Chapter One: The Duke is dead, long live the Duke

Grey clouds spat cold droplets of water from the heavens as the funeral procession trudged through the muddy ground towards the stone tomb awaiting them at the top of the hill. Surrounded by mourners, the closed casket of Duke Aldris II bobbed as the men underneath it heaved under its heavy weight, fighting against the sludgy ground to bring the Duke to rest with some form of dignity.

The death itself had been rather undignified after all, the man bursting after injuring himself upon the pommel of his horses saddle, the gout that had plagued his later years causing his corpse to swell and swell until it exploded in a macabre mess.

One of the men straining under the weight of the Duke's coffin was his sole son and heir. Ander, who would soon be the third Duke of Albion to hold the name, was the forefront of the carriers of his fathers coffin, his face red with exertion and wet from the rain and his own sweat. The casket was heavy, and not just from the size of the remains within, but also from the gold and silver adorning it, moulded onto its sides by talented metalsmiths who had made lumps of colour into intricate depictions of wolves, the sigil of the family.

Although the weight of the coffin was horrendous, the smell of the Duke's corpse was at least abated by the lavender that had been put inside the coffin, ostensibly to honour him with the favourite flowers of his widowed wife, even if everyone from the artisans of Medwick to the peasants toiling in the fields of the Oldenford knew the late Duke preferred the company of his mistress to that of his own wife.

His first act as Duke had been to ban his father's mistress from attending his funeral. It was spiteful of Ander, but the look of gratitude and ensuing bone-crushing hug from his mother had made it worthwhile.

Finally, the reached the top of the slope, and the casket was lowered as a priest stepped forward, flicking oil onto the casket and muttering prayers in Telavik, the primary language of the Telalovian Empire. The casket bearers caught their breath whilst they waited, and Ander took the moment to survey the crowed around the casket. Many looked bored, with only a few trying their best to seem grieved. His father had not been a popular man, nor a respected one, and Ander wondered if he was to suffer a similar fate.

It was at that moment he spotted his mother, who's face was hidden in a black veil. She said nothing as she stared at the casket, face a blank mask that showed nothing. She looked up, the blue eyes Ander had inherited from her meeting his, and she smiled slightly, and he felt his back straighten and his chest puff a little. No matter what, he would always have someone in his corner so long as she was alive and he was determined not to let her total faith in him fail.

The priest finished his prayers, stepping away from the casket with a respectfully bowed head. The crowd of mourners held their heads down as Ander and the other casket bearers stepped forward once again, heaving the casket onto their shoulders and stepping forward into the dark tomb in front of them, the same tomb Ander himself would one day be buried.

After sliding the casket into place next to the one carrying his grandfather's body, Ander held back as the men who had helped him carry his father's casket slipped away towards the entrance. It was customary for the son to say the final words his father would hear, and Ander found himself struggling to think of anything.

The weight of the moment rolled down on top of him suddenly. For as much as he disliked the man's actions, there was no changing the fact he was his father, his progenitor. He would not, could not, let him slip away into the afterlife thinking his own flesh and blood loathed him.

"I will not let you down father." Ander whispered, voice echoing in the dim tomb. "I promise, I will look after Albion and I will look after our family. This I swear on my honour as an Allard."

He pressed a hand against the foot of his father's casket, trying to offer the spirit of his father comfort and himself a sense of closure. Then he exhaled a deep breath and squared his shoulders.

Ander Allard, third of his name and the Duke of Albion, stepped out of the Tomb of the Allards and helped seal it once more before leading the funeral procession back to the ancestral home of the Allard family since before the Telalovian Conquest.

.......................................................................................................

Once upon a time, Leechin Castle had been a bastion of the north, an impregnable fortress that dominated the lands now known as Albion for hundreds of years as an independent Kingdom. The nearby town of Medwick had been a centre of trade and the gateway to the northern realms of Danvar and Kirkland. The fertile fields of the Oldenford had filled the towns granaries and boosted its exports, making the region a major agricultural powerhouse and with it had come flocks of migrants who were put to work in the fields and smithies and taverns and so boosted the economic strength of the land, then known as Leechland, ever further.

But those migrants had been refugees, fleeing from the war machine of a distant southern power that was sweeping across the Central Highlands like a plague, defeating and annexing kingdom after kingdom, town after town, city state after city state.

Ander's ancestors had buried their heads in the sand, too eager to reap the benefits brought to them by the conquest in the form of a nearly limitless workforce that brought in ever higher tax revenues from the the tariffs on the goods they made and sold to the rent they paid for housing.

