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.