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The story of King Jan is an epic sung by a traveling troubadour where truth, legend and myth are intertwined. #2 son's infatuation with #1's wife was worrying until #1 lost his life on the battlefield. Will #2 comfort the grieving widow and raise his nephew to be a great king or will survivor guilt keep them apart? The 50ish great knight and finder of secrets allowed nature to take its course upon finding a teenage vixen in his chambers. Did she have a crush or respond to a dare from her peers? Thank you for your many updates. (I have read until to the death of #1).

Are the Adamites a Catholic or Orthodox heresy?

I am now caught up and I thank you for giving me many hours of enjoyment. The teen vixen and the aging great knight are certainly prolific. Is grandson the heir? The wandering tomboy has grown into a reputable young lady and she is a mingling of cultures (Polish, White Rus, Russian). #2 son and #1 widow have overcome their lost for a try at happiness. How would this relationship be looked at in an Orthodox Moravian? Different cultures have this ranging from an expectation of the younger unmarried son to succeed his deceased brother to an incestuous relationship.

I'm still not entirely sure how the game decides on who sleeps with whom. My best guess so far is that the engine is just running events each turn behind the scenes for all characters, not just the PC, and that the likelihood of events triggering in certain ways is affected by personality traits and character opinion. With regard to Sveta and Vojtech Silverhelm, I think it was more than likely a case of bored unmarried daughter syndrome, and the unmarried elderly spymaster was as good a target as any.

Historically, the Adamites are a Gnostic doctrine, and they arose in both Orthodox (Alexandria, Egypt) and Catholic (Bohemia) countries.

Radomir is indeed the player heir, though I think if Vratislav hadn't decide to sleep with his sister-in-law he would have taken a couple of titles.

The customs around levirate marriage are actually rather fascinating. In some cultures they were indeed expected or even lauded. In ancient China, it was considered lucky or praiseworthy for a wealthy man to marry two sisters. Because the sisters would not have conflicting dynastic interests, such an arrangement was thought to make for a harmonious household. Also, I recall in one of the Tony Hillerman books that Officer Leaphorn was facing some family pressure to marry his wife's younger sister after she died. Wonder if that's an accurate reading of Dine cultural norms - Hillerman was usually pretty careful about things like that.

In Catholic and Orthodox canon law, though, levirate marriage was a huge no-no and was considered tantamount to incest because of the proscription in Leviticus. (Thus in Judaism levirate marriage is prohibited in most cases as well.) This taboo extended even to the families of godparents or godchildren. The sole exception to the rule in Judaism was when a widow is childless by a first marriage: then the widow can marry her husband's younger brother. (This was called yibbum, I think.)
 
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Are the Adamites a Catholic or Orthodox heresy?
Was going to answer this (and the other questions), then realised the acceptable limits for the length were exceeded, thus deleted most of the reply-text; since also the answer of Revan86 suffices:

Historically, the Adamites are a Gnostic doctrine, and they arose in both Orthodox (Alexandria, Egypt) and Catholic (Bohemia) countries.
Suffice to say they were a sect of pre-Nicene, pre-Ephesus, pre-Constantinopole, pre-Chalcedon creeds, and apart from few references, not much is known. Neo-adamite resurgence in HRE lands came up much later; most accounts are found from the opposing views.

Their depiction in the game, on the other hand, is another case of one among those that depend on the religion-mechanics of the game design. Their occurrence and spreading are another anomalous event (or event chains) just as any religious propagation as it happens in either ck2 or ck3.

For the adamites, it becomes ridiculous due to a specific conversion-event in ck3, therefore if one checks out other AARs also, it will be observed that its occurrence is quite common in any standard run.

Therefore the question of from which denomination are they born / to which one are the adamites considered a heresy, catholic or orthodox? is understandable once the game-context is known.


I recall in one of the Tony Hillerman books that Officer Leaphorn
About twenty-two years ago read a book titled Hunting Badger; thought it a secret gem found by self and known to none (ahh, the days of "hey this "the internet" thing seems cool). Later realised the bloke has tens of books, worldwide known author, and the book is part of a series. True story. lol.

Don't forget to check out Dark Winds.



-The reply is still too long, filcat.
-Did best to cut out. Sigh.
-Carry on. Still got the review on The Valiant.
-All right.
 
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Oh dear Lord, is it that time again...?

EUROPE AT THE END OF THE REIGN OF KALOJÁN CHRABRÝ RYCHNOVSKÝ

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No territorial gains for Moravia. Byzantine Empire is still hanging in there, despite being fragmented and rather diminished in its Mediterranean territories. (Makes up for it by ruling the entire Caucasus, evidently.) The East Slavic cultural sphere is divided, as seen here, between Galicia-Volhynia and Ruthenia... as well as a few smaller states up north of the scope of this map.


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Bordergore. So much bordergore. France is still territorially speaking a huge player, as is Sweden north of here. Frisia is actually managing to cobble together what looks to be the start of a North Sea Empire.
 
Are the Adamites a Catholic or Orthodox heresy?
Unlike CK2, in CK3 there are no heresies specific to Catholicism or Orthodoxy (or any other faith) - instead each religion has a multitude of faiths whose relationships with each other depend on certain doctrines or tenets (for example, Catholics and Orthodoxists treat each other as Astray instead of Hostile because both faiths have the Ecumenism doctrine, while Christian Cathars and Islamic Druze will consider each other Righteous despite belonging to two different religions because both faiths have the Gnosticism tenet). Some faiths which have zero adherents at game start are under default rules coded to appear more commonly in their historical regions - Bogomils and Iconoclasts are more likely to come from Orthodox regions, Lollards and Waldensians are more likely to appear in Western Europe, and so on. The Adamites are likely predisposed to Germany and its neighbors, since they're likely in-game meant to represent the 13th-14th century movements accused of being Adamite by the Church - the so-called Neo-Adamites like the Brethren of the Free Spirit, the Taborites, and occasionally some of the Beghards.

From what I've been able to tell, there are four ways for a faith to suddenly appear out of nowhere. The first is the human player choosing to convert on their own whim. The second is a character becoming overwhelmed with stress - occasionally an option in this case will let them change faiths. The Adamites have an option unique to them in that an Adamite preacher can occasionally be met while on a pilgrimage and the pilgrim in question can choose to convert, denounce, or debate the Adamite. The final option that I've seen is after any of the other three options, other neighboring rulers of the same faith are given an event to join in the conversion or not. Because the Adamites have that unique event for themselves, that theoretically increases the chance of them appearing, and in the early days of the game they were notorious for constantly showing up because of this.

That said, this AAR is based on an older build of the game and in the modern version, the Adamite preacher is considerably rarer - I played a William the Conqueror Ironman game for 280 years over the past two months, with every monarch I had going on pilgrimage at least once, and the Adamite preacher event occurred a grand total of one time (I did have an heir once who I likely would have manually converted to it since his traits and actions were lining up that way, but he was assassinated before I could play as him so that never happened). That said, the specific time it happened was on a Rome pilgrimage, while most of the others were to Canterbury, so pilgrimage length might play a role. This isn't to say the Adamites never appear anymore, but in every game I've played they tend to either show up in one or two counties in Western Europe, sit there for a decade, then convert back to Catholicism OR show up on the fringes of the Christian world, stay there for about thirty years or so, then get smashed by their larger neighbors - case in point, I saw the Adamites show up a total of three times in that aforementioned ironman game, once in Prussia (after which they got smashed by the Poles), once in Mazovia about two generations later (which, being a vassal of Poland, didn't last long) and finally some Buryats in Mongolia over a century later.
 
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Interlude Thirteen
INTERLUDE XIII.
The Estate
12 February 2021


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Наоми Рыбарова (Прибислава), Вилгельм Крятщек (Богодар 4.) и Драгомир Петрич (Радомир 3.) в серьяловей драме «Панство»

‘Coming soon, in an all-new series of The Estate…’

The screen flickering in the middle of the dorm room showed a man in a long, shaggy beard, lit in moody dramatic tones, peering out over his steepled fingers over the assembled court as a bishop stood before him, proffering to him a crown. ‘It was my father’s weakness of mind that destroyed him. I will not let such weaknesses destroy me.’

‘Was it a weakness of the mind… or a weakness of the heart?’ asked a faceless voice-over. The camera cut to one of the courtiers, whose long, angular face was bathed in the shadows of a recess in the wall. A slow, sinister smile crept across his face as he began to speak again.

‘He wasn’t willing to do what is necessary. The question is… are you?’

The scene cut to the dark bearded man passing a hand over a small box before him on the table. One long, hairy, arthropodal leg emerged from beneath the barely-opened lid. The bearded man gasped as the spider began to emerge.

‘Milord, beware the venom. It is lethal.’

‘I don’t fear the tools I use to achieve my goals. All of Moravia’s fate rests upon this one.’

The scene shifted to nother room. The dark-bearded king’s eyes cracked open the waxen seal upon a small scroll, and unfurled it. His eyes widened in shock.

‘No… How is this possible…?’

The scene cut to the rear of a nude torso of a redheaded woman, stepping out from behind a set of gauzy red hangings and sauntering with unmistakeable intent toward the same dark bearded man.

‘I am his blood sister. And your father never knew—or just never told you?’

The scene cut to her face as she kissed him. Passionately.

‘What would you say if I told you I didn’t care?’

‘I would tell you what I’ve always told you, since that day on the bridge…’

‘Blasphemy!’ rasped another disembodied voice.

The scene cut to the out-of-doors, in what looked like a town square, where a fiery-eyed man in a round cap was gesticulating wildly in front of a massive rabble of people. A group of young women were kneeling down in the crowd and crying aloud to heaven in a cacophony of voices while men in black robes laid their hands upon their heads. The crowd, which had been whipped into a frenzy, attacked a market. They broke into a butcher’s shop and dragged out the frightened proprietor, shouting and shoving him in front of them. Then they began throwing stones and brickbats into a church.

‘The heresy… is spreading,’ said one clergyman to another.

‘We won’t succeed without God!’

‘And we won’t succeed with Him, either.’

‘They shall hear us! We will not be denied!’ cried the rabble-rouser outside again, in a thick Carpathian accent. ‘There is a disease among us! And Moravia shall be cleansed—with fire!’

A dimly-lit night-time exterior was lit up with flames as they engulfed a church, while all of the villagers stood around the outside and watched impassively. Then the screen faded to black.

‘And if the Church falls… the kingdom won’t long outlast it.’

