it seems that peace does not last for a long at the North ! Now you should attack the murders ! Unite allthe nortn Hemisphere under the Norse Empire !
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Iustitia Populi Part I: The Playwright
A Tale of the Norseoverse
Sigurd was a lonely man now. The years had blown by like the winds in an Anglish winter, and seemed to leave nothing in return for their stay, short as it was or seemed. He was old too. His glory days, as a celebrity writing plays for His Majesty King Olav V, whose writings were performed at the 'Rex Mund's coronation as the first Emperor of Norway and all the Norwegians across the Atlantic, and who lived in a fancy estate not far from the imperial palace at Nordfalgborg on the Nordfalk coast, had ended when an actor in a performance of The Battle of Jorvik, his last 'masterpiece' accidentally mouthed something about 'those stupid Ynglings' and His Imperial Highness Erik, drunk from all the mead at his coronation feast, ordered the execution of the playwright as a traitor, believing he had inserted those lines to insult Erik's ancestors. Sigurd escaped, and when the Emperor sobered and learned of his decree he commuted Sigurd's punishment to life in a lonely farmhouse near Jorvik, in fact right next to the battlefield on which Erik's most famous ancestor Olaf the Wise won Angland and eternal glory for the house of Yngling.
It had stung for sometime, especially next to the life of luxury and prestige he had enjoyed when he was in the imperial favor, but now it was more or less forgotten, just like his very first play, Kong Arnmod.
He did get out of his farmhouse sometimes, to attend performances of The Skottish Wars or Simon the Bastard Elektor in Jorvik, both by playwrights he'd mentored back in Nordfalgborg, or to attend the Provincial Courts in Easter time. It wasn't like there was anything better to do at home but write some throwaway polemic against the Emperor when the writing bug hit him, or look at the battlefield and wonder just how Olaf had pulled off such an amazing military fear five and a half centuries ago.
***************************
One day, though, the rantings and depressive writing of an old man were cut off.
He was still sleeping when the sun hung in the middle of the hazy northern Anglish sky and a harsh knocking on his ragged wooden door woke him.
"Open in the name of our Christ-annointed Emperor, the Viceroy of God on Earth!"
The nobles who had assumed control of the Empire following the recent death of Emperor Sigurd liked to bestow highfalutin titles on their young boy ruler, Magnus.
The old man's body creaked as he stood up in bed and made his way down the stairs of the lonely farmhouse, narrowly missing a bone-crushing fall.
He opened the door and saw a group of impatient-looking armed men wearing a badge shaped like the Lion of Norway on their breast pockets.
He recognized one, who had sat next to him in The Skottish Wars a week ago.
"Why would you wake a poor old man like me at such an uncivilized hour for, Sigbjorn Wulfstansson?"
Sigbjorn only sighed and pointed up at the heavens. "It's noon already, decent folks are at work by now, you indolent old fogey. Anyway, come with us. We have been provided with proof that you are an enemy of the realm and as thus you are under arrest."
They pulled him out, onto a cart marked Frykt er Storre enn Frihet.
And indeed, his freedom would soon be no more.
******************************
They tossed him into the city jail across from the town hall, not even bothering to record his coming in the officia jail records. His cell was wet and slimy and had no amenities other than a cold stone bed and another prisoner.
Sigurd's fellow inmate also looked like a newcomer: clean-shaven, relatively clean face, pacing the cell like a caged animal.
"And who are you?" he asked in an exasperated voice.
Sigurd told him, and asked the same question.
"Arndemot Jarlsson" was the answer. "What are you in for?" Sigurd asked him.
"For plotting a revolution, and for trying to stop a war those highborn prissies are going to make us die in so they can get even richer and more powerful.
I got my hands on a paper written by our old emperor. He wanted to invade Portugal and seize their colonies in Folkesland, and our new rulers are going to do it for him.
I tried to distribute it and rouse Jorvik into rebellion but the constables stopped me and took it away. And you?"
Sigurd replied, just before falling asleep on the freezing wet floor: "I was bored and wrote some anti-imperial pamphlets."
It was the last thing Arndemot Jarlsson ever heard. His cellmate fell asleep but he stayed up and wrote on the parchment he'd bribed the guard to let him have along with ink and a quill.
Then, they took him to sleep forever.
************************************************************
Sigurd woke up. Arndemot was gone, the stone bed was vacant with no sign of human occupation. But there was something on the floor other than him: A piece of parchment.
It read: "Sigurd, they've killed me. The tyrants have killed me, but they won't kill freedom. They can't kill freedom. You must carry on my struggle. Sign the following:"
Underneath that sentence was a list of reforms Arndemot demanded.
And at the bottom of the list was:
"Kill every last Yngling. Kill every last noble.
Kill every king and emperor.
There must be only the will of the people."
With a trembling hand, the old man signed the shaky words:"Sigurd Ormslev."
He figured no one would ever see this document, and in any case he would probably be executed for his previous crimes.
Little did he know that the next occupant of the cell would not remain in it for long.
A Tale of the Norseoverse
Sigurd was a lonely man now. The years had blown by like the winds in an Anglish winter, and seemed to leave nothing in return for their stay, short as it was or seemed. He was old too. His glory days, as a celebrity writing plays for His Majesty King Olav V, whose writings were performed at the 'Rex Mund's coronation as the first Emperor of Norway and all the Norwegians across the Atlantic, and who lived in a fancy estate not far from the imperial palace at Nordfalgborg on the Nordfalk coast, had ended when an actor in a performance of The Battle of Jorvik, his last 'masterpiece' accidentally mouthed something about 'those stupid Ynglings' and His Imperial Highness Erik, drunk from all the mead at his coronation feast, ordered the execution of the playwright as a traitor, believing he had inserted those lines to insult Erik's ancestors. Sigurd escaped, and when the Emperor sobered and learned of his decree he commuted Sigurd's punishment to life in a lonely farmhouse near Jorvik, in fact right next to the battlefield on which Erik's most famous ancestor Olaf the Wise won Angland and eternal glory for the house of Yngling.
It had stung for sometime, especially next to the life of luxury and prestige he had enjoyed when he was in the imperial favor, but now it was more or less forgotten, just like his very first play, Kong Arnmod.
He did get out of his farmhouse sometimes, to attend performances of The Skottish Wars or Simon the Bastard Elektor in Jorvik, both by playwrights he'd mentored back in Nordfalgborg, or to attend the Provincial Courts in Easter time. It wasn't like there was anything better to do at home but write some throwaway polemic against the Emperor when the writing bug hit him, or look at the battlefield and wonder just how Olaf had pulled off such an amazing military fear five and a half centuries ago.
***************************
One day, though, the rantings and depressive writing of an old man were cut off.
He was still sleeping when the sun hung in the middle of the hazy northern Anglish sky and a harsh knocking on his ragged wooden door woke him.
"Open in the name of our Christ-annointed Emperor, the Viceroy of God on Earth!"
The nobles who had assumed control of the Empire following the recent death of Emperor Sigurd liked to bestow highfalutin titles on their young boy ruler, Magnus.
The old man's body creaked as he stood up in bed and made his way down the stairs of the lonely farmhouse, narrowly missing a bone-crushing fall.
