4. War Never Changes

Welcome back to the Welf chronicles

In this Crusader Kings 2 chronicle, we are following the exploits of Count Konrad Welf of Troyes and his descendants.

If you are new to the series, it begins with 1. Introduction

Last time (3. The First Year), we started the timer, actually fell in love with our wife, got involved in a few wars and ended the first year eagerly awaiting the birth of our heir.

24th of March, 868:
After a grueling 4 month siege, Bari has fallen, and the Italian branch of the Karling Dynasty has taken the province for its own.

25th of April, 868:
The siege of the rebels in Anger, opposed to Duke Hugo of Anjou, has ended with the fall of the castle. Hugo decides to keep the spoils of the rebels to himself for now.

Unfortunately, Hugo controlled the siege, and therefore gets the spoils. Fortunately, the forces from Troyes control the siege of the next holding in the region, the city of Saumur, and cities generally gives much more loot.

15th of May, 868:
The opposition to Duke Hugo surrenders and the rebel count is imprisoned. Duke Hugo sends a letter of appreciation of our efforts in the conflict.

Damn it! No spoils for our efforts, and Saumur was so close to falling. We need coin, not kind words, Hugo!
  
12th of June, 868:
On our way back from Bari, we are housed with a local knight for the evening. During dinner, I notice a pretty, young serving maid staring at me. After noticing this a few times, I give her a stern look and a small smile. She immediately turns red as a beet and disappear. After the dinner, as I approach my room, I see light coming from inside. When I swing open the door, I see the same young maid, dressed only in her underskirt, standing in front of my bed.

When I take a couple of confused steps inside, she approaches me and blushingly says: "My liege requested that I keep you company tonight, my Lord" and grabs my hand and places it on her firm bosum.
I am completely taken aback and not sure how to react to her.

This is a genuinely conflicting event to get. Normally, I think Lustful is preferable to Chaste, because of the increase to Fertility, except when you need Piety. In this situation, however we don't really want either Chaste or a bastard child, so we are roleplaying it and hoping for the best.

I can feel blood rushing through my body, but also the weight of the solemn vow of love I have taken with my dear Ben-Muman. I pull my hand away and tell the girl politely that I do not require her presense and she leaves, seemingly confused and sad.

In the morning, before we leave, our host discreetly asks me if I was unsatisfied with the accommodations. I tell him that while the accommodations were fine, I was simply not in the mood to partake at this time. He cocks his head to one side and curtly states that my words reaffirm the honesty of his servants and bids us good travels.

Fortunately we did not get Chaste. And yeah, I might be a bit of a pervert.

14th of June, 868:
A few days later, joyous news arrive from Troyes. Ben-Muman has given birth to my son. I have already decided to name him Maurice.

The game wanted to call him Anselm, which is simply too weird of a name (for now), so I chose Maurice instead as being appropriately culturally, but also a name that no other major actor in our story have (so far). He has not inherited Genius (or the lesser Smart) either, but that is a long shot that will take several generations of concentrated breeding to do consistently.

Unfortunately, while Ben-Muman emerged healthy from the birth, little Maurice are plagued by an illness.

This is not good, but quite accurate historically. Many children died before the age of six and a large percentage of women died in childbirth.

15th of August, 868:
News reached the court at Troyes that the roving barbarians known as the Magyar have settled in Carpathian basin.

This people, the Magyar, is the ancestors of the Hungarians, who still live in the Carpathian basin, which we know today as Hungary. This event is a choice for the Hungarian ruler, to transition from a tribal way of life to a settled, feudal way of life.
The word Magyar is somewhat hard to pronounce correctly, but something like [MAdjar] is an approximation. 

My young son Maurice also seems to have emerged from his illness in good health.

This is good news and significantly increases his chances of surviving childhood.

24th of October, 868:
Since early May, the northern Duchy of Frisia has been under assault by a Viking raiding party. The West Frankish army, having marched all the way from southern Italy, now finally confronts these pagan brigands, who cowardly flee to their ships with their ill-gotten gains.

The counties of Troyes and Sens are fortunately located so that they cannot be the target of Viking plundering.

8th of January, 869:
In his infinite wisdom, my King decides to lower the taxes of the good burghers of West Frankia. I politely ignore the measure, and immediately send word for my own city taxes to be raised.

I have no idea what Charles the Bald has been smoking. He must really be in deep with big burgher. You do take a penalty to received taxes if your city vassals have a negative reputation of you, but generally, cities are where you are generating a lot of your feudal tax revenue, which is why we want to increase them in Troyes.

15th of April, 869:
I am home after a long campaign and awaiting reassignment as his Majesty's Spymaster. While sitting with Ben-Muman and little Maurice, I hear noise from the courtyard. I rise and go out on the balcony, just in time to see riders on exhausted horses enter the castle at Troyes. "We have news for the Count" one of them yells. "Fetch him at once, we have a message from Paris!" I take leave of my wife, and head downstairs immediately.

Later, I sit in my solar and read the message, while the quietly panting messengers stand in front of me, awaiting my answer.

"To Konrad, Count Troyes

We regret to inform you that our most majestic father, Charles II, King of West Frankia has passed away in his sleep.

We, Louis II by God's grace, King of West Frankia and Aquitaine, requires your presence at the royal palace in La Marche at your earliest possible convenience, to reaffirm your oath of fealty to us as the rightful King of West Frankia.

Since our dear father had in his benevolence, bestowed upon us the Kingdom of Aquitaine, we are well acquainted with the perils and duties of government, and already have a most magnificent court, which we insist the Count of Troyes joins. However, since we already have a skillful master of information, we hereby inform you that your service on our council shall not be required at this time.

Louis II, King of West Frankia"

What a bombshell. Charles dead, seemingly from natural cause, aged only 46. Let's hope those are natural causes, because otherwise I have been a terrible Spymaster. Not being reappointed to that position has the inverse problems and opportunities we talked about in an earlier episode: More time at my own court, but further from the center of power.

If the pronouns confuse you, remember the royalty is referred to with plurals, so 'my' -> 'our'



Come back next time when a new reign begins!