IMPORTANT Note: In the four posts that follow several (large) sections were written by other players in the T&G campaign. They are thus not my work. I have inserted these as quotes. If the players in question do not want them here, please PM and I shall remove them, but I think most have already said, or indicated otherwise, that it is ok.
Inside a tent in the camp of the Compagnia del Sole“Are you sure this is right? This is what is best?” asked Captain Niccolò Forteguerra
Captain Frederico Matallesta was not in the mood for elaborate explanations and long-winded justifications. As far as he was concerned the officers had agreed before, and now he was acting upon that agreement. This was not the time for them to change their mind.
“Yes,” he answered. “You agreed before, and I took you at your word. Condlumar is not a worthy employer, and he will lead us to ruin. This much is plain to see. Tell me now, will you go through with this?”
The younger captain did not show any sign of agreement. Instead he cast a questioning look at the other man there, sergeant Zacharie. When he said nothing, simply fixing him with his own stern stare, Niccolò spoke again. “I know what they say Condlumar has done. But there is no proof - other than his grief and his angry bursts.”
Frederico laughed. “Ha! You think I care what he is accused of? You have misunderstood. We must look to the Compagnia’s future, not the high priest’s. Every man amongst us wants for pay, yet this high priest would lead us on some foolish charge into oblivion. He would have us fight a foe we need not fight, for no pay, to be certainly overwhelmed. The Despot, however, will pay us. He would not throw us to the lions simply to satisfy his own grief. We all know we should not have let Condlumar take general Villeteschi’s place. It is not for this priestly employer to command us this way. Villeteschi would not have let him do so.”
“But …” began Niccolò.
“No,” interrupted Frederico. “No buts. Tell me now, are you with us?”
Niccolò bowed his head for a moment, then with conviction this time, said, “I am with you.”
“Good. Then listen carefully, this is the plan …”
Later that nightIt was Niccolò’s job to draw Condlumar’s son away, as well as those other men who were so often at the high priest’s side. Thus it was that he approached Pilocomini even as the young gentleman’s father was talking with the captain of his men at arms a little distance away.
It didn’t take much to lure them away. There was no need for cunning, or persuasive words, or even lies. All it took was the promise of wine and a little repast - which is what they would get - and the men came away easily. It never occurred to any of them to distrust the noble standard bearer.
With Condlumar himself, however, was a man who would prove much more difficult to deal with if he was not suitably distracted - Captain Giacomo Pigitliano.
Frederico had considered this, and thus it was that the Brettonian sergeant Zacharie stood close by making a show of voicing some concern over the camp’s palisade defence.
“Any damned fool can see that this could be easily removed. The stakes are not set deep enough - this is nought but the illusion of defence.”
Then, as if only just noticing Frederico for the first time, the sergeant called him over. “Captain, you must tell these fools that this work is shoddy, that it must be redone. Look here …”
Frederico was already on his way over.
With little reason to remain there, and no desire to become involved in the soldiers’ concern over fencing, Condlumar began his walk back to his own pavilion. Already the conspirators were moving in …
… led by the full plate armoured Alberino, Fredrico’s own personal guard and a man renowned for having faced many perils in battle.
The trick, you see, was how to subdue a battle priest such as Condlumar. He had proven that he was not afraid of a fight, for he had gone into battle with the Compagnia del Sole twice, removing the bones of Castriccio della Scara even while Ogres were being killed all around him. And he could wield cruel and terrible battle magics, something nearly all in the Compagnia had seen.
So to capture him would take cunning, skill and a lot of nerve. And Alberino, a man who believed that there was no substitute for a sharp blade, the prowess to use it well, and a suit of full plate. Men such as that were thought to quell the effects of magic, as if they had about them the same sort of aura that dwarfs were renowned for.
In the end, and though there was a moment that it all looked as if it might go badly, Condlumar proved more malleable than the soldiers had expected, more even than they could have hoped. It seemed to Frederico as if the old man had no fight left in him, and almost welcomed events. (Or perhaps no longer cared.) He had indeed noticed that a change had come Condlumar ever since the news of Lord Silic’s death had been brought to him. But even before that, there was something odd about his behaviour, foremost being the way the goddess and her church had gone from being his daily devotion to being almost forgotten.
