Fugger: History of Weiburg part II

Perforce, I will glance here over three hundred years of city history. This is not for the wont of interest. Within fifty years of founding, at the time of Garillian, Weiburg already had little over hundred thousand inhabitants and was thus second or third largest city of all the northern lands. By intellectual dynamism, artistic sensibility and sheer spirit of innovation it was already arguable the most important place north of the sorrowful sea. By the time Dorian line of the Theogeni failed this number has tripled, leaving Gyr, Adelphos and Breda itself far behind, seven-tower university has surpassed both Catta and Miskoltz as a seat of learning in all subjects aside from theology and thaumaturgy, curiously named “Guild of Imperial Engineers” was the most advanced practical scientific outfit in the world and the army of the mountain and valley was among the half dozen most respected military outfits in the empire.

Even the most illiterate bumpkin in the empire can name one great advancement made in Weiburg: Herman Garillian’s incomparable compression cylinder - a device for storing and transporting physical work and for its controlled discharge. Without Garillian crossbow, history of the Askari wars would have been different and with them the entire shape of our Empire. Without hydraulic ballistae mounted in the prows of our ships coastal pirates world over, from Harrid to Kyzeiran archipelago would not have to think two or three times before threatening Neu Ungren shipping. Without hydraulic powered lifts, some of the most magnificent architecture, including the enormous hippodrome in Miskoltz would never have gotten built. Finally, without hydraulic powered pumps that work endlessly in the depths below, our own city would not last long before being swallowed by the river and the swamp.

It is easy therefore to forget all the other inventions that that prolonged northern flowering brought to the world. In architecture: flying buttress which enabled the slender elegant towers which became synonymous with Weiburg and exported therefrom in secular and religious architecture throughout the empire. In engineering: counterweighted crane and its military cousin – the trebuchet. In overland travel: passaging log – a direct precursor to our nautical router. In medicine: use of laudanum for dulling of pain to enable more detailed and thus less damaging work in amputations (frostbite was a frequent problem) also extraction of live infants from the dying mother through cutting her abdomen. In painting: perspective. And numerous lesser advancements in other fields.

Two important subjects were entirely neglected in Weiburg. Thaumaturgy, including even Alchemy which remained legal in the Empire, was banned on pain of death and no records remain of any attempt in magical arts in Weiburg until the very last weeks of its existence. Theology, while not outright banned, was not considered a fitting subject at seven towers. Although significant majority of the population, including substantial minority of Volke immigrants, were of the church of living god, Weiburg never announced official religion, observed no church holidays and remained a heaven for most sects, cults and heresies that were prosecuted in the Empire as long as they agreed to keep the peace, refrain from direct proselytizing in the city and respect the ban on thaumaturgic research. Among the many religious refugees Weiburg accepted most important was the captaincy of the Cilitian order which relocated to Weiburg from Adelphos during the long prosecutions thus preserving their incomparable manuscripts. Their “Hall of Respite” was eventually built into one of grandest civic buildings of the city – dedicated to the care of poor, non-citizens and other downtrodden as well as fulfilling the role of a cathedral in a city that never had a bishop, much less a mitropolit or a patriarch.

Distance of history also leads to thinking of Weiburg in military isolation from the empire until the wars of the succession crisis, but of course nothing could be further from truth. First intervention of the army of the mountain and valley in the empire was mere thirty or so years after founding of the city, during one of the periodic civil wars in Breda. Aristocratic faction was banished from power and from the city and has allied with their fellow aristocrats who were dominant force in Onderdak at the time. Fearing the isolation and encirclement, burghers of Breda sent the plea for help to all the cities of the confederation in which popular factions were in power including, by dint of its constitution, Weiburg itself. For reasons that are lost today, Weiburg responded most promptly and its army, already heavily manned by Volke mercenaries skilled in mountain warfare engaged and defeated the expeditionary force from Onderdak and threatened the city itself. Brief panic spread throughout the Empire at the notion of the northern barbarians, armed with Smelter steel defeating the Oranje regiments. In the event, Volke proved no worse than any other army of the day, and, aside from a few burned villages were content to retreat back towards Poltana when the aristocrats of Onderdak offered sufficiently accommodating settlement to the populars and the equally sufficiently satisfactory gifts to Weiburg and her army.

