Trouble at home, holy war abroad, King Arzhul II, 827-845

Reprieve was granted quickly for the old King.  He passed comatose in this delirium in 827.  His son and heir Arzhul II ascended to the throne while his younger brother Leri was named heir until a son was born of Arzhul and his young Castillian wife.

  

Arzhul II was quiet and reserved.  While he was kindhearted, his distance from the world drove him to plot against his enemies.  The young boy was unskilled in diplomacy and his older, more experienced vassals felt they could walk all over him.  As the young boy-king spent time practicing plots on the cook's wife and playing small pranks on the ladies of court, his vassles conspired and plotted over issues of actual importance.
While the king and queen celebrated the birth of their first son Bohemond in 827 disaster struck.  The count of Leon had been ordered detained by royal degree for plotting against the crown.  When the royal escort arrived to bring him before the King's justice they found the bannermen of Leon waiting.  The royal army was surrounded and crushed, an event immortalized in the song: "the fields of Kemper."

The same day as new arrived of the grand defeat word came from the east that Count Meldroc of the Maine de la Mer's had also raised his banners.  he claimed pushing out the French had been a farce.  The crown had distanced itself from its mission to decentralize and the Bretons had exchanged one tyrant for another.  With his army of barons and knights he marched on Monkontour with every intent to roll back the power of the crown.  The siege was long and hard and Arzhul's wife died from squalor created when food and supplies were cut off from the castle.  

      Arzhul was at a complete loss, his levies had been depleted far too much for a two front war.  Fortunately, the King of Middle Francia, an old friend of Arzhul I arrived with a sizable host which swept through the countryside.  The both armies were smashed promptly, but count Meldroc hid himself away in his castle to wait out the Germans.  Unfortunately, invading barbarians in the east drew the Franks back home.  Not all was bad in the kingdom Breizh.  Arzhul had married a young, beautiful Green woman.  She was a distant relative of the Greek Emperor, and was delicate and sickly in termperment, but said to be one of the most beautiful women in the known world.  The two were married and she gave Arzhul a son, named Arzhul

Queen Zoe Krateros was beloved by all in the kingdom, her husband loved her, but what of the others? 

.Unfortunately men folly in war and Arzhul had begun an affair with his brother Nikolaz's wife as she had been there to comfort him in the grief over his previous wife's passing.  This drove the brother's to fight, but all was kept secret from the young queen.  She was already sad in temperament and even bitter Nikolaz thought too highly of her to bring such grief upon her.       

Meldroc had created a stalemate and so while the count of Leon pleaded to keep his title, Meldroc was able to draft up a punishing white peace.  The king's younger brother Leri was granted the county of Leon in return for being further displaced in the line of succession.  The cost of the kingdom was involvement in the German-Pagan wars of 827.  The King of Germany defended bravely against a rekindled Saxon kingdom, while the King of Middle Francia defended the coasts against Norse invaders.
As the wars in the east wrapped up, the hordes of the north retreated to the icey hell from which they came, the kingdom found itself stable once again.  Newly appointed counts kept local barons in line.  Years of plotting and scheming unsuccessfully had earned him little but trouble.  It was time to cast such endeavors aside.  He would rule more justly from now on and take on just pursuits.  For too long the kingdom had been focused on the problems at home when the real enemy lay outside the realm.  The Cathar King had grown and it was rumored he filled his court with supple young men and boys, neglecting his wife.  As Arzhul crafted war plans a his marshal

Nikolaz arrived with a woman in tow.  It was claimed she had been casting horrible curses upon the crops in the name of the the French king.  There was no choice for her fate.  

  As the witch burned, Arzhul proclaimed in a rousing speech that he would rid the world of this French King, finishing his father's mission.  He would build a safe Kingdom for the Bretons, restoring Catholic glory!  
The invasion of Orleans began in 835.  Breton forces marched across the border and crushed the Cathar army outside Chateauroux in July.

The battle had be fierce, with some Cathar priest leading forces against Arzhul himself.  On the hot summer day Arzhul felt reborn in his mission.  The French were the real enemy.

Clash of light infantry at the battle of Chateauroux

With the main Cathar host crushed and routed, the Cathar king was trapped within his own capital.  The Breton armies circled Blois in August and by September the castle fell.  King Sunnegsil managed to escape with his priestly wife and four children in the chaos of the battle, while his pleasure palace of young men was put to the sword. There was no doubting that Orleans was Breton-Catholic clay.