Thus it was that Condlumar was led away by a route carefully planned beforehand, and guarded at all key points where witnesses might be encountered by soldiers loyal to Frederico.
Condlumar was quiet. He knew what the soldiers where doing, and why - he had suspected it for some time now. He had no real wish to resist, for a part of him wanted to meet with his accusers face to face, and he looked forward to defending himself before the Despot. The god Solkan, whom the Despot had cited as having jurisdiction over this matter, was a god of vengeance. And this had without a doubt been a matter of vengeance. It would be good to get to grips with a doctrine that simple, with strictures as clear as: “Never allow a wrong to go unanswered”.
He knew he was not in the wrong, how carefully he had chosen his words when he discussed with the foe and the Despot, and that Solkan was surely with him. How else had his enemy been so easily dispatched. Vengeance was done.
And if the men he was about to meet were stubborn in their denial of these facts, he cared not. He had done what must be done. His son was avenged. Solkan was satisfied. Now there was no more for him to do. He was ready for the end.
Before long the little group were out of the camp and approaching that part of the area patrolled by the undead Legionaries of Lucius Valerius Maximus. The sense that they were being watched came long before the proof of it. Then, as they came to the pre-arranged spot, suddenly Maximus’ soldiers appeared.
Condlumar simply smiled. It would be a quiet walk, it seemed, to meet with the despot, and that suited him. Dead men were unlikely to trouble him with banter and questions. He would have the peace he needed to ponder his fate.
Before him a purple-cloaked skeleton carrying a vicious cleaver of a blade stepped forwards. Greaves hung loosely down from the man of bone’s knees, something which a living man might have found uncomfortable but would obviously not trouble this man. His helmet was of a strange and ancient design, bearing a spear like adornment. Somewhere in the back of his mind Condlumar realised that this was the ancient uniform of a centurion, the helmet having long since lost its decorative horse-tail.
The centurion beckoned with his gauntleted finger, and Condlumar walked on. The officers of the Compagnia del Sole watched as their employer was taken away. All were glad they were not in his shoes.
The Skeleton saluted in the ancient Reman army way which can sometimes still be seen in certain military formations that can trace their lineage back that far.
The Skeletal officer however did break the unearthly silence that tended to permeate the area around the soldiers of Lucius Valerius Maximus's Legion. Condlumar noted, even through his miserly state, his mind ravaged by war, loss and treachery that the words were spoken in a magical fashion and not of the necromantic way of which the undead are normally re-animated.
Titus Flavius Turpio, Dominus, Pilus Prior of the Second Cohort of Legio IV Felix Invictus.
Condlumar nodded slowly, his lined face bore a half-smile.
Gabriele Condlumar, High Priest of the Goddess Myrmidia you are arrested for heresy and treason to the great god of law Solkan Invictus and the throne of the Reman Empire. You are taken into my custody in the name of the Megas Domestikos and await trial by Inquisition.
A squad of Legionaries silently trooped into a formation to the side and behind Condlumar, their ancient weapons ratting, the sound of armour on bone. They had no need to take hold of the old man physically, for Condlumar was led away towards the city, the dead of night enveloping the little party into total darkness, the moons curiously blocked from shining their lights down onto the scene where moments before they had illuminated the camp of the Compagnia del Sole.
To the officers watching, the Priest seemed to be swallowed up by the darkness.
The TrialThey sent one guard to collect Condlumar from his cell, a man at arms of the College of Inquisitors garbed in the white robes traditional for the escort of a prisoner to a treason trial. The guard thus gave the appearance of purity, cleanliness - an agent of law and order, whereas the accused no-one was yet sure about.
