The Oak Has Fallen: The Black Sapling
Blacktree Hall, Western Owkrestos, Klironomea.
The First Day of the Second Moon, 868 AD.
Well, to say the performance of his son had been lacklustre so far was more than an exaggeration.
Yes, Aertax hated to admit it, but he could not deny it any longer; his son was a fool. His head was full of arrogance and the stories of legends long laid to rest, of men who had probably never existed and if they had existed were certainly nowhere near as wonderful as the stories told.
His son was an arrogant, blithe, useless fool.
Of course he wouldn't go so far as to say the boy didn't have some talents; he was an excellent swordsman and jouster, but that was about it. Aerna was sorely lacking when one considered that he was supposed to be the heir to the great and grim Lord Aertax Blackoak of Blacktree Hall. Not a hedge-knight. Not a chivalric champion. An heir and ruler.
His son was not a suitable heir.
There was nothing Aertax could do to change that, however. The best years of his life were long behind him, his hair was beginning to grey, and he'd never been interested in remarrying after his lady wife had died after giving him a son and a daughter. He simply had no other options for an heir, so Aerna would have to do. With any luck the boy would make something of himself soon, would have his mettle tested and come out of the other side stronger and less headstrong for it.
It would need to come soon as well, for Aertax wasn't getting any younger. Just as worryingly, Tyros was a man who might have had another two decades left at the very best. Another five to ten years was much more likely. When Tyros eventually kicked the bucket there would be a crisis of leadership within the Blackoak family as the various cadet branches of their house looked to Aertax's seat of power with hungry eyes. It was a recipe for the complete collapse of their dynasty, unless he could do something about it soon.
Yes, there were many issues facing the lord of Blacktree Hall, and he was growing increasingly aware that he was running out of time to work through them before his son took the lordship and had a chance to fuck everything up in the unsubtle and unskilled ways of many such young lordlings who felt they knew better by virtue of their last name having some level of noble attachment.
Fortunately, he felt he had a plan.
See, he needed something to rally his kin under a common banner again, as he had with Lord Greymist's Rebellion all those decades ago. He needed another quick, successful campaign, so that the people of his house would once again remember the fact that they all bore the same last name, and they all owed their fealty to Blacktree Hall. He needed to make sure that there were no attempts at any sort of foolish uprising to increase the freedoms of the cadet branches or, Angels forbid, have the cadets establish themselves as equals to the heads of the family. There was no room for such foolishness in a modern feudal state. They had to be united and to all know their place. What better way to bring them all together than by pulling them into a war? It would certainly beat yet another hunt, that was for sure.
"Steward. Attend me."
The Steward all but hunched into the room, bowing low as he walked. The man was a sycophant and a lickspittle, but Aertax had to begrudgingly admit that he had an excellent memory and mind for numbers. Those were both good qualities for a steward to possess, so as long as the man knew to stay loyal and do his job properly then Aertax would put up with the endless bowing and scraping from the man, no matter how annoying it was.
"Your Lordship?"
"My family still has a feasible and acceptable claim on the lands of house Downpour, do we not?"
The man almost seemed to scrape lower as he answered.
"Yes, your Lordship! Your third-cousin Saella's marriage to Ser Herna Downpour produced an heir which, some would say, was born with a better claim to the title Lord of Downpour's Rest than the bastard son of Lord Athela Downpour."
Aertax nodded. He knew all of this already of course, but before he signed the papers and sent out the decree that would see him at war with another vassal house of Owkrestos it was always good to double-check your information and look for any hidden pieces of the puzzle he had not yet anticipated. The smallest things could change the course of a battle, after all; rain falling towards a marching army, blinding them as they blundered into a defending force. The rash actions of a commander, dooming a besieging force to an ignoble end.
The realm collapsing around itself, leading to the end of a dynasty.
He stilled his mind a mite and shunted such thoughts out of his head. He wasn't sure where they'd come from, but he wasn't going to let the fates dictate the course of his house's history; he was going to take Downpour's Rest and, Angels willing, establish a new cadet house under his suzerainty and completely secure the remainder of Owkrestos underneath the weak-willed King Aered the Unready, ensuring that in truth it would be Lord Aertax of Blacktree Hall who stood atop the realm when all was said and done.
"And do you believe the king would involve himself if someone were to act on the assumption that the child of Ser Herna and Lady Saella should inherit the lands of Downpour's Rest rather than the bastard of Lord Athela?"
The steward shook his head.
"I do not foresee the king acting to prevent so righteous an act! Why, I do not believe that any who-"
Aertax stilled the lickspittle's rambling with an icy glare.
