Northern Nights - A Norway AAR

Ok.. Three times the charm, this one WILL be finished. New game with Norway, don't know where it will take me yet, but no sucking up to the Danes nor the Swedes. Norway will be the dominant Northern power through opportunistic playing.

More (informative) posts to follow soonish!

@ Stroph1: Aye, there will be mead and sacking! (but no mushroom chewing..)

@ Sytass: I know your're lying, but I like it!

@ Vald: hehe.. Don't say that! You'll jinx me! Copenhagen you say... isn't that a Norwegian province? At least it will be in this thread..

@ Norg: 1.07 Hard/coward (kind of like me.. HøHøøhøøøø....jaadaa)

As for your 'koffert tenking...' tsk..tsk.. I was thinking more long dark winters and the geographical location, but maybe for another project: 'In the heAt of the mAghReb Nights - The uncensored Harem tales'.. coming soon to an AAR thread near you! (NO credit card needed!)

@Judge: Thanks! Afraid?! who me? naaah.. *looks over shoulder* naah..

re the title, its as Thames says, hustler extraordinaire. Although the old and original meaning is pickpocket. Taschen=german for pocket, spieler/spiller=player. I.e. One who plays in the pockets. (hmm.. that sounded a bit naughty actually.. anyway..)

@Szordrin: Thanks. (And you're right, more Aurora Borealis, less naughty...)

@Thames: Thanks, hope you like the rest as well.

Thanks all for popping by, keep reading!

Well, we left Amund on a freezing, stormy cliff... better get him indoors before he catch a cold.

Chapter 1 - Primo September 1423 - Akershus, Oslo.

Amund kicked his seal skin boots free of snow against the wooden threshold before entering the Wagenhals tower of Akershus Castle. Immediately inside he shook his heavy fur coat free of the melting snow and dried his face free of the melting snowflakes with his large hands.

With slow, but determined steps, he scaled the narrow stairs leading up to his chambers. He was cold and hoped Silja had lit the logs on the large fireplace in his rooms. Three floors up he turned off the stairs and into a dark corridor leading to his rooms. The wind seemed to blow straight through the old castle and the few torches unevenly lining the walls flickered in the draft. Cursing and rummaging for a second he eventually managed to produce a key from one of his pockets and unlocked the heavy pine door in front of him.

- "Finally Earl... There you are! Is it over?"

Amund was surprised to see the King sitting in front of the crackling fireplace, shamelessly occupying his favourite chair. The tall yongster looked thinner than normal in the large chair.

Not bothering with the etiquette normally demanded of him he was in fact more slouching than sitting, flashing Amund one of his cheeky smiles. The ones he used when he was sure he had surprised you. Amund was however well used to his King's eccentricity and did not let his surprise over the man's presence in a locked room show.

- "Its over, your Majesty... They signed it."

- "Heh.. If I had a daler for every time I have asked you to call me Sigurd when we're away from court I would be a very rich man, Amund."

- "You already are..."

The King waved away his comment with a quiet shrug and a handshake that others, Amund thought, might have found feminine. There was however noone who doubted Sigurd's courage, for obvious reasons. This was a man a great ambition, who normally saw to the fulfillment of his plans or took revenge on those stupid enough to meddle in them.

- "You have served Norway well, Earl! I offer you a boon! name it!"

- "I crave rest... Considering the fact that I haven't slept a proper night's sleep for more than two months I wish you would get on your feet and leave me in peace to rest for the night."

The King's eyebrows arched for a split second before he laughed and rose from the chair.

- "With that kind of desires you shall certainly never be a rich man Amund! Anyway, I am sure I can find some suitable reward that will be acceptable to even my most modest servant. I shall see you in the morning..."

The King hesitated for a second.

- ".. but do not get me wrong, I am still furious we are at peace with these pesky Germans, especially the Hansa. I would love to see them destroyed once and for all.."

Amund gave the King a resigned nod and let him past, locking the door behind him as soon as the King had left. As if in a trance he threw off the heavy coat, removed the boots from his feet and let his large body fall onto the complaining bed. Shortly after his thoughts drifted in the cloudy area between thinking and dreams and he found himself back at his first meeting with the King, four years ago..

