Emperor Guiges II of Francia, 1410-1422 AD

The rarely trod path to God.

(Previously on Royal Dispatch.)

How’s that lineage look?

Guiges II is the first beardless emperor for several generations, all the way back to Raynaud III (well not counting Agnès). Other than that, yeah, he’s a Thouars.

I spend a lot of gold winning friends (or at least placating rivals) and buying more troops to puff up and look big, like holding my parka above my head to scare a bear. In this case the bear is various consortia of vassals who are factionalizin’ every which way to threaten my new rule. I calm everyone down, for the moment, but I think I’ll hold off on big wars to let spirits settle.

Mainly I need to get holy as fast as possible so I can do one of them lucrative kingdom-level crusades. I have a shot of actually taking Jerusalem myself with that casus belli in place. Still, with my vassals only just barely not rebelling, I wait awhile and let my new-emperor penalties subside a bit. Gives me time to contemplate a few minor holy wars to increase my piety, and fabricate further claims in Russian-ish space for more war up that way too someday.

Eventually I’m mostly beloved, and rightfully so. Ergo, time for some little fights. I declare a holy war for a chunk of the sultanate of Anbiya over in western Africa, as well as a handful of de jure mini-wars for independent islands that should be part of my realm anyway, since I’m in the neighborhood with a few hundred thousand soldiers.

The islands fall quickly, even as it costs me a fortune just to move a small detachment among them on subjugation duty. I lay sieges throughout Anbiya as thousands of Frenchmen bravely expire of thirsty attrition to execute my will in the desert.

As is usually the case, all this action gets the ol’ juices flowing, and my wife Fahriya gives birth to our third daughter, Mahaut. On the other end of the kid spectrum, our twins Étienne and Sybille come of age. I marry the former to Nastaran Damascuscid (irony, coincidence, and/or foreshadowing, since I’m targeting her realm eventually) and the latter to Ekbert Karling-Olomouc. I really don’t have a stake in these marriages anymore, but at least I can police them for inbreeding. The vast majority of Thoaurs end up marrying their relatives when left to their own devices, as there’s just too many of us and we’re too good looking.

Anbiya buckles after I take their capital and a whole clutch of royal children as hostages. I give the resulting duchy to my son Étienne as a wedding present. I’m about two thirds of the way toward being holy enough for the big war with Jerusalem as the prize.

Rather than muck about with any more little wars, I decide to just wait to accumulate piety until I can jump for that brass ring in the Holy Land. Through an occasional plot event, I manifest an ongoing obsession with a white wolf that might be a dream, or real, or Satan possibly. I go to lots and lots of parties and somehow avoid becoming either a drunk or Obese. Vassals die off and are replaced with their heirs, who agitate in factions until I drown their complaints with gold. My son Guiges comes of age and is duly married off to a Yolande de Castro Arquato. Babies are born. So many babies.

Then at last, through my dutiful dedication to the Lord:

Now I can finally launch a personal war for Jerusalem without all that bothersome popery involved with a capital C Crusade. Let’s get that bread!

Next: Me against everybody.