 The holy war left left the French without a viable military and it quickly descended into civil war and strife.  In Paris a council of nobles met to discuss the future of the French kingdom and whether it was worth following their decadent boy-king and the wife some claimed was a witch.  Content that the threat had been adequately dealt with for the time being, Arzhul returned to Domnonia to host a large feast.  He awarded the counties of Orleans and Blois to a general who had proven himself in the taking of the city and a merchant who had helped fund the war.



Those internal problems which had seemed so trivial before the war were had only festered.  As it turns out ignoring problems does not mean they go away or cease to exist.  The repercussions of his previous attempts at cloak and dagger diplomacy were coming back to haunt him.
A daughter was born of his infidelity with his brother's wife and it came of light that the cook's wife had been detained for no reason.  In an effort rule with the same conviction as he had gone after the Cathars, he admitted the child as his, released the cook's wife and set out to bring order to the countryside.
   


Arzhul had grown to love his beautiful wife, but she spurned him from his bed.  To make it up to her he promised to wipe all evil from the land.  The corruption of his own land had clearly led to the corruption of his own soul, a bastardization of his mission to conquer.  He made war upon the raiders, pushing them back to their boats each time they arrived at the shores.  This took him away from court for two years.

Raiders arrive outside the capital

In 837 the Vikings landed just outside of Monktontour.  They had heard tales of the beautiful queen left alone while he husband fought abroad to win back her favor.  Arzhul rushed home to fight the barbarians on the beaches north of the castle walls.  The vikings were crushed as they came upon the beach.  Arzhul's tactics were praised and he famously claimed:

"Nothing from the sea can hurt us, we are of the sea!"  

 Though the Bretons found themselves the victors, Arzhul did find himself harmed by these men from the sea.  An axe was lodged in his thigh, leaving him maimed and unable to walk without help from a cane for the rest of his days.

 Arzhul spent the next two years in his castle recovering.  Fevers came and went and there were times when it looked as though he would not pull through.  It was not until he was visited by his wife and forgiven that he began to recover.  The kingdom was stable during his recovery, and with no amries to pay and wars to fight the royal coffers overflowed.  The King's son Bohemond came of age and returned from his training with Nikolaz.  He had a sharp mind for military matters, but was content and social preferring the life of an armchair general to actually studying histories and strategies.  


Upon fully recovering from his injuries, Arzhul announced a grand Christmas feast to honor the prosperity of the kingdom in 845.  All of his vassals attended and the fires burned as snow piled up outside the city walls.  When the court was well in their cups Arzhul stood from his throne and quieted the assembly.  He had not been seen in nearly two years, but even with his cane he exhuded far more confidence and command than he ever did in the years after he took his father's seat.  He had a court of loyal bannermen surrounding him now and he had overseen the expansion of his kingdom and the breaking of the French.  No longer would Breizh be mocked by the Germans and Lombards as a "petty kingdom" like the irrelevant Saxon kings across the channel.  Arzhul placed upon his head a golden crown and declared himself the King of Armorica.  He claimed the right to all land between the Seine and Loire rivers as sacred celtic-Catholic land.  As the great hall erupted in cheers and song Arzhul II of Breizh became Arzhul I of Armorica.  He sent forth letters around Europe, so that those who claimed celtic lands might know of his coming and tremble in his wake.

Arzhul, wearing his new crown, commands news of his coronation be sent out across Europe.

  The letters were sent with sprigs of lavender from the gardens of Morvan the Gardener to prove their origin and authenticity.  After 845 the Breton kingdom is always depicted as a shade of lavendar on the map.

Wars against the Cathar Boy King Sunnesisil of France, Arzhul I of Breizh, 810-827

Arzhul I trains in son Meldroc in the yard

War was declared in 810.  King Arzhul of Breizh called together a mighty host in Monkontor.  The fat king of Bavaria had joined him the previous month.  He felt cheated by the premature and uneventful death of the Cathar King and sought to personally escort them to the gates of hell.  They were soon joined by King Froila de Cantabria of Austurias.  The young king was honoring his word in joining the fight against the Franks, terms agreed upon when the Iberian King had agreed to marry Arzhul's younger sister.  It was not a hard sell, the King was perhaps more devout than even Arzhul.  His family had been fighting the Saracen in Iberia for nearly a hundred years.  His kingdom was carved out of the norther third of the peninsula.  It was the only Christian kingdom which remained.  The young king had taken a break from the constant fighting of infidels on his southern border to join Arzhul in the north that they might smash justly smash infidels here too.