--

For the first time in weeks Amund smiled, then he let out a wild cry over the mountain and started running over the slippery stony surface of the cliff. The ships of Sigurd Jonsson were finally back from København, that could only mean one thing; the gambit had succeded. He reached the cliff's edge and recklessly started his decent, climbing quickly downwards paying little or no heed to the rain and wind that enveloped him.

He revelled at the prospect of meeting the young King and hoped he reminded of his father, which Amund had served together with under Queen Margrete. Later Amund had fallen out of favour and was ousted, his possesions and lands were confiscated and he fled Oslo with his young daughter to live out his days in this desolate place.

But now things had taken a turn unthinkable under the reign of Queen Margrete. After her death in 1412 the new Danish king, Erik av Pommern, who was little liked in Denmark and even less in Norway, had openly said he would "love to see the Norwegians out of the Union as they contribute so little to its prosperity.."

Although he was partly right this statement had infuriated Norwegian nobles. They blamed the Black Death which had terrorised the land less than six-score years ago for the lack of prosperity and would rather see help from København than such harsh words.

The young nobleman Sigurd Jonsson had rallied some of the younger nobles and set sail for København in the Autumn of 1418, determined to take the King up on his word. But before he left he sent a ship around the coast looking for a man called Amund Gunnarson, whom he knew from his father's old war stories and whose help he both wanted and needed. The ship had reached the little inlet Amund called home in early December and along with the shocking news from the crew he was also given a letter telling him to look for the arrival of the King immediately after New Year, as he would hopefully pass this stretch of the coast on his journey to Trondheim and his coronation.

Amund reached the bottom off the cliff, his hands bleeding from the reckless climbing he took a second to regain his breath. He looked up towards the small cot he occupied together with his daugher. God, it would be good to leave this place behind, the earth was infertile and the coast treacherous, making fishing difficult. No more of this debasing poverty and guilty conscience for the life he had offered his daugher. He would miss nothing from this place. He screamed his daughter's name out loud, struggling to make himself heard over the storm.

- "Silja!! Get your stuff and come down to the sea with me!! We are leaving!! Come now!!"

--

Amund woke. Always alert from the long years of warfare he sat up and listened, not a sound could be heard in the castle except the low crackle of the dying embers in the fireplace. He was nervous, but didn't know why. Grudgingly he concluded he could not sleep because he was used to getting roused in the middle of the night to take care of problems, the four last years of war had taken its toll.

He returned to a more comfortable horizontal postion, on his back, and propped his hands under his head, staring at the roofbeams.

The war was finally over he finally realised.. They had won against all odds. His eyelids felt heavy as he tried to think back to the early days of it all.

--

King Sigurd III had told Erik av Pommern that Norway would see to its own needs if it was too much hassle for the Union, only to be answered with laughter and a promise that when he came sailing back across the Skagerak for Danish coin and grain he would not find Erik forthcoming and that the Danish King would still count on Norway to come to Denmark's aid in times of war.

With this "endorsement" Sigurd set sail from København to Trondheim, stopping in Bergen on the way to let word spread of the break from Denmark. There he also met the Captain of the ship he sent looking for Amund Gunnarson and got news of his whereabouts.

But the news spread slowly in the depopulated hamlets of the Norwegian mountains, especially during the harsh winter months when people kept mostly inside. When the King and his new Earl reached Trondheim the Bishop had not heard of it, but seeing the documents from King Erik's court in København convinced him to perform the coronation ceremony anyway.

They spent the rest of the winter in Trondheim, and set sail for Oslo well before the first snow started melting, hoping to spend Easter at Akershus Castle. When they reached the capital however, they were met with tidings of war.

The stubborn King Erik had declared war on the Duchy of Holstein, claiming it to be old Danish land. The conflict between the two states drew Sweden and Norway in on Danish side and the Teutonic order, Bremen, Mecklemburg and Prussia in on Holstein's side.

At Amund's advice the small Norwegian army was slow to leave the capital. So when the fleet carrying the force set sail for Denmark in the spring of 1420, Erik had already taken Lübeck and Bremen. It seemed the war would be over soon.

But other states had been biding their time as well, as the armies and Denmark, Bremen and Holstein demolished each other upon the plains outside Hamburg, the Knights of the Teutonic Order marched westward across Pommern and liberated Lübeck before being defeated by the Danes outside Bremen.