The voice-over chimed in again as each of the faces of the main characters turned, lit from below, out of the gloom. ‘Don’t miss: the next thrilling instalment of The Estate—only on ZapKino! All new episodes, streaming 12 February.’

~~~​

The door slammed open and into the dorm room walked Živana Biľaková, back from the student canteen. She took one long, disparaging look at the screen and then cast a wryly tolerant one over her roommate Cecilia Bedyrová, seated on the chintz on the opposite side of the room with the wireless keyboard on her lap, watching the preview with an ill-disguised look of anticipation.

‘I still can’t believe you actually enjoy watching that crap,’ Živana chuffed.

‘What? It’s the weekend!’

‘It’s exploitation.’

‘Call it whatever you like. Naomi Rybárová’s acting is brilliant! And she takes good care of her skin.’

‘Yeah, she’d better! Given all the vast bare acres of it she flaunts in highly-compromised positions on that show,’ Živana snarked. ‘Acting, ha. Honestly! It’s nearly as bad as the historical dramas the Brits and the Brazilians are putting out these days.’

‘Grebeníček says The Estate is actually fairly well-researched,’ Cecilia retorted. ‘And based on the readings he’s had us do… you can’t deny there was a hell of a lot of intrigue going around Moravia in the early 1300s. Lot of murder. Lot of heresy.’

‘Whatever. Besides, Baláža’s way prettier than Rybárová, Cili. Sorry.’

‘Like your starlets dark and skinny, do you?’ Cecilia smirked. ‘Ha. That’s fine. Leave me my redheads. But it doesn’t seem to translate to your taste in men, I’ll say that. That big sandy-haired East Frankish foreign exchange student… what’s his name… Bäcker? He ever text you after that tea date last week?’

‘Actually Thilo Ackermann did,’ Živana told her dorm-mate, ‘ask me out to an actual movie next week.’

‘Oooh, excellent! Date number two!’ crowed Cecilia triumphantly, a wide grin spreading across her face. She clapped her hands together and leaned forward in her chair. ‘Thinking of going for three?’

‘Depends on the movie, I guess… and the conversation.’ Živana tossed back her red hair.

‘And… what if it turns out he’s a fan of The Estate?’ asked Cecilia impishly.

‘Then I’m losing his number.’

‘Ow. Harsh.’

Živana shrugged. ‘I like my men to have non-trashy tastes in film and television, thanks.’

Cecilia’s eyes again glinted mischievously. ‘Glad that doesn’t seem to translate to your taste in roommates!’

Živana slung down her bookbag and flopped down on the armchair next to Cecilia’s. ‘Nope! Not at all! I get to choose what we watch next, though.’

Cecilia passed the keyboard over to her friend, followed by an open bag of crisps. ‘All yours, Živka.’

~ END OF BOOK V ~
 
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Book Six Chapter One
BOOK VI. Caught in the Middle
(just like the way you’ve always been)

The Reign of Radomír 3., Kráľ of Veľká Morava

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ONE
Light Child, Dark Child
23 November 1268 – 29 September 1271

Vjačeslava Vasilevna nearly passed out from the agony and exhaustion of childbirth. Gasping and heaving for breath, the Queen Mother lay back upon the bed in a pool of her own sweat. Though she’d lightened herself of yet another child, the pain and tiring still lingered over her. She felt far away. She hardly noticed when the midwife handed her up a baby girl, a delicate fringe of auburn upon her crown.

‘A pity her father can’t be here to see her,’ the midwife told her sympathetically.

‘Not for the first, either,’ Vjačeslava murmured weakly, a tear rolling down one of her already-wet cheeks. ‘Of course he wouldn’t come for the second.’

‘Milady… this is your fourth,’ the midwife reminded her gently. ‘The new king—he’s your first.’

There was a tense silence after that. Both the Queen Mother and the midwife knew what she meant, but neither could or dared say it aloud.

Vjačeslava had now given birth to two girls by her brother-in-law. And this one, the one she was now nursing… was triply unfortunate. For Vratislav had sworn a vow of celibacy before God, every bit as binding as that upon a rasophore monk. And for her he had broken it—even in a thicket just behind his wayhouse in Kroměříž. This girl who was now at her breast was a child conceived in fornication, conceived in incest, and conceived of a broken monastic vow.

‘She needs a name, milady.’

Praskovia had been the name she’d given Vratislav’s elder daughter—a rather obvious choice, as she had been born on a Friday. This one, though…

Vjačeslava was feeling a tad ironic.

‘She will be Pribislava.’

The midwife raised both eyebrows at that, but did not say a word. The little girl, who was freshly cleaned and swaddled and who was now busily guzzling down her first meal under the sun, was none the wiser, she whose name would mean ‘first in glory’—that she would be the last of her mother’s children, and that no glory at all was expected of her. For a moment, Vjačeslava looked down at her infant child with love, and a trace of pity. Marking this, the midwife said:

‘You can’t keep her, milady. Any more than you could have kept Praskovia.’

‘I know I can’t.’

~~~

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‘Are you sure you found no traces at all?’ asked Radomír worriedly. The crown with which he had been invested—his grandfather’s crown—still felt much too heavy for his dark-haired head. Lucia sat at his side, her round face, framed with an updo of bronze-coloured hair, radiating heartfelt concern. ‘Still not even… not even a hint of where he might have gone?’

‘None,’ answered Kancelár Miloboj. He was calm, even rock-steady as he said it, but there was a heaviness in his voice that all of his formidable composure couldn’t disguise. ‘None of your grandfather’s fellow pilgrims can tell us where he went. All the trails go cold east of Revúca. We haven’t discovered anything further, and it’s not for want of effort, môj Kráľ…’

‘I told you not to call me that,’ Radomír hissed in mortification. ‘Kaloján—my grandfather—is your king!’

‘And yet he has given us no sign, left us no message, made us no assurance that he is indeed alive,’ Miloboj answered his liege, with as much considerate grace as he could—but still firmly. ‘Milord… it is high time for you to accept the full burden of the charge with which you have been entrusted. You are now the third King of Moravia of the name Radomír.’

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Kráľ Radomír 3. opened his mouth to protest further, thought better of it, and gave a stiff nod. Lucia reached over and touched his hand in a gesture of sympathy. Radomír felt a warm rush of gratitude toward her. He still felt rather undeserving of her at times, because Lucia had come from a family of dispossessed Polish-Prussian landowners in Grodno, to marry a boy who had been (Radomír had to admit it) quite rude to her when they first met. And yet she had settled into her role, long before any hint that she might become queen, with grace and equanimity. Good thing for him, his wife was competent at most things which she put her mind to—especially now, when Radomír’s mother Vjačeslava had been away from home for months on account of her health.

If Radomír was grateful for being well-married, it was nothing to his gratitude for being well-advised. His grandfather’s most trusted men (and woman) all retained their old positions. Of course Knieža Miloboj of Nitra had continued on as kancelár—there was no one better for the job. Miloboj’s poise, his willingness to see all sides of an issue, and his knack for making his way among people even of entirely different tongues and customs made him eminently suited for the post. But more than that: Miloboj had always been gentle and well-guided in his rede, and Radomír found himself grateful for his assistance in social settings.

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Radomír looked to his cousin Tichomil, who gave him a grim but understanding nod in response. The elderly družinnik, white of hair and beard now but still possessed of chiselled sinew and iron nerve, was as familiar to Radomír as an old leather boot… or as his childhood nursery. Whenever his grandfather had taken him out on rides, Tichomil was right there alongside them or not very far behind. His men called him ‘Hlúpy’—‘the Foolish’—but with a heavy dose of irony. Truthfully the man was a reasonable, cautious, painstaking leader of men, and a master both of grand strategy and of personal combat.

His other two close advisors were Vlasta Bijelahrvatskića, his steward, and Mírko of Bohemia, who served as his privy ear among the nobles. Vlasta, whose seat of honour was in Užhorod, was a rather prim, fastidious, stuffy elderly lady—as such, she was naturally an able overseer of the royal household and a redoubtable keeper of the books. She had definite entrepreneurial drive and determination, but she also had a basic sense of honesty and decency that Radomír couldn’t help but admire. As such, nitpicky old Vlasta had kept her position with ease. And Mírko, well—like Tichomil, Mírko was family. He was a Rychnovský-Vyšehrad, a descendant of Prince Daniel. Radomír couldn’t say he was fond of Mírko, but there was no denying the man was good at his job.

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‘Now, the first matter of business. Your grandfather never made any arrangements upon your younger sister, Svetluša. You would be well-advised to have her married well when she comes of age. Several suitors have given me to know they would be willing to woo her—with your say-so as her nearest living male relative, of course. I would particularly recommend to your attention the Despot Lucio of Italy.’

Radomír flicked a glance across to his wife and bearer of the distaff version of the same name, who gave him a pert little raise of the eyebrows. The new Kráľ turned back to his kancelár.

Despot of Italy?’ Radomír fought to keep the scorn out of his voice, but couldn’t quite hide the full measure of his scepticism. ‘Precisely whence comes this fellow by that title?’

‘Astute of you, O Kráľ,’ Miloboj chuckled. ‘He styles himself by the grandiose Byzantine Imperial court moniker of “despotēs”, a token of favour bestowed upon his di Morro ancestors by Constantinople nine generations back. But his material honour consists solely in the rule over a handful of scattered cities across the Alpine stretch of that country—Aquileia, Trento, Nizza—and Modena in the Apennines as well. Clinging to such a lofty title while vested with holdings honourable and wealthy but by no means vast, I fear that Despot Lucio is rather a vain man. But having observed him personally, I can tell you that his habits of life are not vicious, and that he treats his servitors with kindness.’

‘I suppose Svetluša could do quite a bit worse,’ Radomír answered Miloboj. ‘Very well. Let me look over the details of Despot Lucio’s suit and talk with my sister in private on the matter, and I’ll get a decision back to you on the morrow.’

‘Very good, milord.’

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Radomír exchanged some further news and items of business with each of his courtiers in turn, and then retired from his audience chambers with Lucia on his arm.

‘It’s really you I should thank, Lucia,’ Radomír told his wife.

‘Whatever for?’

‘For supporting me in there,’ Radomír told her.

‘Why, what else should I have done?’ asked his wife with a little smile, which turned sad even as Radomír watched. ‘No… I’m sorry. You were being serious; I shouldn’t be flippant. It’s just that I—I know what it feels like, to be cut adrift of a sudden. Your grandfather gone and your mother out of reach. I spent most of my childhood on the lam from the Jatvingians… drifting from court to court, dependent on the kindness of the White Rus’ to help me weather the winters.’

‘Ah. Well… I’m sorry you had to go through all that.’