    When the goth arrived Arzhul had been training in the yard with his young son and heir Meldroc.  The boy was learning quickly and had a natural talent for swordplay and strategy.  As the gothic retainers marched through the gates Arzhul greeted them warmly and embraced his sister.  It had been nearly a decade since they had last seen one another.  Arzhul invited the King and his host to the hall, where feast had surely already begun under King Theodo.  Froila was a man more fond of numbers than people.  temperate and cool he suggested that a meeting of the war council would be more wise and informed the King he would await word of such a meeting in his chambers.  Arzhul passed his equipment to his marshal went to the castle chapel.  He was torn between the advice of the warrior drunken with rage and ambition for vengeance in his mead hall and a coin counter who saw the word upon dusty paper rolls as facts and figures.

The territory of Rennes was directly to the east of Monkontor.  It fell quickly to the host armies.  Bretons lived on these lands, Catholic Bretons.  The common folk knew Arzhul to be a just ruler and often supplied his armies with food rather than burn it as they had been instructed by the Frankish nobility.  The Cathar boy King was already dealing with rebellions when the war had started and Arzhul's assault in the west forced him to redirect his armies.  Sensing weakness in the Cathar forces Arzhul forced his men to march across the war torn region of Maine htrough early December in the bitter cold.
 Just after Christmas of 811 Arzhul and his men arrived in Evreux.  He had an army of around 800 men, mostly heavily armored.  The region had borne the brunt of the war against the rebels and the castles were easy to seizing from the small guards left by the rebel lords.  With local lords refusing to supply levies to the unpopular French King he was forced to rely on a mercenary army from the east.  As the army set up camp along the Seine they heard a horrendous sound from the west.  The men whispered words of worry, claiming it was the sound of the steed of Lucifer himself.  Arzhul was not shaken, however.  This was exactly as he had hoped.  The Seine had frozen over and neither the foreign barbarians nor their heretic king and his council of false priests saw the trap they were running into.  
 

The frozen banks of the Seine are fortified
  

  Arzhul was a grand winter solider.  He had ordered the edges of the river fortified so as make it more difficult for the horse soldiers to cross the river.  He also knew that the Bavarian army had swept north through Mortain.  As the mercenary army reached the river the eager soldiers had their horses jump atop the icy river over the small palisades they had left on the eastern bank.  Those on the western bank were steeper and slowed the advance of the warriors.  Arzhul's host remained in the west, awaiting the Germans.  As more and more horses crowded the river the error of the warrior's strategy became apparent.  The ice below their horses' feet cracked and shattered.  As the ice gave way men and beasts were swallowed by the dozen. French soldiers even report sea monsters breaking the ice from below to swallow man and animal whole.

   The Bavarians had crossed the shore further north and descended upon the remaining French army from behind.  The Cathars stood no chance, they had been broken, frozen and drowned.  In his castle the young Cathar King Sunnesisil Baugulfson tantrumed and reported night terrors from his castle in Blois.  He was convinced the Bretons HAD been sea monsters and it is said he even avoided bath for fear Arzhul "the Just" may appear to kill him.

 It was a grand victory indeed.  The Bretons and Bavarians had smashed the entire French army and mercenaries while only losing just over a hundred of their own men.  By October of 812 it was clear the French would not regain any lost territory and ceded Rennes to rightful Breton, Catholic rule.      

Following the war for Rennes, the Kingdom of Breizh needed time to recover.  Many young men were lost from disease, desertion, and battle death increasing the pressure on the peasant populations.  The wars were also expensive and the royal coffers needed time to recover.  Arzhul withdrew to the royal grounds surrounding the palace.  He found the isolation of hunting delightful.  With the cares of the realm in the hands of his steward he was able to focus on the hunt.

  Isolated in the woods Arzhul was able to focus on his two joys, quiet prayer and educating his son Meldroc.  Arzhul knew war with the Cathars was only delayed and groomed the young prince for command.  The two men bonded over the hunt, Meldroc even gifting his father a prized hunting dog.  The King named the dog "Faithful," a testament to his consistent piety through all of his endeavors.

The rumors of the White Stag surfaced in 816, Arzhul called his men together for a grand hunt.  He ventured into the royal forests surrounding Monkontour for forty days and forty nights.  The stag was sighted several times and was even chased by Prince Meldroc for two hours, but eluded the party.  The defeat crushed the King, who interpreted the failed hunt as a sign of God's disfavor.  He was certain the crown which rested on the Cathar boy king would elude him much as the beast had.