Then the Telalovians turned their attention north, to the rich, ripe and lazy kingdoms that had ignored the threat posed to them.

Like a wildfire, the Telalovian war machine burned, raided and destroyed. The Oldenford was salted to prevent the growth of crops, Medwick was razed and the canals that had been the lifeblood of trade to the north had been blocked, drained and buried. Leechin Castle was besieged and its wars torn down after the surrender of its garrison, many of whom were put to the sword.

Ander's ancestors had been spared due to the swiftness of their capitulation. Others were not so lucky.

Now Leechin Castle was, by all accounts, a shadow of its former self. Even with its defences rebuilt, it had restrictions put on it by the new Telalovian overlords, who had no need for a mighty bastion in the north. Medwick had been rebuilt, but the destruction of the canals and the seizure of the knowledge to build them by the Telalovians meant it could not rekindle the broken trade links to Danvar and Kirkland that had fuelled its growth as a centre of trade. The Oldenford had healed in time, but the famines that had ravaged Leechland due to the destruction of so much of its agriculture meant it no longer had the plenitude of workers that had allowed the astronomical amounts of food production it had previously seen.

Telalovian settlers had also brought problems, seeking to replaced the local culture, traditions and relgion with their own. Fortunately, they had only succeeded at converting them religiously, and even still some stuck to the old ways, albeit in secretive cults.

The worst insult was the forced renaming. Leechland became Albion. Leechlander became Albionic.

It meant servant in Telavik. A proud, independent people reduced to mere servants for their conquerors.

A knock at the door broke Ander from his musings as he poured over the history book. It was privately commissioned, hence the less positive take on the Telavonian Conquest, and Ander couldn't help but marvel at the differences between it and the books issued by the Telalovian administration.

"Brother?" A voice called through the door. "May we enter?"

"Come in Tyra." Ander exclaimed loudly. "The door is unlocked."

The wooden door creaked open as he closed the book and hid it in a drawer of his desk. Days ago it had been his father's desk, and sitting on the opposite side of it was still an unusual feeling for him.

His sister entered first, followed by his mother. Both of them wore black, as women were expected to mourn longer than men due to being more emotional creatures. It was clear to Ander that of the two, only his sister wore the mourning colours with any real semblance of genuine grief.

"Thank you both for coming." Ander smiled, raising a brow at the strange look on his sisters face. "Is something wrong?"

"No." His sister replied, unconvincingly. She waited for a few moments before sighing and caving under his sceptical look. "It's just...odd seeing you there. I...Part of me expected father to be sitting there, just like he usually would."

"I was thinking the same thing before you came in." Ander admitted, giving his sister a soft smile. "I expect it will be some time yet before things don't seem strange without father around."

"It will be longer for others than for some I would imagine." Tyra replied, rather pointedly, as she sat down without so much as a glance towards their mother, who merely looked amused at her children's conversation.

Of the seven pregnancies and five births, only two children born from his parent's union had survived until adulthood. Himself, and his younger sister, Tyra, who would be turning fifteen come the summer.

Ander prayed everyday he would not be forced to witness so many of his own children to die before they could grow up, having seen the toll each stillbirth and death had caused for both his mother and his father.

"Quite so." His mother nodded, agreeing with his sister, who stiffened with anger. "Regardless nothing will change the fact we have been summoned by our new Duke, to whom we owe our loyalty. Why have you called for us son?"

"To discuss marriage." Ander replied, watching his sister's face pale slightly. He picked up a small pile of letters and pushed them forward. "It seems father was in private negotiations with the Duke of Caldrick and the Baron of Oldenborough to marry you to either of their heirs Tyra. What do you think of such a match?"

"Neither!" Tyra exclaimed suddenly, desperaton clear in her voice and fright in her eyes. "Aldrick of Oldenborough is a brute and his son is no better! It's common knowledge the Duke-to-be of Caldrick spending time with whores than learning how to rule too!"

"If Tyra marries Aldrick of Oldenborough we gain the loyalty of our most rowdy vassal, though at the cost of giving their descendants a possible claim to our duchy." His mother interjected, cutting of Tyra's panicked explanations with a calm voice and causing his sister to stare at her in horror. "For all of Marwood of Caldrick's moral faults, a marriage to him would help secure our duchy as a major player in the Imperial arena through an alliance to the largest producer of iron and copper in the Empire. Both are sound options, though I imagine the offer from Caldrick is one with a deadline."

"It is." Ander answered, leaning back quietly. "Caldrick is eager to have a legitimate heir from his son before Marwood's reputation is sullied by bearing a bastard, something that seems more like a 'when' rather than 'if' question considering his proclivities."

