PROLOGUE
LOMBARDIA
DECEMBER 26, 1066
Ahh. Hello. Happy Saint Stephen's Day. Please, take a seat. Don't be shy. You're my guest.
The map hanging from the wall in the corner? Well, this is my plotting room, and those are fairly standard decor. Now--oh, don't be alarmed by Tybalt. He just wants to say hello. He's a real sweetie. Aren't you, Tybalt? Aren't you a sweetie kittie? Come sit on Daddy's lap. Yes, yes, you're a sweetie kitty. Ooo, boo, boo.
Relax. BLACK cats are witch's familiars. White cats are perfectly okay. Now--you're here as my Saint Stephen's Day act of charity, and...
What? Who am I? You don't know? I am AZZO D'ESTE, DUKE OF LOMBARDIA! Okay, that's the short version. My full name is Alberto Azzo d'Este, the Second, and my full title is Duke of Lombardia, Count of Lombardia and Pavia. But hey--everybody calls me Azzo. And that includes you. Say it! Very good! We're going to get along just fine.
The painting in the corner? A pig? Nonsense, my good man! That's not a pig! Why, that's my liege, Heinrich, King of Germany, Italy and Burgundy, and prospective Holy Roman Emperor,
MAY HE LIVE A THOUSAND YEARS!
Suspended in a pit of dung. Head first. Hung by his feet. With fornicating rats making a home in his belly.
There. Got that out of my system. Sorry for the whisper, but that's the state of things in our happy little quasi-empire. A man can't even be safe in his own plotting room.
As you've gathered, I'm not a happy camper. Why should I be? I'm an Italian nobleman, and my master is a spotty teenage German prince with a face like a pig, and a heart and mind to match. I call him 'King Oink' myself. You'd think we Italians would be used to calling the sausage-eaters over the Rhine 'boss' by now, but--no. No, it still stings. Especially the present lot.
You see--I don't know if you know your history, but Italy--well, it used to be something special. Once, a little city named Rome united the pennisula, and then united everything else they could get their hands on into this thing called 'the Roman Empire'. Most of the world--the bits that mattered, anyway--was run from Italy.
It's all been downhill from there, I'm afraid. We don't run much of anything now. There are remnants of the Empire left out east, but they're "ruled"--and I use the term loosely--by a squabbling bunch of Greeks who hate each other. And the Roman church. And occasionally, when they get their act together, the Turks, the scariest bunch of Mohammedians in existence. They have, shall we say, a rather shaky set of priorities out there.
As for out west--well, the Kingdom of Germany likes to pretend it's the Roman Empire. Sometimes, it even manages to get a sausage-eater crowned. But no one really buys it. In some ways, it actually makes those Greeks in Byzantion look like the model of efficiency. The problem is that German kings follow a sort of regular cycle. Some savage world-beater from the far North comes down, with a lot of angry barbarians in tow, and carves out a kingdom for himself. If he's close enough, he invades Italy, and makes us all swear to be his subjects, or failing that, pay him. Then he or his son get a touch of civilization, and start REALLY working to take things over. They make noises about Christ, and Rome, and Charlemagne--one of the few German Emperors worth a damn in my book--and these days Otto, who I'll grant you, wasn't completely shabby.
And then, they run into a problem. These guys usually know how to take over a kingdom, but they don't know how to run it. And so, we Italians wind up getting recruited to handle all the hard bits, so some German can oppress us more efficiently. And then the fun really begins. Because by this time, the we're down to the sons of the sons, and they have generally been coddled enough to be less than stellar at the whole 'conquest' thing. But they've been taught by their fathers to despise the whole administration thing, which results in Kings who can't do anything very well. This results in a lot of civil wars, invasions, break-away kingdoms, until at last, some NEW hard "King" from the far north comes down with his band of hard angry barbarians, to start the cycle all over again.
We're on an interesting variation of the usual cycle at the moment. The House of Franken never carved out much of anything. All the hard work was done by the House of Saxony, a bunch of reformed barbarians who started things off on a high note by beating the pagan Magyars under the leadership of Otto, thus saving Christendom and making us hope that maybe--maybe things would be different this time. Sadly, Otto never quite equaled that one great moment, his son turned out to be a rather vicious mediocrity, his grandson showed potential, but died young, and his
other grandson was decent enough, but died without direct heirs. And then--somehow--out of nowhere--the House of Franken stepped in. They pulled some arms, made some promises, and got themselves elected King. They have not exactly covered themselves in glory. Most of their time has been spent using the vast empire the House of Saxony carved out to bludgeon its component parts into submission. King Oink has been in charge for ten years now, and he's already spent much of those ten years following the family tradition--or rather his proxies have, since he was all of five when he came to the throne. It hasn't really worked--the end result is that most of His Royal Swineness subjects spend their spare time wishing various hideous ailments upon him. Not just his Italian subjects either. His German subjects as well. It's hard NOT to hate the Frankens. They're spotty little nobodies who arguably stole the throne, and they are JUST competent enough to keep things mostly together, but not competent enough to make them work well.
