No good deed goes unpunished. Defanging the Vatican is a great deed. What will the punishment be? Thank you for showing the procedures for papal elections.
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Song of the Karlings: Karloman's Legacy
- Thread starter LPDK 356
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“I rule in the name of God - the god that my sycophant is the voice of.”
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Cheap way to make sure God's on your side, Own his representatives!
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I hadn't been here in a while but great stuff as usual!
It's interesting to see this harder Pepin in his old age, I wonder how that will affect his sons, especially with hints of a rift between Maurice and Renaud.
Oooh I like the curse of the crone, it's always great to have a prophecy, I'm excited for it to come to fruition!
It's interesting to see this harder Pepin in his old age, I wonder how that will affect his sons, especially with hints of a rift between Maurice and Renaud.
Oooh I like the curse of the crone, it's always great to have a prophecy, I'm excited for it to come to fruition!
813-814, Paris.
The remainder of the year upon their return passed relatively uneventfully for the imperial family. Pepin hosted a great feast for the court, and all the children, most now kings in their own right, attended. Pepin had ensured that they would be present at the request of his beloved Elodie, whom rarely ever got to see her boys now that they were men with their own responsibilities.
To those who did not know him Pepin’s deep and abiding love for his wife was a source of continued fascination. She did not have the brilliance of a Bertrada de Laon, nor was she possessed of great wits. While pretty, she was hardly an indescribable beauty. No, those who knew the Emperor best explained the attraction thusly. Elodie was, at heart, a person of decency and generosity, a selfless spirit, the sort that Pepin, raised largely by his tutors and by a haughty, domineering and occasionally neglectful father, would find utterly irresistible. It could be said with truth that he had never even considered bedding another woman beyond her, and that their relationship had never once reached the tumult of his father’s three separate marriages.
Nor had the rigours of royal life yet flared in tensions between the sons. Despite their different personalities, Maurice and Renaud remained tight-knit at the feast, laughing and drinking and singing somber tunes later into the night. Karloman, now King of West Francia, tapped his feet idly in amusement at his brothers antics, enjoying his wine and the entertainments of the night in equal measures.
If there was any hint of the discord to come, then it seemed it was in the personage of Loup, King of Italy, who sat on the corner of the head table, glowering at his father and brother’s amusement. He felt he had been inadequately rewarded for his contributions to the campaign against the Pontiff in Italia.
But he made no open breach. For that brief shining moment, at the highest glory of the Carolingian Empire, all were united and well.
Shortly after that feast, word came from the east. Pepin’s own half-brother Nicolaus, son of Karloman and Eirene of Athens, Emperor of Constantinople was dead, having sucuumbed to wounds sustained in a frontier skirmish with the Bulgars and in his place was a Greek bureaucrat named Pyhros, unknown to the courts of the West. The union of the two halves of the Empire, already fraying under the strained relations of the two half-brothers, shattered entirely. The Eastern Empire no longer even made a pretense of acknowledging the legitimacy of the Carolingian Dynasty’s pretensions of Empire, now that the Carolingian dynasty no longer ruled in Constantinople. It made little difference to Pepin, given he know had the Roman Papacy directly under control, but it was yet another blow to the patchwork compromise of a united Church and Empire that Karloman and Eirene had stitched together after her exile from Constantinople all those years earlier.
But times of prosperity and plenty often give way to hardships and misery. In late 814 a terrible disease began afflicting several cities in the northernmost territories of the Francian kingdom. Believed to be spreading south from Saxony, the illness killed thousands in it’s wake, and at the same time, a bad growing season led to shortages of vital food and supplies. The Emperor gave orders to open granaries and attempt to alleviate shortages in the towns and villages, but this only mitigated the worst effects. Famine loomed in parts of the empire. Further, repeated savage Viking raids occurred, and the Emperor was relying upon the local levies to put them down, pre-occupied with the famine and the ongoing strong-arming of the Church into loyalty to his puppet Pope Nicolaus II.
Pepin’s fifth son Leon was a problem. He had always been so. From an early age he had not caught up with his lessons as quickly as the other boys. He needed concepts explained to him twice, or three times, when other boys only needed it once. He seemed dull, sluggish and slow-witted. Pepin himself had expressed his disappointment in the boy, outright referring to him as the “stupid child” of the family. The other children, learning of the Emperor’s contempt, had nicknamed him “The Mule”.
But now Leon wanted what his brother’s had. They had been given kingdoms of their own, parts of the Empire to govern in their father’s name. All his elder siblings possessed them, Renaud, Maurice, Karloman and Loup. He wanted what was theirs for himself.
“No.” Was Pepin’s reply. “I am sorry Leon, but the tasks of a King are manifold and enormous. I cannot simply entrust these responsibilities to whomever might ask for them. They must be granted to men of proven skill and experience in war and politics, and I’m afraid you haven’t shown you possess these means.”
Leon slowly shook his head. “You haven’t granted me a choice father.” The words came slowly, thickly, like his tongue had waded through sludge in order to form them. “You haven’t been fair.”
Pepin suppressed a flare of irritation. How to explain to the thick child that it was for his own good? His own banners in arms would laugh at him if he were granted kingship. Loyal and good-hearted though he may be at his core, Pepin knew his son far too well to think he would cope with the pressures of kingship. He had elder brothers for those tasks.
“Perhaps a Church car---”
“I want to be King.” Leon stamped his foot in a childlike way. “I want it.”
“We all want things we cannot have, son.” Pepin lowered his voice for that last word, reminding Leon that, for all his membership of the royal family, he was speaking to it’s head. “You abide by my commands above all else, for I am Emperor, and titles of Kingships are mine to decree. I have heard your request, and I think well of you for having made it. It is good you seek a position commensurate with your station, but I have made my decision, and naught you can say will change it….”
“There are times,” Elodie said to him later, “that you can sound exactly like your father.”
Pepin reared as if he had been struck. “Is that what you think of me? That I would condemn him to a life of unhappiness and regret? Fool though the boy may be, I love Leon as mine own blood, for that is what he is. I will not see him subject to ridicule in the way that imposing on him the obligations of kingship would impose.”
Elodie grimanced, “I know as well as you do the depth of love you bear for him, but you could at least be more tactful at times.”
Pepin grumbled, “I am fast feeling like I am too old for tact.”
She laughed, always a soft, pleasurable sound. “So do we all, though even after all these years of marriage, I do not think of you as old.” She changed the subject, deftly avoiding an outright conflict with her husband on this subject now she sensed his mood had changed. “I wanted to talk to you about marriage. Maurice needs one, now he’s King in East Francia, and I have the woman.”
“Whom?” Pepin asked, intrigued. His second son had always been fond of women, but his activities had settled down since his father and mother had told him they were searching for a worthy bride for him to take as his Queen.