These expeditions became relatively routine over the following centuries. Weiburg’s help could be had if one was willing to pay a substantial price in mercantile influence or in bullion. City vaguely preferred the popular factions but was not above siding with the aristocrats when the price or political circumstance was right. Not all interventions were successful, although significant number of them was. Unsuccessful ones, however, resulted in a swift retreat over the high pass which was since very early days fortified against any incursion from the empire.

Only once, during the seventy year war did any of the imperial armies actually cross high pass in anger. After particularly unwise stretch for the army of mountain and valley (Weiburg was playing enthusiastically in the early stages of the civil war) they were cut off and almost entirely destroyed by combined force of traditionalists at the gates of Allenburg. With Breda sinking into civil war again, traditionalists marched unopposed onto the high pass, forcing it mere weeks before it closed for the winter and besieged the Weiburg itself.

Even though harsh winter of Poltana valley took its toll on the besiegers, they maintained the siege throughout and managed to re-open their supply lines over the high pass in the spring. Weiburg was facing the prospect of prolonged and painful siege. In the event, city was saved by its canny diplomatists who, through offers of substantial tribute, convinced the number of Volke clans to unite in her aid. Faced with the prospect of winter campaign against the tribesmen, traditionalist army retreated after putting all the lake-shore farms to the torch, ensuring another winter of deprivation in Weiburg. After this experience, military expeditions became much more conservative and Weiburg remained a bit-player for the remainder of the war.

More than anything else though, more than its innovations, its mercantile acumen, its military might, Weiburg deserves to be remembered for its joy of life. Countless records persist of her dances, of her theatre, of masques and of fireworks, of buildings like stone lace, built for no purpose other than to decorate, of the incomparable artifice of beauty of her women and of easy, confident, ubiquitous poetry of her men. During its long peak, Weiburg was a shining beacon of the north, attracting to herself all those who wished to, and dared attempt to, live their lives to the full.

>Fall of Weiburg, unexpected and swift, was a work of two men.

>Coincidentally or not, they were representatives of two fields that Weiburg had turned a blind eye to: thaumaturgist and a priest.

Albert Czicibor Traumhelm, native of Weiburg of typical mixed Oranje-Volke heritage was an unlikely wizard. Born into prosperous merchant family with numerous centuriate delegates over generations he has demonstrated high levels of scholarly aptitude and intelligence since childhood. For such a child, there was hardly a better time and place to be born then a well-to-do family in Weiburg in 6th century of the Empire. Schooled first by the private tutors he entered a lyceum at nine years old and seven towers university at sixteen. His initial training was as an engineer but he was more interested in statics, balance and counterweights then in pressure and pumps and thus decided not to enter the guild. Instead, he joined the Architects, worked on several important civic projects of the time, got elected to centuries as a remarkably young man and invited to teach at seven towers before he was thirty. He advised on the re-design of harbor castle in Allenberg and several other large foreign projects, making a name for himself well outside the Poltana Valley. It was not surprising therefore that when the imperial court itself went looking for the chief architect they would send a hopeful invite to the, still relatively young, master in Weiburg. It is more surprising that master Traumhelm, after very short consideration, decided to accept.

At this point in time, citizens of Weiburg as a rule held central Empire in barely disguised scorn. Seventy year war was still recent and the pomp and pageantry of the Dorian Theogenes was a distant memory. Emperor on occasions appeared barely more then a first among equals amid much diminished Stagire catapans - and one saddled with providing for an unruly and expensive, not to mention quite ruined, city. By the time master Traumhelm was invited, however, Arhos the first was already firmly sitting on the throne and he was quite determined to fix what can be fixed - and one thing that desperately needed fixing was the city of Miskoltz itself. Whether it was the magnitude of challenge of overseeing the rebuilding of the Imperial City that prompted his acceptance or if master Traumhelm already held the deep grudge against his city of birth we will never know. If the later was the case, he gave no sign of it in word of deed. He solemnly relinquished his centuriate position, bid bittersweet farewell to his students and to his family with a suitably Weiburgesque departure party and set off to Miskoltz.