King Arzhul of Breizh leaves for the grand hunt with his sons Meldroc, Arzhul, and Nicholaz

In 1819 the young prince Meldroc turned 16.  A large ceremony was held in Monkontour.  The feast not only celebrated the life of the young olive skinned lad's birthday, but also his marriage and first command assignment.  Raiders from Tjust commanded by the viking warlord Birger had landed ashore in the west.  

The mighty Viking Warlord Birger of Tjust slays Prince Merdoc with a swing of his waraxe.

  Meldroc personally led the King's levies against the Viking raiders.  While the barbarians were routed, the eager prince was insistent on leading the vanguard.  Warriors from both sides report the leaders of the two armies met in personal combat on a bridge in northern county Kernev.  While the brawl was close the more experienced warlord felled the prince with his waraxe, smashing his shield and launching him from the bridge.  The Breton host was victorious due to their superior military organization and numbers, but the warlord escaped to his ships in the fray, living out his days terrorizing the coats of Britannia and northern Germany.  

Back in Monkontour the news was bittersweet.  His son had earned an honorable death fighting against and routing the pagans, but the cost was tremendous and sent the King spiraling further into depression.  the King's second son Arzhul had been his squire since Meldroc's coming of age and Arzhul also took his youngest son Nicholaz for personal education.  He would not risk his younger children in the hands of others.  Their lives were far too fragile.
  

As a coastal trading people, the Bretons often interacted with merchants from exotic places.  While fewer foreign oddities graced the halls of Monkontour than in Naples, Venice or Constantinople, travelers from the east occasionally brought exotic foods and spices to trade for furs, wheat and wines.  One such trader relayed that a great Khan in the east had converted to the Manichean faith.  His priest were interested in the dualistic nature of the world and declared all Zoroastrians heretics.  due to his military might the Khan's endorsement led to the maltreatment of Zoroastrians across the eastern steppe.  Arzhul knew of the Manicheans.  He had happened upon their doctrine when researching the great saints.  Some accounts held that Augustine of Hippo had been a Manichean before he accepted Christ.

Later that year in 821 war broke out over a border dispute with the count of Thours.  The war was swift, ending in October of 822 with the count publicly recognizing Arzhul of rightful ruler of the lands north of the Loire.  Breton territory was again defended against French encroachment and the French count agreed to pay the Breton king a tribute to maintain his sovereignty.  The mercy shown by not taking the French lands was discussed from Ireland to Carthay.  Arzhul's devotion to the ideals of his religion were surely not the be questioned.  He was a "true Christian knight" in every sense of the words.  In conjunction with his court Chaplin he worked tirelessly on a treatise on chivalry by the same name.  Copies of the scrolls have been recovered from as far east of Novgorod to as far south as Salerno.  such endevours kept him busy, but also created distance between him and his sons.  He devoted less time to their education and more time to his studies and hunting.  In the records kept by his Chaplin several instances were reported of his sons not living up to their fathers expectations in combat training and courtly matters.  The religious scribe notes, however, that these interactions were heavily filtered through the King's grief over the death of Meldroc and that his son Nicholaz in particular developed into a brave young warrior despite his father's scorn.

As the vitory feasts from the wars against the count of Thours died down Arzhul called a special meeting of his war council.  The time had come for another war against the boy king Sunnesisil.  The boy-King had finally come of age and was ruling his kingdom with the charisma his father had once inspired.  He was kind and gregarious but spoiled and gluttonous.  It was surely time more rightful Breton clay was wrestled from his shadowy stranglehold.

Arzhul was an experienced war veteran, a man past 50 years, known for his chivalry and expertise in frosted winter combat.  They would attack in November, just as the first snowfalls began.  A young Anglo-Saxon King was present at the meeting.  King Aethelred Wuffing of East Anglia had recently married Arzhul's younger sister.  It was expected that armies from Anglia would join in the war against the Cathars.  Once a concise battle plan was decided upon the two men set out east with their levies.

 
The young Anglican king was diligent, but proud.  He felt he could single handedly crush the Cathar menace if he marched his levies to the south early.  In march he attacked French mercenaries outside the stronghold of Angers before the Breton army arrived.

the brash King Athelred II charges into battle before reinforcements can arrive.

