I spent five years learning my trade. Oskar took me into the highlands where I learnt from the finest teacher, experience. I was I suppose his page and squire all rolled into one. Except that I had none of the ritual or formalities of chivalry to learn. Nor was I strictly serving him alone. He needed someone who was quick on their feet as they were with their wits. I looked after his equipment and drafted documents for him. In exchange he taught me how to be a warrior.

There was always fighting in the highlands. House Averntide was a bastion of stability in the Isles. None of their neighbors touched them out of respect and fear. Some of the great houses too maintained the peace. Conflict between them would have been disastrous to the established balance of power. The smaller houses and the highland clans however were another story. Border wars, cattle raids, blood feuds. If one of them was not actively fighting the other, they just had not gotten around to it yet. I cut my teeth in these small conflicts.

No, you are mistaken if you think that I had the luxury of a training yard. It was all on the job training. I was on campaign the moment I went north. Clan Campbell was feuding with the McDonalds. A rivalry as old as time I wager. The root cause of the conflict as far as I know has been long forgotten. However, the mad bastards seem to make new reasons to continue the feud every year. I suppose they are a clear-cut example of the vicious cycle of revenge.

Not that any of that mattered to me. Or to the hundreds of freebooters and mercenaries they hired every season. The Campbells territory was a whole lot of salt bogs unfit for farming. Even the salt itself was unfit for consumption. It was bitter and nauseating when consumed. Though it did make a loud popping noise if thrown into a fire. What made the Campbells rich was that their useless bogs were riddled with tin. They used that money to hire us to protect their mines and raid the McDonalds.

The McDonalds were equally wealthy from their large cattle herds. I admit that theirs were insignificant when compared to the size your cattle barons keep, but this was the Isles. They eventually changed into rearing sheep but that was after the spinning jenny was introduced. Oskar took the Campbells coin because, “raiding cattle is a lot more convenient than raiding tin”. Sage advice. One had legs and the other did not. I know I’d rather be herding cows than lugging ingots of tin.

Let me tell you that the vast majority of a life of arms is spent being bored. We camped at the border of the disputed territory mostly doing nothing. When opportunities arose, we crossed the border and looted our way across the countryside. The life of a reiver taught me more about war than most knights on errantry ever would. Our objective was to kill, cripple, or capture the wealth of the McDonalds. Cattle and farmsteads were raided and pillaged. The warband I served with during that first season only skirmished with the enemy once. It was pointless coming to grips with the opposition when it served no purpose beyond fighting. We managed to march on a McDonald hillfort and come up right against its walls without them noticing. There was thirty of us and about twelve of them in total. In any other circumstance storming the position would have been suicide. They had earthen walls and wooden palisades between us. We made an escalade at night.

Hours into the dark we watched the walls to pick the right moment to attack. The walls were around eighteen feet high, a manageable height for ropes and grapnels. We had no ladders, nor did I think we needed them. Storming the walls with speed and opening the gates would win us an easy victory. A victory our enemies handed to us by their ineptitude. Normally you would have expected patrols or a degree of alertness from a garrison. They had none.

I had volunteered to be amongst the first to scale the walls. My offer was promptly rebuffed in favor of more reliable candidates. Eight men would climb the walls and see how far they could get. They went light, without heavy arms or armor. We on the outside got dressed in out war panoply. I had nothing but a large knife and a club. Oskar had donned a hauberk of maile and a padded cap. He told me to stay behind him and finish off any of the survivors.

The attack went off without a hitch and we took the fort without any losses. The small garrison had been inattentive and drunk. The eight climbers had gained the wall without being detected and then went on to kill everyone. They opened the gate after they had finished. It was an easy job, but it infuriated the rest of us. They had taken the choicest pickings of loot before letting us in. There was nothing of worth un-pocketed by the time we were let in. I however managed to scrounge a small shield, a targe, from one of the overlooked bodies. There was still food and drink left by the former occupants, so we spent the night there. Whilst the men drank, I spent that time cutting up a passed over buff coat. With needle and thread, I patched together a crude protective tunic.

What is a buff coat you ask? I am sure you have seen the mustard colored garments we Isles men wear to war. That is in fact oil boiled leather. Usually whale or herring oil in most cases. Stiff and hot to wear but an effective piece of armor. It does very well in wet conditions, it keeps the water out. Like most leather goods you need to oil it often to keep it in good condition. I learnt how to maintain all sorts of arms and armor. Maile whilst effective and relatively flexible, was a pain to repair and maintain.

I served as a scout and skirmisher when I wasn’t playing cook and armorer for our warband. My aptitude with the sling made me a menace to our enemies. Most men we came across did not own a shirt of maile nor carried the large round shields we lowlanders preferred. Against such targets a sling stone tore flesh and broke bones. Even if they were behind a shield and well armored it still hurt. It is never pleasant to be hit by any projectile.