"The truth, Steward. Would the king seek to intervene himself? Would the rest of the nobility? The clergy?"
The steward went still for a moment, then shook his head again.
"No, Lord Blackoak. Without the support of the king the rest of the nobility wouldn't take up arms, since they'd only enflame tensions to stand on the losing side of a war. The king wouldn't take up arms against you because he fears you, your Lordship. He fears house Blackoak."
"And the clergy?"
For the first time in their conversation the steward seemed to find Aertax not scary, but amusing.
"The church? The clergy? No, not at all. They're too busy trying to stamp out heresies and debasing themselves for their favoured figures of worship. So long as the churches and monasteries of the lands you seek to rightfully liberate of their false rulers remain untouched and unscarred by war I see no reason for the church to make an entrance into such a war on the side of our adversaries.
"No your Lordship, the Lord of Downpour's Rest shall find himself alone and without friends, save only the sellswords he may hire in an attempt to defend himself."
"Could they pose a threat," Aertax responded, "in the numbers he could afford to hire them?"
The steward's lip curled a little, and Aertax stymied a slight smile. His steward despised the idea of paying valuable coin for soldiers when, in his mind, a lord could simply whistle and have a few villages of people ready to do the fighting instead. A shame that Aertax then was more than willing to hire a few of his own, if the need ever arose or opportunity beckoned.
"In the numbers Lord Downpour could afford to hire them?" The man turned his head a little and muttered to himself, running through the numbers quickly before turning back to Aertax and continuing. "No. With the current estimates I can make of the man's treasury given the available lands and mines his lands cover, and assuming that he sells more than half of that land for the price that his neighbours would be willing to pay for it for a quick injection of wealth, he would still barely be able to afford three-thousand such sellswords. House Downpour is a poor one, my lord. There's nothing left of the wealth they once had, not since the timbers rotted in their silver mines and the shafts flooded. Flooded mines are as good as lost, my lord. There's no wealth in that house anymore. At most they could call on three-thousand sellswords to supplement their own forces, but in practical terms they'll be able to afford less than half of that.
"I don't know the number of levied soldiers under their command, but I would find it hard to believe they could come close to your own numbers, Lord Blackoak."
Aertax stroked his close-cropped beard pensively.
"They are few. Not enough to be of concern. When I was a child I engaged in a similar war against Lord Greymist, Steward. The rebel lord's hold was renowned as a fortress, difficult to take unless you controlled every surrounding approach and had the keep cut off completely. I took it with ease, despite the tricks that the man played to buy himself a little more time.
"Downpour's Rest is not renowned as a capable defensive fortification. It will not take long to crumble and fall as soon as the man's forces are felled in the fields. Send a raven to Lord Tyros of Miststone Hill; I want the branches of our house mustered with their forces in no more than a moon's time. And send for my son. I need to speak with him."
The steward bowed deeply once more and made to leave the room.
"Of course, your Lordship. I will see to it at once."
Aertax let out a sigh as the lickspittle left the room and busied himself with paperwork for a few minutes before his son entered instead, the young man making his presence known with an unsubtle cough when Aertax didn't immediately give him his attention.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
"Father, you sent for me?"
Aertax gave him a gruff grunt of acknowledgement.
"I did, yes. Wait for a moment, boy. You're here sooner than I expected."
If nothing else, his son waited for his word when told to. It didn't take long to finish reviewing the papers in front of him, so soon he turned his attention to his armour-clad son who had been sat awaiting his attention for a few minutes now.
"You are here," he started, "because you're finally being given an opportunity to prove yourself as a leader. As a man of house Blackoak. You are here because, despite all of my attempts to rectify the situation, you have spent more time fighting duels and drinking with your friends than you have with courting one of the many women who would be lucky to have you as a wife or learning to lead an army in times of war."
"Father," Aerna began, "we've spoken on this before. You're being unfair."
"You're a man grown now," he responded, "so act like one. No more playing around with your friends and hitting each other with metal sticks until your mind drips out of your ears. Prove to me that I'm being unfair. Prove to me that I'm wrong."
"How?"
Aertax smirked a little.
"We're going to war, son. I'm to lead our armies on a campaign against house Downpour, and you'll be accompanying me. Your sister will see to the stewarding of our estate whilst we are away, so this will be a learning experience for her as well as you. The years that the two of you have wasted will be wasted no longer; you'll both have your opportunity to show me that your long-held belief that I haven't been fair to either of you is correct and that I am wrong. You get one chance for this, Aerna. Do not disappoint me."
