Reggio, A Crusader Kings AAR - Chapter 1: A Rock and a Hard Place
LJ Cut for Length and Pictures.
I am Roger de Hauteville and it is my hope that these words will find you, kind reader, in the warmest of circumstances. This tome is my testament as to the events which have unfolded during the course of life. I do not endeavor to give you a complete biography of my life, for that is up to the chroniclers and historians to provide. I simply wish to explain my actions.
I had come into possession of a new manor house in July of 1066. I did not intend to keep it: some of my wife's kin from the Norman lands wished to have a winter home, and to keep her happy I was more than pleased to let them make use of it. First though, I wished to examine the house and its contents. Perhaps, I thought, someone had left some valuables in it which I could present to my beloved. I was correct, of course, a beautiful string of pearls was hidden in a compartment built into the bed.
The small library contained a number of old tomes, none very rare. My librarian cataloged the books and found that copies of each were already present in my own library. The collection in the manor did not even include the complete Hippocratic Corpus. In any event there was a single book in the library that I did not have in my own. Indeed, my librarian had never heard mention of it.
It was written in Hebrew, of the old style. My first thought was that perhaps I had come into possession of a rare holy book, Scriptures of one of the Apostles themselves written in their native tongue. We immediately summoned a Jew from the nearby town. He was a miser and moneylender, a pitiful creature but useful. He informed us that this was no Torah or account of ancient deeds. Indeed, it did not chronicle the past at all, but claimed to portent the future.
We dismissed the Jew and took the book with us back to my own castle. There I had one of the local clergy, a converted Jew, perform a translation upon the text. He toiled for several weeks. When he was finished he presented the tome to me and begged that I never open it.
Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if I hadn't opened it.
The young man, who had taken the name Leo of Reggio for himself after his conversation and entrance to the Body of Christ, had warned me that there were horrors inside. His writing was not the most poetic, but he had arranged each prophecy in a set of four lines, a Quatrain as the poets call it.
The first verse in the tome was this:
The gods will make it appear to the humans
In the path of the hollow mountains
The big mastiff will howl all night
When they want to have verification from the Normans
I was amused. Why should a book of prophecies concern itself with how I got along with my beloved Judith's kin? I sat the book aside and thought not of it again for quite some time.
It was upon my wife's advice that I began to look beyond my own borders. My primary title, by far the more prestigious, was Count of Reggio, but the true gem in my domain was the land across the strait, the County of Messina. The lands there are considerably richer than in Reggio. And infinitely more threatened. Sicily was overrun years ago my Muhammedans, heathens from the deserts of Arabia.
If I did not act soon, the three Shiekdoms which occupied Sicily would unite against me. Even in my dreams, I would not be able to stand against the might of those pirates and criminals. Those animals claim that it is their divine duty to prey upon Christians, both on land and at sea. "Jihad" is the word they use to describe it. Would my land, my people, be the target of their next Jihad?
There is no doubt in my mind that my brother, the most grand Duke of Apulia and Calabria, would come to my aid. With his men, and those of my other kin and his other vassals, Reggio could and would be saved from the heathen Jihad. But Messina, even if we retained control of it, would be ravaged. It would take the rest of my days on this earth to rebuild it. I would have let my liege, my brother, down. I would have failed in my appointment as lord of that land: both God and its people would have cause to wish me take my leave.
Judith d'Evreaux, the beloved Countess of Reggio, was right. If I were to protect my lands from the heathens I would need to strike while the heathens had not yet unified against me. But a single Count beginning a Crusade? It was unheard of.
I did not yet know what I know now, God had heard our conversation and He had smiled upon us, because soon He would provide me with the weapon of his revenge against the Muhammedan heretics. If only I had paid more attention to that book I found, I would have suspected what He had already set in motion.
I am Roger de Hauteville and it is my hope that these words will find you, kind reader, in the warmest of circumstances. This tome is my testament as to the events which have unfolded during the course of life. I do not endeavor to give you a complete biography of my life, for that is up to the chroniclers and historians to provide. I simply wish to explain my actions.
I had come into possession of a new manor house in July of 1066. I did not intend to keep it: some of my wife's kin from the Norman lands wished to have a winter home, and to keep her happy I was more than pleased to let them make use of it. First though, I wished to examine the house and its contents. Perhaps, I thought, someone had left some valuables in it which I could present to my beloved. I was correct, of course, a beautiful string of pearls was hidden in a compartment built into the bed.
The small library contained a number of old tomes, none very rare. My librarian cataloged the books and found that copies of each were already present in my own library. The collection in the manor did not even include the complete Hippocratic Corpus. In any event there was a single book in the library that I did not have in my own. Indeed, my librarian had never heard mention of it.
It was written in Hebrew, of the old style. My first thought was that perhaps I had come into possession of a rare holy book, Scriptures of one of the Apostles themselves written in their native tongue. We immediately summoned a Jew from the nearby town. He was a miser and moneylender, a pitiful creature but useful. He informed us that this was no Torah or account of ancient deeds. Indeed, it did not chronicle the past at all, but claimed to portent the future.
We dismissed the Jew and took the book with us back to my own castle. There I had one of the local clergy, a converted Jew, perform a translation upon the text. He toiled for several weeks. When he was finished he presented the tome to me and begged that I never open it.
Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if I hadn't opened it.
The young man, who had taken the name Leo of Reggio for himself after his conversation and entrance to the Body of Christ, had warned me that there were horrors inside. His writing was not the most poetic, but he had arranged each prophecy in a set of four lines, a Quatrain as the poets call it.
The first verse in the tome was this:
The gods will make it appear to the humans
In the path of the hollow mountains
The big mastiff will howl all night
When they want to have verification from the Normans
I was amused. Why should a book of prophecies concern itself with how I got along with my beloved Judith's kin? I sat the book aside and thought not of it again for quite some time.
It was upon my wife's advice that I began to look beyond my own borders. My primary title, by far the more prestigious, was Count of Reggio, but the true gem in my domain was the land across the strait, the County of Messina. The lands there are considerably richer than in Reggio. And infinitely more threatened. Sicily was overrun years ago my Muhammedans, heathens from the deserts of Arabia.
If I did not act soon, the three Shiekdoms which occupied Sicily would unite against me. Even in my dreams, I would not be able to stand against the might of those pirates and criminals. Those animals claim that it is their divine duty to prey upon Christians, both on land and at sea. "Jihad" is the word they use to describe it. Would my land, my people, be the target of their next Jihad?
There is no doubt in my mind that my brother, the most grand Duke of Apulia and Calabria, would come to my aid. With his men, and those of my other kin and his other vassals, Reggio could and would be saved from the heathen Jihad. But Messina, even if we retained control of it, would be ravaged. It would take the rest of my days on this earth to rebuild it. I would have let my liege, my brother, down. I would have failed in my appointment as lord of that land: both God and its people would have cause to wish me take my leave.
Judith d'Evreaux, the beloved Countess of Reggio, was right. If I were to protect my lands from the heathens I would need to strike while the heathens had not yet unified against me. But a single Count beginning a Crusade? It was unheard of.
I did not yet know what I know now, God had heard our conversation and He had smiled upon us, because soon He would provide me with the weapon of his revenge against the Muhammedan heretics. If only I had paid more attention to that book I found, I would have suspected what He had already set in motion.