“Ermessinde, of the Montrichards”
“I don’t know them.” Pepin frowned, “Have you selected some scion of lower nobility for marriage for one of my sons.”
Elodie looked at him, pointedly. “He wouldn’t be the first Emperor’s son to do it.”
Pepin grinned, then broke out into uproarious laughter. “So he wouldn’t!” he laughed again, and Elodie waited, a patient smile on her face until he subsided. “You sure she is suitable.”
“She is renowned, I am told, for her tact and delicacy, her skills in languages are also wonderful and she is, I am told, a well-read girl and pleasing enough to look at. She will compliment Maurice, but will not undermine him.”
Pepin eyed her shrewdly. “An asset without being a threat to him, as you have been to me all these years? My love, you have outdone yourself!” he kissed her rapturously. “So shall it be! Our son shall wed the girl!”
So he did, that September, but word came of trouble brewing in the south, Renaud, the King of Aquitaine, suddenly faced a massive internal revolt. That family of perennial troubles for the Karlings, the Niebulings, had again mounted a challenge that posed a sustained threat to the credibility of Pepin’s political arrangements within the Empire.
Renaud could not attend the wedding, a disappointment to both his father and to Maurice, who had looked forward to seeing his favourite brother for the first time since the Expedition to Rome. But he had set eyes on his delectable new bride. Red of hair and green-eyed, with pursed red lips and a sly, secretive face. She spoke quietly, and little, but every word was well-placed and polite. He discerned a hint of intelligence within the flecks of green within her eyes, and Maurice made it a mental note to cultivate this new bride until her coolness became comfort, and he had an ally as well as a partner for his future labours. Despite the rebellion in Aquitaine, and the lack of his brother’s presence, he felt… contented.
For Maurice, for his father, and for the Carolingian Dynasty, many in future years would look back on it as the last moment all were so contented…
OOC: Apologies for the lateness, but this post is here and things are happening! The first fray in the Empire's knot comes loose in Aquitaine, but things are about to get much worse...
The remainder of the year upon their return passed relatively uneventfully for the imperial family. Pepin hosted a great feast for the court, and all the children, most now kings in their own right, attended. Pepin had ensured that they would be present at the request of his beloved Elodie, whom rarely ever got to see her boys now that they were men with their own responsibilities.
To those who did not know him Pepin’s deep and abiding love for his wife was a source of continued fascination. She did not have the brilliance of a Bertrada de Laon, nor was she possessed of great wits. While pretty, she was hardly an indescribable beauty. No, those who knew the Emperor best explained the attraction thusly. Elodie was, at heart, a person of decency and generosity, a selfless spirit, the sort that Pepin, raised largely by his tutors and by a haughty, domineering and occasionally neglectful father, would find utterly irresistible. It could be said with truth that he had never even considered bedding another woman beyond her, and that their relationship had never once reached the tumult of his father’s three separate marriages.
Nor had the rigours of royal life yet flared in tensions between the sons. Despite their different personalities, Maurice and Renaud remained tight-knit at the feast, laughing and drinking and singing somber tunes later into the night. Karloman, now King of West Francia, tapped his feet idly in amusement at his brothers antics, enjoying his wine and the entertainments of the night in equal measures.
If there was any hint of the discord to come, then it seemed it was in the personage of Loup, King of Italy, who sat on the corner of the head table, glowering at his father and brother’s amusement. He felt he had been inadequately rewarded for his contributions to the campaign against the Pontiff in Italia.
But he made no open breach. For that brief shining moment, at the highest glory of the Carolingian Empire, all were united and well.
Shortly after that feast, word came from the east. Pepin’s own half-brother Nicolaus, son of Karloman and Eirene of Athens, Emperor of Constantinople was dead, having sucuumbed to wounds sustained in a frontier skirmish with the Bulgars and in his place was a Greek bureaucrat named Pyhros, unknown to the courts of the West. The union of the two halves of the Empire, already fraying under the strained relations of the two half-brothers, shattered entirely. The Eastern Empire no longer even made a pretense of acknowledging the legitimacy of the Carolingian Dynasty’s pretensions of Empire, now that the Carolingian dynasty no longer ruled in Constantinople. It made little difference to Pepin, given he know had the Roman Papacy directly under control, but it was yet another blow to the patchwork compromise of a united Church and Empire that Karloman and Eirene had stitched together after her exile from Constantinople all those years earlier.
But times of prosperity and plenty often give way to hardships and misery. In late 814 a terrible disease began afflicting several cities in the northernmost territories of the Francian kingdom. Believed to be spreading south from Saxony, the illness killed thousands in it’s wake, and at the same time, a bad growing season led to shortages of vital food and supplies. The Emperor gave orders to open granaries and attempt to alleviate shortages in the towns and villages, but this only mitigated the worst effects. Famine loomed in parts of the empire. Further, repeated savage Viking raids occurred, and the Emperor was relying upon the local levies to put them down, pre-occupied with the famine and the ongoing strong-arming of the Church into loyalty to his puppet Pope Nicolaus II.
Pepin’s fifth son Leon was a problem. He had always been so. From an early age he had not caught up with his lessons as quickly as the other boys. He needed concepts explained to him twice, or three times, when other boys only needed it once. He seemed dull, sluggish and slow-witted. Pepin himself had expressed his disappointment in the boy, outright referring to him as the “stupid child” of the family. The other children, learning of the Emperor’s contempt, had nicknamed him “The Mule”.
But now Leon wanted what his brother’s had. They had been given kingdoms of their own, parts of the Empire to govern in their father’s name. All his elder siblings possessed them, Renaud, Maurice, Karloman and Loup. He wanted what was theirs for himself.
“No.” Was Pepin’s reply. “I am sorry Leon, but the tasks of a King are manifold and enormous. I cannot simply entrust these responsibilities to whomever might ask for them. They must be granted to men of proven skill and experience in war and politics, and I’m afraid you haven’t shown you possess these means.”
Leon slowly shook his head. “You haven’t granted me a choice father.” The words came slowly, thickly, like his tongue had waded through sludge in order to form them. “You haven’t been fair.”
Pepin suppressed a flare of irritation. How to explain to the thick child that it was for his own good? His own banners in arms would laugh at him if he were granted kingship. Loyal and good-hearted though he may be at his core, Pepin knew his son far too well to think he would cope with the pressures of kingship. He had elder brothers for those tasks.
“Perhaps a Church car---”
“I want to be King.” Leon stamped his foot in a childlike way. “I want it.”
“We all want things we cannot have, son.” Pepin lowered his voice for that last word, reminding Leon that, for all his membership of the royal family, he was speaking to it’s head. “You abide by my commands above all else, for I am Emperor, and titles of Kingships are mine to decree. I have heard your request, and I think well of you for having made it. It is good you seek a position commensurate with your station, but I have made my decision, and naught you can say will change it….”