His son and heir nodded, seeming resolute but not quite as though he was taking this as seriously as he ought to.
"If you say so, father. Tell me when we're to leave and I'll join you then."
Aertax could only bring himself to sigh as his son exited the room. Fool of a boy. With any luck he won't get himself killed trying to duel someone in an active battlefield.
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Quite disappointingly, the war hadn't lasted that long.
It was a testament to the skill of Lord Tyros that their enemies hadn't lasted anywhere near as long as they otherwise might have in the field, but it did mean that Aertax hadn't been able to get a good inclination as to whether or not his son was useful to his efforts in any way. Aerna hadn't displayed fear or trepidation when with the men in their camps as they made war, but he had made his boredom known to all around him at any time; Aertax was beginning to grow worried that his son might end up doing something rash without thinking on the potential consequences in the future, what with the boy's want for 'challenging' and 'chivalrous' combat.
His son must have been the only person in western Klironomea who still tried to keep to the chivalric code, except for the most idealistic of fools. Hell, even the vaunted and painfully knightly Ser Romanos had seen the need to change and reform his own band of knights to something markedly less chivalrous than they once had been. Soldiers, the man wanted them to be, not heroes. A unit, not individuals. Aertax tried to imagine the knights of his youth agreeing to such a prospect, but found his imagination lacking. Romanos must have been a far greater leader than he appeared to force through such changes, or else the men of Teleytaios had lost their spines. It could have been either, really. Both, perhaps?
Aertax didn't care for any of that. Happenings abroad were none of his business, not when matters of house and dynasty still needed to be solved.
The young son of Ser Herna Downpour had been placed on the seat of the lordship, and given that his father had married Lady Saella Blackoak matrilineally the boy bore Aertax's family name. Downpour's Rest was, if nothing else, firmly under the grip of the Blackoak family. One day all of Owkrestos would be, but for now Aertax was content to settle for individual keeps and tracts of land. Avalanches were made of individual stones, after all.
Downpour's Rest was a middling castle at best. It had a low curtain wall of stone that had been fused by fire, a four-towered square keep in the centre on a slight hill with an even slighter incline, and a handful of outlying buildings in what might have charitably been called a village just outside. It was far from the prize that Miststone Hill had been, but then he supposed that Lord Tyros had always been far more deserving of a real prize than Ser Herna Downpour had been.
That was all done now though. His forces had been disbanded to see to the harvests, their enemies were slain, and the cadet branches of his house had, if nothing else, fought alongside each other and thus gained a measure of respect for each other. The war had helped keep the towering edifice that was house Blackoak together for a while longer yet.
As his musings on his finished campaign came to a close, a messenger all but burst into his study. It was a brave or brazen fool indeed who deigned to enter his study with neither permission nor invitation, but the frenzied countenance of the messenger staved off his various misgivings for now.
"Well?"
His voice was clipped, terse. He had no wish to be distracted any longer than he had to be.
"Message for you from the capital, from one of your men in the capital I mean, your Lordship. The king's dead, and his wife don't like it none. Some mad stunt she's pulled, your Lordship."
Aertax didn't let his surprise show with any more than an eye brow raise as he opened the parchment and began reading.
My Lord,
The capital is in chaos. The king is dead, a coup some say, and instead of letting the throne pass to the bastard who is his only issue the queen has seized control of the capital and taken the boy hostage. The other nobles have raised their banners in rebellion against the queen after her treason, and already armies are marching on Stagspring.
Myself and your other agents in Stagspring will lay low to avoid detection. The increased security in the capital means that you may receive few letters from us until the war is over. We apologise for this.
Your men in the capital.
Aertax put the parchment down on the table, dismissed the messenger, and sighed. Old Aered the Unready was finally dead then, was he? Good riddance. The man was a useless king and an only slightly better figurehead. His wife refusing to give up her position of power wasn't exactly a shock, but the lengths she'd apparently gone to did admittedly give him a bit of pause. Ah well, she'll be dead in a year. Probably less. Stagspring might once have been a great defensive bastion, but time and ill-rule had seen those defences crumble away. That was what happened when your king liked taking funds that could have been spent on such maintenance and renovations to pay for his next portrait or banquet.
Yes, Aered had not been a good king. He had been easy to exploit, but even Aertax had to admit that Owkrestos as a whole would likely be weaker for decades to come as a result of the man's misrule. The Queen's defiance of common law and kidnapping of the heir-presumptive wouldn't improve their international standing in that regard, that much was certain.