‘Spilt milk,’ said the former Grodno landowner’s daughter, giving Radomír’s elbow a little squeeze. ‘No, I have a place here and now. I’m trying my best to use it well and wisely.’

~~~

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Queen Lucia conceived late in the summer which followed, with the signs becoming visible and noticeable after the Church New Year began.

Kráľ Radomír quickly learned precisely what Lucia meant by ‘trying her best’ to use her position ‘well and wisely’. During the confinement of her pregnancy, Lucia had taken to an intensive study of medicine, in particular drawing upon the prior knowledge of the queens of Moravia who had taken up the art going back to Dolz de Touraine and the Animadversiones de occasu ossium. Unfortunately for the king and his libido, between the pregnancy and Lucia’s studies there was no further need to ‘try her best’ in certain other duties.

‘If you’re willing, I might have a solution for… you know, that,’ Kňažná Slavena—the wife of his kancelár Miloboj—spoke aside to the king during a feast in the Great Hall. The glint in her hungry eyes could not be misinterpreted.

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But it was a suggestion that went nowhere. Radomír was neither the sort of king to dishonour himself in adultery, nor was he the sort of man to shame Slavena for having spoken too brashly and stepped outside the bounds of modesty. He held his tongue and said nothing of it, and instead just let the proposition slide by, unmarked and unacted-on.

Lucia gave birth after the ides of April, to a red-headed baby girl.

At once on her husband’s beholding her, Lucia spoke up:

‘Husband, let us name her Gaudimantė! I knew a certain Gaudimantė, a noblewoman back from where I come from. I stayed with her over one winter; she was kind to me. And I always thought the name had a nice ring to it.’

‘Gaudimantė? I don’t like it,’ Radomír said flatly.

‘Then what is your suggestion, husband?’ asked Lucia. There was a chill tone in her voice, but Radomír ignored it and made his counterproposal:

‘Why don’t we name her Vjačeslava instead, after my mother? She’s a nearer relation.’

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Lucia gave her husband a wry, critical look, but made no demurral. The girl was, after all, their daughter together, and Queen Mother Vjačeslava was indeed a relation. And the queen was not the type to make a fuss over such a small thing. She was young. There would be other opportunities yet.

Unfortunately, little Vjačeslava did not pass her first few months of life outside the womb in frith. She was a feeble, fitful, frail little thing, and she didn’t drink of her mother’s milk as she ought. Radomír sat at her crib and fretted, but Queen Lucia at once set to work with hob, mortar, pestle, retort, cucurbit and ambix preparing various material powders and distillations of herbal essence both fragrant- and foul-smelling, such that the royal bedroom resembled nothing so much as an alchemist’s laboratory or a witch’s haven. These things the queen herself ingested in several attempts to get her own daughter to drink of her milk.

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‘You oughtn’t!’ protested the king when he saw this. ‘What if you should fall ill as well?’

‘I shan’t,’ Lucia assured him. ‘Your forebears have been careful. I am ingesting nothing directly harmful to myself, only preparations meant to alter my humours to better match our baby’s. With any luck, her hunger should allow her to respond.’

It was several days before little Vjačeslava would tentatively take nourishment, and Lucia attached herself to one particular alchemical preparation consisting of ground fennel, ginger root and fish oils, which she smeared into a bowl of hot water and drank as a brew. After several such treatments of this, Radomír was happy to see, Vjačeslava ate—not happily or much, but at least she ate.

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‘It works!’

‘Of course it works,’ Lucia answered him tolerantly.

‘Thank you, Lucia.’

‘Oh, really! You ought to thank your wise ancestor Bohodar slovoľubec,’ Lucia answered him modestly—though from where he stood, Radomír could definitely make out a dimple on her cheek. ‘And your ancestress Dolz de Touraine. I’ve only followed the path they led.’

But as it turned out, the Kráľ had even more cause to be thankful to his wife. There was a training accident among the garrison, as occasionally does happen, and the young king was the nearest one to witness it. He ran to help the fallen and injured, whom he recognised as a middle-aged soldier named Zvonimír Blatnohradský, but the wounds were far too severe for him to help alone.

Radomír called out for help, but as the accident had happened in a ditch, no one else appeared to have taken notice, and the king’s voice didn’t rise above the orders of the quartermaster. Lucia of Kráľovec, however, was approaching from the other side of the courtyard.

‘Husband?’ she asked. She was about to inquire further when she saw the man lying broken underneath him. ‘Oh, God in heaven—!’

‘Help me,’ Radomír asked her. ‘Please—he’s bleeding, and I think his ribs are broken!’

Lucia needed no second reminder, but bustled down the slope to where her husband and the unfortunate watchman were. Firmly she bade Radomír hold the fallen man at a certain angle while she probed, then prop him upright at another while she went to fetch some shears, dry wood and clean linen for splints. Radomír’s arms burned and strained with the dead-weight of the (thankfully) still-living man, but eventually Lucia returned with what she wanted to bring. Biddably, Radomír followed every ‘turn’ and ‘lift’ and ‘cinch’ and ‘snip’ that his wife asked him to, and soon they had the man’s bleeding staunched and his bones righted to set as best they could.

‘Not bad,’ Lucia breathed, wiping the blood off of her hands upon another clean strip of linen.

‘Thanks again,’ Radomír said weakly. ‘You were there just in time. How comes it that you’re always there when I need you?’

‘Occupational hazard of being a queen, I suppose,’ Lucia dimpled.

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Radomír felt a strong surge of warmth and affection toward his queen. The two of them had been flung together in the same yoke—certainly not of his own design, but of his (late?) grandfather’s. And at first he’d rather resented her. Sure, she was sort of pretty in a doughy, round-faced, milkmaid fashion. It seemed he had almost nothing in common with his wife at first. She’d been a rough-and-tumble tomboy, a vagrant daughter of fallen nobility who’d needed early on to fend for herself, who spoke a barbaric mishmash of Masurian, White Ruthenian and Baltic dialects. And Radomír had been—he hated to own it, but it was true—a spoiled, sheltered princeling brat whose experience had never ventured far beyond the royal nursery.

But now that the two of them had actual matters to talk about, it didn’t matter that their dialects were different. Each could make their meaning understood to the other with enough effort. Radomír wasn’t out of his depth when speaking of alchemy and medicine, and he was usually able to follow his wife’s conversation as far as she would care to take him in it. And the two of them were both of a similar agreeable and patient nature, such that conversing with her never became tiresome despite their differences in dialect. Before he knew it, the two of them were taking long, amiable walks together in the countryside across the east bridge outside the castle walls.

Their newfound amiability naturally accompanied them into the bedroom. Radomír had always found their coupling… adequate, even satisfying when the animal urge was on him. But now Lucia was his companion and friend. Now being together in bed was a chance for verbal sparring and ribald humour, and he found that bantering with her during the act enhanced the pleasure. Evidently she felt the same way, if the high colour and lingering dimples that accompanied her afterglow were anything to go by. It was no grand romance. But Lucia trusted and liked him well enough, and Radomír was not the sort to ask for more when he could be grateful for what he had.

~~~

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At the tail end of September, in the year 1271, Lucia again gave birth. This time, their child, dark of hair and fair of complexion, was a boy. It had become a tradition in the family by this time for a Radomír in the family to name his eldest son after Slovoľubec and Letopisár—and Lucia readily agreed, ‘if, next time we have a girl, I get to name her Gaudimantė.’ It couldn’t really be said of Radomír’s resistance to this request, that it was anything more than half-hearted. He was fond enough of Lucia, and delighted enough with his new-born heir, that he ultimately agreed to her condition in spite of himself.
 
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- Oh this will be a long one. Sincere apologies in advance.
- What, wh - oh yeah, The Valiant. Understandable.
- ...
- So?
- Hit the music.
- All right.
Death by Distortion by Dan Terminus


Interlude Twelve
‘And then there was his human side. Kaloján was famously approachable by his troops, even the low-born ones. (...)
Though knowing and understanding the point of view of the era, of course, and yet, sigh. How mighty of a him.

He was evidently a fairly active and rambunctious child, (...)
Pheww. Creation of worlds is the most charming when mastery of words is present.

Chapter One
[M]Y children: shall I tell you from the tales of Kaloján chrabrý, battle-begotten, battlefield-born? Shall I tell you of the red-bearded king, the right-believing? Shall I tell you of him, who stood the steadfast friend of the Rus’, and defender of the Orthodox in the Southlands?
Pulling an opening with questions is always difficult and thus tends to be the most irritating form; but you already got the hearts by beginning with initial capital form. Beautiful.

One day, the young boy was at play. With him were his companions. And these were Vieroslav, and Vratislav, and Bohuslav, and Vlastimila.
...and presented with epic voice, and the words are dancing.

Oh, the rage of the waters!
Angra? Oh this keeps getting only better. Answering with Écailles De Lune by Alcest (2010).

Chapter Two - I
But a single stone cast from a mountain path can cause a rockslide.
It is fitting for the legendary-narrative of the character; it would be interesting to hear the discussion on this between Prof Dr Weissfeld as opposed to Grebeníček.

Marvelling with awe, the black dove glanced up at the white dove seated upon his vane.
When the words are flowing in the joy of the music bare and fair, the dreams are awakening in the moment beyond the infinite there.

Chapter Two - II
And thuswise did he ride.
Hell yeah. But will answer it with Legacy of Kings by Hammerfall (1998).

The tale of Kaloján and the Three Knights, however, became one of the most popular of the Príbeh.
Extraordinary, is the fact that the conclusion reaches the core premise, as opposed to the usual flow of the story of Lions. Kudos.

Chapter Two - III
[E]VEN when the trumpets sound upon the Last Day, my children, the brave charge of the Six Knights at Vysoký Breh shall not have been forgotten.
A bit confusing this one, but probably meant to say "shall not be forgotten"; else would understand it as by the end of the duration, shall not have been forgetting, but then again, that would be a continuous activity for otherwise a definite one - continuously not forgetting? Naaah, probably that's all right; was writing by the notes, must be own mistake by being dense for not getting the future perfect in passive that quick.

Chapter Three
Why, a woman, of course!
Of course. Mate, just go and ask for a date. If the answer is no, then move on. Yssshhhh. Holding fist in air, cursing Damned Medieval Epics! Lol.

‘Bohumila is my guest. Your own vassal and kinsman, Kráľ—the Vojvoda Svätopluk of the Opolanie—is her elder brother,’ answered Wizlaw. But he marked Kaloján’s gaze, and added: ‘Put any thought of her from your head, Kráľ! Her brother has already promised her to another man: I wot not whom.’
errr - in that case, lad, you're doomed. Lol times two.

Chapter Four
The Chodové—hardy, rugged mountain men originally from the Silesian Highlands—had been hired by Kráľ Prisnec (...)
Pheww, it feels as if it has been hundred years, even if that was in last June.
17 January 1227 – 25 September 1230
Oh wait -

Chapter Five
‘Yet who knows when that might be?’ Kaloján cried aloud. ‘My own nephew fights an enemy alone without the support of his own princes! The poor and the afflicted seek shelter within my realm! Justice is trampled before my eyes! Must I turn away from this?’
This is the actual moment of him, for truly earning the epithet.


Kudos.

About the Valiant - I

Edit: Retracted one point.
 
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Unlike CK2, in CK3 there are no heresies specific to Catholicism or Orthodoxy (or any other faith) - instead each religion has a multitude of faiths whose relationships with each other depend on certain doctrines or tenets (for example, Catholics and Orthodoxists treat each other as Astray instead of Hostile because both faiths have the Ecumenism doctrine, while Christian Cathars and Islamic Druze will consider each other Righteous despite belonging to two different religions because both faiths have the Gnosticism tenet). Some faiths which have zero adherents at game start are under default rules coded to appear more commonly in their historical regions - Bogomils and Iconoclasts are more likely to come from Orthodox regions, Lollards and Waldensians are more likely to appear in Western Europe, and so on. The Adamites are likely predisposed to Germany and its neighbors, since they're likely in-game meant to represent the 13th-14th century movements accused of being Adamite by the Church - the so-called Neo-Adamites like the Brethren of the Free Spirit, the Taborites, and occasionally some of the Beghards.

From what I've been able to tell, there are four ways for a faith to suddenly appear out of nowhere. The first is the human player choosing to convert on their own whim. The second is a character becoming overwhelmed with stress - occasionally an option in this case will let them change faiths. The Adamites have an option unique to them in that an Adamite preacher can occasionally be met while on a pilgrimage and the pilgrim in question can choose to convert, denounce, or debate the Adamite. The final option that I've seen is after any of the other three options, other neighboring rulers of the same faith are given an event to join in the conversion or not. Because the Adamites have that unique event for themselves, that theoretically increases the chance of them appearing, and in the early days of the game they were notorious for constantly showing up because of this.

That said, this AAR is based on an older build of the game and in the modern version, the Adamite preacher is considerably rarer - I played a William the Conqueror Ironman game for 280 years over the past two months, with every monarch I had going on pilgrimage at least once, and the Adamite preacher event occurred a grand total of one time (I did have an heir once who I likely would have manually converted to it since his traits and actions were lining up that way, but he was assassinated before I could play as him so that never happened). That said, the specific time it happened was on a Rome pilgrimage, while most of the others were to Canterbury, so pilgrimage length might play a role. This isn't to say the Adamites never appear anymore, but in every game I've played they tend to either show up in one or two counties in Western Europe, sit there for a decade, then convert back to Catholicism OR show up on the fringes of the Christian world, stay there for about thirty years or so, then get smashed by their larger neighbors - case in point, I saw the Adamites show up a total of three times in that aforementioned ironman game, once in Prussia (after which they got smashed by the Poles), once in Mazovia about two generations later (which, being a vassal of Poland, didn't last long) and finally some Buryats in Mongolia over a century later.

I think I agree with this analysis. This game was played mostly in Azure (1.4.0 and 1.4.4), and I did notice the Adamites taking a lot of counties and sticking around there. I've noticed many of the same things you did, particularly after Fleur-de-Lis (1.5.0) came out: Adamites taking a lot fewer counties, and for a lot less time at a stretch before they got squashed.

- Oh this will be a long one. Sincere apologies in advance.
- What, wh - oh yeah, The Valiant. Understandable.
- ...
- So?
- Hit the music.
- All right.
Death by Distortion by Dan Terminus


Interlude Twelve

Though knowing and understanding the point of view of the era, of course, and yet, sigh. How mighty of a him.