Strangely enough, history almost loses the sight of him at this point. If Arhos did in fact plan the mass rebuilding of the city those plans must have been challenged by other priorities as in fact very few buildings were reconstructed in the years in which Traumhelm would have held the post of chief architect. Even the relatively unimportant few that can be dated from that period do not show any sign of architectural brilliance for which he was known or even of any Weiburg infulence whatsoever. What plans may have existed died definitive death together with first Arhos emperor, and although he has bequeathed much stronger political position, and even somewhat substantial treasury, to his son the later had neither love for nor interest in the city of Miskoltz nor particular use for a court architect.

After a pause of almost nine years after his initial appointment, name Traumhelm appears again in the imperial chronicles this time in the unlikely role of "Speaker to the Dead". Origins of this position are lost in the mist of time, but one of its principal duties was to act as the public face of the Miskotz Academy of Arcane Arts and the advisor to the emperor on the thaumaturgic matters. With Arthos II spending most of his time outside of Miskoltz, Traumhelm never got much chance to act in the later capacity but in the former he was loud and persistent voice. In every public appearance, including many times in front of the newly formed Senate of Miskoltz, he repeated the warnings about the persistent political, spiritual and arcane threat from the city of Weiburg and the necessity for imperial intervention against it.

It is entirely unclear how it happened that the court architect became a member of the secretive Academy much less its public face - position often reserved for senior Academics who have already served as Deans. It is even less clear as to why he was allowed, or instructed, to pursue this line of public denunciations of his former city. After several years however, powers that be in the Academy recalled him as the Speaker and his further career, with the exception of its monumental ending, was within the shadowy confines of the Academy itself. What we know is that he was elected a Dean soon after his withdrawal from speakership and Rector in the year of Arhos II's murder. As Rector he sometimes appears in the company of Divine Theodosius and the tradition has it that the rapport between two men dates from before the later's rise to power. Rumor also has it that he has hoped to parley his influence into a crusade against Weiburg at this point but was rebuffed. During the early years of Mad Eunuch's reign Traumhelm resigns his Rectorate on the grounds of infirmity and temporarily disappears from history.

Personal history of the monk, Eulaus Theodosius is well described elsewhere and we need not concern ourselves with it. What is of import, however, is the pivotal role he played in the enormous upheaval known as the "First Succession Crisis" although by some standards name "Second Civil War" would be more appropriate. To understand it we need to look deep into the origins of the crisis itself.

As with many other matters of imperial politics, root of the crisis was religious and its seeds were planted more then a century before it came about.

In 542 year of the empire, full 126 years before the First Succession Crisis, Heliokratos Theogenes died without legitimate offspring and without any sons whatsoever, legitimate or not.

This marked the first time in recorded history that the imperial throne did not pass in direct line of descent, stretching back to Dorius the Great and further to mythical time of St. Allen. Heliokratos, though he was otherwise an exemplary emperor, was too loyal to his ailing wife Philidosia, to take a mistress or re-marry even after it became clear that her bearing an heir would require nothing short of a miracle. All the children he therefore had were three bastard daughters he sired during his disreputable early youth. These women - later referred to as "crystal receptacles" or "three graces" - were already aged by the time Heliokratos gave up on natural progeny. Sired by the irresponsible young prince in his teens, third in line for the throne at the time, they were all-but-ignored by the imperial bureaucrats for years. By the time Heliokratos was an aging emperor with no other direct scions, one of the "graces" was running a brothel in which she was born, one was on her third husband - a barber and a small time fence - and raising a large brood of children and grandchildren of variously dubious parentage third was difficult to trace having disappeared in adolescence but was eventually traced to an oubliete for lunatics in outer suburbs of the capital.

Admittedly there was a precedent for both female inheritance and bastard inheritance in imperial history. By tradition, fourth Emperor over all was princess Ana who was specifically groomed for that post since early youth and whom her father officially and legally declared a man in disappointment with his feckless older sons. Much more recently, Ariastos “the Firstborn” gained the throne despite his legal illegitimacy. (Though betrothed to the Emperor, his mother’s marriage was postponed due to court politics and Ariastos was born out of wedlock. He was nevertheless raised as a prince and his ascension was considered preferable to alternatives by most nobles at the time). As one can imagine though, legal precedent obscured the gross impossibility of enthroning a brothel madam, barber’s wife or a shrieking lunatic.