He opened the door and saw a group of impatient-looking armed men wearing a badge shaped like the Lion of Norway on their breast pockets.
He recognized one, who had sat next to him in The Skottish Wars a week ago.
"Why would you wake a poor old man like me at such an uncivilized hour for, Sigbjorn Wulfstansson?"
Sigbjorn only sighed and pointed up at the heavens. "It's noon already, decent folks are at work by now, you indolent old fogey. Anyway, come with us. We have been provided with proof that you are an enemy of the realm and as thus you are under arrest."
They pulled him out, onto a cart marked Frykt er Storre enn Frihet.
And indeed, his freedom would soon be no more.
******************************
They tossed him into the city jail across from the town hall, not even bothering to record his coming in the officia jail records. His cell was wet and slimy and had no amenities other than a cold stone bed and another prisoner.
Sigurd's fellow inmate also looked like a newcomer: clean-shaven, relatively clean face, pacing the cell like a caged animal.
"And who are you?" he asked in an exasperated voice.
Sigurd told him, and asked the same question.
"Arndemot Jarlsson" was the answer. "What are you in for?" Sigurd asked him.
"For plotting a revolution, and for trying to stop a war those highborn prissies are going to make us die in so they can get even richer and more powerful.
I got my hands on a paper written by our old emperor. He wanted to invade Portugal and seize their colonies in Folkesland, and our new rulers are going to do it for him.
I tried to distribute it and rouse Jorvik into rebellion but the constables stopped me and took it away. And you?"
Sigurd replied, just before falling asleep on the freezing wet floor: "I was bored and wrote some anti-imperial pamphlets."
It was the last thing Arndemot Jarlsson ever heard. His cellmate fell asleep but he stayed up and wrote on the parchment he'd bribed the guard to let him have along with ink and a quill.
Then, they took him to sleep forever.
************************************************************
Sigurd woke up. Arndemot was gone, the stone bed was vacant with no sign of human occupation. But there was something on the floor other than him: A piece of parchment.
It read: "Sigurd, they've killed me. The tyrants have killed me, but they won't kill freedom. They can't kill freedom. You must carry on my struggle. Sign the following:"
Underneath that sentence was a list of reforms Arndemot demanded.
And at the bottom of the list was:
"Kill every last Yngling. Kill every last noble.
Kill every king and emperor.
There must be only the will of the people."
With a trembling hand, the old man signed the shaky words:"Sigurd Ormslev."
He figured no one would ever see this document, and in any case he would probably be executed for his previous crimes.
Little did he know that the next occupant of the cell would not remain in it for long.
This all sounds rather like the beginnings something else that happened in England in the 17th century...
A really enjoyable update - I do like these Tales. They give for a nice view of the little people.
EDIT: I have bestowed upon you my one and only thousandth post - treat it well
A really enjoyable update - I do like these Tales. They give for a nice view of the little people.
EDIT: I have bestowed upon you my one and only thousandth post - treat it well
Last edited:
Thank you! Indeed, this Tale is the first that will have a major impact on the Norseoverse and you have chosen wisely to make your first post here!
Chapter 46:
Road to Revolution
Excerpted from A Saga Without Heroes Volume 2: The New Worlds, by Erik Haraldsson, ©2013 Nidaros University Press.
Used with permission.
When Emperor Magnus I of Norway came of age in 1642, it was the opening shot to the series of events that would transform first Norway and then the world and define the seventeenth century.
Magnus had seen his father Sigurd's war plan written a dozen years ago, and 'Emperor No-Beard' as some liked to call him in the first years of his personal rule (even after his beard started to be apparent) agreed with him and his former regents, now his closest (and some say dominant) advisors that the sultanate of Portugal needed to be humbled to make sure Norway continued to be the dominant colonial power in Folkesland.
The preparations had already started directly after Sigurd's mysterious death, directed by the regents who took up the rule of the Empire in little Magnus' name. Troops levied, mercenary companies purchased, forts built in border provinces along with buildup of troops to garrison them. So when Magnus was crowned on his seventeenth birthday, the Empire was readier than it would ever be for a major conflict.
The actual conflict did not delay in coming; The year after Magnus' coronation a declaration of war in the name of the One True Catholic Church of Rome (though Rome had long since fallen to the Norwegian-descended kings of Frankfurt, the city of Fulda in Nassau becoming the new residence for the Pope, although an anti-Pope resided in Thurnigia claiming to be the legitimate Pope)
arrived in the Sultan's court at al-Lisba, the capital city of Portugal on the Iberian shore of the Atlantic.
At once, soldiers carrying the Lion of Norway on his red background marched into the vast Portuguese holdings in the south of Iberia, while across the oceans the same flag was carried into the Islamic colonies on the western coast of South Folkesland and in the former lands of the Aztec empire.
At first, when news of the fall of al-Lisba and Mexica in Central Folkesland filtered back to the common folk in Angland and Norway and North Folkesland there was much rejoicing, but life is never that simple, nor are wars that span three continents.
Decades previously, seeing the threat the gargantuan Norwegian colonial empire in Folkesland posed to their own colonies, the Sultanate of Portugal and the Kingdom of Munster formed an alliance aimed specifically at limiting Norse expansion in Folkesland, though efforts to recruit Skottland and Frankerland ultimately failed, preventing the allies from taking proactive measures against Norway.
Now, seeing the Norse war with Portugal for the bald land-grab it was, Munster declared war on Norway and its allies (or more accurately, puppets) in Oman, Sicily and the Huron Confederacy.
Immediately, troops flying the Three Crowns of Munster made their way from Kernow and Valsherland and invaded the Anglish heartland of the Norse empire. Immediately, panic reigned in all parts of the Empire. Common folk ran to the moneyholders and took out all their stored cash and made for friends in Skottland (for Anglishmenn) or Svearike (for residents of the Yngling homeland), riots broke out, fueled by fatalistic despair, many killed jumped from bridges to spare themselves the rape, plunder and other atrocities they were convinced the Munsterians would bring.
For the first time in centuries, the endless wars and conquests of the Yngling kings and emperors had come home, to the Old World of dense population and great cities, no longer confined to the exotic New World of 'savage' Skraelings and the barbarian gold many were convinced existed in Folkesland.
Although there was some measure of plunder and rape in the cities conquered by the Munsterians during the First Crossatlantic War, (as the war Magnus and his regents started became known due to being the first known war to be fought on both sides of the great ocean) it was not on the scale of the Helmenn sacks of various German cities or the aftermath of the Jorsalfarings, even though the Munsterians were driven by vengfulness for crimes committed by the Norsemen during the time they occupied most of Eirann, although that had ended over a century and a half previously.
For half a year in 1644, it looked like Norway would finally be humbled by its colonial rivals which heretofore had failed to even dent it.
But the Munsterians had failed to consider their own 'countrymen'.