Pheww. Creation of worlds is the most charming when mastery of words is present.

Chapter One

Pulling an opening with questions is always difficult and thus tends to be the most irritating form; but you already got the hearts by beginning with initial capital form. Beautiful.


...and presented with epic voice, and the words are dancing.


Angra? Oh this keeps getting only better. Answering with Écailles De Lune by Alcest (2010).

Chapter Two - I

It is fitting for the legendary-narrative of the character; it would be interesting to hear the discussion on this between Prof Dr Weissfeld as opposed to Grebeníček.


When the words are flowing in the joy of the music bare and fair, the dreams are awakening in the moment beyond the infinite there.

Chapter Two - II

Hell yeah. But will answer it with Legacy of Kings by Hammerfall (1998).


Extraordinary, is the fact that the conclusion reaches the core premise, as opposed to the usual flow of the story of Lions. Kudos.

Chapter Two - III

A bit confusing this one, but probably meant to say "shall not be forgotten"; else would understand it as by the end of the duration, shall not have been forgetting, but then again, that would be a continuous activity for otherwise a definite one - continuously not forgetting? Naaah, probably that's all right; was writing by the notes, must be own mistake by being dense for not getting the future perfect in passive that quick.

Chapter Three

Of course. Mate, just go and ask for a date. If the answer is no, then move on. Yssshhhh. Holding fist in air, cursing Damned Medieval Epics! Lol.


errr - in that case, lad, you're doomed. Lol times two.

Chapter Four

Pheww, it feels as if it has been hundred years, even if that was in last June.

Oh wait -

Chapter Five

This is the actual moment of him, for truly earning the epithet.


Kudos.

About the Valiant - I

Edit: Retracted one point.

Cheers for the kind words, @filcat! And I shall be adding more of these songs to The List. :)
 
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- It is reaching the critical mass, filcat. Careful.
- Understood. Suggestions?
- Initiate preventive measures.
- All right. Grouping.



Chapters Six to Nine
Such ought to have been the lesson Vratislav Kopčianský ought to have taken upon seeing the king’s success. But it was not.
It is interesting to see beginning about Chapter Seven, The Valiant is started to be given reasons for his deeds, such as the envy for the foe Kopčianský.

‘Do not pass further north. Do not attack Riazan,’ the man told him.
...and such in Chapter Eight, it is clarified with heeding the voice of the wise; the unusual and thus the unique side of the writing is that the myth of the explanation is not given for a selfish-gain, but for that of potentially a loss. This is interesting, as the heroic myth can be generalised as the reasoning of the hero-archetype for deeds that otherwise a vile act, but The Valiant is explaining the loss.

But of course the companions are not limited to human-characters, and includes {the horse}. That is a given (and exiting the narrative, of course the game right away provides this for the martial-run). Much as the detachment of the antagonist, as expected from the heroic-myths, are given as the {god-haters; followers of the Devil; etc.}.

Chapter Ten to Fourteen
Accursed is the name of Galați!
The surprise comes with the later chapters; the defeat is presented earnestly; yet this is not unusual, thus hints a victory claimed against the greater hardship-misfortune-catastrophe, as such the conflict is continued into {Third Adamite War}.

A great battle-cry arose from the crest of a hill upon the left bank of the Sava River.
Hell to the deep yeah! And the answer is: Бой продолжается by Ария (1989)

Even within his own lifetime, the Kráľ Kaloján became known among his men as Kaloján chrabrý.
Kaloján the Valiant.
The core premise is kept such long before finally arriving that it only indicates the patience of the author that proceeds without missing any detail, and the commitment to narrate the entire myth is thus remarkable.


However, the actual power of the story by the patience in writing comes from the structure, which is concluding in Chapter Fifteen with the bridge to the life of the myth in the years beyond;
Once there, they said, he went into a cave to rest his weary legs, and he sat. He lay his sword across his knees, and he closed his eyes. As he rested and sat, the soles of his feet began to turn to stone. And then the pillars of his tired legs—they turned to stone as well. And so too his knees, and his waist and his shoulders. Soon the whole man was carven, as though from the selfsame stone upon which he sat. And, so it is said, there he waits, sleeping, to this day.
For the part has been the premise since The Valiant, and the execution is clockwork precise, therefore: Kids, take notes, this is how it is done.

"...and the old storyteller who taught me said that when the black capercailzie takes wing, and flies over the peak of Mount Gerlach, that is the sign..." [*]

Kudos.

About the Valiant - II

[*] Quote from The Valiant of The Thin Wedge of Europe by Revan86 (2021)
 
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And I shall be adding more of these songs to The List.
Based on the observation, your list seems to be quite proper, and curious to see-hear more. Cheers!


and sorry about the successive comment, and a slight-necro it will be;

WARNING: Hard R-rating here, NSFW.
Yeah, about that.
Did not pay that much attention.
The world is a wild place, and the net is even wilder, thus understanding the concern and the warnings around the subject, to cover the nude scenery. The game does not help with its hilarious depictions, too.

Yet understanding it does not make it acceptable for self, it being the humans running away from nudity because of seeing it as an object of lust.
As the humanity is evolving into a weirder, amorphous shape, glorifying wars and battles and all the horrors involved, while banishing and persecuting and punishing intimacy and nudity and sexual relations into weird categories. This weird contradiction is... cringe to observe. The idiocy around hailing Rambo (or John Wick, probably more modern example is better) massacring everyone, and on the other hand The Naked Maja (or Emmanuelle? Naah, that's 70s film; well, could not find a modern example. Huh.) is shunned as whatever terminology they come up with in the according era.

Not diverging into pointless discussions to derail the thread; only to say again that:
Yeah, did not pay that much attention, and yeah, there are some nudity. So what?

And the reason for this otherwise unnecessary comment is: It also prompts... music.
[*]



[*] Oh Yeah of the album Stella by Yello (1985). Otherwise known as "that 80s song associated to lust-desire-doing anything avariciously"
Notable use includes Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986). The Ferrari scene.
 
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and sorry about the successive comment, and a slight-necro it will be;


Yeah, about that.
Did not pay that much attention.
The world is a wild place, and the net is even wilder, thus understanding the concern and the warnings around the subject, to cover the nude scenery. The game does not help with its hilarious depictions, too.

Yet understanding it does not make it acceptable for self, it being the humans running away from nudity because of seeing it as an object of lust.
As the humanity is evolving into a weirder, amorphous shape, glorifying wars and battles and all the horrors involved, while banishing and persecuting and punishing intimacy and nudity and sexual relations into weird categories. This weird contradiction is... cringe to observe. The idiocy around hailing Rambo (or John Wick, probably more modern example is better) massacring everyone, and on the other hand The Naked Maja (or Emmanuelle? Naah, that's 70s film; well, could not find a modern example. Huh.) is shunned as whatever terminology they come up with in the according era.

Not diverging into pointless discussions to derail the thread; only to say again that:
Yeah, did not pay that much attention, and yeah, there are some nudity. So what?

And the reason for this otherwise unnecessary comment is: It also prompts... music.
[*]



[*] Oh Yeah of the album Stella by Yello (1985). Otherwise known as "that 80s song associated to lust-desire-doing anything avariciously"
Notable use includes Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986). The Ferrari scene.

So, just want to quick-reply to this one.

I post the warnings and spoiler tags to conform to forum policy. I understand that I am a guest here and that I need to abide by the standards of the platform I choose to publish on. I abide by the same rules my commentAARs do, and am happy to do so.

That said: I tend to agree with your overall editorial point.

The more so since I am American by nationality, and tend to think that Europeans--even eastern Europeans--tend to have a far more sensible and practical attitude about nudity and sensuality than our nation does (having been affected from the start by certain puritanical strictures). And of course Hollywood's attitude toward violence and hatred is... well, I think psychotic might actually not be an inappropriate descriptor to use here. Myself and my fellow-nationals are saturated up to our literal eyeballs in propaganda which holds life, particularly non-American life, to be dirt-cheap.

As an authAAR I make no apologies for including that explicit lovemaking scene between Letopisár and Czenzi in Book IV, Chapter 10, Part IV--coming as it did on the heels of the much more vulnerable and symbolically-important scene where Czenzi brings Botta to see the place where her ancestors rest. I really did want to show that these two characters were connected to each other at every level: soul, body, intellect, emotions. Maybe that's overly sentimental on my part, but when the game set the two of them up together as well as it did, I rather felt they'd earned it.

On the other hand, the sex scene between Eustach and Dolz in Book III, Chapter 15 was meant as much for laughs as for titillation (and I at least hope I kept the tone light and playful enough there to succeed - I was taking the movie Secretary as an inspiration there). And that between Pravoslav and Marija in Book II, Chapter 11 was deliberately meant to be the most un-romantic thing possible, and demonstrate for the reader the entirely anti-sensual, control-driven, even misogynistic character of Pravoslav. Context matters as much as content, and personality actually matters a great deal more than naughty bits.

Regarding Ž and Ž, part of the intrigue for me was seeing a Christian character and a Gnostic character with two very different value-systems and personalities interact.

Želimír, a Christian, also happened to be grudging, resentful, deeply mistrustful of others... but also at a certain level genuinely attached to his religious tradition. I think like a lot of us, his behaviour and his ideals don't always match up. In the end, his resentment and paranoia end up being his downfall. And Živana, an Adamite, also turned out to be crystal-clear, holding herself but not necessarily others to high standards, principled, devoted: this in absolute despite of a doctrine which held such sexual devotions in contempt. The contrasts in this relationship appealed to me, and I started to wonder how it might work.

It's rather strange that you, @filcat, started off talking about the contradictions between overall social mores regarding sex vs. violence, and I ended up meandering off into these discussions about character relationships. Or perhaps it's not that strange.

With regard to violence, the means by which people acquire the skill for inflicting it can be interesting to explore. Military strategy can be fun to explore. The spectacle of people whipped into supporting it, or brought to grief by it, can be either stirring or revolting depending on your perspective. The rationales for it: anger, jealousy, hatred, fear, revenge - these can be endlessly fascinating. But violence by itself, I fear, is rather boring. I sometimes wonder if filmmakers and authors have to resort to increasingly-complex tricks to make it interesting or alluring.
 
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- Round of clarification is on you, filcat. For the mess you created.
- You are right.



I post the warnings and spoiler tags to conform to forum policy. I understand that I am a guest here and that I need to abide by the standards of the platform I choose to publish on. I abide by the same rules my commentAARs do, and am happy to do so.
Yes, and perfectly understood. Naturally sharing this reasonable attitude, in that all have to abide the rules of this forum, an interesting and a beautiful spot in the wild net, as such would have also used the method of cautionary warnings much as you do, had own skills been masterful in storytelling as yours are.

Now have to deal with own regret for prompting you to make such a statement-post because of own unnecessary comment, which was not meant as it was perceived, and own convoluted writing is the reason for all the mess; sincere apologies for it.

The more so since I am American by nationality, and tend to think that Europeans--even eastern Europeans--tend to have a far more sensible and practical attitude about nudity and sensuality than our nation does (having been affected from the start by certain puritanical strictures). And of course Hollywood's attitude toward violence and hatred is... well, I think psychotic might actually not be an inappropriate descriptor to use here. Myself and my fellow-nationals are saturated up to our literal eyeballs in propaganda which holds life, particularly non-American life, to be dirt-cheap.
It's rather strange that you, filcat, started off talking about the contradictions between overall social mores regarding sex vs. violence, and I ended up meandering off into these discussions about character relationships. Or perhaps it's not that strange.
About the effect of the environment, the culture of upbringing, and the society on the personality of the individual: Yes, these are the reasons for that psychosis but for any and all human-beings as in your words.
Will add on that this is also almost global, not that much specific but includes almost all cultures, for regarding the confusion about the rather strange one. But will not derail further about it, for the sanity of the AAR; rather will open up the direct-message route if need be.