Yes, I'm resentful. My father spent most of his life fighting the good fight against King Oink's father, though in the end, he had to give in . And my family--we're not just Italians. We're old nobility. Remember, Charlemagne, that one German Emperor who was worth a damn? My ancestors rode with him. We weren't called 'd'Este' then--but we were there. And we go back further. How far? Well, family legend traces our descent back--patrilineally, I might add--to Hector of Troy.
Yes,
that Troy. And
that Hector.
Wait, you don't know what I'm talking about? You've never read the Iliad? Well, I'll get you a copy. You can't read?
...
...
Man, I'm going to have to do something for the educational standards in this Duchy. Okay, I'll read it to you some time. But for now, rest assured--this is a big deal. My family is--most likely--a scion of some of the oldest, best nobility there is. Warrior kings, of unparelleled nobility with ties to Rome itself. And with a lineage like that--I'm sitting here in my plotting room, taking orders from King Oink, and remembering the days when being Italian meant something.
Well--that's going to change. Italy shall be free of German kings. An Italian king shall rule Italy. And anywhere else he chooses to rule, I might add. We've got prior claim. And this king--shall be of the House of Este. It is our destiny, by blood, and by right.
And we shall claim it!
But not now. My heart and soul loathe King Oink with a passion, but my mind is perfectly aware of the fact that if I make too much trouble, his troops will easily storm my lands, tear away everything I hold and love, and probably take me to him a captive, at which point he'll make me wear a dress, and do a little dance while calling myself a pretty, pretty princess.
Don't laugh. He did that to Adalbert of Hamburg earlier this year. And while that old fraud might have deserved some sort of punishment, being made to declare himself, the "prettiest princess in all of Europe" before the Estates General was... well, a little over the top. I don't need that. I'm pushing sixty. Which is another thing. There will be an Italian King, ruling over Italy, and he will be of the House of Este. But he won't be me. My son, perhaps. Or his son. Even the son of the son of that son. We have time. If this family has a talent, it's for surviving. Kingdoms fall. We pull through, and rise to the top again. It's in the blood.
So--for the time, being, I'll play the good, reasonably loyal subject. I have other projects to pursue, after all. If Italy is to be united on any other basis then "listen to the terrifying Germanic tyrant" some local ruler is going to have to start putting the pieces together, and that will be tough. Years of conquest, reconquest, civil war, popular uprisings, and very, very strange bequeathals have made the north of Italy a tangled quiltwork of bishophorics, petty noblemen and crackpot "Republics". The last are states that elect worthy citizens to run things. It's supposed to be a return to the glory of Rome, though the fact that the end result are a few families getting 'elected' over and over while constantly squabbling among themselves tends to be ignored. We've got one next door in Genoa, actually. Lovely city, that. My family used to run it. Actually, my father was the rightful Count, though during his squabbles with the Emperor, they backstabbed him and were vassilized directly to His Swineness's father, who then made dad give up his claim.
Why, yes. Reclaiming Genoa does happen to be on my 'to do' list. How'd you guess? But--that will take some time. Right now, I've got to buckle down and get to work. I am the fourth most-powerful landowner in Italy right now. The first is the Duchess of Tuscany, a woman named Matilde who hates Heinrich more than I do, and happens to have the ear of the THIRD most powerful landowner--His Holiness, the Pope. (Understand, when I say power, I'm talking in terms of land ownership here. If one were to consider other factors, the Pope might be the most powerful.) The second is the Duke of Carintha, a transported German who, to his credit, has largely gone native, and my sources tell me, is less fond of doing what King Oink tells him. My job--move up the list, so that I at least outrank the Pope. And I have ideas how to do this. Oh, I have many plans, many plots, many schemes. Why else do you think I have a plotting room? It gets used, my friend! Used quite a bit.
All right. Now that we've had our friendly little chat--the less pleasant business. You see that pit in the other corner? Right that's it. Now--if you would be so kind as to climb into it using the rope I provided, I will be so kind as to not unload this crossbow bolt into your throat. Very good. My goodness, what a climber! All right, I'm pulling out the rope. You comfortable down there? Excellent! Well, see you again soon. I have business to attend to, and...
Look, don't worry. You'll be fed. Like I said, this is my Saint Stephen Day act of charity. Do you know what the penalty is for chicken-stealing in this Duchy? You're getting off light! Hey, don't blame me! I don't make the laws, I just enforce them.
Okay, technically I do make the laws, but trust me, changing that one would be more trouble than it's worth. Especially with some of the... other legislative alterations I have planned. We'll talk about them later.
Now--come on Tybalt. Daddy's got some table scraps for you...
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OOC: My first attempt at an AAR. I've decided to follow the style of such gems as, "
If You Can't Do It, Nubia Can",
"Suenik the Beleagured", "
NavAARra: A Little Kingdom Modestly Refusing To Go Down", and "
He's the Prince of Pronsk And He's Finally Made It!". Largely because I like them the best. Hopefully, you all find this amusing. And sorry for the lack of screen captures. If I figure out how to make them, they shall appear.