Munster itself is the southernmost province of Eirann, which had never been firmly ruled by the Norsemen, and in the upheaval following the Iustitia Regis decree abolishing the feudal system it managed to break away into its own independent state. When the chaos continued over the next few decades into the sixteenth century, fueled first by noble discontent and then by religious turmoil, Munster exploited it to conquer all of Eirann south of Skottish Ulster which was anyway usually regarded as a piece of the Skottish heartland. When King Håkon VII attempted to reverse Munster's gains, his reward was utter defeat and the loss of Valsherland east of long-dead Offa's Dyke. Cornwall, which had been conquered by the Aragonese in the 1460s also fell to Munster in a dynastic struggle.
However, Eirann north of Munster never fully integrated into the population of their supposed 'brothers' and rulers. The years of Norse occupation had fostered in the Eirannians a sense of national identity separate first from Norway, and then from Munster.
With a major war on and the majority of the Munsterian troops away invading Angland and the Norse colonies, the Eirannians north of Munster, whom their overlords gave the derogatory name 'Norse Eirannians' but called themselves 'the men of Leinster' in memory of the once-dominant duchy of Leinster that had existed in the medieval era on the western coast of the island, rebelled against the King of Munster in what was the first true nationalistic revolution in history.
Though they despised the Norsemen for their long-ago occupation of their lands, the Leinstermenn saw the pragmatism of allying with the Empire as the only major power opposing Munster.
It was the salvation of Norway. With the Munsterians distracted Magnus, finally doing something important unaided by his former regents, led an army across Offa's Dyke and conquered the cities of Aberffraw and Dinefwr, the two most important Munsterian strongholds in Valsherland and by extension mainland Britain.
The Munsterians, their homeland being torn apart by the intro-ethnic struggle, agreed to Magnus' proposal of a white peace.
With their Eirannian allies having abandoned them, the Portuguese lost whatever heart they had left. With the fall of their capital al-Lisba and their colonial centers in Mexica and El Porto del Folkesland, the Sultan realized he had no hope of victory.
In 1645, after almost three years of struggle, the Treaty of Lisba was signed by the three major powers involved in the First Crossatlantic War: Norway (the victor, obviously), Portugal and Munster, plus delegates from the Norwegian puppets in Sicily and Oman and an observer was sent by the Huron Confederacy.
The main points of the treaty were two:
1. All Portuguese colonies and holdings occupied by Norwegian troops at the time of the signing of the treaty are henceforth inseparable part and parcel of the Norwegian Empire.
2. Munster, along with all signatories of the treaty will recognize the independence of the Republic of Leinster as a nation unto its own and equal to all other nations in the world.
As the treaty made its way to all parts of the signatory nations and into the hands of jealous monarchs like the a Husi kings of Skottland and their kinsmen in Frankerland, Magnus, now fully mature thanks to his battlefield experience and finally capable of ruling the Empire, settled back into his palace at Nordfalgborg, with its wines and courtesans and plays, believing his life would from now on be one of luxury and absolute power to do whatever he wished.
Alas, rare is the man who gets all he wants. For although Magnus had proved himself in battle with foreign enemies, he would face a foe none of his ancestors had.
His own people, fighting in their own name for their own cause.
Next time on A Saga Without Heroes:
Another tale of the Norseoverse leads into another epic regular update as we delve once more into the lives of the common people of Jorvik, Angland and specifically, the lives of a few who will change the direction of Norse history forever...
Road to Revolution
Excerpted from A Saga Without Heroes Volume 2: The New Worlds, by Erik Haraldsson, ©2013 Nidaros University Press.
Used with permission.
When Emperor Magnus I of Norway came of age in 1642, it was the opening shot to the series of events that would transform first Norway and then the world and define the seventeenth century.
Magnus had seen his father Sigurd's war plan written a dozen years ago, and 'Emperor No-Beard' as some liked to call him in the first years of his personal rule (even after his beard started to be apparent) agreed with him and his former regents, now his closest (and some say dominant) advisors that the sultanate of Portugal needed to be humbled to make sure Norway continued to be the dominant colonial power in Folkesland.
The preparations had already started directly after Sigurd's mysterious death, directed by the regents who took up the rule of the Empire in little Magnus' name. Troops levied, mercenary companies purchased, forts built in border provinces along with buildup of troops to garrison them. So when Magnus was crowned on his seventeenth birthday, the Empire was readier than it would ever be for a major conflict.
The actual conflict did not delay in coming; The year after Magnus' coronation a declaration of war in the name of the One True Catholic Church of Rome (though Rome had long since fallen to the Norwegian-descended kings of Frankfurt, the city of Fulda in Nassau becoming the new residence for the Pope, although an anti-Pope resided in Thurnigia claiming to be the legitimate Pope)
arrived in the Sultan's court at al-Lisba, the capital city of Portugal on the Iberian shore of the Atlantic.
At once, soldiers carrying the Lion of Norway on his red background marched into the vast Portuguese holdings in the south of Iberia, while across the oceans the same flag was carried into the Islamic colonies on the western coast of South Folkesland and in the former lands of the Aztec empire.
At first, when news of the fall of al-Lisba and Mexica in Central Folkesland filtered back to the common folk in Angland and Norway and North Folkesland there was much rejoicing, but life is never that simple, nor are wars that span three continents.
Decades previously, seeing the threat the gargantuan Norwegian colonial empire in Folkesland posed to their own colonies, the Sultanate of Portugal and the Kingdom of Munster formed an alliance aimed specifically at limiting Norse expansion in Folkesland, though efforts to recruit Skottland and Frankerland ultimately failed, preventing the allies from taking proactive measures against Norway.
Now, seeing the Norse war with Portugal for the bald land-grab it was, Munster declared war on Norway and its allies (or more accurately, puppets) in Oman, Sicily and the Huron Confederacy.
Immediately, troops flying the Three Crowns of Munster made their way from Kernow and Valsherland and invaded the Anglish heartland of the Norse empire. Immediately, panic reigned in all parts of the Empire. Common folk ran to the moneyholders and took out all their stored cash and made for friends in Skottland (for Anglishmenn) or Svearike (for residents of the Yngling homeland), riots broke out, fueled by fatalistic despair, many killed jumped from bridges to spare themselves the rape, plunder and other atrocities they were convinced the Munsterians would bring.
For the first time in centuries, the endless wars and conquests of the Yngling kings and emperors had come home, to the Old World of dense population and great cities, no longer confined to the exotic New World of 'savage' Skraelings and the barbarian gold many were convinced existed in Folkesland.
Although there was some measure of plunder and rape in the cities conquered by the Munsterians during the First Crossatlantic War, (as the war Magnus and his regents started became known due to being the first known war to be fought on both sides of the great ocean) it was not on the scale of the Helmenn sacks of various German cities or the aftermath of the Jorsalfarings, even though the Munsterians were driven by vengfulness for crimes committed by the Norsemen during the time they occupied most of Eirann, although that had ended over a century and a half previously.
For half a year in 1644, it looked like Norway would finally be humbled by its colonial rivals which heretofore had failed to even dent it.
But the Munsterians had failed to consider their own 'countrymen'.
