Voivode Court of Moldavia-Wallachia

[Blade!]

Earlier in the week...

Castle Iasi
Unburned Residences for Dignitaries and Nobles
​

Xena dressed in her armor, traveled through the hall where she and most of the people left in the castle were staying. Xena had been quartered with three lesser cousins several times removed of the Voivode's, and while the company of women was refreshing at first despite the war conditions, it was also alien and uncomfortable. While Xena was used to cramped quarters, the nobelettes were not, and Xena quickly learned that the women of noble Orthodox houses had very little in common with the lives of women of peasant Moslem stock despite the shared language. The ladies similarly, found Xena's soldiering to be distinctly unappealing, aside from what gossip they could extract from Xena about the marriage availability of various commanders, as well as the Voivode, and Nicolae.

Xena had donned her armor and bow, and marched out of the room, feeling extra clausterphobic as one of her gender peers began to discuss seriously the merits of Nicolae's backside. She thought that perhaps some birding with Brother and Sister wolf would be best, when she turned the quarter, and to her surprise nearly ran into a dusky man dressed much as Reverend Sister Jasmine's visitrors or Commander Azim Hasan. She recognized the Crest of Almohad Tunisia and Tripolatania from the tournement in Cairo, and she stepped back.

"Pardon me!"

Xena folded her hands together and bowed to the Tunisian emisarry, before speaking in slurred Arabic.

"Salaam Alekum, my Lord.

I did not realize a foreign fellow follower of the Prophet, peace be upon him, was visiting these halls. Are you here to bring Azim Mohammed a letter from the Almohad Emperor Akbe Mohammed? I overheard him commenting it has been some time, and as we were cut off from the coast for so long, I fear to know of what news we have missed. Or.. perhaps you are here to aid us in freeing the Moslems of Izmayil again?"

Xena's eyes lit up, upon her last sentence.

"Ever since the Reverend Mother blessed Moldavia for freeing the Moslems, we know we can count on the Voivodes to aid our people. In fact, I plan to request being dispatched there myself as soon as he has time for an audiance.

Pray, forgive my chatter, I was surprised to see you here in our halls."

 

[Blade!]

Castle Iasi
Voivode Stefan's Quarters​

Izmayil's Coat of Arms

Xena still bowing her head as the Voivode spoke, her arm across her chest and half kneeling, was stunned when their soverign announced Nicolae would be elevated to a Conte. Her head swam, realizing Nicolai would be able to pay off his mother's debts,and what joy it would bring him. She glanced over at her wounded friend as the Voivode spoke, and knew that Nicolae as a loyal male and noble was a wise choice, though she had never heard of the lands herself.

She mouthed the words 'Conte Nicolae' to herself, and smiled as the Voivode's mistake: 'He must have thought I am Nicolae's bethrothed, if he refered to me as Contessa.' She took a moment to mull that thought over in her mind, blushed slightly, and dismissed it as the Voivode addressed her.

She focused on the words she had rehersed. Xena wanted to volunteer to lead a force to scout out, if not recapture, her hometown, which she and Nicolae had barely escaped when it fell. The thought of Izmayil, and the Mosque, and her family, in the hands of thugs once again made her burn. She thought of the children she was once the wardess of... 'little Helene, what has become of you?' Xena was not sure The Dobrudja would be the highest priority for the Voivode, it being the newest and least integrated part of the Voivodedom, and she had planned her words carefully, planning to speak of its major port and trade importance.

"...or Contessa, as the case may be. When we march into Izmayil to liberate it again, I want you with me at the head of the army, to claim it as your own and rule in my name. "

"Whuh!"

Xena exhaled in surprise, almost a word of question, or a fragment of an exclaimation, choked down in shock and disbelief. 'Contessa of Izmayil.' It was too much to take in, and she turned her head upwards woith wide eyes to look at the Voivode as if suddenly suspecting to see jest in his eyes, but she only saw him focusing on his meal as he spoke. She listened with rapt attention even as her mind raced.

'Truly, Allah guided the hand of Reverend Sister Jasmine to send me here! Yet, how could she even imagine... wait, does the Voivode know about my past.. or anything about me at all? Have Petru and Maia told him anything, or does he assume I am the daughter of some noble Orthodox house?

Think... I shall return to my people in glory. Again, the Voivodes of Moldavia have given us the force to clense our sorrows.'