 Breton forces were marched hard across Maine in an effort to join the fight.  When they finally arrived it was too late for strategy and Arzhul was forced to rush to defend the middle of the army which seemed in danger of falling to the strong French left flank.  

  In the course of the Melee King Arzhul was knocked from his horse.  He fought valiantly, but a Cathar warrior cornered him and the tired old man was overwhelmed.  A crushing blow from the warrior's mace left the king crumbled and broken on the battlefield.  His sons took command of the armies and their sure command led to a victory for the Angles and Bretons.  He was pulled to safety by his retainers, but after the blow he was never the same.  He lacked the will of other men, and though he breathed and ate as they did, his mind had clearly departed this world and he seldom spoke for the rest of his life.

Cathar Warrior falls upon the King with his Mace

 Though the battle was lost in Angers and the Cathar armies routed the French King feasted in his fortress at Blois.  The man who fought Arzhul was the guest of honor, rewarded with titles and prestige.  At this meeting the boy King was drunk beyond his years on wine and power.  He gave a rousing speech in which he claimed those of the lineage of Morvan the builder to be monsters, the spawn of sea serpents and demons who had violated Christian women.  Enraged, he declared he would rid the world of all of the sea-loving Bretons.  If they were so enamored by their coasts he would personally drive them back into the sea.

French depiction of Sunnesisil, Cathar boy-King of France, twelfth century

"They were birthed of monsters, sea monsters!  

They are of the sea, and it is back into the sea where I 

shall drive them!  Their King lies broken and dumb about 

the Mayenne.  So he was crushed, so too will his false 

religion!  If his sons do not arrive to bend the knee and 

swear fealty to the crown, abandoning all claim to the 

false 

title King of Breizh within a fortnight they shall feel the 

full 

force of Catharism and depart this world in their sin!""

-King Sunnesil on the feat night in the honor and company of the court of France, 822 AD

The Cathar King's words turned out to be empty threats.  The King's Chancellor and younger brother Count Meldroc of Maine assumed the regency.  He was a pantient and social man who was fond of numbers.  He and the King had long been close as they shared a deep interest in religious studies and a deep hatred of the Cathars.  The regency organized the government in Monkontour while Arzhul's heir Arzhul led troops to capture Blois.  The war ended quickly with large swaths of the territory of Orleans being seized as personal holdings of the crown.  Due to the current laws only the king could delegate the titles won in a holy war.  Unfortunately the King's state kept him from making such decrees.  The regent Meldroc was in an excellent position to seize the titles for himself, but despite his eagerness to gain more territory, his strong bond with his brother compelled him to distract the court from such matters until the younger Arzhul could assume the throne.  Count Meldroc moved his study into the King's bedchamber and often spent his days working and carrying on conversations with his elder brother, praying that one day Arzhul "the Just" would respond.

Later depictions of Count Meldroc attribute his gracious and prosperous regency to his religious devotion.  Here Jesus points Meldroc towards the body of Arzhul the Just whose hand is open showing Meldroc the way towards just rule despite his vacant mental state.

Meldroc's regency was a time of peace, harvests were good and infrastructure was improved to several fo the royal castles.  In November of 825 Meldroc oversaw the coming of age festivities of Arzhul's eldest living son Arzhul.  during the festivties he married the boy to a Visigoth princess.  The Kingdom of Austurias had not fared well against Saracen encroachment and the King was eager for more Christian allies.  Good news was abound as word arrived that the new King of Germany was a Catholic.  Cathar France was surrounded on all sides.  The Heresy was finally contained.  

  

The young prince was humble and kind.  Though he had been fostered by Count Meldroc himself he was not nearly as skilled in courtly matters.  Unfold of company and quite fond of money the young prince seldom left his chambers.  his young bride was quite the opposite.  she was quick witted and gifted with figures, Meldroc hoped that her council would help the prince to come out of his shell when it came time for him to assume the throne.

In late July scandal struck court.  The recently appointed Brishop of Fontevraud assumed the kingdom's regency.  The man was said to be a master of word games, quick of mind and diligent in his efforts.  He was a bastard of court, an Italian who had been raised alongside Arzhul's own sons.  he served as steward to the King for many years and was known for his ability to squeeze extra taxes out of the common folk.