As an authAAR I make no apologies for including that explicit lovemaking scene
And you should never do so. And understanding the necessity for the warning, nevertheless.
I really did want to show that these two characters were connected to each other at every level: soul, body, intellect, emotions. Maybe that's overly sentimental on my part, but when the game set the two of them up together as well as it did, I rather felt they'd earned it.
And you managed to capture the moment of your mind in creating the worlds by pouring the words into the mould casting the spell to unravel the aesthetic for conjuring the dreams.

On the other hand, the sex scene between Eustach and Dolz in Book III, Chapter 15 was meant as much for laughs as for titillation (and I at least hope I kept the tone light and playful enough there to succeed - I was taking the movie Secretary as an inspiration there).
And the dynamics of their relationship was almost joyful burlesque in taste.

Regarding Ž and Ž, part of the intrigue for me was seeing a Christian character and a Gnostic character with two very different value-systems and personalities interact.
And that was achieved; would have commented for them before, during their chapters, but did not want to clog up that much, since already feeling remorseful for filling up the thread with own comments.

With regard to violence, the means by which people acquire the skill for inflicting it can be interesting to explore. Military strategy can be fun to explore. The spectacle of people whipped into supporting it, or brought to grief by it, can be either stirring or revolting depending on your perspective. The rationales for it: anger, jealousy, hatred, fear, revenge - these can be endlessly fascinating.
Yes, and the infinite-limits of the creativity is never-to-end but ever-to-reach-beyond.


Once again: It was never a reaction-jab on you, but to humans in general that all have to provide those warnings, in that regarding them obscene as opposed to anything else; the so what? part was not meant to be for you, but it was against the situation that all humans live in.


Sincere apologies for the mess caused by own comment. It was only to post that silly-song for an old post. To repeat; it was not a post to point out a criticism on you nor on your writing, but on the situation all live in.


Yes, in that post once again the wrong decision was made for the question Should delete or not? before posting.
Well, everyday is a new day to learn more and better.
 
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Book Six Chapter Two
Never apologise for writing comments, @filcat! As a rule yours tend to be indicative of effort, thoughtful and provocative, and I always welcome them!


TWO
Not Simply Walk
27 October 1271 – 28 November 1275


I.
27 October 1271 – 2 July 1272

2021_07_09_26a.png

Although three years had passed since his grandfather’s disappearance, and Radomír 3. had now fully accepted the rule of Veľká Morava into his own hands, he still hadn’t quite given up on finding Kaloján chrabrý, or at least locating his remains. Radomír understood well that he hadn’t quite been the successor that his grandfather wanted. Kaloján had loved his son, Radomír’s father Kurík, better. They were two men of the same temper. But even so, Radomír knew, even in the very skin of his flesh, that if it was at all possible, Kaloján deserved to be found if alive, mourned if dead. Such consideration truly was the absolute least his progeny could afford him.

Dark-bearded Radomír himself, therefore, set off upon the same road that Kaloján had travelled. He knew that the former king had traversed Trenčín and made his way lengthwise west to east across the valleyed portions of Nitra. He made his way across to Revúca, the last place where any man had definitely seen Kaloján alive, and from whence a road led north into the High Tatras.

Although Kaloján had kept a strong writ among the towns of Morava, Česko, Sliezsko, Nitra, Užhorod and Podkarpatská—a writ which extended far and solidly into the countryside—unfortunately this writ weakened as one moved further into the marches. The Polish frontier was particularly lawless, though masterless men occasionally descended into the Užhorod region from the mountains. Such men did not dare approach the towns, though they happily raided bye and croft, and prowled the back roads in search of silver, hostages and other spoil. One group of such men very nearly took Radomír 3., the very king of the realm himself, as he drew near the Tatra foothills.

2021_07_09_27a.png

They struck from either side of the road with arrows and spears. A hoarse shout from one of Radomír’s armigers sounded the alert, and the dark-bearded king got his shield up just in time before he felt two sharp blows against it—and knew the shafts of arrows meant for his heart would be embedded in the other side. Radomír heaved up a spear and spurred his horse forward, jabbing down into the brush along the side of the road with it where he caught movement. The yielding of flesh and a gurgling cry of anguish rewarded Radomír’s attack, and he leapt down from his horse and seized the blade from the dying brigand’s hands.

Radomír struck at three bandits in turn with his newly-acquired weapon. Blood spurted in high arcs as he laid about him with a self-denying boldness and a fury that he never knew he possessed. The bandits were thrown into disarray by this sudden and fearsome display of prowess from a man they’d all taken for a clean-fingered courtly milksop—and the armigers around him rallied and drove the bandits back into the forest without plunder.

One of the older zbrojnoši, a white-bearded man, looked across to the still-mounted Zvonimír Blatnohradský and caught his eye. ‘Almost like having Kaloján himself back, isn’t it? Maybe the apple hasn’t fallen so far from the tree after all.’

2021_07_09_28a.png

Zvonimír looked down loyally at the blood-spattered king, an earnest look upon his brow. ‘Tell me something I don’t know, Ludovít. I wouldn’t be alive were it not for God’s grace—and the king’s.’

However, before they continued on, another of Radomír’s zbrojnoši, Avram, came back to the party. His face was grim. Radomír looked to him inquiringly.

‘Ill news, O Kráľ,’ Avram told the king. ‘The only way northward into the High Tatras has been taken out by a mudslide. I’ve been up there myself—I mean it’s completely taken out. The villagers up there told me it’s impassable, and will likely remain so for ten, perhaps fifteen years until they get a new road built around it. Even if your grandfather is up there, alone… there’s no way for him to get back. I’m sorry.’

‘We will go and see for ourselves,’ Radomír answered bluntly.

Unfortunately, it was just as Avram had said… and worse. The mudslide was in fact more like a wall of earth, rock, mud and uprooted trees. There seemed to be no way to clear it, and unfortunately it had crossed at a pass point… the only useable one northward.

‘If we cannot pass here,’ Radomír said dispiritedly after several attempts to confer with his zbrojnoši and with the villagers as to how to clear it, ‘then I will undertake my grandfather’s last pilgrimage myself, on behalf of his soul, whether he lives yet or not. I shall offer my prayers for him at the Great Cathedral of Holy Wisdom in the Imperial City.’

As Radomír promised, so he did.

He went to Constantinople, to the very Church of Holy Wisdom at the southwestern foot of the First Hill. Not knowing the final fate or resting-place of his grandfather, he offered prayers for the soul of Kaloján, and kissed the icons of every one of the saints and especially those who watched over those who were lost. Not that he had any personal doubts about his grandfather’s salvation, but it still seemed natural for Radomír 3. to pray for his grandfather’s soul in this place, whence three years before he ought to have come himself.

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~~~​

After returning from his search for his grandfather and his (secondary in importance, but infinitely more successful) pilgrimage to Constantinople, the Kráľ asked it of Lucia to arrange for a grand feast to be held in the Great Hall in Olomouc Castle, in his grandfather’s remembrance.

Lucia took to the preparations with admirable zeal. Though Radomír had certain belated pangs of misgiving about her culinary ability when he remembered the alchemical laboratory she’d set up in little Vjačeslava’s bedroom, he soon found those misgivings put to rest. Lucia set about ensuring the provisions of lamb, suckling pig, roast duck, grouse and pheasant, pickled kippers, savoury dumplings with minced meat and onion, spiced and aged sausages both savoury and sweet, goulash, diced turnips flavoured with dill and fennel, apples, pears, plums, blueberries, almond-flavoured confections and honey-flavoured wheat koliva (the dish of remembrance for the dead), not to mention rolls and pastries in various shapes and flavours.

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The arrangements attracted the admiring attention of none other than the kancelár—who was himself something of a gourmand and a man not easily impressed by such diplomatic gestures. But even he said of it: ‘Lord Kráľ, the preparations are truly exquisite!’ To which Radomír answered modestly: ‘My wife the Queen is the one responsible for the preparations.’

Lucia heard this praise, and took it very much to heart.

As the guests began to arrive, the king noticed that the uneven-shouldered kňažná of Podkarpatská, Dobrava Koceľová, gave him a deep courtesy before going to her seat. And she kept throwing meaningful glances to him. It was clear that she wanted to catch his attention, though for what purpose he didn’t know. Eventually Lucia nudged him hard in the ribs.

‘I think Dobrava wishes to speak to you,’ said his wife.

‘On what matter, though?’ asked the king. ‘And do you think it’s quite safe?’

‘Safe?’ chuckled Lucia. ‘For you, certainly safe enough—and for me as well, I think. I trust you. You didn’t hop into bed with Miloboj’s wife, after all, despite her giving you every opportunity and encouragement.’

And so, with that, the Kráľ invited Dobrava up to come speak with him.

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Dobrava Koceľová did not give her king a particularly positive impression to begin with. Skinny and stringy-haired, she was not very prepossessing in terms of appearance—and there was the slight matter of her being a bit uneven in the shoulders, giving her a lopsided look. More to the point, she was not, to put it mildly, a scintillating intellect. (Radomír remembered reading somewhere that her ancestress Čestislava had been… a tad thick.) She also gave off the impression of someone who liked her peace and creature comforts.

But then she began speaking of her travels to Constantinople, and the king’s ears picked up. The two of them began discussing the Holy Wisdom, the seven hills, the mighty walls, the appearance of the Varangian Guard, and other such topics. At last they had something in common between them that they might build on. When at last the conversation came to a comfortable spot, Dobrava poised herself in such a way that there could be no mistaking by the King that forthcoming was the topic of discussion she desired to get off her chest.

‘My Kráľ, I’m currently playing host to a couple of girls—a pair of sisters, whose mother got them out of wedlock. I find that my household is… stretched rather thin at the moment. At least one of the girls needs a proper foster, of the sort that I’m unable to give. But the girls need to be educated.’

‘What are they like, these sisters?’

‘Well,’ Dobrava inclined her head, ‘they speak the same Russian tongue that I do. Older one’s a raven-hair; younger’s auburn. Their mother’s noble: of Bukovin stock, so I heard. I imagine the father must be also, but I don’t know who he is, anymore than she—I never asked.’

‘I think my mother’s Bukovin, actually. Do they have names?’

‘Praskovia and Pribislava,’ Kňažná Dobrava answered readily. ‘My King, surely you must be able to find someone in this court willing to…?’

‘I will give it some thought,’ the king answered noncommittally, ‘for at least one of them. I have children myself, you know, whose education must be seen to.’

‘Of course,’ Dobrava inclined her head again. ‘I wouldn’t think of imposing.’

The king bit back a retort. What was she asking of him if not an ‘imposition’, the stupid woman? But Radomír could indeed sympathise with the need to provide for children, and he was aware enough of the situation in Maramoroš to understand Dobrava’s predicament.

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Dobrava didn’t speak any more of Praskovia and Pribislava, which was perhaps to the good. The king and his vassal passed the rest of the evening in companionable conversation. The feast resumed the following day, and the two of them spoke on matters of the flow of trade and opportunities of investment. By the time the feast ended, the two of them were on solidly friendly terms when speaking together. However, the problem of educating the two little Bukovin girls in Maramoroš continued to trouble the Kráľ for some reason that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

‘If it matters that much to you, cousin, then you probably should just take one of them in.’ Hans Rychnovský advised the Kráľ as they rode along the country path later that spring. The traditional hunt in the Opolanie was a good chance for the king to get to know some of his vassals and zbrojnoši a bit more, even if they didn’t catch anything.

‘Well… it does matter,’ Radomír answered. ‘But I can’t help getting this feeling of foreboding when I start thinking about taking one in. Like I’m making some kind of vast mistake…’

‘Lot of people said it was a mistake then, too. Welcoming me into the family,’ Hans said softly.