Being a reasonable man, Heliokratos understood this and, being a prudent man, he took early and definitive steps to ameliorate the damage. Unfortunately for him, blood of the Dorian line of the Theogeni run thin – narrow pool of eligible matches and frequent interbreeding meant that very few legitimate offspring survived and even those were discouraged from breeding much – less the significant pool of potential contenders for the throne develops. As a result – only few Dorians that were available were old men and women, almost certainly past child bearing age. Introducing them as heirs would simply have postponed the problem by a generation. Only other indisputable line of imperial descent were Ariastrans, cadet branch long exiled to the utmost north of the empire. Even among them, the crop of potential emperors was thin and their long antagonism to the Dorian branch meant that introducing them to the throne would overturn the stability of imperial politics and almost inevitably lead to a deep crisis.

Luckily, Heliokratos had a perfect candidate right next to him in form of young Paulus Dasius, firstborn son of his wife’s brother. Paulus, was young, handsome, loyal, and skilled in marital arts as well as in law. He had most of Heliokratos’ love for the empire and next to nothing of the ways of his dissolute youth. He also had a dotting young wife heavy with child. He was not, technically, a Theogenus. Heliokratos, who, despite being officially adherent and the defender of the Kyrian creed, never considered himself particularly divine, did not think this a problem. To satisfy the church he did some perfunctory genealogical examination to see if in the midst of all the inter-breeding royal family has done he could trace some fraction of divine blood among his in-laws. He found two potential links of mediocre authenticity – one to a third born daughter of Mikhail, son of Ana and other to a bastard of one of those feckless brothers Ana was groomed to replace. It was, by Heliokratos’ lights, more than sufficient.

Heliokratos adopted young Paulus (with the grateful blessing of his natural parents) according to both imperial and canon law. He then explicitly named him his heir, elevated him to a number of high positions, extracted solemn oaths of allegiance to him from major imperial armies, academy and even Miskoltz charioteering clubs and then – in peacefull, orderly fashion, consistent with all of his reign – died.

He did not understand just how deeply reviled his decision was with church and with the common people. Almost three hundred years ago at the council of Khoros, church adopted, amidst much controversy, the set of doctrines that affirmed the divinity of the Imperial line, their descent from Yrzabel himself through St.Allen and their indispensability for spiritual and material safety of the empire. For almost three hundred years, church has spread Kyrian Verse (named after the reigning emperor during the Khoros council) making it a bedrock of Yrzabelitism itself and constructing in the minds of the population, the indelible triangle of Yrzabel – spiritual savior, St. Allen – material savior and reigning emperor – spiritual and material protector.

By instituting a common man – common in a sense of absence of proven divinity – on the throne Heliokratos was not only denying his subject that invaluable spiritual protection that only a scion of Yrzabel can provide – he was also spitting in the face of all the loyalty unconditionally directed to the emperor as a matter of faith. He was undermining the sanctity of the church itself and its teachings and, most of all, he was undermining the political stability of the empire – for if one handsome youth can become an emperor simply by being in a right place at the right time, what was to stop any ambitions man with the army from achieving exactly the same through any other, equally arbitrary, means.

Local priests, particularly those in distant parishes, far from the direct imperial oversight – have been grumbling against this nonsensical idea since the first moment it was announced. When they realized, upon emperor’s death, that this was in fact real and not some twisted political scheme – they could no longer be repressed. New emperor was denounced from the pulpits across his empire. Many monastic orders joined parish priests, more wild eyed ones cast accusations of Demonic conspiracy, everyone agreed that the day of reckoning is at hand.

What made situation particularly bad was that priests had no better idea what to do with the Empire then poor Heliokratos – or rather, they had as many ideas as there was local priests and monastic councils. Some wanted the “graces” crowned, either individually or jointly (in popular imagination three grannies were elevated into divine princesses of unparalleled beauty and spirit – with particular sympathy reserved for the insane one, locked as she was so many years in her tower). Others advanced the cause of Tamun Astarios, a bitter old schemer who was the head of the thin-blooded cadet branch of the imperial family who has spent his life scheming with north-eastern barbarians against the empire. Others picked this or that Theogenus regardless of their age, fertility or legitimacy. They all agreed however, that the young Paulus, who now reigned as Heliokratos II must be replaced and gruesomely and exemplarily murdered. Anger was most palpable in coastal Oranje and in the city of Miskoltz itself. Excessive piety mixed freely with old grudges and resentments. Released from their vows by uncontrolled clergy, regional governors raced to shore up their own positions – often to the expense of imperial unity – carving out counties – even entire themes – in the names of fictitious emperors.

