The Grand Duchy of the Sarembrian Islands

As the maids closed the door of the library, I decided to assess the information’s I collected from my memories, questioning of Gennach and the books I read. Now is the summer of the year 838. Thankfully, they are using pretty much the same calendar as on earth, just that they did not have names for the months and just numbered them through. So today is Wednesday, the 6th day of the 7th month of the year 838, and I was in the library of an old empyrian villa, which was located on a small hill in the city of Salaria an towered over the town and the harbour, with the only exception being the Salaria Castle.

Salaria is the capital city of the Grand Duchy of the Sarembrian Islands, which in turn was a vassal state to the Mitalican king, which made it sort of part of the Mitalican kingdom. The current Duchess was my grandmother, Eleonora de Aineidas, who is now 67-year-old and ruled already for about 47 years. She is kind of famous in the kingdom, as she followed many times the call to war of the Mitalican kings against their northern, southern and oversees enemies. Although her most famous war was against another duke of Mitalica, the duke of Etrusko over the island of Corlantia, the “Corlantion War” in the year 828. The island of Corlantia was part of the Duchy of Etrusko, but the population was sarembrian and in the times of the old empire, the islands were one entity. After trying to settle the dispute in the royal court failed, war was the only way for Eleonora.

The war was almost an utter disaster for Etrusko, as Eleonora conquered with a small force of a thousand man the island of Corlantia with a garrison of 3 thousand in under 2 months. At the same time her son and my father Marcus travelled on boats to the shores of the duchy of Etrusko on the Mitalican mainland. In just a year he conquered with an army of 4000 men all castles of the duchy, including the capital. The duke had to run with the rest of his army but could buy with the help of his allies and his own savings a great mercenary company. After half a year since the fall of the duchies capital, duke Lorenzo Itanta-Etrusko with an army three times the size of my fathers clashed on the fields before the ducal capital city of Eronia.

And this was the pyrrhic victory of Eronia: The Sarembrian forces were led by my grandfather Teodorich, my father Marcus and my uncle Barisone, and they destroyed the etruskian forces for the final time of the war. But in this battle my father led the final charge at the enemy forces and was killed in action. The heir to the ducal throne of Sarembria died that day, leaving a 7-year-old son and a pregnant wife behind.

As the news travelled back to Salaria, my mother Maria fell in depression and Donita was born a month after the battle. But my mother could not find herself and died a year later. My grandfather also had a hard time and died 5 years after the battle.

The gravity of this event had also a political accent: the heredity rule of the duchy of Sarembria was Primogeniture, which means that the oldest son would get all titles. But when my father died, he left behind a 7-year-old boy as heir to the ducal throne, while my grandmother was already old – the ducal throne was in danger of instability.

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To change the heavy note, let me talk about Mitalica itself: The kingdom is relatively young, just about 250 years old and has now 9 duchies. Initially it broke away from the Holy Western Empire, as two brothers could not decide, who should be emperor. Since then the HWE tried many times to conquer its lost lands in the south, but without success.

The kingdom resembles northern Italy on earth. The grand duchy of the Sarembrian Islands consists of the duchy of Corlantia and the duchy of Sarembria and are the two large islands that are situated in the west and along the Mitalican mainland. The other seven duchies can be divided by two: four duchies are quartering the land that are on the Mitalican peninsula, while three duchies are situated on the continental mainland in the north. Also, there are two merchant independent cities as well as other smaller entities such as religious orders.

To the north there are three neighbours: the Frankian Kingdom in the west, the Holy Western Empire in the north and the Bergandian Kingdom in the east. In the southwest the Mitalican Kingdom borders the Holy State in which the New Faith resides, while in the southwest is the border with the Eastern Draconic Empire.

While the other duchies are mostly true vassals of the Sarembrian king, meaning their ancestors got their lands in exchange for the loyalty of the dukes, the Great Duchy is more of a vassal state. The reason for this is that Eleonoras father Duke Alexandros bend the knee to the Mitalican king, after he united the Sarembrian island and defeated a religious war of the desert tribes from the south. Since he bent the knee from his own free will, the land of the duchy of Sarembria was recognised to be of the Aineidian dynasty and we only need to provide with military or monetary support as well as advice to the Mitalican king. Which means the king can not take away our lands by law.

The last thing to cover would be the political situation of the kingdom. The king of Mitalica Edward de Itanta is already old and sickly, and while there is the royal heir prince Richard, who is also a Great Earl having two earldoms, his younger brother prince Edwin is trying to get support to take over the throne. This conflict is years old and some duchies are openly supportive for the princes. The dukes of Tolania, Medrugo and Bolenia are supportive for prince Richard, while the dukes of Etrusko and Longardia are supportive for prince Edwin. The royal duchy of Medwiga is in the hands of the king and would be in control of Richard if the current king would die, while the duke of Estenes and the duchess of the Sarembrian Islands are neutral for the time.

With this information I realised, that the Islands need more time, as my grandmother is not able to go into war because of her age, while I, even if I already reached maturity of 16, am still too young to wage a civil war. Do I even need to get involved in a war, that has literally no meaning to me? I mean, it is not like something would change if another person would be king, at least not for the duchy. But if I were to enter the war, I would need soldiers, meaning I will lose people in the war without gaining something.

So, I decided to take a stance of neutrality in this conflict and moved to my bedroom as it was already getting dark and I was tired of the day. I hoped tomorrow would be also a relaxed day as the last ones.