As the Voivode finished and Xena's mind still raced with a thousand uncertainties, disbeliefs, and questions, she breathed in slowly, and attempted to speak as steadily as possible to her peoples' Voivode as she looked at him with devotion moved by faith and regard for what had just occured.

"My Lord. I shall march by your side, and we will cleanse Izmayil and the whole of The Dobrudja of all of the trash that would taint your domain. I will swear it with my own blood and sweat, I will not rest nor tary, until I fly your flag from Izmayil as your vassal, and free our people."

Xena had stood half way through her words and covered her heart with her palm, her face filled with determination. Bowing, she looked at Nicolae through the side of her vision, and knew that the grisly 'forest' they would visit in the next hour would not have any effect on their moods that day.

The Countess of Izmayil was again returning to The Drobudja be a shepardess, though with sword instead of crook, and with silks instead of rags.

 

[von Streusser]

Breakfast with the Voivode​

​

"Good, I'm glad that's settled. Now, there is one more matter to be dealt with. I realize your elevation to the status of a knight...well, a noble as well, coincidentally...has been a little rushed and rather unorthodox. But times being what they are..." he tailed off. "Well, you may still feel, green, shall we say. My uncles Petru and Gilles have agreed to look after you in case you feel you need any more help. Each of them will be leading a column in our attack into the Dobrudja, and you will serve as their adjutants, one of you in each column.

Additionally, I'll dispatch your estates' new stewards immediately. They will administer to your holdings in your absence." He stopped speaking a while and instead ate his breakfast.

"Now then...I have a whole horde of rebels waiting below, and many more at large in my realm who need to see how we deal with traitors." He folded up his napkin at the conclusion of the meal and placed it on the table. "You know, it's remarkable..." The Voivode stood, then pulled out Xena's chair and assisted her up. She may be a knight under his command, but she was still a lady as well. His face remained guardedly neutral as he did so however. "I think more nobles surrendered and begged for clemency than any other group. Well, percentage-wise, that is. Regardless, the foolishness is alarming...while a poor peasant may be forced to do the will of a more powerful man and betray his lord in order to feed his family, a noble has no excuse.

It is, thus, poetic in a way...the peasants who had the strength of will to accept the consequences of their actions and die fighting may maintain some of their dignity...and suffer a far less painful fate than their high-born brethren. Accompany me out to the courtyard, would you?" His tone was matter-of-fact, as if he were discussing wine vintages or the construction of fortifications, and not the torturous fate of so many of his subjects.

He led them out of his chambers and down a flight of stairs, out a side exit and into the courtyard. From there they walked out the front gate of the castle and took in one of the most hideous sights they had ever seen. Nicolae gasped, and brought a hand to his mouth. Stefan did not react at all, except for an almost imperceptible smirk of satisfaction. "Ghastly, isn't it? But necessary. Traitors and oath-breakers only respond to the most forceful of demonstrations." Before them stretched a forest of stakes planted in the ground, and almost all of them were hoisting a man high into the air, impaled on the end. The vast majority appeared to be dead already, but many wriggled and screamed on the ends of their stakes and some were mounted upside down. There were thousands of them.

"It's horrible..." said Nicolae "...like some sort of battlefield in Hell."

"I agree, Conte. I agree. Probably the most horrid thing I've ever seen. My father once spoke of a battle in the Great War of Liberation, a battle that took place somewhere in northern Italy, in terms like this. Vast fields of dead and dying, like Hell itself had spilled upon the Earth. Senseless. It's all so senseless. But sadly necessary." His tone remained purely academic...the scene obviously did not affect him as much physically as he said it affected him mentally.

Petru stepped up at that moment, looking a little green himself. "My Lord...there are a few left to go up, and they've begged to speak to you. I couldn't in good conscience...put them up...without at least asking you to speak to them first."

Stefan patted his uncle on the shoulder. "Very well, uncle. I shall hear them." The group headed over to a small knot of men kneeling on the ground, their hands tied behind their backs, being looked over by guards. There were three prisoners, their clothes were rags and they were battered and bruised, but they still held themselves with a noble demeanor. As Stefan approached, they bowed their heads and averted their eyes from him.

"My Lord..." one of them said "please, I beg of you, have mercy upon our poor souls! I beg of you!"