Munster itself is the southernmost province of Eirann, which had never been firmly ruled by the Norsemen, and in the upheaval following the Iustitia Regis decree abolishing the feudal system it managed to break away into its own independent state. When the chaos continued over the next few decades into the sixteenth century, fueled first by noble discontent and then by religious turmoil, Munster exploited it to conquer all of Eirann south of Skottish Ulster which was anyway usually regarded as a piece of the Skottish heartland. When King Håkon VII attempted to reverse Munster's gains, his reward was utter defeat and the loss of Valsherland east of long-dead Offa's Dyke. Cornwall, which had been conquered by the Aragonese in the 1460s also fell to Munster in a dynastic struggle.
However, Eirann north of Munster never fully integrated into the population of their supposed 'brothers' and rulers. The years of Norse occupation had fostered in the Eirannians a sense of national identity separate first from Norway, and then from Munster.
With a major war on and the majority of the Munsterian troops away invading Angland and the Norse colonies, the Eirannians north of Munster, whom their overlords gave the derogatory name 'Norse Eirannians' but called themselves 'the men of Leinster' in memory of the once-dominant duchy of Leinster that had existed in the medieval era on the western coast of the island, rebelled against the King of Munster in what was the first true nationalistic revolution in history.
Though they despised the Norsemen for their long-ago occupation of their lands, the Leinstermenn saw the pragmatism of allying with the Empire as the only major power opposing Munster.
It was the salvation of Norway. With the Munsterians distracted Magnus, finally doing something important unaided by his former regents, led an army across Offa's Dyke and conquered the cities of Aberffraw and Dinefwr, the two most important Munsterian strongholds in Valsherland and by extension mainland Britain.
The Munsterians, their homeland being torn apart by the intro-ethnic struggle, agreed to Magnus' proposal of a white peace.
With their Eirannian allies having abandoned them, the Portuguese lost whatever heart they had left. With the fall of their capital al-Lisba and their colonial centers in Mexica and El Porto del Folkesland, the Sultan realized he had no hope of victory.
In 1645, after almost three years of struggle, the Treaty of Lisba was signed by the three major powers involved in the First Crossatlantic War: Norway (the victor, obviously), Portugal and Munster, plus delegates from the Norwegian puppets in Sicily and Oman and an observer was sent by the Huron Confederacy.
The main points of the treaty were two:
1. All Portuguese colonies and holdings occupied by Norwegian troops at the time of the signing of the treaty are henceforth inseparable part and parcel of the Norwegian Empire.
2. Munster, along with all signatories of the treaty will recognize the independence of the Republic of Leinster as a nation unto its own and equal to all other nations in the world.
As the treaty made its way to all parts of the signatory nations and into the hands of jealous monarchs like the a Husi kings of Skottland and their kinsmen in Frankerland, Magnus, now fully mature thanks to his battlefield experience and finally capable of ruling the Empire, settled back into his palace at Nordfalgborg, with its wines and courtesans and plays, believing his life would from now on be one of luxury and absolute power to do whatever he wished.
Alas, rare is the man who gets all he wants. For although Magnus had proved himself in battle with foreign enemies, he would face a foe none of his ancestors had.
His own people, fighting in their own name for their own cause.
Next time on A Saga Without Heroes:
Another tale of the Norseoverse leads into another epic regular update as we delve once more into the lives of the common people of Jorvik, Angland and specifically, the lives of a few who will change the direction of Norse history forever...
Expansion comes always with a price!Overextension seems a fatala factor now ...It seems that definitely is time for the history to change
These Munsterians certainly sound fearsome - though the title of this update is rather foreboding. Are we on for internal implosion?
Iustitia Populi Part 2:
The Play
A Tale of the Norseoverse
The war was over. The Munsterians, defeated by their own 'countrymen', made the long trek from the cities of the Anglish Middlelands back to Valsherland beyond Offa's Dyke, while their enemies the soldiers of Norway carried the Lion of Norway on their victorious journey in the opposite direction. Most of those victorious soldiers were mercenaries fighting for the promise of the Emperor's gold, and those mostly returned to their vagrant lives looking for employment, except for some few who were paid to stay on with the Norwegian Empire keeping the peace, but there were still some who kept alive the old tradition of men levied to fight for their lord, a remnant of the old feudal age ended by Iustitia Regis two centuries past. And when the brannjulen stopped firing, when the swords that had known the blood of men from far-away were hung up above the fireplace, and when the triumphal procession of Emperor Magnus through the streets of Nordfalgborg ended, they returned to their homes: One from Nidaros, another two from Lundeborg, a contingent from far-off Reykjavik, and five or so from even farther across the great ocean: the city of Markaborg, which prided itself on being the first settlement in Folkesland, the great continent discovered a century and a half previously and was still a byword for a land where a lowborn and poor man could rise to wealth and importance quickly and easily, where a new culture born of the multifarious peoples and languages of the Empire was being conceived. But one of those soldiers was not from so far abroad: when he took off his armor and put down his pulversky, it was against the wall of his humble home in Jorvik, the capital of northern Angland and a site of many important events in Norse history.
His name was Elias Nordmansban, and he was about to add another entry to the illustrious, and sometimes dubiously loyal history of Jorvik....
****************************************
It started with a little night of unwinding, of trying to forget what he had seen months and years ago, although sometimes (or always) it felt like yesterday or last week. Elias' wife had mysteriously disappeared before he returned to his hometown in the fall of 1645, and the child she told him she was bearing in a letter that had arrived just as 1644 turned into 1645 was nowhere to be seen either. And so, on the night of 2 October, 1645 he left his humble little home and headed over to his neighbor Bård's house, just a short walk of two minutes.
When the door was opened by Bård to let Elias in, Elias recognized most of the other guests already mingling near Bård's fireplace: They had all been with him at the siege of Caerfyrddin a year ago, but had mysteriously left the unit about a month before the end of the war. There was Bernt Arnesson, who had captured the governor of Kernow, chatting with pious Isiah Gartzez. There was Arna Bjornsson, Bernt's wife, looking uneasily at her husband. Elias walked in and sat down in a wooden chair, near Bernt and Isiah. Bård followed him, and motioned for everyone to sit down as well. They did so, and Bård cleared his throat.
Then he began to speak.
"My brothers, and sister, freeborn servants of the Emperor! Or perhaps that is not logical, one can not be freeborn and a servant?"
"Hear, hear!" cried Bernt.
"So, as the great Skottish teacher Cormack tells us, we must allow logic to prevail! So which shall it be, free or servant?"
"Free, free, as the Lord God made us!" cried Isiah.
"That's right, my holy friend, God made all men free and it is only other men who have made them slaves. So, shall we not restore things to the way they were when God created the earth and Man to rule it? Shall we not throw off the man-made yoke and replace it with the gentle burden of Jesus?"
This time Elias found himself among those who yet again shouted an affirmative.
Bernt coughed a bit, then raised his voice and said: "So let us go beyond simply shouting our agreement! Let us translate our wise words into even greater deeds! This very night, we shall begin the great struggle that will free us all from the yoke of the Emperor!"
Bård, looking sheepish, nodded in agreement. The others cheered.
They queued up for mead, then having each received his or her (rather large) portion poured by Arna Bjornsson, toasted Liberty and, unexpectedly, one of those not especially related to Liberty, the King of Munster.