War in the highlands was waged by small roving bands of highly mobile marauders. The key staples were ambushes and quick marches. The infamous shield wall and highland charge we Isle folk are known for is only the result of maneuver. Never pick a fair fight and fight for a purpose. Those two were the key tactical lessons I distilled from my time there.

I stood in my first shield wall when I was fifteen. I worked on Wulfric’s boats during the whaling season and fought the highland conflicts in the off seasons. I had grown stronger and taller in those three years. Oskar had let me loose by that point and I occasionally touched base with him. He was not serving with me on this campaign and he never would have. It was as he would put it “an ejits fight”. It was a territorial spat that would be resolved by one warband being soundly beating the other. No freedom no opportunities to loot. It was a poorly paying opportunity to get killed. I still had notions of glory back then and wanted to stand in a shield wall.

I was not entirely soft in the head with my thinking. By that point I owned a gambeson and a fitted leather coat. I lost my shillelagh a year or so ago, down the throat of a man I had jammed in. I had replaced it with a hatchet and a round shield. The only thing I lacked was an actual helmet or any meaningful form of head protection. Here is a piece of advice that will significantly increase your chances of surviving a fight: wear a helmet. Just because Sir Bram does not wear one does not make it a smart idea. He is a highborn monster. He would probably survive a war hammer to the forehead. His bone to cranial matter ratio may have something to do with it as well.

Oh, don’t look so scandalized. Fine, I’ll get on with my story then. It was a small fight, more of a large skirmish than a full-blown battle. But the manner in which it was fought was no different from one. House Austin was at war with house Cameron. A small-scale conflict fought in deadly earnest. They were both once a part of a larger house. Then a split in inheritance divided the territory. I guess the decedents of the divide finally decided it was time to make things whole. I was serving with the Cameron’s and a larger contingent of mercenaries. Our force consisted of twenty odd housecarls and slightly less than a hundred freebooters and sworn men. The Austin’s were similarly arrayed in quality and numbers. Neither side had raised their fyrd; peasant levies for you southerners. House Austin wanted to take the Cameron’s territory without despoiling it. Nothing destroys prosperity like a slaughtered taxable workforce. House Cameron had the same idea so both sides paid the smaller upfront fee of hiring us than risking a pyric victory.

It was in a sense the worst sort of fight a mercenary could ever be in. Equal odds, no looting, and a short contract. Dammed fool that I was, I thought this was a glorious event. This was the sort of fight that I could make a name for myself in. I thought I was good. I had spent three years in and out of conflict. I had made it through without any major injuries. It was luck more than anything else that preserved my hide. The battle only fed my ego further.

Our scouts spotted the enemy warband in the morning. We spent the better part of the day positioning ourselves. Our commander’s tactics more or less consisted of finding flat ground and meeting the enemy on it. Arrayed on an open field we spent hours just staring at each other. We formed double ranks with our best on the flanks. I was on the second line near our center and would step in if the man before me fell.

The fight began slowly. Despite our employer desire to engage in a decisive field battle, even they were hesitant. Only three types of people charge in: the mad, the foolish, and the certain. Our battle lines inched towards each other under a hail of skirmishing projectiles. Javelins, rocks, arrows, and insults. It was all shaping up into a very traditional engagement. I stood behind my front man and loosed stones from my sling. I had no idea if I hit anyone with it, but I contributed to the general harassment of the enemy. Closer and closer we inched towards our opponents. Go too fast and our lines would break. Nobody wants to hit a shield wall in a broken formation.

There are few things in life louder than battle. When our lines finally met the rattle of iron on wood made the “thunder of battle”. Cries, gasps, bloody oaths, it was all happening everywhere and all at once. I had expected a long and hard fight before either of our walls broke. The Austin forces proved me wrong. Immediately our left flank bowed and broke. Whilst they fought us face to face their line had advanced obliquely. The Austin right met our left and smashed their way through. Their left whilst still linked with their right, hung back, and fought timidly. It was an Old Imperial tactic scaled down for our smaller battle. The Austin line was shorter than ours and their left was only one man deep. They put most of their men in the right and tried to smash our left and flank us. It was an effective tactic if the enemy showed no initiative.

At that moment I had no idea about any of this. What I did know was that disaster was but a mere moment away. In the face of danger, I charged. Dropping my shield and barging through the man in front of me, I bellowed the order to charge. With my axe in both hands I ploughed into the Austin center. Heedless of if any of our own followed me through, I hacked down the enemy in front of me. Shock was my shield as I broke into enemy space. There was no room for technique or shield work. I buried my axe into the head of the man to my left and drew my knife. As close as lovers I cut, stabbed, gouged, and bit my way through the Austin line. For a moment I was untouchable. Speed and violence create shock. It paralyzes lesser men and affords impossible opportunities to the brave. That was how I a green freebooter killed better men.