It is unclear why Meldroc released recency to Uberto.  Some cite Meldroc's religious zealotry.  Meldroc was known to nearly always heed the advice of his priests.  It would not have been a challenge for the newly appointed Bishop to sway the opinion of the King's brother if he shrouded it in religious language.  Uberto moved the regent offices out of Arzhul's bedchamber, and devoted far less attention to the bed infirm king and far more attention to his own pockets.

The kingdom was in a tough position.  Royal authority was at an all time low.  The heir apparent seldom left his room as these changes were taking place.  He knew little of the goings on in court and had little interest.  The kingdom needed a change, but was stuck in limbo as Arzhul held on to life.  It would seem his prediction following the grand hunt was true.  He would never live to see the Cathar king deposed and his kingdom could take no further action as he drew breath.               

The Death of Charles of Francia and a mission from God, Arzhul I of Breizh, 797-810

Stained glass representation of Arzhul I during coronation in the castle chapel at Monkontor, the black dove depicts the Bishop Selassie who served as a close advisory and friend, Castle Monkontor, Chapel of Arzhul.

On a crisp October evening Arzhul I was named petty king of Breizh.  The young 25 year old king had much to worry about.  Raiders from the north bombarded the coasts of Breizh while the Frankish menace continued to gain strength in the east.

Arzhul had a mind for military matters, some going so far as to call him a skilled tactician.  He bore the scares of earlier engagements with the vikings upon his face.  The perilous realities of the kingdom's situation made him paranoid and he trusted few of his advisers.  Arzhul trusted in little but himself and God.  A temperate and religious man, Arzhul often spent hours in a small chapel in Monkontor.

Arzhul's religious devotion often put him into contact with religious scholars who admired his dedication to religious matters.  Bishop Selassie, a secret eunuch and close friend of Arzhul's father who had had the honor of placing the crown upon Arzhul's head often visited the king in his study.  Arzhul confided in his friend that he feared the attacks upon the realm were God's judgement and that he trusted no one in the court.  The Bishop suggested Arzhul appeal to the lord directly and seek wisdom where God himself had once walked.  The Bishop had traveled far and wide as he had been a servant to a merchant caravan before he was in the service of Morvan I.  He regaled Arzhul with stories of the Levant and the wonders of the cities of Palestine.  It was clear to Arzhul that if he was to rule properly, he would have to seek out this wisdom himself.

In early November of 797 Arzhul began his pilgrimage to the holiest of cities, Jerusalem.  The Selassie, along with a small caravan of guards and close family members accompanied the king on his journey.  They stopped to pay their respects in many of the grand chruches which dotted the demense of the Karling Kingdom.  As they crossed the border into the kingdom of Lombardy their caravan was stopped by the retinue of the minor lord in the Alps.  Arzhul was woken from his slumber in his caravan and walked to attempt to resolve the dispute.  His mother had often spoken to him in the rough Germanic Lombard tongue, and he was able to communicate wit hte brigands who stood in the way of his Holy mission.  The ruffians were demanding payment to pass through their lands.  They pointed out that this was the only pass through the mountains, and that they had the caravan surrounded.  Arzhul was sure they would yield when he explained his quest, but the fat Lombard lordling laughed and mocked him.    

The Caravan was impressed by Arzhul's bravery as he drew his sword and slapped the Lombard across the face with the flat of his blade.  The corpulent count muttered a swear Arzhul did not recognize and drew his blade.  Steel clashed and echoed throughout the mountain pass.  Moments later the count lay gasping upon the ground.  Arzhul showed mercy and allowed the man to live, suggesting he spend time in prayer.  Perhaps God could lad this wretch down a more noble path.  The man's retinue surrendered and turned the pike to allow the caravan to pass.  

By the end of  November the caravan was out of the mountains.  Arzhul sought out a Genoan merchant fleet to take him and his retinue the rest of the way to the holy city.  While he had no trust of merchants he found the Italian-made ships to be sturdy and pleasurable.  He had spent some time with his father sailing in the seas off the coast of Leon and was no stranger to seafaring.  He spent many a night with the merchant men below deck exchanging war stories in his choppy Lombardic.  He warned them of the viking menace to the north, but the sun-loving Lombards feared not the frozen warriors from the far end of the world and dismissed his stories as legend.  

By mid December the ships docked in Jerusalem.  Arzhul was in awe of the grand place.  While the city was ruled by the accursed Abbasid Muhammadans, they allowed Christians to worship within in the walls of the city so long as they paid special taxes.  Arzhul visited every sacred spot he could.  After a week of intensive prayer Arzhul hired a local merchant fleet that was headed to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the north to carry his caravan back.  The trip back was swift and pleasant and gave the young king time to reflect on the kingdom he would have to rule when he returned.  