“There are times,” Elodie said to him later, “that you can sound exactly like your father.”
Pepin reared as if he had been struck. “Is that what you think of me? That I would condemn him to a life of unhappiness and regret? Fool though the boy may be, I love Leon as mine own blood, for that is what he is. I will not see him subject to ridicule in the way that imposing on him the obligations of kingship would impose.”
Elodie grimanced, “I know as well as you do the depth of love you bear for him, but you could at least be more tactful at times.”
Pepin grumbled, “I am fast feeling like I am too old for tact.”
She laughed, always a soft, pleasurable sound. “So do we all, though even after all these years of marriage, I do not think of you as old.” She changed the subject, deftly avoiding an outright conflict with her husband on this subject now she sensed his mood had changed. “I wanted to talk to you about marriage. Maurice needs one, now he’s King in East Francia, and I have the woman.”
“Whom?” Pepin asked, intrigued. His second son had always been fond of women, but his activities had settled down since his father and mother had told him they were searching for a worthy bride for him to take as his Queen.
“Ermessinde, of the Montrichards”
“I don’t know them.” Pepin frowned, “Have you selected some scion of lower nobility for marriage for one of my sons.”
Elodie looked at him, pointedly. “He wouldn’t be the first Emperor’s son to do it.”
Pepin grinned, then broke out into uproarious laughter. “So he wouldn’t!” he laughed again, and Elodie waited, a patient smile on her face until he subsided. “You sure she is suitable.”
“She is renowned, I am told, for her tact and delicacy, her skills in languages are also wonderful and she is, I am told, a well-read girl and pleasing enough to look at. She will compliment Maurice, but will not undermine him.”
Pepin eyed her shrewdly. “An asset without being a threat to him, as you have been to me all these years? My love, you have outdone yourself!” he kissed her rapturously. “So shall it be! Our son shall wed the girl!”
So he did, that September, but word came of trouble brewing in the south, Renaud, the King of Aquitaine, suddenly faced a massive internal revolt. That family of perennial troubles for the Karlings, the Niebulings, had again mounted a challenge that posed a sustained threat to the credibility of Pepin’s political arrangements within the Empire.
Renaud could not attend the wedding, a disappointment to both his father and to Maurice, who had looked forward to seeing his favourite brother for the first time since the Expedition to Rome. But he had set eyes on his delectable new bride. Red of hair and green-eyed, with pursed red lips and a sly, secretive face. She spoke quietly, and little, but every word was well-placed and polite. He discerned a hint of intelligence within the flecks of green within her eyes, and Maurice made it a mental note to cultivate this new bride until her coolness became comfort, and he had an ally as well as a partner for his future labours. Despite the rebellion in Aquitaine, and the lack of his brother’s presence, he felt… contented.
For Maurice, for his father, and for the Carolingian Dynasty, many in future years would look back on it as the last moment all were so contented…
OOC: Apologies for the lateness, but this post is here and things are happening! The first fray in the Empire's knot comes loose in Aquitaine, but things are about to get much worse...
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Always wonderful to see an update. It does look like Pepin will have plenty of problems to work through.
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*chants* Dance of the Karlings, Dance of the Karlings!
Great stuff as usual!
It's sad to see the Eastern Empire going its own way but there wasn't much that could realistically be done there.
I'm wondering where the fatal blow of discord will come from. A proxy war through Leon's claims? Some great personal betrayal? I'm excited to see where this goes!
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815-816. Paris
The new fever that swept through the sweltering capital was more sudden than the last, the outbreak was swift and severe, and those who came down with it could be dead within days. Local physicians, beset by victims on all sides, found themselves flailing to treat patients with the symptoms of the disease before it spread.
Even the royal court was affected. Emperor Pepin himself caught a bout, albeit less severe than most. The work of physicians and the prayers of the priests alike attended to him day and night, as did the tender ministrations of his wife, the Empress Elodie.
He awakened after a week or so, shivering with cold, but alive. When he emerged he looked gaunt, but could stand, sit upright, walk and do a little running and take a little food. It was a close call, but the Emperor survived.
But as the old year passed into the new, he weakened again suddenly, and by February, he was confined to his bed, ridden by a strange fever that neither priestly prayer nor physician could cure. Empress Elodie, fearing for him, summoned the sons of theirs who had kingdoms from their thrones to attend to their ailing father in the capital.
“It’s the curse,” Pepin whispered to Elodie, shivering through chattered teeth while she fed him a little broth, which was all he could keep down.
“What curse dearest?” Elodie asked, unsure whether this was her husband in a lucid state or not.
“The curse of the crone,” he moaned, body wracked with pain as his broth went down his throat. “When we left Roma… An old woman stepped out in front of my horse… she laid a curse upon me, said God would curse me for the sin of marching upon his temple… She was right,” he moaned again in pain, “I am cursed.”
“You are God’s emperor”, she smiled, patting her husband’s shoulder to reassure him. “God would not curse his own Emperor, who carries out his will here on the earth.”
“I am cursed I tell you,” Pepin shook his head vehemently, and from that stand he would not be budged.
He was cheered slightly by the arrival of Renaud in April, fresh from the battlefield in Aquitaine, where his forces had the rebels on the run,
“My son,” Pepin groaned, “I am content at least that my empire will be safe in your hands when God’s curse is done with me, as my father was content it would be with me.”
“We pray day and night for you father,” Renaud replied, tears in his eyes.
“It will not be enough, son.”
So it wasn’t. In May he weakened further, and was barely lucid by the time Maurice and Karloman arrived to his bedside, he was hearing things, seeing things. He spoke to friends long dead and to his father and grandmother, apologised to his father for not being a good son to him. The only one whom he could speak to lucidly was Elodie. Dear Elodie, mother of his children, whom he had risked much to wed, to whom he had remained faithful as she had to him, and whom was the light of his heart.
“Be good to our sons,” he told her, “They will need your help.” He told her.
By June, he had only one lucid episode, he spoke to Renaud, Maurice, Karloman and Loup, his four sons who were kings within his realm.
“Our Empire is the work of generations, it is god’s realm upon the Earth,” he told them. “When I pass from this life, it is yours. You must hold firm upon your thrones, and support your brother Renaud’s efforts as Emperor. Do not tear your realms apart and show goodwill to one another. If you heed no other command of mine, heed that one above all.”
It was the last he spoke before he slipped into a deep coma.
“He will die soon,” Maurice broke the silence.
Elodie nodded tearlessly. “Yes he will,” She had been the optimist for months, soothing both her husband when he panicked about his curse and said he was going to die, and soothing her sons when they faced the rapidly emerging prospect that they would soon be without their father, but even she now could not deny the inevitable. Curse or not, Pepin the Bold was dying.
“He is still so young!” Loup wailed, anger and flecks of pain both mixed in his voice.
“His father was not long-lived either,” Elodie replied, “barely reached past fifty.”