Elias was surprised when the next thing he knew was that the one thing even the horrors of Caerfyrddin had not prepared him for was Bård's mead.
When he awoke, or rather half-awoke, his sleepy eyes caught a glimpse of Bernt, lying on the floor of their cell.
He could not recall how he had come to be here, imprisoned by the cruelty of cold steel of the prison bars, but however that had happened, the fact remained: that mead was not a good idea.
It was dark, but there was still light enough to read. And when he had finished glancing at Bernt, he saw a piece of paper.
He picked it up and stared at the line in the bottom.
The literacy program started by Emperor Sigurd allowed Elias to read the signature.
Sigurd Ormslev.
******************************************************
Elias and Bernt did not have much time to enjoy the comforts of the Jorvik Provinical Jail. Bård had been able to bribe the guards in his cell and along with his freedom he also received a special bonus for his money:
The story of his and his friends' capture.
As it turned out, the Imperial Patrolmen had advance knowledge that the party at Bård's house would involve rebellious planning, and broke in just as Elias and Bernt toasted the end of the Empire.
But keys have a tendency to slip out of greasy hands, and so in the afternoon of the first day of their imprisonment Elias and Bernt walked the streets of Jorvik, free men. But Elias held on to the paper signed by the famous playwright Ormslev. He had seen Kong Arnmod himself as a little boy and had even met the playwright. The text of this declaration intrigued him. It was exactly what they had talked about at the party last night.
And it gave him an idea.
******************************************
He spent the next two months of freedom writing. It would be a 'grand celebration of the glory of the Empire', according to the letter he and Bernt had sent to the Imperial court asking for the presence of the Emperor at the first performance, to be held on the first day of 1646.
It was called Kong Erlend.
Elias conceived it as a sort of predecessor to Kong Arnmod, showcasing Arnmod's father, Erlend I, and his life, mainly the Anarchy and Erlend's efforts to reunite the realm.
When it was done, he presented it to Bernt, who immediately set out to find actors.
Bård, however, set out to find people to fill other roles in the great drama.
The guards at the Imperial Weapon Storage near the cathedral of St. Gunnar in Jorvik were surprised when most of the pulverski they were supposed to guard disappeared one cold December night.
*******************************************************************************************
Finally, everything was in place, from prop swords to live pulver ammunition.
Emperor Magnus decided that in his Imperial boredom he would do anything to be entertained, even leave the court to visit some provincial town (relatively) near the border and watch a play written by a Yngling sycophant and acted by enthusiastic amateurs.
Elias stood by the stage, erected in the church yard of St. Gunnar in the manner of medieval miracle plays, and watched Bernt's hirelings elect Erlend Alfsson, the Sveriger-raised grandson of Olaf the Wise, in the wake of Aslak Olafsson's defeat and death at the battle of Gluksterborg.
Only a few more minutes of pandering.
He would have drifted off to sleep, except after two minutes someone dropped a prop on stage causing a large disturbance.
They haven't seen anything.
Then, the signal came. The actor playing Sven, Arl of Leicsterborg shouted: "You must submit!" at the one playing Erlend (which was part of the script). The Emperor looked horrified by this.
Oh, not pandering enough? It only gets better thought Elias.
Then, the actor turned to the Emperor and shouted at him: "Submit!" (that was not part of the official script).
And thus the thunder roared.
Not a natural thunder following lightening, as you might expect from winter.
No, this was all too artificial thunder, and it hit more than once.
Elias took out his pulver and ran towards the crowd, which began to disperse.
In the confusion he managed to see a woman running torwards Bernt, next to him. She shouted: "Bernt, Bernt! I have to tell you, before they get me!". She had tears in her eyes.
Unfortunately, Bernt had just fired in her direction. Tears didn't help her rise when she fell, permanently.
To his horror, Elias realized that woman was familiar. In fact, she had poured the mead last night.
But there was no time to dwell on loss and accidental murder; There was an emperor to capture.
The Imperial Guard, drowsy due to the boring play, had not quite lived up to its goal.
One of Bård's hired pulvers caught Magnus, Emperor of Norway and Norsemen Across The Ocean, and held his weapon to the Imperial head.
Elias came up to his lord, and resisted an urge to kneel implanted into him by Commander Kåteson.
Bård brought him the paper, and read it out.
Magnus wept for his shrunken crown, and then signed the document that ended the days of Halfdan the Accursed and Iustitia Regis.
Now there was only Iustitia Populi, the Judgment (or Will) of the People.
The Play
A Tale of the Norseoverse
The war was over. The Munsterians, defeated by their own 'countrymen', made the long trek from the cities of the Anglish Middlelands back to Valsherland beyond Offa's Dyke, while their enemies the soldiers of Norway carried the Lion of Norway on their victorious journey in the opposite direction. Most of those victorious soldiers were mercenaries fighting for the promise of the Emperor's gold, and those mostly returned to their vagrant lives looking for employment, except for some few who were paid to stay on with the Norwegian Empire keeping the peace, but there were still some who kept alive the old tradition of men levied to fight for their lord, a remnant of the old feudal age ended by Iustitia Regis two centuries past. And when the brannjulen stopped firing, when the swords that had known the blood of men from far-away were hung up above the fireplace, and when the triumphal procession of Emperor Magnus through the streets of Nordfalgborg ended, they returned to their homes: One from Nidaros, another two from Lundeborg, a contingent from far-off Reykjavik, and five or so from even farther across the great ocean: the city of Markaborg, which prided itself on being the first settlement in Folkesland, the great continent discovered a century and a half previously and was still a byword for a land where a lowborn and poor man could rise to wealth and importance quickly and easily, where a new culture born of the multifarious peoples and languages of the Empire was being conceived. But one of those soldiers was not from so far abroad: when he took off his armor and put down his pulversky, it was against the wall of his humble home in Jorvik, the capital of northern Angland and a site of many important events in Norse history.
His name was Elias Nordmansban, and he was about to add another entry to the illustrious, and sometimes dubiously loyal history of Jorvik....
****************************************
It started with a little night of unwinding, of trying to forget what he had seen months and years ago, although sometimes (or always) it felt like yesterday or last week. Elias' wife had mysteriously disappeared before he returned to his hometown in the fall of 1645, and the child she told him she was bearing in a letter that had arrived just as 1644 turned into 1645 was nowhere to be seen either. And so, on the night of 2 October, 1645 he left his humble little home and headed over to his neighbor Bård's house, just a short walk of two minutes.
When the door was opened by Bård to let Elias in, Elias recognized most of the other guests already mingling near Bård's fireplace: They had all been with him at the siege of Caerfyrddin a year ago, but had mysteriously left the unit about a month before the end of the war. There was Bernt Arnesson, who had captured the governor of Kernow, chatting with pious Isiah Gartzez. There was Arna Bjornsson, Bernt's wife, looking uneasily at her husband. Elias walked in and sat down in a wooden chair, near Bernt and Isiah. Bård followed him, and motioned for everyone to sit down as well. They did so, and Bård cleared his throat.
Then he began to speak.
"My brothers, and sister, freeborn servants of the Emperor! Or perhaps that is not logical, one can not be freeborn and a servant?"
"Hear, hear!" cried Bernt.