Stefan knelt down by the man, reached under his chin, and pulled his head up so their eyes met. Stefan's steely glare burned through the man's eyes and into the back of his very mind. The prisoner tried to look away, but the Voivode's grip was surprisingly strong, and all he could do was close his eyes. "Forgiveness is a quality of the perfect, the Divine. I am but a vessel of His divinity. And so, I cannot rightfully attempt to do that which only our Lord is capable of. Beg God for forgiveness, my wayward vassal. Only He can save you now." Stefan released the prisoner from his grip and rose, turning to the guards. "Stake them."

 

[Blade!]

Behind Enemy Lines:
The "Liberator" Counter-Rebels, Pt.2
Life in The Drobudja​

(part 1)​

Hellene adjusted her veil in the warm evening breeze and looked out from the copse of trees which crowned a hill upriver from the city of Izmayil. She sighed as she looked back at her home city, and despite the fact that she might consider herself relatively safe here, she could not wait to return.

In general, the countryside was not safer than the city. In the city, there were friends and people that would stave off all but the harshest abuses by the Dracul Officers who commanded the city. Since the assasination of the Dracul Mayor-General, of which Hellene had no small role, the remaining core of Dracul Officers were still ruthless... but avoided the harshest attrocities, and never dined alone. Still, the Anjumans, secret societies of Vlach Moslems loyal to the Voivode and their faith struck at command figures whenever possible.

The countryside, ironically, was a scarier place, with Dracul soldiers appropriating farm houses and lands arbitrarily, or taking young women from hamlets never to be seen again. The Anjumans did what they could for their bretheren in the countryside, but in truth, with their small numbers, the city gave them better odds. Still, when possible they coordinated with the outside.

Hellene, was part of a small party serving as guide; additionally, there were two stout men with short bows and short thick swords which they held under their cloaks, and a younger man a few years younger then Hellene, trained by the Reverend Sister Jasmine-i-Tlemscen in the ways of medicene. They had arrived at the cottage of Radu the Shepard, a known safe house, where some of the Hill Anjumans would come for supplies. The Shepard Radu had come into some wealth and used it to pay for supplies from Izmayil; most thought the new wealth was from some sucessful merchant son in the highlands.

Those who knew the family, or those close to the Reverend Mother, and those like Hellene who were half raised by Xena Raduva, also knew that it was the Shepard's headstrong daughter who had been squired to the Lady Maia of Moldovia that had sent the money prior to the war. Hellene remembered the cottage from when she was very young. She had only been here once before without Xena, and that was the day after Xena had left, and the Reverend Sister had brought them halfway back from the great tourney.

Hellene smiled as she thought of the tourney and meeting the Voivode Petru. She wondered if Xena married him, or if he would be riding forth to rescue Izmayil, where she could greet him again... and perhaps tag him. Hellene's smile grew, which was rare in these days, as she thought of her youthful monkier of 'Voivode-toucher' and how she had worn it so proudly.... how she used to brag about having touched three Litovoi heads of state.

Now Hellene stood watch over occupied lands, as if cast into the lands of her youth where Venetians crushed her community's faith into the ground. Behind her, in the cottage, the young physician's apprentice worked on 5 wounded men who had ambushed a Dracul courier patrol, though at great cost. The Reverend Sister would come herself, but that the community would not let her risk slipping out of the hidden warehouse Mosque in Izmayil.

The Hidden Friday Mosque which housed the Sunahia Reverend Sister, and an orphanage, also was the center of the Anjuman resistance. Though, the Reverend Sister Jasmine-i-Tlemscen, originally a renounced noble from the far off Almohad Empire, abhored violence, she was insturmental in spawning the Anjumans in the area when this was Venetian territory. Heeding the call of the Reverend Mother's dissertation on the persecuted Vlach Moslems, she had traveled to take in orphans and teach the Qu'ran to the oppressed.

Hellene had been one of those original orphans, and now acted as the Reverend Sister's eyes and ears in the community at large, and was one of her most trusted messengers. Hellene, while still young, had much prestige attached to her due to her work with the cleric, as well as for her audacious role in the recent assasination. She, herself, was scared of violence and shirked from it... so her role of some importance as a leader and organizer for the mosque and the Anjumans was one of internal conflict, between fear and duty.

As she looked out across the plains between the hills and the city, where the fields were slowly turning golden as summer wore on, Hellene knew she could do no less for her people, their land, and in submission to Allah's will.

 

[Blade!]

Iasi
The Voivode "Staking" Grounds

Xena took the Voivode's arm as she rose from her seat. She supressed a smile at the noble's behavior towards her as a woman, and then she wondered how she would have felt if she did not view the Voivode as so young. He was not a child anymore. She pondered this for a half a moment, before the Voivode's new 'Forest' rose up in front of her, though she could hear it long before she saw it.