“Perhaps it is the brightest flames that burn out sooner,” Renaud responded quietly, knowing perhaps in his own heart that his flame was nowhere near that of his father or legendary grandfather.
Emperor Pepin ‘The Bold’ passed from the earth without again regaining his wits on June 23rd 816 anno domini. The Church bells tolled and the heralds issued the news at midday that the Emperor was dead, and preparations for the coronation of Renaud were underway, in accordance with the late Pepin’s wishes.
The son of Karloman was gone, and the Empire would never again be the same…
OOC: I was planning for this post to be loooonnnngg and dealing with a lot of the repercussions and actions after Pepin's death, but it got too long for me to keep it coherent in my head as one post, so I've split things.
Pepin is gone and Renaud's on the throne, the rest, that will come in the next few posts Thanks for sticking with us all through Pepin's life, cut untimely short by sudden illness though it may have been.
The new fever that swept through the sweltering capital was more sudden than the last, the outbreak was swift and severe, and those who came down with it could be dead within days. Local physicians, beset by victims on all sides, found themselves flailing to treat patients with the symptoms of the disease before it spread.
Even the royal court was affected. Emperor Pepin himself caught a bout, albeit less severe than most. The work of physicians and the prayers of the priests alike attended to him day and night, as did the tender ministrations of his wife, the Empress Elodie.
He awakened after a week or so, shivering with cold, but alive. When he emerged he looked gaunt, but could stand, sit upright, walk and do a little running and take a little food. It was a close call, but the Emperor survived.
But as the old year passed into the new, he weakened again suddenly, and by February, he was confined to his bed, ridden by a strange fever that neither priestly prayer nor physician could cure. Empress Elodie, fearing for him, summoned the sons of theirs who had kingdoms from their thrones to attend to their ailing father in the capital.
“It’s the curse,” Pepin whispered to Elodie, shivering through chattered teeth while she fed him a little broth, which was all he could keep down.
“What curse dearest?” Elodie asked, unsure whether this was her husband in a lucid state or not.
“The curse of the crone,” he moaned, body wracked with pain as his broth went down his throat. “When we left Roma… An old woman stepped out in front of my horse… she laid a curse upon me, said God would curse me for the sin of marching upon his temple… She was right,” he moaned again in pain, “I am cursed.”
“You are God’s emperor”, she smiled, patting her husband’s shoulder to reassure him. “God would not curse his own Emperor, who carries out his will here on the earth.”
“I am cursed I tell you,” Pepin shook his head vehemently, and from that stand he would not be budged.
He was cheered slightly by the arrival of Renaud in April, fresh from the battlefield in Aquitaine, where his forces had the rebels on the run,
“My son,” Pepin groaned, “I am content at least that my empire will be safe in your hands when God’s curse is done with me, as my father was content it would be with me.”
“We pray day and night for you father,” Renaud replied, tears in his eyes.
“It will not be enough, son.”
So it wasn’t. In May he weakened further, and was barely lucid by the time Maurice and Karloman arrived to his bedside, he was hearing things, seeing things. He spoke to friends long dead and to his father and grandmother, apologised to his father for not being a good son to him. The only one whom he could speak to lucidly was Elodie. Dear Elodie, mother of his children, whom he had risked much to wed, to whom he had remained faithful as she had to him, and whom was the light of his heart.
“Be good to our sons,” he told her, “They will need your help.” He told her.
By June, he had only one lucid episode, he spoke to Renaud, Maurice, Karloman and Loup, his four sons who were kings within his realm.
“Our Empire is the work of generations, it is god’s realm upon the Earth,” he told them. “When I pass from this life, it is yours. You must hold firm upon your thrones, and support your brother Renaud’s efforts as Emperor. Do not tear your realms apart and show goodwill to one another. If you heed no other command of mine, heed that one above all.”
It was the last he spoke before he slipped into a deep coma.
“He will die soon,” Maurice broke the silence.
Elodie nodded tearlessly. “Yes he will,” She had been the optimist for months, soothing both her husband when he panicked about his curse and said he was going to die, and soothing her sons when they faced the rapidly emerging prospect that they would soon be without their father, but even she now could not deny the inevitable. Curse or not, Pepin the Bold was dying.
“He is still so young!” Loup wailed, anger and flecks of pain both mixed in his voice.
“His father was not long-lived either,” Elodie replied, “barely reached past fifty.”
“Perhaps it is the brightest flames that burn out sooner,” Renaud responded quietly, knowing perhaps in his own heart that his flame was nowhere near that of his father or legendary grandfather.
Emperor Pepin ‘The Bold’ passed from the earth without again regaining his wits on June 23rd 816 anno domini. The Church bells tolled and the heralds issued the news at midday that the Emperor was dead, and preparations for the coronation of Renaud were underway, in accordance with the late Pepin’s wishes.
The son of Karloman was gone, and the Empire would never again be the same…
OOC: I was planning for this post to be loooonnnngg and dealing with a lot of the repercussions and actions after Pepin's death, but it got too long for me to keep it coherent in my head as one post, so I've split things.
Pepin is gone and Renaud's on the throne, the rest, that will come in the next few posts
Thanks for sticking with us all through Pepin's life, cut untimely short by sudden illness though it may have been.- 2
It is amazing how often Pepin has a good reign, whether as his father's or his uncle's heir. Renaud, may the angel of God walk beside you to help you over the most arduous paths. Thank you
Alas poor Pepin, we saw you grow up and you were taken too soon.
I'm very excited to see the consequences of Emperor Renaud, for how long can the empire born of fratricide outrun its source?
I'm very excited to see the consequences of Emperor Renaud, for how long can the empire born of fratricide outrun its source?
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July, 816, Paris
The sons of Pepin the Bold had gathered within the war room of the palace. Though Renaud might have preferred arrangements be made within the more lavish settings of the “Palace of the Karlings” that his father had ordered the construction of some years earlier, the building was not yet completed, it’s colossal structure still very much in the middle of active development by the imperial builders.
As it was the six sons squatted within the older war rooms that had been used by their grandfather Karloman before them, that Bertrada de Laon had once prowled in the dark as courtiers and spies rode through the night clutching letters and secrets beneath their arms. A legacy was born in this damp, dimly-lit rooms, a legacy their father had protected formidably.
But the gang of sons he had left behind were well aware of the frailties of the empire they had inherited. Renaud, the eldest and now current Emperor, had just put down a bloody rebellion in Aquitaine, knowing full well it could be but a taste of things to come if he did not prove up to the task. The monstrous Empire they now wielded mastery over was the largest polity of its kind in Europa since the fall of the Western Romans centuries before. Even still-wealthy Byzantium feared it’s wrath.