Upon his arrival Arzhul found much had happened in his absence.  The Frankish king Charles was unable to control the massive empire he had inherited from his brother.  The Germans of the east were rebelling against him. By September of 802 Arzhul had spent time training troops and planning with his advisers, confident in his abilities declared a war of liberation on the Frankish king.  The lands of Rennes belong to the celts!  Arzhul reflected on his father and felt hte man would have been proud of such a declaration.  The fertile lands of Rennes were his by right as the king of Breizh.  Arzhul gathered his troops and marched into Frankish lands.  Rennes was quickly liberated as the Frankish host fought on in the east.  Arzhul, perhaps in hubris marched his army further east, he would take Paris!  

The army was stopped in Orleans where n the crashed down upon a true Frankish army.  The two hosts of nearly 2000 men each clashed in the fields outside of the castle of Orleans.  Arzhul personally led a flank against an Austurian Prince.  Thew flank charged out of the woods and painted the field red with Visigothic blood.

As the Bretons celebrated victory Arzhul sat alone in his tent.  He had long been a temperate man and was more concerned with planning his next move rather than reveling in the results of his previous victories.  His prayer was broken by his marashal who dragged in a monster of a man.  Arzhul recoiled in terror at the grotesque before him.  It was none other than Charles' own blood, Pepin, known throughout Europe as "the hunchback."  The King's bastard begged mercy before Arzhul. 

Arzhul chose mercy and sent the abomination back to Monkontor with a small guard.  The man would spend the rest of his life in the dark dungeons below Monkontor.  

Arzhul's capture of Pepin the Hunchback

As they rode towards Paris, Bishop Selassie asked why he allowed the Son of David, Dodai to ride with the caravan and sit in at the military council meetings.  The king explained it was the wise council of Dodai which had delivered him victory at the battle of Orleans.  His connections extended into the French cities and Dodai had supplied the king with important logistical information.  The Bishop warned Arzhul that the Jews could be dangerous and treacherous.  Arzhul argued that they were both children of God and that Dodai's information was as useful as any other.

The Breton armies marched further into the Frankish Kingdom, setting up a siege around Paris in May of 803.  The warm afternoons caused the camps around the city to fester and Arzhul feared that the Breton army would implode below the weigh of disease and heat.  Perhaps it was the sour vapors hovering around its tent, or the lousy rations the army had salvaged from the villages around the city, but Arzhul found himself reflecting on the war.  He thought of the birth of his daughter Mary, the death of his Pictish wife and his remarriage to a Byzantine Princess.  The ceremony had been small and swift as Arzhul was busy fighting in France.  

King Arzhul laments the end of the siege of Paris, as the sick die around him in the squalor of the camp, 18th century depiction

After nearly a month of grueling siege-craft the king found himself in a difficult situation.  While he had bested the Franks in every engagement and though the bastard monster seed of the Frankish king rotted in the dungeons of Monkontor, his coffers had been run nearly dry.  To supplement his Breton levies he had hired a crew of Swiss brigands.  Though Paris was close to capture he feared the next time the crew's captain came asking for pay, the crown would be unable to fit the bill.  Mercenaries often turn on their masters when the coins stop flowing and such a betrayal from within was too great a rish for the king to take with his subjects.  Rather than risk such a decimation Arzhul sued Charles the Frank for a white peace with pre-conflict borders restored.

  

Peace was signed in June of 803.  The armies returned home, farmers returned to their homes and Arzhul spent many nights alone in quiet religious study.  fighting the Bretons in the west had drawn much of Charles' levies away from the rebels in the east.  He was forced to submit to their demands and opened up his titles to succession by election from a caucus of nobles.  Arzhul was distraught, this war was supposed to be the right path, one directed by God.  He was sure he was supposed to march east, but he had failed.  After two years of reflection in Monkontor, his prayers were answered.  

The Frankish tyrant passed in 805.  The common folk of Breizh danced in the streets.  Festivals were thrown throughout the kingdom.

Mummers mock the Franks in the city of Sant-Breig outside Monkontor

Mummers put on shows depicting the vile acts King Charles committed to sire his bastard and often ended with the monster's capture by King Arzhul.  It was a true story of a gallant knight slaying a horrible beast that survives even today due to the epic poem The Knight and the Giant.  The Kingdom of West Francia split, first into wast and middle Francia.  Carolingian boy-kings assume both thrones, but the young prince in the west is quickly supplanted by a vile Frenchman.  