"So, as the great Skottish teacher Cormack tells us, we must allow logic to prevail! So which shall it be, free or servant?"
"Free, free, as the Lord God made us!" cried Isiah.
"That's right, my holy friend, God made all men free and it is only other men who have made them slaves. So, shall we not restore things to the way they were when God created the earth and Man to rule it? Shall we not throw off the man-made yoke and replace it with the gentle burden of Jesus?"
This time Elias found himself among those who yet again shouted an affirmative.
Bernt coughed a bit, then raised his voice and said: "So let us go beyond simply shouting our agreement! Let us translate our wise words into even greater deeds! This very night, we shall begin the great struggle that will free us all from the yoke of the Emperor!"
Bård, looking sheepish, nodded in agreement. The others cheered.
They queued up for mead, then having each received his or her (rather large) portion poured by Arna Bjornsson, toasted Liberty and, unexpectedly, one of those not especially related to Liberty, the King of Munster.
Elias was surprised when the next thing he knew was that the one thing even the horrors of Caerfyrddin had not prepared him for was Bård's mead.
When he awoke, or rather half-awoke, his sleepy eyes caught a glimpse of Bernt, lying on the floor of their cell.
He could not recall how he had come to be here, imprisoned by the cruelty of cold steel of the prison bars, but however that had happened, the fact remained: that mead was not a good idea.
It was dark, but there was still light enough to read. And when he had finished glancing at Bernt, he saw a piece of paper.
He picked it up and stared at the line in the bottom.
The literacy program started by Emperor Sigurd allowed Elias to read the signature.
Sigurd Ormslev.
******************************************************
Elias and Bernt did not have much time to enjoy the comforts of the Jorvik Provinical Jail. Bård had been able to bribe the guards in his cell and along with his freedom he also received a special bonus for his money:
The story of his and his friends' capture.
As it turned out, the Imperial Patrolmen had advance knowledge that the party at Bård's house would involve rebellious planning, and broke in just as Elias and Bernt toasted the end of the Empire.
But keys have a tendency to slip out of greasy hands, and so in the afternoon of the first day of their imprisonment Elias and Bernt walked the streets of Jorvik, free men. But Elias held on to the paper signed by the famous playwright Ormslev. He had seen Kong Arnmod himself as a little boy and had even met the playwright. The text of this declaration intrigued him. It was exactly what they had talked about at the party last night.
And it gave him an idea.
******************************************
He spent the next two months of freedom writing. It would be a 'grand celebration of the glory of the Empire', according to the letter he and Bernt had sent to the Imperial court asking for the presence of the Emperor at the first performance, to be held on the first day of 1646.
It was called Kong Erlend.
Elias conceived it as a sort of predecessor to Kong Arnmod, showcasing Arnmod's father, Erlend I, and his life, mainly the Anarchy and Erlend's efforts to reunite the realm.
When it was done, he presented it to Bernt, who immediately set out to find actors.
Bård, however, set out to find people to fill other roles in the great drama.
The guards at the Imperial Weapon Storage near the cathedral of St. Gunnar in Jorvik were surprised when most of the pulverski they were supposed to guard disappeared one cold December night.
*******************************************************************************************
Finally, everything was in place, from prop swords to live pulver ammunition.
Emperor Magnus decided that in his Imperial boredom he would do anything to be entertained, even leave the court to visit some provincial town (relatively) near the border and watch a play written by a Yngling sycophant and acted by enthusiastic amateurs.
Elias stood by the stage, erected in the church yard of St. Gunnar in the manner of medieval miracle plays, and watched Bernt's hirelings elect Erlend Alfsson, the Sveriger-raised grandson of Olaf the Wise, in the wake of Aslak Olafsson's defeat and death at the battle of Gluksterborg.
Only a few more minutes of pandering.
He would have drifted off to sleep, except after two minutes someone dropped a prop on stage causing a large disturbance.
They haven't seen anything.
Then, the signal came. The actor playing Sven, Arl of Leicsterborg shouted: "You must submit!" at the one playing Erlend (which was part of the script). The Emperor looked horrified by this.
Oh, not pandering enough? It only gets better thought Elias.
Then, the actor turned to the Emperor and shouted at him: "Submit!" (that was not part of the official script).
And thus the thunder roared.
Not a natural thunder following lightening, as you might expect from winter.
No, this was all too artificial thunder, and it hit more than once.
Elias took out his pulver and ran towards the crowd, which began to disperse.
In the confusion he managed to see a woman running torwards Bernt, next to him. She shouted: "Bernt, Bernt! I have to tell you, before they get me!". She had tears in her eyes.
Unfortunately, Bernt had just fired in her direction. Tears didn't help her rise when she fell, permanently.
To his horror, Elias realized that woman was familiar. In fact, she had poured the mead last night.
But there was no time to dwell on loss and accidental murder; There was an emperor to capture.
The Imperial Guard, drowsy due to the boring play, had not quite lived up to its goal.
One of Bård's hired pulvers caught Magnus, Emperor of Norway and Norsemen Across The Ocean, and held his weapon to the Imperial head.
Elias came up to his lord, and resisted an urge to kneel implanted into him by Commander Kåteson.
Bård brought him the paper, and read it out.
Magnus wept for his shrunken crown, and then signed the document that ended the days of Halfdan the Accursed and Iustitia Regis.
Now there was only Iustitia Populi, the Judgment (or Will) of the People.
This reminded me of a slightly less intense Nineteen-Eighty-Four, which is by no means a bad thing. Really immersive, as ever.
Is that the end of the monarchy, then? I can't help but be a little sad, though democracy is always good. If other English anti-monarchist revolts of the period are anything to go by, however, this may be rather short lived
Is that the end of the monarchy, then? I can't help but be a little sad, though democracy is always good. If other English anti-monarchist revolts of the period are anything to go by, however, this may be rather short lived
That's interesting since I kind of finished this one in a hurry yesterday because I hadn't updated in a week. Be careful, Big Emperor is watching you!
The answer is there, just before the end.Is that the end of the monarchy, then? I can't help but be a little sad, though democracy is always good. If other English anti-monarchist revolts of the period are anything to go by, however, this may be rather short lived
Great update, I've tried to find time to read this three times in the last few days and I've very pleased that I aws finally able to. A very successful plot - despite the fact that loose tongues placed it in danger from the very beginning.
Thank you, Seelmeister, that is very high praise!
As for you, Gukpa, a map will be provided at the end of the next main update- I don't have any maps from the period of this one.
As for you, Gukpa, a map will be provided at the end of the next main update- I don't have any maps from the period of this one.
I'm working on the next update, probably to be posted today, but in the meantime why not check out the new issue of the AARlander, the finest magazine in AARland featuring contributions from our very best AARwriters!
Click on this image to be magically transported to the AARlander:
Click on this image to be magically transported to the AARlander:
I am quite busy nowadays with my efforts to write a SF short story and school and laziness, so I proclaim this ON HOLD until 20 June, 2013, the day I start summer vacation.
Adios until then!
Adios until then!
Thanks! Best of luck with your great work!Very much looking forward to then - good luck with everything
Sorry to hear that this is on ice for the time being, good luck with your school work though. I'll look forward to seeing you resume this work in a few months time.