Seven sons and a daughter had been sired, of whom the eldest four, Renaud, Maurice, Karloman and Loup, all ruled kingdoms of their own. In addition to Aquitaine, Renaud now ruled the Empire as a whole. Maurice was guarded, but had been loyally supportive of his brother’s succession as King of East Francia.
It would be Karloman, King of West Francia, and Loup, King of Italy, with whom Renaud suspected he might have trouble. He was not close with either brother as he was with Maurice, as he and Maurice had been dragged off on campaign with their father as soon as they were of age, and the two younger boys resented what they perceived as their parent’s favouritism towards the two elder ones. Fortunately, neither liked the other either.
Envious, bitter younger sons, Renaud thought grimly as they both watched him like a keen-eyed hawk at the top of the table. If the rumours about grandfather Karloman are true, it wouldn’t be the first time it’s been the bane of our family.
It was the next two sons, the mentally incapable Leon and the inept Raoul, who hoped to benefit from their brother’s ascension, believing they could be granted holdings of their own. Neither man was known to be competent or popular however, and Renaud felt there was little political risk from either of them. Nobody would clamour for them to lead armies or rule kingdoms under the Emperor.
His young sister Beatrice, now barely eight, Renaud in truth barely knew, for she had been cosseted away by a wall of clergymen and nuns to serve as her tutors almost from the time she could speak. A shy, diffident girl, his only worry for her in future would be choosing the right marriage alliance for the family to secure the Empire further.
Pepin’s youngest son, Raynaud, was barely five and still clutching at his mother’s skirts, and under her supervision and protection. He was not present at this meeting, having been left in the care of his capable tutor.
“I intend to order a coronation as soon as is practicable” the new Emperor announced, gaze fixed firmly upon his brother Loup, “The King of Italy ought to dispatch couriers to Rome to inform the Pontifex of his Emperor’s commands.”
Loup smiled, but did not nod or respond. He is a wolf that one, Renaud thought. Pepin had decided, after the numerous revolts of Italia against Carolingian rule, that only one of their own blood could rule as King of Italy and effectively secure it for the Empire in perpetuity, but Renaud had a horrible feeling the stability of imperial rule in Italy was to be tested in another way very soon. Fundamentally, Loup’s position was strong, secured behind the Alps and with the rich farmlands and valleys of much of north and central Italia behind him. If he refused to accede to imperial commands, could Renaud effectively bring him to heel? If his other brothers cooperated, perhaps, but not otherwise.
He turned to one such brother now, “Maurice,” he began, smiling with sincere affection this time. “You have served our father loyally, and have attended on me in this hour as you did him. I would have you witness our coronation, dearest brother, and then return to your own lands thereafter. The east is still menaced by the heathen Pagan, and some of the remnents of old Saxony may stir at the news of our father’s death. My strong right hand in the east will be needed, since I cannot go myself.
Strangely, Maurice opened his mouth as if to argue at that, but instead thought better of it, and subsided. Odd, Renaud thought. He had believed his brother would relish the assignment, full of thorny problems and complex politicking, and along with the prospect of plenty of battles to occupy him. For a person of Maurice’s shrewd, meticulous personality, being back in his kingdom was an ideal position.
Karloman he ordered to remain in Paris until the coronation was settled, placing him formally in charge of the ceremonial aspects of arranging it. He did not want the brother whose kingdom was the most significant and closest of those near the imperial capital to be given the opportunity to undermine him from his own lands.
“His Holiness might be of a mind to demand concessions in exchange for the coronation,” King Loup interjected now, “Most notably the restoration of his independence in exchange.”
“It is your role to ensure he understands he is commanded by his lawful Emperor,” Renaud replied, “As are you,” he left the threat implicit and unspoken, but it was plain from his tone, Collaborate with the Papacy against me, and I shall cast you down as easily as Father did the other Italian rebels before you.
It was a tense meeting, but the Emperor had set his course of action, as his brothers filed out of the room, only Maurice made no move to leave.
“Brother, why send me away? I am your loyalest adherent, you know full well neither Loup nor Karloman can be trusted. If we…”
Renaud raised a hand to forestall him, “It is precisely because of your loyalty I send you away brother. The man who squats in his kingdoms at present is the man who can lead armies. Of all our brother kings, you are the only one I can trust to have no designs on the throne, and it is crucial that I be crowned without any of our dear brothers disputing the sucession. I suspect his Holiness will be difficult enough without me making concessions.”
“Loup won’t help you deal with him.” Maurice remarked.
“I know” the Emperor nodded grimly, “but Father made him King of Italy, so these are the dispositions I have to live with, for now I want to prevent His Holiness allying with Loup against me, so I’ll figure out a way forward, but I need you in the east. No,” he rose a hand again, as Maurice looked inclined to argue further, “I have heard your feelings on this brother, and I respect them, but my word is law, and my law on this matter is final.”
And so Maurice too left, the Emperor Renaud was now alone…
The first cracks in the fissures were already appearing, and unbeknowest to Renaud, they would soon threaten to swallow him whole…
Too many ambitious princelings made for poor governance, he was about to discover.
Roma, Italia
King Loup refused to allow the Papal messengers past to Paris until they agreed to meet with them. It was he who insisted that, contrary to the Emperor’s demands, they were to reply on behalf of their master that there would be no coronation of the new Emperor unless he agreed to undo his father’s blasphemy. The Donatives of Pepin must be restored, and the Papacy restored to it’s rightful state as an independent realm within central Italy, rather than under the direct vassalage of the Empire, and His Holiness in Rome be granted the unequivocal right to coronation of the Emperor.
“Inform your master presently that I am his servant in this as in all things, and that should my brother the Emperor object to your terms, I would sooner aid you then aid he if his refusal were to escalate further.”
So off the Papal messengers went, buoyed by the support of the scheming King of Italy, while an unaware Emperor sat in Paris, awaiting the Pope’s response, and oblivious for the moment to the scheme his brother had begun hatching the moment their father’s corpse was cold…
OOC: Apologies for the long wait, Real-life interfered as it often does and things got busy, but suffice it to say Pepin's corpse is barely cold and his sons already plot and scheme amongst themselves. How will Renaud react to the Pope and Loup's manuovere? And how will Maurice and Karloman play into things? We shall see!
The sons of Pepin the Bold had gathered within the war room of the palace. Though Renaud might have preferred arrangements be made within the more lavish settings of the “Palace of the Karlings” that his father had ordered the construction of some years earlier, the building was not yet completed, it’s colossal structure still very much in the middle of active development by the imperial builders.
As it was the six sons squatted within the older war rooms that had been used by their grandfather Karloman before them, that Bertrada de Laon had once prowled in the dark as courtiers and spies rode through the night clutching letters and secrets beneath their arms. A legacy was born in this damp, dimly-lit rooms, a legacy their father had protected formidably.