"Brother please!" Tyra blurted, before slumping back into her seat and closing her eyes.

"Yes Tyra?" Ander asked, leaning forward. "Who would you rather marry?"

"Whomever you deem fit brother." Tyra replied icily, spitting out the word brother as if it was an insult. Ander kept his face passive.

"Would you run away if I tried to marry you off to either of them?"

"No."

'Liar' Ander thought. He leaned back in his seat.

"I won't force you to marry either of them." He said, and her eyes widened. "I won't force you to marry anyone. Should the time come, we will make the decision together."

"Really?!" Tyra gasped, and Ander couldn't help but smile.

"Really." He nodded. "But in return I want you to pay more attention to your studies. I'm not father Tyra, and as much as I might want to let you spend your days socialising with your ladies in waiting you do need to learn how to manage a keep and help rule a duchy alongside your future husband. If your tutor believes you aren't working hard enough then I will be forced to renege on our deal. So, are we in agreement?"

"We are." Tyra nodded solemnly, though her face wrinkled up suddenly. "Though I want a different tutor. Governess Rhia is annoying."

"Very well." Ander chuckled, knowing all too well the annoyance of an overbearing, overly strict tutor. "I'll see if I can lend you Roland from time to time when I don't need him to help administer the duchy. Unless there is anything else you want to talk about, you can leave and enjoy the rest of your day."

"Thank you brother!" Tyra said, hopping onto her feet and leaning over his desk to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you so much!"

She practically skipped out of the room, and Ander couldn't stop the cheek-hurting grin that spread on his face at the sheer happiness in his sister's words. As the only survivors of their parent's brood, they had always had a closeness that many siblings did not share. Her fear of being married off to a cruel or unfaithful man against her will had been something haunting her thoughts for a very long time. Hopefully they would be put to rest now.

"That was stupid of you." His mother said, though her tone was calm rather than biting or admonishing. "What if she decides she wants to marry a commoner or some lowly knight? What if she refuses to marry at all?"

"She'll find someone, and if she doesn't I could always use her help administering the duchy. She's quiet popular with the townsfolk at Medwick." Ander replied.

"That doesn't change the fact you are missing out on an opportunity to enhance Albion's prestige through an alliance with Caldrick." She pointed out. "We both know the Oldenboroughs were too ambitious to be an option, at least I hope you knew that. Caldrick is a massive opportunity you...you...his daughters."

Ander said nothing, instead watching as the look of vague curiousity on his mother's face turned into one of shock.

"Caldrick has a daughters. You'll offer to marry one of them instead of offering your sister to his son."

"I already have." Ander admitted, rubbing the armrest of his chair idly. "Caldrick has a dozen daughters, so he is unlikely to reject the proposition if he wants to marry them all off to someone with an equal rank to him, or to take much anger from the snub since he seems to have as low an opinion as everyone else does towards his son."

"You...What about you?" His mother asked softly. "Is there no-one you love? No-one you would prefer to marry? You are far from an unattractive marriage prospect, and many would gladly marry into the family through you."

"I don't." Ander lied, though for a moment he saw a smiling face with freckles and emerald eyes that glinted mischievously. "So I might as well take Caldrick's offer for an alliance, albeit through a different means of achieving it."

"You...You..." His mother sighed, before closing her eyes and standing up suddenly, stepping over to him and pulling him into a suffocating hug. "So young yet already you are a far greater man than your father was. How could someone like me have raised such a sweet boy like yourself?"

"You aren't that bad." Ander joked weakly, and she swatted his head before kissing his dark locks of hair before smoothing it down and releasing him, letting him breath. "Besides, it's not like I'm throwing myself onto a pile of swords."

"No, instead your risking your future happiness and casting aside the prospect of a marriage in which you love your bride." His mother retorted, making him frown.

"We might come to love one another." He protested, and his mother smiled a bitter, cynical smile.

"Like your father loved me and I him?" She pointed out, making him frown and look away. "You sweet fool. I love you, with all my heart, but that does not make me blind. You are too sweet, too loyal. I know you won't betray your wedding vows, but can you say the same of your wife? You love too easily, and I fear whoever Caldrick offers you will not return your love or your loyalty and won't share your sweetness."

She stopped, stepping away and opening the door to leave. She paused there, before sighing slightly.

"This marriage could break you, and all this for just your sister's happiness? You are a good man Ander, but good men rarely have happy endings in a world as cruel as this. I hope you know what you are doing."

She left then, leaving Ander in a room growing colder by the minute and a sinking feeling in his stomach.