Three graces themselves came into hands of three different warlords – one of whom started life as the stable boy and rose through the ranks of White charioteering society, two others being of more august heritage. Warlords tried with mixed success to breed them with their relatives or themselves while at the same time trying hard to collect or kill their remaining progeny when known.

Not quite everyone was caught in the madness. Some of the regiments who swore oath in front of the old emperor remained loyal to their word. Most importantly, Magyr who have officially joined the empire little more than an hundred years ago, had little exposure to the intricacies of Kyrian Verse (they were still digesting the very basic Yrzabelite theology) and saw little reason to prefer the rule of a mad granny or an outright traitor to that of a competent and generous young man. They however, had to contend with the faction which saw the entire catastrophe as the proof of the inherent instability of both Faith and the Empire and wanted to use it as an excuse to withdraw back into their own sovereignty.

When the later historians named the upheavals under Mad Eunuch, that happened century or so later, they chose the name “First Succession Crisis”. While deceptive – this name was carefully chosen to emphasize that the seventy year civil war was not – at its core – a question of choice of successor – there was, after all, only one legitimate and legal successor – it was a struggle to see whether empire itself will survive.

With a minimum of luck, Emperor would have been able to eventually bring the unruly warlords and wayward priests under control. He abandoned Miskoltz which was exceedingly dangerous but fell – under heavy protection of loyal regiments and praetorians towards Umbor on the Magyr frontier. Had he reached there he would have been able to link with the loyal Magyr and use their heavy cavalry to subdue the opposition. Unfortunately for the Empire, he never made it alive. He was stabbed by a praetorian whose intense sense of loyalty was deeply conflicted by the misplaced and fatal religious enthusiasm. Legal heir to the empire became a five year old girl, crowned in exile by the desperate loyalists as Elisaveta I.

It is to the cool heads of those loyalist advisers and the bravery of the Emperor’s widow that the Empire owed its survival. Retreat to Umbor was accomplished and the loyalty of that city secured. Magyr lords, while not willing to fight for the babe were at least pacified into guarded neutrality, quest for suitably Theogenus spouse for Elisaveta was initiated. In the meantime war of all against all was starting to coalesce into “Traditionalists” who were still internally divided but preferred Dorian line succession even if it had to go through “Graces”, “Radicals” who championed Astarios and his two bastard sons and “Loyalists” who – nominally at least – recognized the girl Emperor in Umbor. Each side, ofcourse, could be further divided into true believers and those who simply wanted to get most for themselves and least interference from any higher authority.

I will not go further into the details of the civil war except to say that it raged for little more than its titular seventy years. Weiburg’s brief and unsuccessful involvement on the Radical side was described earlier in this work. The settlement – when it eventually came – owed to two factors. Although initially in excellent position, Radicals were hard pressed by the traditionalists – increasingly unified in favor of the progeny of the youngest (insane) Grace and the ex-stable hand who by this point controlled most of the city of Miskoltz. Under this pressure, they agreed to a marriage of the grandson of Tamun Astarios (by this point in his fourties) – with his mostly verifiable Theogenus credentials to only slightly younger empress Elisaveta. Downside of this was that Elisaveta was already married (by unverifiable reports, relatively happily) – to a different Theogenus claimant – an ostensible descendant of the middle Grace (she of the barbershop) and has had two daughters by him.

On the needs-must basis, this marriage was annulled and gruff warlike northerner was introduced as the prince-consort to some consternation but general approval of the Magyr lords who were by this time still happy to watch the war from position of guarded neutrality.

It took almost two decades for the resulting coalition to dislodge the Traditionalists from their deeply held positions in central empire and a success would have been questionable had the Empresses second union not managed to finally produce a fit and charismatic male heir who was eventually to reign as Arhos I. As Arhos approached adulthood, and combined coalition armies proved themselves at least a match to the Traditionalists, Magyr enthusiasm for the Loyalist cause swelled and great lords of the pusta started, one by one, swearing loyalty to the Empress and her son. At the same time, her spriritual advisors suggested the brilliant idea with which to undermine the very principles which Traditionalists proclaimed. Arhos was betrothed to the younger of his, hastily re-legitimized, half-sisters thus promising – in his progeny – the re-unification of both Theogeni branches as well as the line of legal emperors.