Chapter 47:
Reign of Iron
Excerpted from A Saga Without Heroes Part 2: The New Worlds, by Erik Haraldsson. ©2013 Nidaros University Press.
Used with permission.
When the dust settled, when the still-weeping Emperor returned to the palace at Nordfalgborg, when the celebrations were done, the face of the Norwegian Empire, and some (mainly the more patriotic of authors) claim the world, was irreversibly changed. Gone were the days in which the Emperor was a little god on Earth, to which all had to bend and scrape and fulfill his wishes without the slightest complaint. Now, the Empire was more than just an extension of the Emperor (or as the cynics would claim, his advisors)'s will. It was now working (at least in theory) for the people and not the people for the Emperor.
Now, every two years every free adult citizen of the Empire was allowed to stand for election to the Althing, which, named after the Icelander council of the medieval era which still existed when Iustita Regis came to make the King an absolute ruler, had the power to collect taxes and introduce laws, which although had to be approved by the Emperor, could still pass despite a veto by the monarch if 90% of the 150 members of the Althing agreed.
To avoid undue influence by the Imperial court, the Althing Hall was built at Jorvik, site of that fateful play that changed history forever.
At first it seemed that the change was not at all for the better. The 150 members of the 'Milk-baby's Council', as the first Althing was known, were for the most part inexperienced city-dwellers and ignorant rural people.
The downfall of the Imperial authority was taken for a sign of weakness in the Yngling dynasty by its neighbors. Skottland, in 1650, declared war on Norway, under the (faulty) pretext of 'liberating' Skottsmen who had immigrated (of their own free will, having heard of the greater freedoms in the reformed Empire) to the Norse colonies in Folkesland, leaving behind the green fields and grey, grim forts of the MacKay Valley and the ancient heathen temples of Mount Cormack.
Needless to say, it was a disaster. The army was disorganized, plagued by mutinies on the part of those pressed into service by the press gangs employed by the Emperor, and confusion as to whom the officers reported and received their orders from. The Skotts quickly occupied all of the Norse holdings in North Folkesland east of the former Shawnee Confederacy and all those in South Folkesland.
It is a miracle there was still a Norse Empire to speak of when the dust settled in 1652, with the signing of the Treaty of Jaumesburg, so named because it was signed in the capital of neutral Aragon's Folkesland colonies. The treaty forced Norway to cede all rights to fish in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and to grant exclusivity to Skottish merchants in the Empire. Skotts were to have superior status to all other foreigners in the Empire and be treated well. Some territory was also ceded, mainly small islands off the coasts and some contested lands near the borders.
Another miracle was that the Emperor Magnus survived almost three more decades of discontent, bitterness, and endless hurling of the blame for the 'Skottish debacle' between the Army High Commanders, the Althing, and the Emperor.
It is said that there was no dryer day in history than that of the death of Magnus Sigurdsson Yngling, in the bitterly cold Christmas Day of 1679.
But the tears would come, in the next half-century, from another Yngling....
*************************************************************
Margaret Magnussdatter Yngling was the eldest child of Magnus, Emperor of Norway and Norsemen across the Waters, and his Empress Sånia Haldorsdatter Bjarkoy, who was the last scion of that famous feudal family which at its prime in the 1300s virtually ruled the Yngling Kingdom of Sicilia as the Elektors of Calabria, Benevento and Messina. She had one sibling, Olaf, who was born a year after her. When Magnus (finally, most agreed) died on Christmas Day, 1679, this ambitious woman knew she had to act to get her father's (rather shrunken) throne. Although Norway had had three ruling queens in its history, they all only came to the throne (one right after the other) due to the absence of male heirs (thanks to the swelldeath). So, no one thought that Margaret, who had a reputation for cruelty and ruthlessness would ever be allowed to inflict them on the realm.
They thought.
While the Imperial court was hearing Mass at Håkon's cathedral, Margaret mysteriously disappeared. But then, women had no place in the house of God, someone mused.
When it was done, they filed out of the cathedral, only to hear the smashing of hooves on the cobblestones of Nordhampta.
They lifted Margaret's personal banner, a red lion on a golden background, on which the words IMPERATRIX, NON DOMINA were emblazoned in red letters.
Then, shots echoed through the ancient palace that had seen Arnmod the Fat, Ossor the Cruel, Guttorm the Unfortunate, and Halfdan the Accursed and Harald the Great.
The miniature brannjulen metal balls that flew through the cold and musty Anglish air killed not only those they hit, but liberty itself.
So it seemed.
******************************
Margaret was crowned Margaret I, Empress of Norway and the Norsemen across the Waters, on the feast of St. Valentine 1680. Immediately she set out on the great labor of restoring the power of the monarchy to Iustitia Regis levels.
The Althing could not, however, be disbanded immediately. The days of the 'Milk-baby's council' ended with the signing of the Treaty of Jaumesburg, and now harder men and harder wills prevailed in the Hall at Jorvik. On her first attempt to rein the Althing in Margaret's troops were hounded from the hall and put to rout. Infuriated, Margaret executed every man who was sent, and went to work on more subtle methods.
She had soldiers quartered in every town across Norge, Angland, Brittaland, and Sicilia, enforcing her rule. Then, a prohibitively high poll tax reduced the electorate to the rich and (mostly) powerful who had a natural ally in the Empress. When the expected generation of unrest and revolt ended around 1700, everything seemed in place.
It was time for the 'Iron Empress' as she is known everywhere, from folk songs to history textbooks, to avenge her country on the foreigner.
It was quite an effective strategy as a final tactic to bring the people of the Empire under her heel- there is no faster known way to unify a people than to present a common enemy whose defeat is conditional on absolute obedience.
To celebrate the new century, Margaret went on a grand tour of her Empire. When she came to Markaborg on the twentieth annevirsary of her coronation, she proclaimed a great national effort to liberate all those brother and sister Norse chafing under the yoke of the foreign and cruel Skotts. This effort was expressed as the opening boom of the eighteenth century.
All around the Empire the flames of war soon licked up. Jorvik was besieged by a Skottish invasion force bent on capturing Nordhamptaborg and the Empress, forcing a quick end to the war. When food started to run out a local group of young men tricked the Skotts into believing a giant relief army was on the way, which gave rise to the folk legend of Little Sigwulf and the Lions.
Across the ocean, many battles were fought in the forests of the MacKay valley, including the legendary Fort Eisnblot.
Some have called it 'the Second World War', which is true enough, but raises associations of a rather different kind.
In truth it would be more accurate to call it 'The First National War', because indeed it planted the first seeds of nationalism.
After five years of war the exhausted countries signed the Treaty of Lake Huron, signed on a boat belonging to the Huron confederacy on its epynonmoyus lake.
Norway did regain most of what poor Magnus had lost, but like so many similar occurences, it only worsened things.
For, following the war, Margaret had soldiers quartered in Folkesland to protect from Skraeling raids, taking over the lives and houses and coin of many colonists.
Angry voices were raised in the Althing for the first time in a generation, and especially in town meetings and news publications all across Folkesland.