But the gang of sons he had left behind were well aware of the frailties of the empire they had inherited. Renaud, the eldest and now current Emperor, had just put down a bloody rebellion in Aquitaine, knowing full well it could be but a taste of things to come if he did not prove up to the task. The monstrous Empire they now wielded mastery over was the largest polity of its kind in Europa since the fall of the Western Romans centuries before. Even still-wealthy Byzantium feared it’s wrath.
Seven sons and a daughter had been sired, of whom the eldest four, Renaud, Maurice, Karloman and Loup, all ruled kingdoms of their own. In addition to Aquitaine, Renaud now ruled the Empire as a whole. Maurice was guarded, but had been loyally supportive of his brother’s succession as King of East Francia.
It would be Karloman, King of West Francia, and Loup, King of Italy, with whom Renaud suspected he might have trouble. He was not close with either brother as he was with Maurice, as he and Maurice had been dragged off on campaign with their father as soon as they were of age, and the two younger boys resented what they perceived as their parent’s favouritism towards the two elder ones. Fortunately, neither liked the other either.
Envious, bitter younger sons, Renaud thought grimly as they both watched him like a keen-eyed hawk at the top of the table. If the rumours about grandfather Karloman are true, it wouldn’t be the first time it’s been the bane of our family.
It was the next two sons, the mentally incapable Leon and the inept Raoul, who hoped to benefit from their brother’s ascension, believing they could be granted holdings of their own. Neither man was known to be competent or popular however, and Renaud felt there was little political risk from either of them. Nobody would clamour for them to lead armies or rule kingdoms under the Emperor.
His young sister Beatrice, now barely eight, Renaud in truth barely knew, for she had been cosseted away by a wall of clergymen and nuns to serve as her tutors almost from the time she could speak. A shy, diffident girl, his only worry for her in future would be choosing the right marriage alliance for the family to secure the Empire further.
Pepin’s youngest son, Raynaud, was barely five and still clutching at his mother’s skirts, and under her supervision and protection. He was not present at this meeting, having been left in the care of his capable tutor.
“I intend to order a coronation as soon as is practicable” the new Emperor announced, gaze fixed firmly upon his brother Loup, “The King of Italy ought to dispatch couriers to Rome to inform the Pontifex of his Emperor’s commands.”
Loup smiled, but did not nod or respond. He is a wolf that one, Renaud thought. Pepin had decided, after the numerous revolts of Italia against Carolingian rule, that only one of their own blood could rule as King of Italy and effectively secure it for the Empire in perpetuity, but Renaud had a horrible feeling the stability of imperial rule in Italy was to be tested in another way very soon. Fundamentally, Loup’s position was strong, secured behind the Alps and with the rich farmlands and valleys of much of north and central Italia behind him. If he refused to accede to imperial commands, could Renaud effectively bring him to heel? If his other brothers cooperated, perhaps, but not otherwise.
He turned to one such brother now, “Maurice,” he began, smiling with sincere affection this time. “You have served our father loyally, and have attended on me in this hour as you did him. I would have you witness our coronation, dearest brother, and then return to your own lands thereafter. The east is still menaced by the heathen Pagan, and some of the remnents of old Saxony may stir at the news of our father’s death. My strong right hand in the east will be needed, since I cannot go myself.
Strangely, Maurice opened his mouth as if to argue at that, but instead thought better of it, and subsided. Odd, Renaud thought. He had believed his brother would relish the assignment, full of thorny problems and complex politicking, and along with the prospect of plenty of battles to occupy him. For a person of Maurice’s shrewd, meticulous personality, being back in his kingdom was an ideal position.
Karloman he ordered to remain in Paris until the coronation was settled, placing him formally in charge of the ceremonial aspects of arranging it. He did not want the brother whose kingdom was the most significant and closest of those near the imperial capital to be given the opportunity to undermine him from his own lands.
“His Holiness might be of a mind to demand concessions in exchange for the coronation,” King Loup interjected now, “Most notably the restoration of his independence in exchange.”
“It is your role to ensure he understands he is commanded by his lawful Emperor,” Renaud replied, “As are you,” he left the threat implicit and unspoken, but it was plain from his tone, Collaborate with the Papacy against me, and I shall cast you down as easily as Father did the other Italian rebels before you.
It was a tense meeting, but the Emperor had set his course of action, as his brothers filed out of the room, only Maurice made no move to leave.
“Brother, why send me away? I am your loyalest adherent, you know full well neither Loup nor Karloman can be trusted. If we…”
Renaud raised a hand to forestall him, “It is precisely because of your loyalty I send you away brother. The man who squats in his kingdoms at present is the man who can lead armies. Of all our brother kings, you are the only one I can trust to have no designs on the throne, and it is crucial that I be crowned without any of our dear brothers disputing the sucession. I suspect his Holiness will be difficult enough without me making concessions.”
“Loup won’t help you deal with him.” Maurice remarked.
“I know” the Emperor nodded grimly, “but Father made him King of Italy, so these are the dispositions I have to live with, for now I want to prevent His Holiness allying with Loup against me, so I’ll figure out a way forward, but I need you in the east. No,” he rose a hand again, as Maurice looked inclined to argue further, “I have heard your feelings on this brother, and I respect them, but my word is law, and my law on this matter is final.”
And so Maurice too left, the Emperor Renaud was now alone…
The first cracks in the fissures were already appearing, and unbeknowest to Renaud, they would soon threaten to swallow him whole…
Too many ambitious princelings made for poor governance, he was about to discover.
Roma, Italia
King Loup refused to allow the Papal messengers past to Paris until they agreed to meet with them. It was he who insisted that, contrary to the Emperor’s demands, they were to reply on behalf of their master that there would be no coronation of the new Emperor unless he agreed to undo his father’s blasphemy. The Donatives of Pepin must be restored, and the Papacy restored to it’s rightful state as an independent realm within central Italy, rather than under the direct vassalage of the Empire, and His Holiness in Rome be granted the unequivocal right to coronation of the Emperor.
“Inform your master presently that I am his servant in this as in all things, and that should my brother the Emperor object to your terms, I would sooner aid you then aid he if his refusal were to escalate further.”
So off the Papal messengers went, buoyed by the support of the scheming King of Italy, while an unaware Emperor sat in Paris, awaiting the Pope’s response, and oblivious for the moment to the scheme his brother had begun hatching the moment their father’s corpse was cold…
OOC: Apologies for the long wait, Real-life interfered as it often does and things got busy, but suffice it to say Pepin's corpse is barely cold and his sons already plot and scheme amongst themselves. How will Renaud react to the Pope and Loup's manuovere? And how will Maurice and Karloman play into things? We shall see!
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People like King Loup make kin slaying seem like a good idea. We shall quickly see if Renaud is made of the fiber of his father and grandfather. If his spymaster is half as capable as Queen-Mother Bertrada, Renaud would know Loup's moves before Loup does himself. Welcome back and thank you for updating.