Well, so be it. This was something that he, and by extension the rest of the Blackoak dynasty, would take no part in. The other lordly houses of Owkrestos seemed to have this handled, and it was about time they started standing up for the stability of the realm alongside him. Yes, this was their fight, not his.
For the first time in his life, Aertax wanted no part in such a quarrel. It was time for him to take a slight step back and allow others to deal with the troubles of the realm for once.
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So, he thought as he read the report from one of his agents at the capital, it is done then.
Finally, after what felt like decades of stagnation, he almost felt as though he could breath a sigh of relief. Almost. To perform such an action would have given an observer the impression that he had been worried over the events of the last few decades, but that was not true in the slightest. He had been exasperated, not worried.
But either way, it was done. King Aered was dead, and his noble-born wife's last act of defiance had been to close the gates of the city and keep the elderly king's bastard child hostage to try and keep control of the throne given that she had never produced an heir for the old man through which she might rule legally.
Impressive as such an act may have been, it was only ever going to end this way; the gates had been battered down, a company of sellswords had been spotted making their way up through the sewers, and she had been quite predictably and unceremoniously killed for her actions.
It was over.
Now it was time for the rebuilding to begin, if by rebuilding you meant the jockeying for power by his peers eager to use the new young king as their puppet. Aertax had a few plans of his own in mind for that one, just as soon as he was summoned to take his place as a member of the young boy's regency council. He would be nominally an equal to his peers on the council, but he knew for a fact that he was to be the first amongst equals. Who in Owkrestos could boast more actual power than their king but him? More lands? More wealth? There was no-one to equal him in this kingdom, so he was always to be the first amongst equals within this realm. There were none that could say that they were able to rival the achievements of Lord Aertax Blackoak of Blacktree Hall.
In some ways he was disappointed to have missed out on this war, but a poor harvest had meant that he needed to ensure that the fields did not go fallow this season. He had been the one to defend the authority of the crown in the last rebellion Owkrestos could recall, so in his mind it had been time for someone else to do the bloody work for him.
"Your Lordship."
Aertax looked up from his desk at the steward, a note held in the man's hand. He seemed nervous, nay, frightened, and even more so than was the norm.
"Yes, Steward?"
"News from the capital, Lord Blackoak. The late King Aered's wife is dead and the nobility have propped up the young bastard Aleksandr Wyldlarch as the new king. They have established a new regency council to rule over the kingdom and, well, they say all missives calling those who have been chosen to sit on the council have been sent out."
The steward looked around, not meeting Aertax's gaze despite the fact that he clearly had more to say. Aertax gestured for the man to continue in a cold, commanding tone.
"And?"
The steward shuffled nervously.
"And- well, I mean to say- you are not on the regency council, my Lord."
Aertax ground his teeth a little. A snub, certainly, but he could still work with this.
"I see. Who have they named to the council in my stead from amongst our family? Tyros? Aerna? Lady Saella?"
The steward shook his head again, the spineless man's nerves obviously failing him.
"No, your Lordship."
"Then who, Steward? Who has the regency council named from amongst our family to represent our interests amongst the other lords of Owkrestos?"
The steward backed up a little towards the door in an obvious sign of retreat before blurting out the bad news and, rather hastily, making himself scarce.
"They haven't, your Lordship. The rest of the nobility of Owkrestos have formed a united front by which to combat the interests of house Blackoak. The young king will be their puppet, not yours."
Aertax suddenly found himself with a roiling pit of anger in his stomach. So this was how the other houses wanted to play? They wanted to shut out the family he'd spent so long dragging into greatness, to throw this humiliation upon the house that had thrown back the Triarian Invasion of 557 AD? The house who had propped up Owkrestan independence and taken the brunt of the armies of the Teleytaians who had marched into the wooded kingdom in an ill-fated attempt to dominate it centuries ago at the end of the Centuries of Iron? Well, that was fine by him.
He would cut them out of Blackoak affairs as well. House Blackoak would become, nominally if not in law, independent. If they wanted to avoid a war with him after this disgraceful affair then he would ensure that house Blackoak and all of its cadet branches would enjoy such autonomy that the word of the kings that ruled in Stagspring would have no sway on the internal workings of their lands.
He would ensure that his house thrived, with or without the rest of the nobility. There was nothing else for it other than to ensure his dynasty stayed united as one in the face of so powerful an insult.
The child-king and his regents would bend for him, or he would break them. He would brook no further insults from the men of the fens and forests. They would know what ruin was if they thought to snub him again, for if he was to fall then he would drag the rest of the realm down with him.
Oh, how they would know what ruin was.