She put a hand on Nicolae's shoulder as he gasped, and with her eyes she watched the young Voivode smirk. Xena wondered what this would foretell for the future, a cruel young man, could become a cruel and vindictive old man.

Despite some deep empathy for the suffering instilled into her by Jasmine-i-Tlemscen, the new Contessa of Izmayil and Knight of Moldovia looked on with disdain as the nobles begged for mercy. Xena had little love for the noble classes, and considered them weak, as well as cruel. 'Aside, according to Mohammed, peace be upon him, traitors should be executed... and these are all traitors.'


"Puh!"

Xena spat on the ground, and continued following the Voivode through the 'trees.'

 

[N Katsyev]

The Shell ​

"A stroke...", the rest of the doctor's words were meaningless really. The crusader had become the caretaker and only now a month after Ivan Mikhailivitch Ostrov fell in the battle for Iasi, was some hollow, empty medical term applied to the loss of this man that Nikolai Eevanivitch had grown a certain fondness for, an almost inexplainable attatchment. The empty medical label meant nothing to Nikolai Eevanivitch, what he saw with his eyes more clearly defined for him what had happened. The man that was Ivan Mikhailivitch Ostrov was no more, though his body still lived, he was now an almost entirely different entity. Nikolai would spend the next months debating with himself whether or not this meant that God had taken this blessed man's soul, and if so - why? Why leave the earthly shell but take the man?

****​

Months passed, so many it was difficult to count. Moldavia-Wallachia was re-united under the already more than apparently able rule of Voivode Stefan III. In consideration for his condition, though barely able to recognize his own name, much less undertake his duties - Ivan Ostrov remained in Iasi. Nikoali Eevanvitch remained with him, the sword he had carried in the pagan taiga and into heathen Egypt was put away and instead of killing the bastard papists, now Nikolai took 'Vanya' out for walks around the castle, though he stopped this when the impalements began.

Not all of Ostrov was gone, he would clearly recognize people, though he would gaze at them as if he was fixated on a point beyond them, behind them. He would smile, ask them how they were that day and inquire about the latest news. Altogether he had grown quite frail and thin, so painfully different from the great bear of a man that people had known before. Nikolai now passed the time with him, teaching him to play chess again and reminding him the names of the various people that would come to visit him, he always enjoyed Maia's company the most. Sometimes he would come across portratis of the twins Ilias and Stefan and something very close to recognition would cross his face. Though after these encounters he usually grew depressed, irritable and retreated to his quarters.

Nikolai had taken it upon himself to inform the Czarina of the condition of her agent. Remarably soon, a reply came from Pskova...

Unto Servitor of the One True Church,
His Servant,
Nikolai Eevanivitch,

It saddens me greatly to hear of Ivan Mikhailovitch's condition. He was a loyal and able servant to the degree that his replacement will be a matter of the gravest difficulty and an undertaking which I do not think I shall ever be able to complete satisfactorily, as this would require us to be blessed with this same man's soul once more. For his services to the Kremlin, to myself and to our allies, I am greatly in debt. If such a time comes that he is fit to return home to us, I shall insure his proper and respectable upkeep as befits such a man of rare quality.

I would like to thank you as well for your services your Sovereign and to your God, as well as to your friend. For your role in these matters and circumstances I shall see that you are properly rewarded upon your return to Russia. Ostrov's allowance shall now be paid directly to the Moldavian treasury for as long as he stays in Iasi, I trust that you may serve as my agent in this. Inform Ivan Mikhailovitch, that he has served his motherland to the extent that anyone may, that he is a source of pride for his Sovereign and his brethren.

With heartfelt regards and sympathies,
Written by Her own hand in Pskova,
Mina Andreyevna.

Ostrov had now read the letter many times and kept it beneath his pillow. Though he far from comprehended all of its meaning, he would joke that he should marry this Mina, and often asked Nikolai Eevanvitch about her. Though in bitter irony, he would always ask the same questions. Nikolai Eevanvitch enjoyed his time in Moldavia, but as time passed he began to grow restless, to return home once more. As time passed, when Ostrov would ask to see this Mina, Nikolai would reply that he must wait till his health improves - though Nikoali was now beginning to wonder if at the current rate, Ostrov would ever return home, and how long would it be before Nikolai himself was able to return...