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Well Renaud seems to have a good head on his shoulders, although I wonder if Maurice will be able to help out in case of any trouble.
As for Loup, it looks like he’d rather the empire crumble. I wonder how long the storm can be forestalled
As for Loup, it looks like he’d rather the empire crumble. I wonder how long the storm can be forestalled
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True, though kinslaying has consequences as well, as we've seen before.
Depends on the strength of the stones it's raining on.
You are so kind! Apologies for it being another long wait, but real life work gets in the way and if I don't work I don't eat. Nevertheless, I have posted the next update below
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Late 816
King Loup and Pope Nicolaus II had swiftly formed an alliance within weeks of Pepin’s end. Backed by the strength of arms of the King of Italy, the Papacy’s response to the Emperor’s demand for coronation was blunt, Restore the Papal State, and the Donatives of Pepin to their rightful place, abolish imperial control over the bishops of the realm, and confirm His Holiness as the rightful head of the Latin church of Christendom.
That this set a monumental shock through the halls of the Imperial Palace was an understatement. Emperor Renaud raged through the war room, pacing and shouting while nervous councillors tried to sooth his nerves and dissuade him from rash action. That his brother Loup sent an accompanying letter, that only the Emperor himself had read, did not improve his mood. Whatever it had said, it had sent the new Emperor into the foulest of tempers.
“My brother seeks to conspire with the marionette in Rome, whom my father placed upon his holy seat, to strip rule over Christendom away from me!”
“It is true that the King of Italy has yet to do his duty and move against the Pontiff for his impudent demands… But it might be wiser to give him what he wishes.”
The Emperor’s head snapped up as he gazed at his mother Elodie.
“You take Loup’s side?”
“I take the Empire’s side.” She told him firmly. “War between brothers ruined your grandfather, and it would ruin you too, were it to come to pass in this moment. Your father’s corpse is barely cold, and his sons already scrap for his throne.”
“I have done nought but what is my right as Emperor mother,” Renaud pointed out, “You cannot blame me for Loup’s disobedience.”
“Loup has, as of yet, not raised a hand in rebellion against you, if you seek to arrest or kill him, many lords will sympathise with him, not you. There are many in Italia and beyond who were uneasy about your father’s march on Rome, and many who will see the benefits to the Donatives of Pepin being restored.”
“So what then do you propose?”
“If you strike at Loup without him being in open defiance, before you are crowned as Emperor, then His Holiness will back him to be Emperor, and not you. Don’t you see?” she pressed urgently, “Loup expects you to refuse, and he expects to use your refusal as an excuse to have himself crowned Emperor, and with Italia securely under his rule, he will have a powerbase from behind the Alps that it would take years of warfare to dislodge him from, if it was even possible.”
“So I must concede?”
“Concede to His Holiness, not to Loup,” she advised him. “Ignore any communication from your brother, and focus on winning His Holiness over. Once he crowns you Emperor formally, there is no way for Loup to oppose you directly without falling into open rebellion.”
“Aye I see your thoughts mother, while I am uncrowned his words might have weight… but after.”
“After, nobody can dispute you are your father’s heir.” She told him.
“My thanks mother…” Renaud smiled and kissed her. “I see now why you and father got along so well, you’re a mine of common sense!”
“Your father would not wish it to come to war between his sons,” she warned him, “Do keep that in mind.”
In fairness to Renaud, he did. He agreed to the requests of the Papacy, and restored the Donatives of Pepin to their status that they had received prior to his father’s invasion of Rome. It was this move that undercut the support for King Loup’s position in Italy. As suddenly as it had began, all talk of war fell away, and preparations for the coronation were made.
In truth Renaud had something different in mind. His grandfather’s coronation had been in truth a rushed affair, brought on by political need to drive a wedge between the Latin Church and the Empress in Constantinople at the time. His own father’s coronation had occurred in the old palace, with the Palace being constructed by Karloman at the time of his death still very much being built at the time of the latter’s death. But now the “Palace of the Karlings” was completed, in all it’s magnificent glory, and the Emperor was determined that the fabulous coronation ceremony would end there.
It began in the Cathedral though, built in the time of his great-grandfather Pepin the Short, the coronation procession began from the Cathedral after Pope Nicolaus placed the Imperial Crown upon his head.
The procession afterwards through Paris, and to the palace was sumptuous and extravagant, deliberately so, for an Emperor with a multitude of ambitious and powerful princeling brothers to contend with had even more reason to assert his supremacy and right to rule in the eyes of lords and populace alike then the average.
But on the fringes of the Empire, trouble still stirred,
East Francia, near the imperial borders
Heathen raids into the borders of this dismal land were becoming more common by the month, a gloomy King Maurice reflected. His brother’s assigning of him here, phrased as a way of rewarding him for his devotion and loyalty, was more or less a virtual exile from the power centres closer to the imperial court.
Whether his brother had meant it or not, Maurice did not know. In truth, he doubted it.
That was the worst part. The sheer… thoughtlessness of it all. Better it would have been a deliberate injury than a careless lack of foresight.
Why else would he send his strongest ally and supporter away, if not that he was afraid of him?
The truth, that Maurice could not or would not acknowledge, namely that his brother genuinely felt this was where he had most need of Maurice and his skills, never penetrated his brooding thoughts as he spent hard, thankless months countering heathen border raids and reorganising fringe provinces and building churches to convert Pagan subjects on the fringes of Christendom.
He didn’t even get to attend the coronation… a spectacular affair, he had been told.
The brother who most needs me sends me away, and surrounds himself closely with those who would sooner have him off his throne then defend him. Perhaps Renaud is a fool after all.
Try though he might to shake the dark paranoia of his brother’s choices from his mind, Maurice found he could not…
A short war, that was it. That would cheer him up, perhaps a struggle against the Pagans on the border, enough to prove his military value with a brisk campaign, which he could parley into securing the Emperor’s favour to return to court.
A winning campaign… then I shall return to you brother, take my rightful place at your side, and hold you to the throne by raising my sword against all who would tear you down.
Paris,
The next months that passed after the coronation ceremony were busy ones for the Emperor. Renaud slept less than he ever had, and gained a newfound respect for the work his late father must have performed throughout his life.
But he knew full well the palace intrigues had already begun behind his back. It did not escape his notice that younger brother Karloman had tagged along to the coronation, and had followed along with the procession mingling amongst many of the West Francian lords, currying favour, sending down dishes to favourite courtiers…
Below the Alps, King Loup’s initial failures had not deterred his ambitions, and Renaud knew full well his brother was biding his time to strike. Those of his siblings were were yet uncrowned doubtless wanted their own lands and inheritances, and would press him for them now their father was gone…
Only Maurice, his dearest brother and closest friend, could he trust, and he had sent Maurice away to hold the dangerous frontiers to the east. Foreign incursions at least, he did not have to fear with his most capable and loyal subordinate in command of the defence.
