The Life and Death of Kaiser Ferdinand III of Holy Iridisian Empire
Edition IV, 1214
Foreword:
The tale of Kaiser Ferdinand III is truly unmatched in history. It is a tale of a son trying to live up to the impossible shoes given to him by his hated father. It is a tale filled with great intrigue, great victories and great defeats. It is a tale filled with both the highest of glories and the lowest of tragedies. But above all, it is a true story of a man of many virtues and many vices whose story is worth telling to those who will come after us.
My father was an imperfect man who lived a troubled life, but I would be a wicked and dishonourable son if I did not do him the justice that has not been afforded to him by his circumstances! Now, It is I that must fill his great shoes and I humbly write this knowing that my life and rule is secure because of him.
HIH Kaiser Ludwig IV
Act I: The Oiseaux Noose
Chapter I: Until Death do us Part.
1132, Kingdom of Oiseau
It was a warm breezy day in the grand and glorious city of Port-Royale from which one of the greatest processions in the history of man had just departed towards Châteaupaon. It is said that 500 carriages and wagons made up the party, filled with some of the most blue-blooded people in the world at the time. Among them were the King of Dråkenland and his Royal Consort, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Nijiridisian Faith, the King of Szczerbiec, the Tsar of Bedstviye, and many more. But two figures in particular stood high above the rest, the Kaiser and Kaiserin of the Holy Iridisian Empire; two of the most legendary figures in known history.
The Kaiser himself was the most famous living man of his time. Every single man, woman and child on Vitubia knew his name. He was the (in)famous Pomerlane, the greatest son of Pomerania and the idol of all wannabe commanders around the world. He needs no further introduction. But his wife, the Kaiserin Emylia, was arguably just as famous in her time as well. They were a true power couple, a model of greatness that every married couple sought to live up to.
With them came their many children, including the Kronprinz Ferdinand. The 23 year old Kronprinz was quite the impressive figure himself already, but lived in the shadow of his famous parents. Standing at a towering 190 cm, being 100 kg of pure muscle, strikingly handsome and charismatic; Ferdinand was the object of desire for all women on earth. One year prior, he had caught the attention of the Princess-Royale of Oiseau during her royal visit to Pomerania. The striking Ferdinand had captivated the heart of the Princess-Royale without hardly saying a word to her. The spoiled 12 year old Princess had to marry this man, and did everything in her power to get her desired match fulfilled. It didn’t matter that he was betrothed to a Princess of Dråkenland, she wasn’t going to let that stop her. She begged her father, the Duc d'Orleans, to make this happen even after he told her how unlikely it was. But alas, he caved to her pressure and met with the Kaiser himself. Wanting the best for his daughter, he made the case to Pomerlane that the match of his heir to his daughter would be of great benefit to both of them.
The Kaiser was skeptical, and offered the hand of another of his sons, but the Duc insisted that his daughter would only accept the Kronprinz’s hand. With a bit of reluctance, the Kaiser agreed after hearing of the great dowry that would come from this match. Had he known the trouble this match would bring for his son, he would have never agreed. He immediately canceled the betrothal that Ferdinand already had and immediately began officially opening channels for the union of his heir to the heiress of Oiseau.
Of course, Ferdinand was not consulted about any of this. He had grown rather fond of Olga, his Dråken match and was furious that this union was canceled in favor of the Oiseau connection. Not only was the Kronprinz 11 years older than his bride, but he barely knew her at all! He threatened to run off to Dråkenland and abandon his family out of anger. But, after a strong and brutal rebuking from the Kaiser, he reluctantly agreed. He may have hated his guts, but he also wanted to prove his father wrong as much as he could. (The truth is much of his life can be summed up there. He did things often just to prove what his father, no matter how long dead he was, wrong.)
As the caravan finally arrived in Châteaupaon in May, the most pompous wedding in all of history began. To give the reader some perspective, it is estimated that a third of the whole the yearly budget of the Kingdom of Oiseau was spent on this wedding, and those are just the conservative estimates! Every single aspect of this grand ceremony was meticulously mapped out and planned for months in advance. “It was one of the most elaborate and pretentious rituals I have ever seen. Every single object was made of some sort of gemstone, quartz, gold or silver. Even the toilets were overly extravagant ordained in the finest porcelain that your arse could ever sit upon. I have never seen anything like it and I wish to never see it again! ” wrote one of the men that was “lucky” to attend this wedding, the Prince of Sonnenberg who continued to say “Her Imperial Majesty, a lover of the pomp and circumstance of ceremonies, was aghast at how overly adorned everything was and how rigid the whole thing was. I distinctly remember her face being filled with disgust at how awkward the ceremony was and how forced it seemed! ‘This is no way for a marriage to be conducted! A union founded by this is doomed to fail!’ she remarked to me later.”
Ferdinand probably suffered the worst throughout it. Not only did he find it humiliating to be subjected to the obnoxious courtly rituals of the House of Paon, but his own personal hatred of peafowl, which he was forced to eat as part of the reception following the wedding, caused him to break with their customs by refusing to eat it. He slammed his fist on the table and demanded a medium rare steak, and nothing less! While much of the Oiseaux Court found this extremely rude, the aloof and young bride found it cute. Indeed, just about everything Ferdinand did enthralled her in some way. This would be something that remained with her throughout her life, and despite her many faults, her love for Ferdinand was truly unmatched.
The couple, as per custom, were granted a small cottage overlooking Lake Paon for the next two weeks to “bond” as the Imperial Entourage made their way back to Port-Royale and ultimately home. It is unknown how they spent this time together, as the secrecy of this time is also sacred, but one has to imagine given their marriage that Ferdinand was rather unenchanted by this time and it was not a pleasant time for him. He likely did as little as he could to entertain his young bride while counting the days by until he could get out of this living hell he was being subjected to and finally get to something he had long awaited, that his role as a Corp Commander in the Pomeranian Expeditionary Force that had been sent to Oiseau as part of this union to finally rid the nation of the heathens that invaded her so many years ago. Finally, he could prove himself worthy of the throne he would inherit through greatness shown here, he must have contemplated.