where was I?
Your grandfather’s passing.
Ah! Indeed! So, in 1068 my grandfather passed on due to a terrible seashell accident.
Yes. It was an ‘accident.’ The information I know indicates that a seashell might have been involved, along with a sword,a shovel, and a rampaging bear or elephant. Something tells me the seashell did not strike first, and Perislav was very determined the accident would take place.
This left my father Perislav as
Zhupan of all of Rashka and Dioclea. At this time, the Roman Empire also had a new Emperor – a man named Michael who couldn’t speak a single coherent sentence, and could barely tie his own laces. The man was an absolute fool. It caused all sorts of trouble. For example, when the Roman Emperor visited Dyracchion in the fall of 1069, my father took all of us, yes, even me, to the port city to pay our respects. My mother spent many a day and night with the Emperor – she was trying to teach him to read, you see. The poor fellow needed her ministrations …
Indeed. Michael’s father likely gave him a large ‘library.’ I’m sure that’s why your mother was interested.
She would always come out of the Emperor’s chambers red faced and happy. I’m sure it those must have been pleasant scrolls they shared – I overheard my mother talking about something large. It must’ve been the Emperor’s library collection.
Yes. That’s what it was. She liked Michael’s large ‘library,’ which was probably far bigger than your father’s ‘library.’
But I digress. He had a frightful stutter, and sometimes it took him several minutes to press through the sentence he wished to complete. My father was a very impatient man, and one day he saw the Emperor and my mother reading. Michael’s slow reading must have made my father angry, because we immediately left Dyrrachion that very day.
Yes, I’m sure Perislav was jealous of Michael’s large scrolls.
It wasn’t more than a day after we returned that my mother was sent to a convent off the coast of Ragusa. Father told me it was because mother needed to “clear her wits” and “learn to accept what God has given him.” I never knew my father was into libraries that much. He never seemed interested in books much before that point, and he hardly spoke of books afterwards either, save when swearing he would get vengeance on Emperor Michael for what he did to my mother. The whole affair was most puzzling.
How you could miss such obvious things is the what is puzzling, Lord Vikan.
However, I digress.
Michael’s generals all hated him, and as all good Romans do, they came together and jointly resolved to be free of their indolent, ignorant master.
Ah, one can dream.
In the spring of 1070, the general in charge of Paphalogia broke away, and quickly the revolt spread like… some revolt-spreading thingy.
Wildfire? Quicksilver? Your mother’s legs?
I remember things clearly. It was the summer of 1073. I had just turned sixteen, and left St. Michael’s. A traveling carnival had stopped by the village near the monastery one night, and had brought along a bear. Confident this was a trap, I stole away during the middle of the night, and bravely…
This…is…pure…balderdash. I will not pollute your mind, dear reader, with Vikan’s blatant foolery.
…arrived at my father’s court in Dioclea. My father was impressed at my escape, and with great pomp and ceremony, I was installed as my father’s personal chaplain, to guide him in the ways of God and avoidance of bears.
I can assure you, dear reader, that Prince Perislav was not pleased at his eldest son’s return. Lord Vikan apparently rambled on and on about either God or bears. Prince Perislav decided he could stand conversations about the former, and not the latter. Hence Lord Vikan’s first appointment to be the personal priest of the royal house.
Anyways, about this same time these wondrous events were happening to me, the Roman generals in charge of Vidin and Turnovo broke free from the Empire. My father sent some missives to the general in Vidin – no doubt asking for apples or something of the sort in helping rid our lands of bears – and the general, styling himself a Prince as well, rebuffed our polite request. Well, this insult could not go unpunished, so my father resolved to go to war, take Vidin, and take the apples he wanted at swordpoint.
Prince Perislav in July of 1073 sent a letter to the Strategos in Vidin demanding he immediately surrender his territory, along with some blatant forgeries stating that those lands belonged to the Vojislavljevich clan. The strategos refused, and having long coveted the lands next to the Danube, Perislav went to war.
So, in September of 1073, my father went to war. As chaplain, I was a high ranking official within the government of our principality, and thus I was given an army command. We marched north, and fought a series of battles against the Byzantine rebels, where there was much daring and swordplay. I spilled my fair share of blood, but father emerged victorious after crushing the renegade Greeks near the Danube on October 7th.
Lord Vikan was given 50 ill-armed squires and knaves and told to defend Dioclea, the furthest location from Vidin. Clearly Prince Perislav had great faith in the ability of his clerically trained, martially inexperienced-cannot-lift-a-sword-if-his-life-depended-on-it son on the field of battle. Lord Vikan’s greatest deed of daring during this time was discovering that he could plunder the chastity of milkmaids and no one would care.
Naturally, this conquest did not set well with the other Greeks, but they were too busy squabbling with Michael to aid their compatriot – all save the lord of Naissus and the general in charge of Turnovo. They marched towards my father and I with a host as vast as the sands of the seashore, a horde of men as great as could be mustered by the armies of New Rome.
Both Lord Basilieos and Strategos Andronikos were distracted fighting the Emperor. Lord Basil of Naissus sent 150 ill-armed peasants, while Andronikos added 200 spearmen and 5 mounted men to this ‘immense assault.’ Perislav, by the testimony of people who were there, is said to have had at least 3,000 under arms, including 500 armored horsemen.
A really fair fight, you might say.
Of course my father fought through these hordes like…a creature-thingy that eats other creature-thingies…
I apologize, dear reader. Lord Vikan is as skilled at analogies as a base-born prostitute would be skilled Christian liturgies. I would say he has the literary skills of a German, but that would be an insult to Germans everywhere.
…and took Belgrade, Naissus, and parts of Turnovo in short time. Humiliated, in 1074 these lords surrendered before my father, and in his magnaminity, Perislav allowed Turnovo to keep most of his lands.
Emperor Michael was killed off in Anatolia in December of 1073, and Isaakios Komnenos rose to the imperial purple. As you will see, unlike Michael Dukas, who had lost most of Anatolia to the Turk and been harried and crushed by his own vassals, Isaakios Komnenos was made of far harder metal. He made peace with the Turk, then marched his lands into Turnovo, seizing the territory from the rebel general Andronikos. At once, Andronikos was without lands, and Perislav was prevented from stealing the whole theme. To boot, he is said to be a just and noble Christian man, blessed with intelligence and wit.
I shall stop speaking of him, lest the sin of jealousy cloud my view of his scribes.
Of course, such a victory needed a celebration. So once we returned to Dioclea, my father announced he was creating a new title. Instead of being merely Prince of Dioclea, my father would now call himself King…
And here, dear reader, is where things get interesting…
I hope.
The lands of Perislav Vojislavljevic on March 6th, 1074 – the day the Kingdom of Serbia is declared. For those who wish to know the correct answer, blue is the Kingdom of the Croats, grey is the Kingdom of Hungary, and green are the lands of the Pechenegs. Or you can be a fool and use Vikan’s horrid names for those places. I care not.
I think I’m going to visit the Prince’s wine cellar.