On reflection, Renaud thought gloomily, Father had it easier...
King Loup and Pope Nicolaus II had swiftly formed an alliance within weeks of Pepin’s end. Backed by the strength of arms of the King of Italy, the Papacy’s response to the Emperor’s demand for coronation was blunt, Restore the Papal State, and the Donatives of Pepin to their rightful place, abolish imperial control over the bishops of the realm, and confirm His Holiness as the rightful head of the Latin church of Christendom.
That this set a monumental shock through the halls of the Imperial Palace was an understatement. Emperor Renaud raged through the war room, pacing and shouting while nervous councillors tried to sooth his nerves and dissuade him from rash action. That his brother Loup sent an accompanying letter, that only the Emperor himself had read, did not improve his mood. Whatever it had said, it had sent the new Emperor into the foulest of tempers.
“My brother seeks to conspire with the marionette in Rome, whom my father placed upon his holy seat, to strip rule over Christendom away from me!”
“It is true that the King of Italy has yet to do his duty and move against the Pontiff for his impudent demands… But it might be wiser to give him what he wishes.”
The Emperor’s head snapped up as he gazed at his mother Elodie.
“You take Loup’s side?”
“I take the Empire’s side.” She told him firmly. “War between brothers ruined your grandfather, and it would ruin you too, were it to come to pass in this moment. Your father’s corpse is barely cold, and his sons already scrap for his throne.”
“I have done nought but what is my right as Emperor mother,” Renaud pointed out, “You cannot blame me for Loup’s disobedience.”
“Loup has, as of yet, not raised a hand in rebellion against you, if you seek to arrest or kill him, many lords will sympathise with him, not you. There are many in Italia and beyond who were uneasy about your father’s march on Rome, and many who will see the benefits to the Donatives of Pepin being restored.”
“So what then do you propose?”
“If you strike at Loup without him being in open defiance, before you are crowned as Emperor, then His Holiness will back him to be Emperor, and not you. Don’t you see?” she pressed urgently, “Loup expects you to refuse, and he expects to use your refusal as an excuse to have himself crowned Emperor, and with Italia securely under his rule, he will have a powerbase from behind the Alps that it would take years of warfare to dislodge him from, if it was even possible.”
“So I must concede?”
“Concede to His Holiness, not to Loup,” she advised him. “Ignore any communication from your brother, and focus on winning His Holiness over. Once he crowns you Emperor formally, there is no way for Loup to oppose you directly without falling into open rebellion.”
“Aye I see your thoughts mother, while I am uncrowned his words might have weight… but after.”
“After, nobody can dispute you are your father’s heir.” She told him.
“My thanks mother…” Renaud smiled and kissed her. “I see now why you and father got along so well, you’re a mine of common sense!”
“Your father would not wish it to come to war between his sons,” she warned him, “Do keep that in mind.”
In fairness to Renaud, he did. He agreed to the requests of the Papacy, and restored the Donatives of Pepin to their status that they had received prior to his father’s invasion of Rome. It was this move that undercut the support for King Loup’s position in Italy. As suddenly as it had began, all talk of war fell away, and preparations for the coronation were made.
In truth Renaud had something different in mind. His grandfather’s coronation had been in truth a rushed affair, brought on by political need to drive a wedge between the Latin Church and the Empress in Constantinople at the time. His own father’s coronation had occurred in the old palace, with the Palace being constructed by Karloman at the time of his death still very much being built at the time of the latter’s death. But now the “Palace of the Karlings” was completed, in all it’s magnificent glory, and the Emperor was determined that the fabulous coronation ceremony would end there.
It began in the Cathedral though, built in the time of his great-grandfather Pepin the Short, the coronation procession began from the Cathedral after Pope Nicolaus placed the Imperial Crown upon his head.
The procession afterwards through Paris, and to the palace was sumptuous and extravagant, deliberately so, for an Emperor with a multitude of ambitious and powerful princeling brothers to contend with had even more reason to assert his supremacy and right to rule in the eyes of lords and populace alike then the average.
But on the fringes of the Empire, trouble still stirred,
East Francia, near the imperial borders
Heathen raids into the borders of this dismal land were becoming more common by the month, a gloomy King Maurice reflected. His brother’s assigning of him here, phrased as a way of rewarding him for his devotion and loyalty, was more or less a virtual exile from the power centres closer to the imperial court.
Whether his brother had meant it or not, Maurice did not know. In truth, he doubted it.
That was the worst part. The sheer… thoughtlessness of it all. Better it would have been a deliberate injury than a careless lack of foresight.
Why else would he send his strongest ally and supporter away, if not that he was afraid of him?
The truth, that Maurice could not or would not acknowledge, namely that his brother genuinely felt this was where he had most need of Maurice and his skills, never penetrated his brooding thoughts as he spent hard, thankless months countering heathen border raids and reorganising fringe provinces and building churches to convert Pagan subjects on the fringes of Christendom.
He didn’t even get to attend the coronation… a spectacular affair, he had been told.
The brother who most needs me sends me away, and surrounds himself closely with those who would sooner have him off his throne then defend him. Perhaps Renaud is a fool after all.
Try though he might to shake the dark paranoia of his brother’s choices from his mind, Maurice found he could not…
A short war, that was it. That would cheer him up, perhaps a struggle against the Pagans on the border, enough to prove his military value with a brisk campaign, which he could parley into securing the Emperor’s favour to return to court.
A winning campaign… then I shall return to you brother, take my rightful place at your side, and hold you to the throne by raising my sword against all who would tear you down.
Paris,
The next months that passed after the coronation ceremony were busy ones for the Emperor. Renaud slept less than he ever had, and gained a newfound respect for the work his late father must have performed throughout his life.
But he knew full well the palace intrigues had already begun behind his back. It did not escape his notice that younger brother Karloman had tagged along to the coronation, and had followed along with the procession mingling amongst many of the West Francian lords, currying favour, sending down dishes to favourite courtiers…
Below the Alps, King Loup’s initial failures had not deterred his ambitions, and Renaud knew full well his brother was biding his time to strike. Those of his siblings were were yet uncrowned doubtless wanted their own lands and inheritances, and would press him for them now their father was gone…
Only Maurice, his dearest brother and closest friend, could he trust, and he had sent Maurice away to hold the dangerous frontiers to the east. Foreign incursions at least, he did not have to fear with his most capable and loyal subordinate in command of the defence.
On reflection, Renaud thought gloomily, Father had it easier...
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Good to see that Loup was thwarted to start with, although I wonder if Maurice's absence will doom Renaud. In that case, I expect vengeance from East Francia would be swift and brutal
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Renaud and Maurice need to get on the same page quickly for the good of Empire Karling. Loopy had his mother and the Pope do end-runs on him. Thanks for the update.
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