Radomír looked across at his cousin, bewildered and mortified. He remembered, too late, that Hans had been born out of wedlock as well… the bastard son of his aunt Svetluša with the elderly Vojtech Rychnovský. Kaloján had hushed the thing up, quietly married his own daughter to his družinnik, and instated Hans’s status in the family.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…’

‘It’s alright,’ Hans answered. True, he showed no outward sign of offence. His voice had a subdued, reflective tone. ‘But, just think… I wouldn’t be here if your grandfather didn’t decide to take a chance on me. I owe—milord! Look!’

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Just then a great hare bounded across the path and darted into the underbrush on the other side of the path. Hans and Radomír tore off after it, followed by the rest of the hunting-party.

The hare darted zigzag ahead of them, as the horses and hounds crashed after it. Their quarry bounded uphill, and in the Opolanie that was not a difficult thing to do, so as to stymie and confound its pursuers. Hans and Radomír were still riding fast behind it. The clever beast changed tactics. Finding the crest of a narrow ridge amidst the woods, it leapt headlong along the rocks.

‘Hold, Hans,’ Radomír warned his cousin. ‘That’s easier for a hare than for a horse. Let’s take it slow.’

The narrow band of earth that slid off to one side presented itself ahead of them, and the horses took the path along at a slow clop. The hare was always within sight, or at least its shadow on the rocks was, or the movement in the scrubby plants that grew along the top. Hans and Radomír kept on the pursuit all the way along, until the earth again rose to meet its sundered seam.

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The ground being level again, the horses once more resumed their charge, and the hare, who hadn’t managed to shake these deadly predators, began to get desperate. The hare headed through to a defile between two mountains, the royal hunters close behind. The defile narrowed as they continued, and the hare found itself boxed in, and its zigzags began to diminish correspondingly in amplitude. Radomír raised his bow, fitted an arrow to the string, pulled and loosed. Somehow he knew before even that, that his arrow would strike true. The bolt descended upon the animal, and thudded fatally into its flesh.

‘Good shot, sire,’ Hans congratulated Radomír with a low whistle. ‘That animal led us for quite the chase, didn’t it?’

Radomír grinned widely. ‘That it did!’

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~~~​

Upon their return to Olomouc, Lucia greeted her husband.

‘I have news,’ Radomír told her, ‘and a proposal for you.’

Lucia tilted her head. ‘I have news for you as well.’ She indicated the bulge beneath her girdle.

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‘Nursery will be getting a bit full, don’t you think?’

Lucia laughed. ‘That’s a lot of nonsense. There will always be room for one more here.’

‘In that case, what would you say about the idea of me fostering a Bukovin girl from the Koceľuk court in Maramoroš?’

‘I approve of it, naturally.’
 
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II.
2 February 1273 – 28 November 1275

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Queen Lucia gave birth to her third child on the second of February the following year, to another baby girl. This one was not named Gaudimantė as Lucia had wanted, but instead Živana, after the king’s formerly-Adamite great-grandmother. Lucia hadn’t been particularly happy about that christening, but she did accept it. She was, after all, still young, and Radomír had seed still in him. It wasn’t long after Lucia’s giving birth—she was still in her bed during her weeks of recuperation—that Despot Lucio of Italy himself came to visit Olomouc.

‘Greetings, brother,’ Radomír hailed Lucio amiably. ‘To what fortune do I owe the pleasure?’

‘“Fortune” is the right word,’ Lucio answered Radomír in a similarly jocund tone. ‘Rather, think of it as an opportunity. You see, my vassal Conte Ambrogio di Promontorio has been denied for too long his rightful lordship over Toscana, which had been his family’s possession by ancient right. However, the lands were usurped from him in greed and presumption by the schismatic Western Church. If you would consent to aid me, I believe that together, we could restore to him the lands which are his by right.’

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‘You’re asking me to go to war for you,’ Radomír’s brow darkened a thought.

‘To correct a long-standing injustice!’ Lucio appealed to him. ‘And not for me only. Think of your lovely sister! And think of the betrayals the True Faith has suffered at the hands of the Western clergy!’

The Archbishop of Moravia, Boromír, stepped forward at this, and cast a disparaging eye over Lucio.

‘One does not simply walk into Mantua,’ he explained. ‘The southward passes of the Alps are guarded by more than just Swiss mercs. There is evil there that does not sleep, and the Renegade See is ever watchful. Not with ten thousand men could you do this. It is folly.’

‘Have you heard nothing I just said?’ asked Lucio hotly. ‘Toscana must be regained!’

‘If you wish only to reclaim lost honours and lands,’ said Boromír, ‘then there is little use in war and weapons, and the men of Moravia cannot aid you. And if you wish to destroy the armed might of the Bishop of Rome, then it is a fool’s errand to go without greater force into his domain! It is a choice, so it seems to me, between defending the strength of Trento, and walking openly into the arms of death!’

Unfortunately for Moravia, Lucio’s pleas to Kráľ Radomír overcame Archbishop Boromír’s sounder judgement. So it came about that along the southern border the Moravian armies rallied to the king’s banners, and they marched through the Alps, southward across the Eastern Kingdom of the Bavarians, and into the north of Italy. However, Archbishop Boromír’s counsels were not entirely in vain. The Moravians drummed up almost thirty thousand men for the invasion of Tuscany.

Yet even as the troops were gathering, the Queen of Moravia found her husband.

‘Radomír—someone here wants to see you.’

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Radomír looked down into the beaming face of their daughter Vjačeslava at his wife’s side. He noticed to his surprise that the colour in her cheeks was high and healthy. She had never looked so hale before, which was the surprising part. But now she looked as fit and vigorous as any other three-year-old child he knew.

Ahoj, ocko,’ she greeted him merrily.

Ahoj,’ Radomír answered her happily, lifting her up in his arms as she wrapped her arms around him and whooped with laughter.

‘She’s been faring a lot better these last weeks,’ Lucia told Radomír. Her voice was placid, but it possessed a tone of professional satisfaction that someone as close as Radomír couldn’t fail to note. ‘She can run and jump as well as any of the other children now, without falling or running short of breath. Give her another month or so and I’d say she’s well and out of the woods.’

‘What would I do without you, Lucia?’

‘Oh, you’re an able enough man. I’m sure you’d manage. Not,’ she said, dimpling, ‘as adeptly or as elegantly as with me, of course.’

‘I appreciate the vote of confidence.’

‘Well, you’ve earned it.’

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It was Lucia’s discourse, as much as the newfound health of their daughter, which eased Radomír’s troubled mind and soul considerably ere he left upon campaign. Lucia had been a true friend to him, with her quiet competence and her gentle heart. The two of them saw eye-to-eye on many things, not least of which was the need to steward Moravia’s resources well to the benefit of the neediest and most vulnerable.

Archbishop Boromír, however, was not quite so understanding of his king’s quirks. He came upon Radomír one day when the king was at prayer, by himself, in his study. He had set up some of his grandfather’s censers and candles, and had set by himself to pray by the mystical methods that Kaloján had favoured.

‘None of us should pray alone,’ counselled the Archbishop. ‘Least of all you.’

‘Lord Bishop?’ Radomír acknowledged him.

‘Radomír, you pray not only for yourself but for many,’ Boromír said. ‘The great Ark of the Church is one upon which all must row together or be driven upon the shoals. And thus you must be careful that, when you pray, you pray according to the rubrics and canons of the Church, rather than rely upon your own wisdom—for many are the men who look to you. Your grandfather was unwise. He trusted to his own counsel rather than that of his bishops. And look where it led him!’

‘It led him here,’ Radomír pointed to his own chest. ‘Does not Scripture say of the heart that it “is deep beyond all things, and it is the man, and who can know him?”’

‘Yes, but the heart of man is no mine of great wisdom on its own. It is a tomb.

‘And it is into the tomb we must descend if we are to find Christ!’

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Boromír was impressed by the young king’s answer, and allowed him to pray on his own before departing with his troops. Though before he left, he gave the Kráľ a copy of the Liturgical rubrics that were then current in Constantinople.

Despot Lucio departed first for his fastness in Trento. Sadly, his attempt to wrong-foot Pope Sergius 3. failed, and failed rather miserably. The Father of the Roman Church had called twenty thousand men to the triple-crowned standard, and sent them headlong against the paltry thousands which Lucio was able to muster from the local townsmen. The two armies met in Tirano, but it was not a battle, but a slaughter which followed.

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The Moravians lost no time coming to Lucio’s rescue. Radomír himself went among them. They met the Vatican’s forces at the very gates of Trento itself—and for a brief moment it appeared as though the Moravians would prevail. Among the družnosť, one young man whose luck it had not been to be born early enough to join the retinue of Kaloján, nonetheless proved himself a worthy successor to that fabled company by his deeds of valour upon the field at Trento. That man was the Carpatho-Russian družinnik, Aristarch Mstislavič. The spear of Aristarch spun and wheeled and thrust in arcs of such sheer mastery and skill, that he managed to unhorse two of the Pope’s most skilled mercenary lieutenants—Poles whose names were Piotr and Tomasz.

Yet despite Aristarch’s heroism, the Moravians were badly bested. Just as surely as Despot Lucio’s troops had been destroyed, so too were the Moravians driven from the field at the spear-points of the Vatican’s hired horsemen and men-at-arms. Aristarch himself was taken prisoner. (Sadly, it would not be the last time Moravia suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Roman Pontiff.)

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What remained of Moravia’s armies returned home to lick their wounds and to regroup for another attack—though this attack would come several months afterward.

In the months intervening between the return and the following sortie, Radomír spent a good deal of time with his wife, whose belly again swelled with child. She would again give birth to a girl, but this girl too would not be named Gaudimantė, but instead Lesana.

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Several other outworkings of fate affected the tides of war. Pope Sergius 3. passed away, and the College of Cardinals elected in his place Pope John 9. Too, Veliky Knyaz’ Vseslav of Great Rus’ made his exit from the stage of earthly life, and his place in Mozyř was taken up by his son Rodislav. Rodislav sent some men as well to assist Despot Lucio in his claims upon Toscana.

And one of Radomír’s maternal-line kinswomen took her place in the court. Queen Mother Vjačeslava, upon receiving her kinswoman Anna Balharská-Borsa in Olomouc, quickly learned that the woman had been evicted and was looking for employment. She quickly recommended Anna to Miloboj, who upon the king’s return from the defeat at Trento suggested her employment to him. Radomír couldn’t very well refuse his own mother’s request, and he kept Anna on at his court as his keeper and finder of secrets—particularly after Mírko of Česko succumbed to the wounds he’d taken at Trento.

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Coordinating the attacks of three disparate armies, however, for the moment proved to be a tad more troublesome to Radomír than the persons attending his court in Olomouc. Rodislav’s and Radomír’s forces this time skirted Brescia to the west, while Despot Lucio kept his own in the east. Both the Ruthenian and the Moravian armies kept to positions of strength and safety, but evidently Despot Lucio had other plans.

Once again, at Brescia, the Kráľ hoped that the superior numbers of the combined Ruthenian, Moravian and ‘Italian’ armies would be enough to break the Vatican’s defences. Unfortunately, he was again proven wrong. This time there were no heroics to be seen or celebrated. The Moravian army attacked, and was repulsed—the Pope had called forth more knights than he had družinniki, and more armigers by far than he could have hoped to muster.

There was no help for it. There was no earthly way, at the present time, for Despot Lucio to reclaim the lands he had been fighting for. And so Despot Lucio was forced to sign a rather humiliating peace with the Vatican, by which his Conte forfeited all his claims in Toscana.

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‘It led him here,’ Radomír pointed to his own chest. ‘Does not Scripture say of the heart that it “is deep beyond all things, and it is the man, and who can know him?”’
‘Yes, but the heart of man is no mine of great wisdom on its own. It is a tomb.’
‘And it is into the tomb we must descend if we are to find Christ!’
Interesting.
The line {the heart of man is no mine of great wisdom on its own} is rather confusing, not certain for understanding it; or was that supposed to be "no mind of great wisdom on its own"?