The Frankish Kingdom is divided in Cathar West Francia and Karling Middle Francia

Festivities roared in the towns and castles throughout Breizh, but things were more solemn in Monkontour.  A Cathar King who called himself Frobert the German had placed the crown of Pepin upon his head in Paris.  In a rallying speech in which he dressed in ragged-priestly robes he rallied the spirits of the people of France, claiming all men could commune with God and that women shared just as special a connection as men.  He denounced the clergy as a special estate and sought to spread his vile heresy to all Christian peoples, and establish a new Eden in Europe.  The French people found hope in his message and clamored to his banner.

Dressed in peasant robes King Frobert addresses the French people as they mourn the death of King Charles, a Breton spy listens below, hand on the hilt of his sword.  

 Such a vile thing could not be allowed to survive.  It was a danger to all good Catholics.  This was the sign sought by Arzhul in his pilgrimage.  This was his mission.  He would liberate Armocia as a living place for Bretons, reclaiming their ancient homelands.  Those that they had been pushed off from first by the Romans and now by the Franks.  Feasting halls and evenings of revelry were called to a halt in castles, town halls and grand cathedrals around Breizh.  War had been declared, holy war.  

Wickedness must be stamped out!  

Early in 808 Breton armies crossed the border into Rennes.  A band of Saxon mercenaries joins the main host and clash against German blades.  Arzhul sent word to the kings of the distant kingdoms of Austurias and Bavaria, as well as the great horse king of the Magyars.  His children had been wed to rulers and children from all three kingdoms, and they had an obligation to help defend Christendom from attack.  As the castle of Rennes was taken Arzhul received word that the Iberians and Magyard were too busy with conflicts of their own and while they offered their support in spirit, no troops would make the trip to the norht and west.  The King of Bavaria, Theodo III lent his support and immediate marched troops over the Alps to aid the Breton cause.  Theodo was an ambitious man and hoped to regain the glory he had lost after being humiliated in combat b the king of the Lombards.  A weakened Germany would only benefit both kingdoms.  

When Theodo's armies met up with the main host, Theodo publicly denounced the Frankish Frobert 

as a false king of Germany as he was no true German.  He wished many curses upon the Cathar King, calling him "the Shadow," a name which he often bears in the histories of Breton monks at the time.

Not soon after the war came to a sudden end.  King Frobert often interacted directly with the common people.  Many saw "the Shadow" as a living prophet and threw themselves into a religious frenzy in his presence.  During one such occasion a madman grabbed the King leaving a long bloodly gash along his leg.  The injury festered and killed Frobert in April of 808.  His kingdom was divided between his Young son, Sunnesisil in the west and an old German Cathar noble in the east.  Arzhul's war would have to be put on hold.  The Bavarians marched their army back to the east and Arzhul returned to Monkontor to regroup.     

The royal treasury and Breizh's levies were nearly depleted by the war.  For two years King Arzhul sat in the walls of Monkontor and held court waiting for a chance to strike.  He focused more heavily on ruling than religious study for the first time in his life.  His old friend Brishop Selassie had long sense passed on to heaven and he felt he already understood what his mission from God was, but his kingdom would have to be united in order to accomplish such a task.  

In December of 809 a Saxon adventurer led a host in an attempt to reclaim the lands taken from Saxons by Arzhul's father.  The host was routed in December at the battle of Kernev.  Arzhul used the white banners of Breizh to his advantage and surprised the Saxon host as they landed their ships in Kernev.  It is said Arzhul met the Saxon brigand in direct combat, forced him to yield.  whether this is true or legend the battle is remembered in military histories as one of the greatest sneak attacks of all time and the Saxon adventurer was thrown into the dungeons.  The brigand was forced to share a small dark cell with Pepin the hunchback.  His children were taken as prisoners of the court to be raised as proper Bretons.  

Arzhul had long been known for his honor and fairness due to his deep devotion to his religious studies.  None could question that his judgement did not have some sort of scriptural support, but the mercy he showed the children along with his acceptance of the Saxons' surrender earned him the moniker "the Just."

   

Arzhul surprises the Saxons by hiding in the white of the snow.

Even a just king must consider starting wars, and in 810 a new opportunity for religious justice against the Cathars in the east presented itself.