Gesta Dominorum

Here begins the chronicle of the realm — God forgive whoever named it TestRealm, for it is no name for a Christian land, and I have spilled good wine upon the page three times already trying to write it fair.

I am Brother Ambrosius, of no great abbey, keeper of the cellar and, when the cellar permits, of this book.

In the year of our Lord 2026, the thirteenth day of June, before any other soul drew breath upon this earth, came Roland, called the Marshal, and he raised the first stones of Vasborg in the heart of the world. For a day and a night he was the only lord alive, and lonely is the king of an empty country.

On the fourteenth day came the Lady Krissy, gentle of title and, I am told, sharper of tongue, who built her hall to the north. And in that same span the realm itself was reckoned founded — the fourteenth of June — though to my mind a realm is founded only when the second lord arrives, for the first lord is merely a hermit with ambitions.

In these early days there came also a stranger, Robotfej the Baron, whose name in the tongue of these parts means iron-head, and well it suits him: he answered no letters, attended no feast, and his eyes — God keep me — did not blink. His seat at Robothalom stood quiet as a tomb.

Then, on the twentieth day of June, the floodgates of heaven opened and lords poured in like ale from a split barrel: Csalex the Lord, to the deep south; Lophasz Joseph, who named his land Lopahszlandia after himself, as proud men do; Markington the Lord, master of a village whose name I will not attempt sober, let alone in my cups — Kiskunhirtelengöröngyös, may the scribe who invented it rest uneasy; BolonLevi; Akos the Duke, highest of title among the newcomers, at Tiszalök; one poor soul recorded only as Invalid Username, a Lord cursed at the font with a name no herald can pronounce; lakos the Marshal, at Tiszatarjän; and Laller the Baron.

There came too a second silent one, NPCarc the Count — NPC-face, the locals whisper — as cold and wordless as Robotfej, and I have come to suspect the two were forged in the same dark smithy. But that is wine-talk, and I will answer for it at confession.

For six days the realm held its breath. Then, on the twenty-first day of June, all the world went to war at once, as if some bell had rung that only lords could hear.

Three brotherhoods were sworn that day. First, the Iron Fuckas — I copy the name as given; I am a scribe, not a censor — under Roland the Marshal, with Markington and BolonLevi as his officers. Second, the Dominorum Ifjusagi Csihipuhi Szakosztaly, and may the Lord forgive me, I have written it correctly and my hand aches, under Akos the Duke, with lakos at his side. Third, a small and lonely pact, the Miszövetség, with Laller its only sworn lord, which is less a brotherhood than a man drinking alone — a thing I know something of.

And then the blood. Three battles I have heard tell of, and set down faithfully.

First, BolonLevi fell upon Tiszatarjän, the seat of lakos, and carried the day, and bore away one hundred and eighty-four gold, sixscore in timber, a hundred-odd measures of grain, and a little stone besides. A Marshal thrashed by a mere Lord — there is a lesson in that, though I am too drunk to find it.

Second, Lophasz Joseph rode against Robothalom, the tomb-quiet hall of Robotfej the iron-head, and put it to the torch, taking grain and timber and a few coins and a scrap of iron. So even the unblinking can bleed. I confess I was glad.

Third and last, the same Lophasz Joseph, his blood high, hurled himself at Mestersegeszeg, the keep of NPCarc, and there the tide turned: the walls held, the Count gave no ground, and Lophasz Joseph went home with nothing but bruises and a sermon. Pride, my children. Always pride.

But not all the realm’s business was butchery. While the swords were out, quieter games were played in the shadows and at the market stalls, and a chronicler who tells only of battles tells but half the tale.

Lophasz Joseph proved as much a spymaster as a swordsman: his scouts crept into the hall of Laller, into Tiszalök of Akos the Duke, and even into Roland’s own Vasborg, and slipped out again unseen, their satchels full of secrets. Markington twice sent men to watch the gates of Csalex. But pride goes before a stumble — when Laller sent a scout the other way, to spy upon Lophasz Joseph’s Lopahszlandia, the poor wretch was seized at the wall and dragged before the lord, caught red-handed and no doubt singing by supper. And as I dip my pen, Roland’s own scout is still upon the road to Lopahszlandia, neither there nor home; God grant him quieter feet than Laller’s man had.

At the market, Akos the Duke cried his wares to an empty square: five hundred measures of timber he offered for two hundred and fifty in gold, and five hundred of grain for the same again in stone — and not a soul, last I looked, had taken him up on either. A duke turned market-hawker; there is a homily in that, but the wine has eaten it.

And Roland, between battle and spycraft, set his peasants to laying a road from Vasborg to the hall of BolonLevi his sworn man — four hundred and seventy-five gold in good coin, the ditches still open and the stones not yet set when last I walked out to look. A road between brothers-in-arms: may it carry grain and never coffins.

Here my candle gutters and my cup is empty, which is the truer of the two calamities. What the lords of this realm did next, only God and the next morning’s headache will tell. I commend them all — even the iron-headed — to mercy, and myself to bed.

Here ends the chronicle, for now. — Brother Ambrosius, his hand unsteady but his heart full.

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Postscript, the morning of the twenty-second day of June. I had laid down my pen and, I confess, taken up my cup, when news came that would not let an honest monk sleep. So back to the book.

The war I called a war has become a wolf-pack. The brotherhood of the Iron Fuckas fell upon Akos the Duke at Tiszalök not once but twice in a single night — first Roland himself, then BolonLevi again, who hauled off near nine hundred measures of timber and four hundred in gold besides, until the Duke’s storehouses must echo like empty churches. And the same brotherhood turned upon Csalex twice over: Markington stripped his village of four hundred gold and as much grain, and BolonLevi — that man is never far from a fire — came behind to take the rest. Poor Csalex; poor Akos. When wolves hunt in a pack, the lone sheep learns its theology quickly.

Yet lakos, loyal to his battered Duke, has sent succour along the new roads: two trains of carts I watched roll out of Tiszatarjän toward Tiszalök this very dawn — twenty wagons heavy with a thousand in gold, and five more laden with grain — God speed them past the wolves, for a caravan is a fat and slow-footed thing.

And roads, my children, roads everywhere! Roland’s road to BolonLevi is finished, its stones laid and its ditches filled; Lophasz Joseph has cut another from Lopahszlandia to Laller’s very door; and Laller in turn has run one to the Lady Krissy. The realm grows veins. Whether they carry grain or coffins — I have said it before — is the only question that matters, and the wolves are still abroad.

Now truly to bed. The map below I drew myself, before the wine took my hand; it is the truest thing in all this book.

Here ends the chronicle — again, and for now. — Brother Ambrosius, more weary, and no wiser.