And that was more dangerous to the Empire than any Skottish invasion.
Reign of Iron
Excerpted from A Saga Without Heroes Part 2: The New Worlds, by Erik Haraldsson. ©2013 Nidaros University Press.
Used with permission.
When the dust settled, when the still-weeping Emperor returned to the palace at Nordfalgborg, when the celebrations were done, the face of the Norwegian Empire, and some (mainly the more patriotic of authors) claim the world, was irreversibly changed. Gone were the days in which the Emperor was a little god on Earth, to which all had to bend and scrape and fulfill his wishes without the slightest complaint. Now, the Empire was more than just an extension of the Emperor (or as the cynics would claim, his advisors)'s will. It was now working (at least in theory) for the people and not the people for the Emperor.
Now, every two years every free adult citizen of the Empire was allowed to stand for election to the Althing, which, named after the Icelander council of the medieval era which still existed when Iustita Regis came to make the King an absolute ruler, had the power to collect taxes and introduce laws, which although had to be approved by the Emperor, could still pass despite a veto by the monarch if 90% of the 150 members of the Althing agreed.
To avoid undue influence by the Imperial court, the Althing Hall was built at Jorvik, site of that fateful play that changed history forever.
At first it seemed that the change was not at all for the better. The 150 members of the 'Milk-baby's Council', as the first Althing was known, were for the most part inexperienced city-dwellers and ignorant rural people.
The downfall of the Imperial authority was taken for a sign of weakness in the Yngling dynasty by its neighbors. Skottland, in 1650, declared war on Norway, under the (faulty) pretext of 'liberating' Skottsmen who had immigrated (of their own free will, having heard of the greater freedoms in the reformed Empire) to the Norse colonies in Folkesland, leaving behind the green fields and grey, grim forts of the MacKay Valley and the ancient heathen temples of Mount Cormack.
Needless to say, it was a disaster. The army was disorganized, plagued by mutinies on the part of those pressed into service by the press gangs employed by the Emperor, and confusion as to whom the officers reported and received their orders from. The Skotts quickly occupied all of the Norse holdings in North Folkesland east of the former Shawnee Confederacy and all those in South Folkesland.
It is a miracle there was still a Norse Empire to speak of when the dust settled in 1652, with the signing of the Treaty of Jaumesburg, so named because it was signed in the capital of neutral Aragon's Folkesland colonies. The treaty forced Norway to cede all rights to fish in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and to grant exclusivity to Skottish merchants in the Empire. Skotts were to have superior status to all other foreigners in the Empire and be treated well. Some territory was also ceded, mainly small islands off the coasts and some contested lands near the borders.
Another miracle was that the Emperor Magnus survived almost three more decades of discontent, bitterness, and endless hurling of the blame for the 'Skottish debacle' between the Army High Commanders, the Althing, and the Emperor.
It is said that there was no dryer day in history than that of the death of Magnus Sigurdsson Yngling, in the bitterly cold Christmas Day of 1679.
But the tears would come, in the next half-century, from another Yngling....
*************************************************************
Margaret Magnussdatter Yngling was the eldest child of Magnus, Emperor of Norway and Norsemen across the Waters, and his Empress Sånia Haldorsdatter Bjarkoy, who was the last scion of that famous feudal family which at its prime in the 1300s virtually ruled the Yngling Kingdom of Sicilia as the Elektors of Calabria, Benevento and Messina. She had one sibling, Olaf, who was born a year after her. When Magnus (finally, most agreed) died on Christmas Day, 1679, this ambitious woman knew she had to act to get her father's (rather shrunken) throne. Although Norway had had three ruling queens in its history, they all only came to the throne (one right after the other) due to the absence of male heirs (thanks to the swelldeath). So, no one thought that Margaret, who had a reputation for cruelty and ruthlessness would ever be allowed to inflict them on the realm.
They thought.
While the Imperial court was hearing Mass at Håkon's cathedral, Margaret mysteriously disappeared. But then, women had no place in the house of God, someone mused.
When it was done, they filed out of the cathedral, only to hear the smashing of hooves on the cobblestones of Nordhampta.
They lifted Margaret's personal banner, a red lion on a golden background, on which the words IMPERATRIX, NON DOMINA were emblazoned in red letters.
Then, shots echoed through the ancient palace that had seen Arnmod the Fat, Ossor the Cruel, Guttorm the Unfortunate, and Halfdan the Accursed and Harald the Great.
The miniature brannjulen metal balls that flew through the cold and musty Anglish air killed not only those they hit, but liberty itself.
So it seemed.
******************************
Margaret was crowned Margaret I, Empress of Norway and the Norsemen across the Waters, on the feast of St. Valentine 1680. Immediately she set out on the great labor of restoring the power of the monarchy to Iustitia Regis levels.
The Althing could not, however, be disbanded immediately. The days of the 'Milk-baby's council' ended with the signing of the Treaty of Jaumesburg, and now harder men and harder wills prevailed in the Hall at Jorvik. On her first attempt to rein the Althing in Margaret's troops were hounded from the hall and put to rout. Infuriated, Margaret executed every man who was sent, and went to work on more subtle methods.
She had soldiers quartered in every town across Norge, Angland, Brittaland, and Sicilia, enforcing her rule. Then, a prohibitively high poll tax reduced the electorate to the rich and (mostly) powerful who had a natural ally in the Empress. When the expected generation of unrest and revolt ended around 1700, everything seemed in place.
It was time for the 'Iron Empress' as she is known everywhere, from folk songs to history textbooks, to avenge her country on the foreigner.
It was quite an effective strategy as a final tactic to bring the people of the Empire under her heel- there is no faster known way to unify a people than to present a common enemy whose defeat is conditional on absolute obedience.
To celebrate the new century, Margaret went on a grand tour of her Empire. When she came to Markaborg on the twentieth annevirsary of her coronation, she proclaimed a great national effort to liberate all those brother and sister Norse chafing under the yoke of the foreign and cruel Skotts. This effort was expressed as the opening boom of the eighteenth century.
All around the Empire the flames of war soon licked up. Jorvik was besieged by a Skottish invasion force bent on capturing Nordhamptaborg and the Empress, forcing a quick end to the war. When food started to run out a local group of young men tricked the Skotts into believing a giant relief army was on the way, which gave rise to the folk legend of Little Sigwulf and the Lions.
Across the ocean, many battles were fought in the forests of the MacKay valley, including the legendary Fort Eisnblot.
Some have called it 'the Second World War', which is true enough, but raises associations of a rather different kind.
In truth it would be more accurate to call it 'The First National War', because indeed it planted the first seeds of nationalism.
After five years of war the exhausted countries signed the Treaty of Lake Huron, signed on a boat belonging to the Huron confederacy on its epynonmoyus lake.
Norway did regain most of what poor Magnus had lost, but like so many similar occurences, it only worsened things.
For, following the war, Margaret had soldiers quartered in Folkesland to protect from Skraeling raids, taking over the lives and houses and coin of many colonists.
Angry voices were raised in the Althing for the first time in a generation, and especially in town meetings and news publications all across Folkesland.
And that was more dangerous to the Empire than any Skottish invasion.