So when the Norwegian fleet came through the Sund and landed outside Lübeck they found the city defenseless. After a short siege it was taken, the Hansetag was dissolved by force, the Norwegians torched the Council Chambers and confiscated all ships and property of the traders. Amund had warned the King against the repercussions of such vile actions, but Sigurd felt Norway owed the Hansa back after their hundred year long "near-colonisation" of Bergen and the Norwegian trade. With Mecklemburg annexed the remaining opponents tried to retake the city during the years of 22-23, but the new defenders held out and new forces were ferried between Oslo and Lübeck almost continously. And then finally, in 1423, the Duke of Holstein and the Mayor of Hamburg grudgingly accepted peace with Norway.

In a solemn ceremony in Oslo they were compensated for their losses in gold (100O) and promised that Hansa traders would again be welcome in Mecklemburg. The King had strangely not been present, leaving the task to his Earl. Amund knew the King had wished to continue the war and would under no circumstance be seen giving reparations, but Amund and the other Councillors had managed to convice him of the need for peace. That had been today.

--

Amund opened his eyes, the sound of screaming seagulls outside and a stream of light coming in through the slit in the window shutters waking him. "..or yesterday.." was his first thought, although he couldn't remember why, maybe something to do with his dreams?

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes and yawning loudly he put his feet on the cold stone floor and started preparing for a new day.

The tale continues... now with Eu2 1.09 and MyMap2

Chapter 2 – Primo December 1463 – Sverresborg Castle, Bergen.

Lightning broke through the dark and rainy skies above Sverresborg Castle, briefly illuminating the dark walls. The traveller on the narrow path leading to its gates paused momentarily in his tracks to catch his bearings in the otherwise pitch black night. The path rose steeply here, turning his hooded head he could barely make out the busy harbour and the piers some distance below him, whilst the path wound further up along the hill crossing a small wooden bridge a few paces further on.

He was shuddering and felt colder than had he been in an ice troll’s frosty embrace. The rain had hammered down so relentlessly for so long he could now feel small waterfalls of burning cold water forming in the nape of his neck from there to continue down his back under the layers of the wool, fur and leather clothing he had donned for the journey.

..if only it’d been snow.. snow one could cope with, you knew where you stood with snow... this weather.. there was something eldritch about it...

The young priest reached inside his garbs for the small silver crucifix slung around his scrawny neck and kissed it quickly at the thought.

.. baleful winds that seemed to come from everywhere.. one moment blue winter skies, the moment later hail followed by snow turning sleet being replaced by the endless rain.. if it was not for the locals going about their business as usual in this Godforsaken place, one might be tempted to believe Evil powers were at play in Bergen on a night like this..

The traveller shrugged and mentally reprimanded himself for letting such thoughts enter his mind... a Cistercian of his standing should not allow his head to be invaded by superstitious doubts, still sometimes the legends his grandfather had recounted to him when he was a child came to life when he wandered.

To the sounds of rolling thunder across the small seaside town he crossed the bridge and completed the last part of the journey from Lund in Sweden. With him he carried news that would change Norwegian policy for a long time to come.
---

Bjørn was starting to lose his patience. It was not the hateful rhetoric against the Danes, it was not the constant stream of latin he had problems absorbing and understanding, nor was it the constant moving about and fidgeting by the man in front him, as if he was a person obsessed.. It was the voice, the thin, shrill, complaining voice which reminded Bjørn more of a maiden’s sulking over love lost, than of a Majesty’s pondering his foreign moves. The monologue was drawing to an end... and not a moment too soon in Bjørn’s opinion.

- “Ipso facto!! ... isolated and friendless, surrounded by our allies, that rotten state will crumble.. like... like the Gates of Hell before the Righteous Host of the Lord!!”

The King ended his high pitched diatribe dramatically with a fixed his gaze on Bjørn by those wicked green eyes that seemed to pierce Bjørn’s soul. The ensuing silence in the small chamber was only broken by sporadic noises from the timber slowly disintegrating in the fireplace fitted in the wall behind the King.