By the way; already caught the eye in the screenshot of the council given in Ch.1 of Book 6 (opening with Dio, eh? Answer is from the same album; Holy Diver. Or Rainbow in the Dark. Or actually, the entire album); the patriarch of the new king.

Was going to say;
If that bloke comes up asking for support in search for a... a... errr... an ornament-jewelry, for great power and continues to chatter further about... about... uhhh... ruling and in the darkness binding them all and such; the king should banish him and hire his brother instead;
The Archbishop of Moravia, Boromír, stepped forward at this, and cast a disparaging eye over Lucio.
‘One does not simply walk into Mantua,’ he explained.
But commented too late. Sigh.
 
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Interesting.
The line {the heart of man is no mine of great wisdom on its own} is rather confusing, not certain for understanding it; or was that supposed to be "no mind of great wisdom on its own"?

Granted the analogy got a bit stretched.

Boromír is supposed to represent the communal, traditional, 'establishment line' in Orthodox Christian religion at this time; while Kaloján and (here, to a lesser extent) Radomír are meant to represent the more mystical-prophetic-individualist proto-Palamite tendency.

True to his inspiration in a certain work of unaffiliated nerd-lore, Boromír is something of a conventional thinker, wont to put his faith in strength-in-numbers. In the absence of mind-altering magically-wrought ornaments made by disguised apprentices to Morgoth, though, he is perfectly capable of speaking sense and wisdom.

By the way; already caught the eye in the screenshot of the council given in Ch.1 of Book 6 (opening with Dio, eh? Answer is from the same album; Holy Diver. Or Rainbow in the Dark. Or actually, the entire album); the patriarch of the new king.

Was going to say;
If that bloke comes up asking for support in search for a... a... errr... an ornament-jewelry, for great power and continues to chatter further about... about... uhhh... ruling and in the darkness binding them all and such; the king should banish him and hire his brother instead;

But commented too late. Sigh.

Heh. You can't expect me as an authAAR to be given by the random number generator a character named Boromír, and NOT have him say things like 'this is no mine; it's a tomb', 'not with ten thousand men could you do this'; 'if this is indeed the will of the council, then Gondor will see it done' and so forth.

Well, perhaps there are authAARs who might be able to resist the temptation to appeal to a certain work of unaffiliated nerd-lore, but then they 'did what I could not'. :p
 
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Thank you and @jmberry for the information about the Adamites. It appears that Paradox made the Adamites overly strong (compared to other sects) to titillate and is now trying to put the genie back in the bottle. CK3 should be able to stand on its own without the use of cheap tricks.

Is Paradox using the wrong word in the hunts? Should it be hart not hare?
 
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Book Six Chapter Three
THREE
Pribislava
18 February 1276 – 2 July 1278


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Radomír was now much more comfortable with children now he had several of his own by Lucia. He didn’t think it much of an extra burden upon his household to be responsible for a couple more, and he happily accepted as ward the younger of the two Bukovin sisters that his Kňažná Dobrava had mentioned. So it was that Pribislava of Ňamec came to live in Olomouc.

Dobrava had described Pribislava of Ňamec as ‘auburn-haired’, but that hardly did her justice. After all, Radomír’s mother, the Queen Mother Vjačeslava, had auburn hair, as did Radomír’s uncle Vratislav. But neither of them were as well-favoured as this charming little slip of a girl. Pribislava had a broad, ivory-fair forehead; a chubby, cherubic pair of cheeks; a pair of darling apple-wedge lips; and a pair of smaragdine eyes, alive and alert with a cat’s mischief. Pretty and puckish: a perilous combination indeed. Radomír made a mental note to keep a close watch and a very tight rein on this one. No doubt she would have half the court eating out of her hand in no time, and be poking that pink little snub nose everywhere it had no business being. He greeted his new ward solemnly.

‘And you, young lady, must be Pribislava, I take it?’

‘I am, your Majesty. How do you do?’ Pribislava dropped a neat, well-practised little courtesy. Radomír suppressed a tug upwards at the corner of his lips. He needed to be stern and solemn just now.

‘Quite well, thank you. Would you come within to the family rooms? I’m sure after a long travel you’d like a little quiet and rest.’

Pribislava made another polite gesture and affirmative phrase, but it was clear to anyone watching that she wouldn’t stay put wherever the king put her for long.

If Radomír hadn’t been so intent upon his new ward, he might have caught the glance of instant, and fretful, recognition that his own mother had given her. Pribislava of Ňamec—that auburn hair—those eyes—! Vjačeslava Vasilevna knew at once, and perfectly well, that the green-eyed little imp that had just hopped off from Maramoroš was in fact none other than the daughter she had borne out of wedlock, in seclusion, seven years prior. She had said nothing to her son about the little half-sister he’d taken in as ward, and she wasn’t likely to now. Not just yet. She would wait and see—keep her distance. There was no need for anyone to know.

Radomír’s attention was not on his mother, though. Knieža Miloboj had caught it. And by the look of him, he had several items of business which required the king’s immediate attention.

‘Milord, a ransom demand has come from the Vatican. Pope John is willing to part with Aristarch Mstislavič for twenty denár in gold.’

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‘Pay it at once,’ Radomír ordered without hesitation. ‘So little! The new Pope can’t possibly have heard of Aristarch’s exploits in battle at Trento, else the ransom asked would be thrice as high!’

‘Very good, milord,’ answered Miloboj. ‘And you have no less than three invitations to answer, to various feasts in the realm. Kňažná Vlasta invites you to the Paschal feast at Užhorod. Knieža Daniel of Česko wishes your presence in Praha at Pentecost. And Vojvoda Nitrabor of Sliezsko would have you pass the New Year with him in Opole.’

‘Social obligations.’

‘Quite so, môj Kráľ.’

Radomír sighed. Daniel and Nitrabor were both kin—both Rychnovských—and Vlasta was one of the White Croat noble line to whom the Moravian kings had long been patrons of honour. Not that anyone anymore could tell the difference between White Croats and Nitrans—all such cultural differences had been largely put aside. But the long-standing obligation was one which Radomír knew, and which he felt himself duty-bound to honour.

‘Family. They’ll be the death of me.’

~~~​

Pribislava of Ňamec wasted no time acquainting herself with her new surroundings. All of the little odd nooks under staircases, or overlooked crates in the kitchen, or disused cabinets in old closets—these were the important places, naturally, for a little girl to explore. And, managing to turn up where least expected, she investigated with a zeal and drive that Catholic inquisitors would have done themselves very well to copy. Pribislava was not one to let anything slip by her.

And as well as being trimly and prettily made, she was also possessed of a strength and flexibility of limb that served her remarkably well in this noble cause. Under tables, through crawl spaces, around closet crates, over refuse piles—throughout all of Olomouc Castle there were few places indeed which were safe from her eyes, nose, arms and fingers. And this was ample cause for chagrin for numerous grown-ups, when they tried to locate or lay hand on her.

Sadly, she also made herself something of a nuisance to her fellow-children in the castle. Well, one of them in particular.

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Bohodar Rychnovský, the elder son of the king, was quickly becoming much the opposite of his older sister in his personal habits. Vjačeslava tore around and roughhoused and played pranks and fought with other children her age, revelling in her newfound strength and health. But Bohodar often took himself to nooks and crannies, not to explore but rather to be happy in his solitude, content with his own deep thoughts. Thoughts upon which this accursed bigger kid seemed downright determined to intrude.

‘Oh, it’s you again!’ Pribislava exclaimed upon seeing the dark-haired youngster in yet another intriguing little hidey-hole. ‘You’d be a sport at hide-and-seek. Want to come play with me?’

‘No,’ Bohodar told her bluntly.

‘Aw, come on!’ she wheedled. ‘What’s so important that you can’t play hide-and-seek?’

Bohodar straightened his shoulders importantly. ‘I’m making a ‘spedition to Persia!’

‘Persia!’ Pribislava raised her slender auburn brows. ‘That’s a long ways off! Have you got a boat yet? And a sharp scimitar for fighting off pirates and sea-monsters? Are you going to find the pták Noh there?’

Bohodar cast a suspicious look over her. Was Pribislava making fun of him?

‘Gon’ find th’ pták Noh,’ Bohodar told her. ‘Maybe bring back a feather!’

‘Sounds like a dangerous trip. You have to climb a lot of mountains. Do you have a map?’

Pribislava sat down with Bohodar in his little alcove, and went over his plans together, unfurled imaginary maps and gave gentle advice for his plans. Once Bohodar ascertained that this green-eyed puck was not making fun of him, he very graciously allowed her into his private realm of the mind, and bestowed upon her the honorary status of navigator and executive officer of the expedition. Thus the two of them embarked on the first of many of these voyages of fancy.

It was much so in Pribislava’s nature, Bohodar soon discovered, to be magnanimous to everyone. But it was only with him, it seemed, that she let her imagination run to the furthest ends of the earth, and to the outer spheres of the heavens. Though their voyaging was as yet entirely innocent, Bohodar still felt privileged indeed that she chose to spend some of her valuable free moments in the private world of his thoughts.

~~~

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As it turned out, the Paschal feast which Radomír had attended in Užhorod merely out of politeness, was in fact a pleasant diversion. Beginning as a duty to be discharged, the event transmuted itself into a remarkably convivial experience. And that almost wholly on account of the hostess herself.

Užhorod was a pleasant Slavic city, and the king’s entourage passed the night of Pascha in the great candlelit rotunda of the Church of Saint Anne, constructed in a style mingling Magyar, Vlach and Slavic architectures and featuring wondrous blue and red frescoes of Moravian, Nitran and Ruthenian saints. Radomír joined in the procession, and when the rector of Saint Anne’s pounded upon the door to the nave three times, tears welled to the king’s eyes. And he shouted ‘Kristus vstal za mŕtvych!’ together with the rest of the gathered assembly.

Then the king and his company retired to the castle on the right bank of the Už, where the lady Bijelahrvatskića had prepared for them a massive feast, with the choicest cuts of pork laid out with sweet honey glaze, and mutton with a mouthwatering mint sauce. The mead, which had been imported both from Serbia and from across the Pontic steppe in the lands of the Volga Turks, was of the finest and sweetest quality—and there was enough of it to flow out for all of the guests, and indeed perhaps enough for all the people of the town to have at least one full cup.

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And Vlasta herself, who had conducted herself meekly and graciously at the head of the Paschal procession, now welcomed her guests warmly to her table, and bade them all eat and drink their fill. The king she sat near her in a seat of honour. Although he was initially a bit reticent on account of Vlasta’s unfortunate speech impediment, she asked him many questions which touched upon the sciences and geometry and mathematics, and the movements of the stars. Radomír was happy to oblige Vlasta Bijelahrvatskića, for it wasn’t often he got to indulge his bookish interests with a fellow-connoisseur.

The Paschal feast therefore wasn’t a tedious exercise in palm-pressing as he feared it would be, but a most pleasant evening spent with a woman of remarkable intellect and insight. She could appreciate conundrums on the behaviours of the heart and kidneys in men over fifty with a certain diet, or the irregularities in the movements and behaviours of the six planets. It was strange to Radomír that he had to travel all the way to Užhorod to better understand the woman who had served both his grandfather and him so faithfully as his šafárka!

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Thus it was with a justifiable sense of optimism that Radomír attended the feast in Praha the following summer at Pentecost… after the birth of the king’s second son, Želimír.

Knieža Daniel was a much more lavish host than Vlasta, and his interests, rather than ranging to the stars as Vlasta’s did, rarely left the immediate furnishings and victuals of his table. But still Radomír found him a most pleasant dinner companion. Daniel did not let him or any of his guests suffer an empty plate or an empty beaker, and was attentive to every detail of his feast… and it showed. Radomír had never tasted meat so succulent, with such a delicately crispy exterior, or bread which was so fresh and smooth and white within, and with such a delightfully flaky egg-glazed crust. And when Daniel began to discourse upon the topic of sweets—clearly a matter of great interest to him—Radomír couldn’t help but be infected by his enthusiasm for the subject.