Of course there was also the gaoler, a man who Condlumar had grown to hate over the last few days of his incarceration. This was a man who seemed never to cease his mumbling monologue concerning his woes and the corrupt ways of the world. The high priest had quickly grown tired of his mutterings, though as the fellow led him through the maze like tunnels of the dungeons beneath the Despot’s Palace, Condlumar gained an insight as to why the man was so aggrieved. He was obviously a prisoner too, as indicated by the ball and chain fastened to his wrist. This man must have been pardoned a punishment on the promise of serving as gaoler in the damp, dingy and disease-ridden dungeons. Maybe he had every right to complain?
Finally, both Condlumar and the guard slowed by the fact that the gaoler (who would not yield the keys he had) came to the outer door of the dungeons. Of course he had no key for this door, and so stepped aside and let the guard do the honours. As the door opened sunlight streamed in, dazzling the priest, and sending the gaoler into an apoplexic fit of laughing.
Condlumar could not help but smile at the thought that the man who had done nothing but complain for days, suddenly, and just as he was about to leave him, found something to laugh about. When the gaoler, however, saw the smile he fell silent and scowled. His ugly face then disappeared as the guard closed the door and locked him back into his miserable domain.
Several stairways later and Condlumar finally reached the chamber in which the trial was to take place. There stood his judge and jury. The former would be Valerius Lucius Maximus, Megas Domestikos of Remas, acting in the Despot’s absence as Imperator. Being what he was, which no living man could ever forget for the merest moment when in his fearful presence, he was surrounded by servants and guards of a most horrific kind. Spearmen guarded the door of the chamber, whilst three torch bearers carried aloft the myrrh-scented torches that were always burned at such trials.
One nervous looking gnome attended as a secretary, having already begun scribbling in a leather bound tome, while the Pontifex Maximus and his College of Inquisitors stood off to one side, each one hooded so that their faces could not be seen, their reactions would be entirely unknown by witnesses and accused alike.
Within moments Condlumar was led to his place, and immediately the gnome’s squeaky voice began reading the indictment.
“Gabriele Condlumar, high priest of the church of Myrmidia and Trantian by birth, you are hereby accused of heresy against the great god of law Solkan Invictus and treason against the throne of the Reman Empire, for the ordering of the assassination of Prince Silic von Petrova, Count of Morea & Prince of Trantio.”
The little blue clad figure lifted his bespectacled face giving the impression that he was looking to see if Condlumar was still there, and then continued: “How do you plead?”
Condlumar spoke, his voice somewhat hoarse from his confinement in his subterranean cell.
“Not guilty.”
There was complete silence in the chamber.
Condlumar was standing behind the little form where prisoners of more humble birth and office would be expected to kneel, often three or four at a time whilst verdicts were quickly read out. Behind him there was a stone chair which revealed by its form and adornment just what means had been used in the past to extract confessional statements from the accused. No-one there would think to use such a thing upon a man such as Condlumar, a high priest and a wielder of magic who might (perhaps involuntarily) release harmful magics into the room if he were so tortured.
Behind him stood two more of the College of Inquisitors men at arms. Although these were not garbed in white as was the knightly soldier assigned personally to Condlumar, they too had a very traditional role, for they were armed with the very blades that would be used to behead traitors. One bore a long sword, the weapon of used when a noble was to be beheaded. The other carried a large polearm with a heavy, curved blade - this being the instrument that would hack a commoner to pieces for just the same crime.
Next to speak was Valerius Lucius Maximus, and his authority-laden and terrifying voice seemed to suit the circumstances much better than the gnome’s high-pitched pronouncements.
“We have a long list of accusers, starting with the Despot Nikephorus III Monomachus himself. They all say you are guilty. You must explain yourself, high priest. You shall have what time you need. Prove your innocence.”
Condlumar now surprised the company, muttering something about needing a seat and then turning to climb the dais behind him and sit upon the manacle adorned, blood-stained stone chair. The members of the college wondered whether he did not care it was such a seat, or whether he was so distracted he had not even noticed.
For a moment he merely glanced around the chamber, as if studying for the first time who was in the chamber …
(A massive thank you to ‘MyrmidianMan’ for painting this image of Condlumar) And then he began his speech.