There was nothing royal about King Hans I of Norway, his posture would make a beggar ashamed, his acne scarred face would repel even the most lovesick maiden, his thin shaking hands were more fit to leaf through scrolls and tomes than to lift a sword (let alone an axe), his flimsy frame, constantly twitching and shaking was clad in an ageworn woolen friar’s habit and on his oblong pale head rested a ridiculous fur cap that would have been considered antique even by the time of Queen Margrethe and the Union.

However, these insults from the Creator against the King’s outward appearance had been coupled with the gift of a singular mind. A mind so principled and one tracked that those skalds who had dubbed the King’s late father ‘Sigurd the Stubborn’ were considering redubbing him ‘the slightly Determined’ when faced with the poetical problem of describing the son’s zeal with due justice.

The young King Hans I commanded Latin like a first language, in fact his hatred of the Danes went so far that he would not speak their tongue (as had become common by court), but communicated solely in Latin. His devotion to the tenents of faith made bishops appear like pagan sinners, his pursuits at spreading the word of Christ and increasing the power of the Catholic Church in Norway had earned him the nickname ‘The Abbot of Akershus’ by nobles at home and abroad.

Not that there were that many nobles left at home Bjørn pondered ruefully... The King, and before him his father, had steadily reduced their powers, whilst granting rights and passing laws which empowered serfs and other indentured farmers. He had dispossed nobles of their land, giving it to the Church or to the peasants who worked it. Those who did not or could not get land he offered land in far-away places, the inner valleys and forests along the Swedish border, the small islands and farmable spots in the weather hard Hålogaland region in the North and even on Iceland and Greenland he had sent thousands of people with promises of their own little turf once they arrived. Those places, which had been uncivilized patches of land bereft of law and rule less than a century ago now held farms, hamlets, monastaries, fortified cities and a taxable population.

The King turned from Bjørn’s shaking head and stretched his fidgeting bony hands towards the welcome heat from the fireplace.

- “Quidne? ..Our loyal advisor, you do not approve?” he whispered

- “but your Majesty..” Bjørn started slowly for the fifth time this evening “Our honour, our history, our shared bond! All demand that we renew our alliance with Denmark. You would have us forsake those who we share so much with? Our common history? Our language? Tear our good neighbourly relations asunder? You grew up in Copenhagen for God’s sake!”

The King turned on him like a rattled viper and shot him a glare so venomous that it made Bjørn shudder.

- “You dare?!... Question Us?!.. Adding insult to injury you spit profanities like a unrepentant sinner in the same sentence!” He screamed in a voice that would have split glass, whilst making the sign of the cross across his chest in, atleast to Bjørn’s eyes, an exaggerated move.

Bjørn was taken aback and immediately regretted bringing up the King’s upbringing.. there was something buried there better left untouched as he had learnt earlier, the King’s outbursts over it were legendary at court, but Bjørn had forgotten himself now at the most inopportune of moments.

- “ We will denounce them! We will rely on our alliance with Sweden and our vassals Brandenburg and Pommern! And when the time comes we shall devour that filthy haven of sin and temptation!”

The King spat the words loudly and seemed to be fighting some imaginary Denmark surrounding already, at least judging from the wild and uncontrolled gestures he made to the air around him. Suddenly he froze and pointed a shaking finger at his long-time advisor, his voice dropping to a cackling whisper.

- “ .. and you best remember this Danespawn.. You are in OUR service, Norway’s service! We, and we alone, know what is best for the Kingdom.. Do not anger us, do not test our patience on this issue and do not, above all, ever question us! ..or it shall be Gallow’s Hill for you as well... as it was for those other Danelovers.”

Bjørn tried to contain any signs of his anger at his master’s remarks with a deep bow to hide his expression for the King as he retreated backwards into the darkness of the far end of the room. He did not enjoy kowtowing to a madman, but he was by no means foolish enough to show it. The light from the flames at play in the fireplace did not reach the area by the door and he hoped the King did not see his face when he rose from the bow.

- “As you wish my King” he said without any hint of emotion and left the chamber.

Some screenies from a bit earlier in the game:


Not so many changes from the setup to be fair. Taking it easy..


Only posted to show the strange effects of the CoT distribution system... The traders in Greenland and Iceland are just waiting for that Norwegian oil to be found to have at least *something* to trade!