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They were two very different people, Vlasta and Daniel… and both of them quite different from Radomír’s wife Lucia. All three of them had very different interests and motivations, not to mention histories. But Radomír couldn’t help but like and care for them all, and deeply. For the first time in his life—as a king regnant no less—he began to enjoy his social calls and obligations.

However, the newfound delight Radomír found in entertaining these friendships, in these conversations and calls, did come at a cost. As intelligent as Radomír was, ought he not to have noticed how close Pribislava and his elder son Bohodar had become? As discerning was his eye, ought he not to have noticed the family resemblances between his new ward and his mother—or indeed, himself? And speaking of Queen Mother Vjačeslava Vasilevna—ought he not have recognised the disquiet that took her when the subject ranged toward Pribislava, as though there were some dark secret between them, a secret that could not be spoken aloud…?
 
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Book Six Chapter Four
FOUR
Sole Heir
17 August 1278 – 17 December 1284


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Radomír had one thing in common with his grandfather Kaloján. Both men were quite insistent upon following rather eccentric rules of prayer in private, and attempting to commune directly with God by calling upon the Holy Name of Christ—aided by copious amounts of incense, candlelight and bronze, in the presence of icons suited to the task. Boromír had unfortunately succumbed to the ravages of age, but the new Archbishop of Moravia, German, was no more disposed to sympathy with these spiritual idiosyncracies than the old one had been.

‘Milord Kráľ,’ German told him, brow furrowed and scowling, brandishing his crozier like a stave as Radomír left the chambers of one of these introspective sessions, ‘You put your soul in grave peril by experimenting like this without the proper guidance. At least place yourself under obedience to a respected monastic elder before you touch the holy things! Also, being such a blockhead, you’d do well to stick to the matters of this world. Leave the matters pertaining to the next to the Church!’

German, a tall, black-avised Serb with a choleric face and a stringy, wild-looking beard, was (to put it likely) not the most book-learned of men. In fact, it was rather rich of him to be calling the king a ‘blockhead’, when German’s own lettering extended only to his well-used Horologion. He had come up through the white clergy rather than the black, and still very much so had the manners of a simple priest of a country parish—the sort who had had to oversee a motley lot of simple, strong-willed and stiff-necked villagers who probably needed a firm hand to shepherd them.

A widower, German had evidently been married prior to taking monastic orders, to a woman many years his elder. This was indeed the custom in rural Slavic villages—not only among high-born Rychnovský men with their weakness for older blondes. Fathers-in-law liked to have hard-working, able-bodied daughters-in-law with a strong pair of hands to help with farm work, even if they had to betroth them to sons many years younger. Radomír had never met her, but German’s late wife Penka of Srem had evidently been one of these. As a young parish priest with such a matka at his side, one couldn’t entirely blame him for the way he’d matured!

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Radomír had already wound up on the wrong side of German’s crozier twice. Once for taking a little too avidly to sextant and astrolabe, gazing a little too intently at the heavens, and asking one too many questions in German’s hearing about the motions of the stars. That had gotten him a firm crack about the temple and a large throbbing lump where he was struck. And then there was another time for peering a little too far into questions about the date of the Parousia.

‘Witless, cross-eyed buffoon!’ a wild-eyed German had shouted at him, striking him roundly about the head and shoulders with his staff of office. ‘You don’t even know the date of your own next fine feast, and you think you can tell the day and the hour when Christ will return?! Lump! Dog! Impious brute!’

But despite his rustic ways, combative demeanour, and freedom with blows, it was easy for Radomír to see why the man had been elected as a bishop. German might storm and rage and rail, but in the end he would give even the shirt off his back to a man who needed it, or witness at length in the king’s court on behalf of even the meanest and lowest of vagrants if he saw even a glimmer of repentance in their eyes. He wept with the weeping, he consoled the hurting, and he struggled together with the struggling—in short, the vast run of common parishioners could rely upon German as pastor. Would he be Radomír’s first choice of bishop, were it up to him? No. Radomír would choose someone more learned. But Radomír had to give this bull-headed, raw-boned, sharp-tongued clergyman a grudging sort of respect.

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And thankfully, Radomír did manage to make it back into Archbishop German’s good books on occasion. German raged and scoffed at philosophical and bookish pretentions to wisdom, and nothing got him quite as riled as highfalutin ‘wits’ getting notions into their heads to peer into the inner workings of the Divine Plan. But he was deeply moved and touched by pure and sincere gestures of faith. When Radomír took it upon himself to swallow his scholarly pride, and commit himself to memorising some passages from Scripture on the topic of humility and moderation, tears of joy had appeared in the corners of Archbishop German’s eyes!

~~~​

‘I could well have told you that that was the way to handle German, dearest!’ Lucia chuckled when she heard of this exploit.

‘Well then, why didn’t you? Or why didn’t you help me handle him?’

‘No offence, husband, but you don’t know village priests.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Lucia gave Radomír an infuriatingly-patient smile. ‘Boromír, may God make his memory eternal, was noble. And I’m sure his predecessors were as well. Fine men, I have no doubt, but—they were court clerks and second sons of great landholders. Village priests are different. When you grow up in a village of close-knit peasants and their secrets and their quarrels, you have to have a hard head—and you also have to know how to spot a forced or phoney confession. If I had fed you a line to rehearse, believe me: German would have smelled you out on the spot.’

Radomír rubbed his head where German had once hit him. ‘I can well believe it… is she asleep now, do you think?’

Radomír had nodded and pointed with his nose toward the black-haired infant that Lucia was breastfeeding.

‘I think… yes… just nodded off,’ came the answer gently.

‘Want to put her down by Viera?’

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Lucia rearranged her shift, lifted little Gaudimantė in her arms (yes, she had finally gotten her wish of a daughter with that name!), stood up and took her into the nursery. She laid the little girl in a cradle next to her older sister, who was sprawled out with elbows and knees at odd angles, rumpling up her bedding into intricate whorls and ridges. Viera and Gaudimantė were very much alike in colouring—both had Radomír’s ebony hair, and both had Lucia’s blunt nose and sweet, rosy, round-cheeked face. Their eyes—when open—were even an identical shade of hazel-green, though Viera’s were more slanted and Gaudimantė’s rounder. Were they not two years apart in age, lying asleep together like this they might well have appeared to be identical twins!

‘Well, that’s the youngest two taken care of for the night,’ said Lucia. ‘Why don’t you go and find Bohodar? He’ll want to know the news from his father directly, rather than someone else.’

Radomír was reluctant. ‘I’m still not sure he’d take it too well.’

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Lucia’s eyes blazed up at him sharply. ‘Look—the law change was your idea. If you can propose it to the Zhromaždenie, you can certainly handle the task of telling your sons what it means for them!’

‘I haven’t proposed it to the Zhromaždenie yet,’ Radomír protested feebly.

‘But the draught of the act is lying ready in your office, with the ink already dry!’ Lucia persisted. ‘Now is the best possible time to let Bohodar know. Not after.’

~~~​

Radomír found his eldest son sitting underneath a linden tree in the courtyard, leafing through the pages of Saint John Moschos’s The Spiritual Meadow. Radomír was well aware that travelogues were a favourite of little Bohodar’s, as were fairy tales and translations of the One Thousand and One Nights. Much like his namesakes Slovoľubec and Letopisár, Radomír’s son seemed to have taken on a penchant for bookishness. Radomír smiled wryly and offered up a silent prayer that Archbishop German wouldn’t give him too many whacks of the crozier when he came of age.

He approached the eleven-year-old boy. ‘Bohodar,’ he called.

‘Yes, father?’ answered the black-haired youth.

‘Come here. There’s something I need to talk to you about.’

Bohodar’s brow furrowed a bit, but he set down Moschos and strode obediently toward his father. Radomír looked around him a bit.

‘Pribislava’s not with you?’

Bohodar shrugged. ‘She’s off to a lot of places these days. She enjoys meeting new folks.’

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‘Well, so she does. But you didn’t want to go with her?’

Bohodar shrugged again. ‘Folks are fine. But I do prefer a… a book.’

Radomír was shrewd enough to catch how his son’s glance darted off to the side, where swan-necked Katarina Stefančiková was walking by and swinging her long brown braids tantalisingly behind her. Bohodar’s spot under the linden tree had afforded him a good view of her the whole time. Hm. Was that the way the land lay? Radomír had thought something different… but evidently Bohodar was already developing a bit of a precocious taste. Still, it would be best to keep his son focussed as he spoke to him.

‘Bohodar, I am considering passing a law through the Zhromaždenie. As this law rather directly concerns you, I wanted to speak to you about it.’

‘Concerns me? How so?’

‘Well, Bohodar—you are my elder son. And… soon enough… my sole heir.’

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Sole?’ Bohodar’s eyes widened with shock. He shook his head slowly. ‘I—I don’t understand. What can Žeľko have done to offend you, Father? Or little Hviezdoslav? The way I understood it, we are all to have inherited!’

‘He has done nothing to offend me,’ his father explained gently. ‘Listen… your mother and I may not yet be done getting children…’

‘Still, Father—it isn’t fair to my brothers! Surely you can see that?’

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Radomír sighed. This was indeed his son, never asking more for himself, but always thinking of others! His son, ever concerned with making sure each got a fair share! Well, he had come by it honestly. Both his father and his mother were of a similarly liberal-minded turn of mind. He knew at once there would be only one way of convincing him.

‘Bohodar… It is in the best interest of the kingdom not to have my lands and estates divided broadly among my sons. And what would you rather have me do to keep the inheritance whole? Send Žeľko off to a monastery as an oblate, if it is not his wish? Or maybe fling Hviezdoslav away from the door as my grandfather did to your uncle Vratislav?’

Bohodar bit his lower lip, thinking quickly. Radomír briefly considered letting the boy know that the law would do nothing to prevent him giving away lands in turn, but what Lucia had told him about how to handle German was still echoing in his head. Radomír had gotten him to this point… let him go the rest of the way himself. Bohodar would only dig in mutinously if he thought he was being patronised.

‘No. No, I wouldn’t want that,’ Bohodar told Kráľ Radomír earnestly. But there was still a bit of a rebellious glimmer in Bohodar’s dark eyes, which told Radomír that neither Žeľko nor Hviezdoslav needed fear not having a place in Olomouc if not a nice cosy manor and honours of his own once it came Bohodar’s time to rule.

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Radomír convoked the Zhromaždenie now with a much easier conscience. Again Lucia had treated him as a true friend—he did indeed feel better about putting the new inheritance law to vote, now that his son and heir had been fairly informed of it. The Zhromaždenie was not normally known for having a very high view of such changes to Moravian succession law, but Radomír had done quite a bit of work to ensure that his proposals were met with a sympathetic hearing. Of course, having attended Vlasta’s, Daniel’s and Nitrabor’s feasts did help. But then there was also that occasion when Radomír had stopped in the midst of a hunt to tend to the wounds of a Daniel who had fallen out of his saddle.

When the herald had read out the text of the new law, the members of the council had all looked around at each other with a certain degree of unease. Naturally they understood that the law would protect their interests as well, though there was of course also the danger that the powers of the crown would be expanded. And then they looked back to Radomír. Would either Radomír 3. or his heirs use their newfound concentration of power to tyrannise them?

The votes were taken. It quickly became clear that the ‘ayes’ had it. Even Nitrabor Rychnovský-Nisa, who was the most sceptical of Radomír’s proposals on the whole of the council, had raised his hand at last to pass the new law. And so it came to pass in Veľká Morava that each landowner could pass on all of his titles, and not just his largest or most prestigious, to the firstborn son.

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