Kaiser Jason IV

Chronicles of the Reign of Jason IV

1224

And in the year 1224 After Norton, Jason of the House Steffki, a man of martial ardour and ambition did learn that the Kaiser, Nicholas the Third of his name, was with his retinue and court drinking and whoring at the Manor of the Lord Malkarnek and at the expense of that same Lord, a man of no great standing by the name of Balzenbeck. Jason, with his most devoted henchmen, immediately set off in the dead of night for the Lordship of Malkarnek which lay far to the north of Jason's manors in and around the city of Alexandretta.

Riding tirelessly for seven saddle-sore days, Jason arrived, on the morning of the 9th of Laemill, amongst the thickets of the copse on the Hill of Dunarben overlooking the fortified manor house, a large mobile village of tents and wagon carts surrounded by a hastily dug ditch and palisade fence was erected. A mist hung over the slumbering encampment and Jason was shrouded from the view of the Kaiser's guards. Changing into the filthy mud-splattered jupon of one of his sergeant-at-arms, and placing a hooded cloak of poorly spun hemp about his shoulders, the Lord Jason rode down into the Kaiser's encampment disguised as his own messenger.

The Lord's subterfuge depended on his not being recognised, for as a stranger at court he could hope not to be recognised by the Shirekeep Lordlings, courtiers and flunkies who kept the Kaiser's company. Their retainers, men-at-arms and servants might be another matter; all the nobility of Brookshire and Goldshire relied upon the coming and going of able lesser men and women; junior relatives who gained a post as a favour, mercenaries selling their sword to the highest bidder. To avoid their gaze, Jason adopted a lowly mien, walked slowly and kept a look of bashful awe, as though a moon-struck squire who had never seen so many gentlemen and women of quality before. His conceit was a simple one, he sought the tent of the Kaiser's Steward, Glamael Lance-Torn, and found, as he'd hoped, the Lord of the Manor in attendance with the Steward, pleading for some relief from the burdens placed upon him in hosting the Kaiser, who was a notorious whoremonger, glutton and abuser of hospitality. The Lord's pleas were finding little sympathy from the Steward. The Kaiser enjoyed, by ancestral right, the privilege of carrying out a Royal Progress throughout his lands of Brookshire, Goldshire and Yardistan. The theory was that this was to bring him closer to his people. In practice the Kaisers in Shirekeep would use their tours of the countryside with the Imperial Court to act much as an invading army would, despoiling the land and eating up the food surpluses with which rebellious or seditious lords might hope to sustain an army in the field against their liege lord.

Preceded by: Nicholas III

Succession of the Shirithian Kaisership 1224–1279 AN (43–98 ASC)

Succeeded by: Santiago II