Open fields stood before me. It took me a moment to realize that I had broken through the Austin center. I turned to find an equally surprised housecarl staring right at me. He must have been a part of the mass that smashed our left. Behind him I could see that our center had followed me through. They were turning the flanking maneuver into a general melee. The housecarl was bad news. I was alone and I had his undivided attention. All the previous confidence drained as he advanced on me. Dressed in maile and enclosed in a helmet, he looked like an otherworldly giant of iron. The shadows of the helm hid his face and gave it a skull like quality. I dearly regretted dropping my axe and shield.

I could have run. I should have run. It was a valid option and I did have a clear path ahead of me. The housecarl was heavy in his armor and I could have probably outrun him. More likely he wouldn’t have bothered once I was no longer a threat. The option to flee never crossed my mind then. I would not call it courage. It was more like stubbornness born from ignorance.

He came at me at a measured pace. The housecarl was confident but respected that I was an enemy. He was a seasoned warrior with a sword and shield. Now if anyone tells you that a knife and no armor give you an edge in agility, they have never fought a man before. The point holds the same validity as racing home naked in winter is better because having no clothing makes you lighter. Yes, you are faster but marginal edges in speed mean nothing before iron. In short, I had pulled an even shorter straw in an opponent.

I tried to circle around him and hit him from the side. He tracked me with minimal effort. I knew I would be killed in a stand-up fight, so I had to surprise him. Drawing on my previous effort I charged him with the intention to feint left. The housecarl stopped, braced himself, and raised his shield. I was so focused on my own movements I failed to see his lightning thrust towards my face. Luckily, I slipped. Flat on my ass I fell on the grass. I fell right before his reach and saw the silvery blade pass above my head. Immediately seizing the opportunity, I dived on his unprotected shin. I stabbed at his leg but found my knife turned away. There must have been strips of metal sewn into his boots because he had no greaves. I got a kick for my troubles and I rolled to the side immediately. Anticipating his sword, I scrabbled to his shield arm. He made a quick downward cut towards my ribs and I fell flat to the ground. The tip of his sword caught my back but was in turned by my leather buff coat. This time he would come in with a thrust and end it. I made a desperate tackle at him. Catching my face on the rim of his shield my weight pushed through and I clung on to his thigh. I was not heavy enough to take him down.

He should have just stabbed me there and then, but I think my antics put him off balance. Instead he tried to shake me off as if I were some persistent dog. I responded by thrusting with my knife up his mailed hems. I got something because there was a jarring impact and my hands came away red. Regardless of what I hit; everything up there made a man lose all the fight in him. He went down with a horrifying squeal of pain. I got up and picked up his dropped sword. I ended him quickly but did not retrieve the knife. I had no desire to see what it had done.

The Austin’s won the battle in the end. Won as in they pushed us off the field. However, they had suffered casualties that made mounting a pursuit impossible. In a sense the Cameron’s may have lost the battle but had just won the war. The invaders had not the men to continue the conflict. Of the roughly hundred and twenty men that fought that day, we came back with fifty-seven. The enemy had taken less losses, but it was enough. Had their strategy worked it would have been a slaughter on our side. I had come out of the conflict with a bloody nose and without my weapons. In return I had picked up a new sword and lived to collect my pay. All in all, I was pretty satisfied with the results.

Whilst I was away from Lighthouse Keep the city had changed. In fact, the city had changed the entire Isles. The Averntide’s were the oldest house in the Isles and had many secrets. They were also the most mercantile out of all the houses. New innovations and growing trade with the continent led to a perceptible boom in their territory. Our greatest market were the member states of the Reich. We held a monopoly on whale oil, ambergris, tin, and whisky. We traded our goods for silver which we then purchased grain from Auburn. Back then as you all know Auburn was a “part” of the Reich. We were trading with the south, but it was not an equal exchange.

I remember it as a time of plenty. Not a day went by when there wasn’t a new building being raised or a ship being built. Industry and optimism drove business and immigration. Lighthouse Keep truly became a city to rival those on the continent. To my eyes everything seemed to change at breakneck speed. Then again, I never stayed and only visited. Perhaps that contributed to the perception. The city of my childhood was becoming a memory. I occasionally visited Winston when I happened to be in town. Perhaps he told my family of how I was doing. I never tried to see them. I knew that I was a dead to the world.

The wealth flowing into the city was spent wisely. The Lord Protectors shipyards were literally handing out boats and commissions for free. Well not exactly free. Back then the merchant and fisherman navies were expanding aggressively. Should a credible seaman assemble a crew and take up the Earl’s services they got a free ship. Free though with limited enterprise options and a cut of your profits. Wulfric took out two ships under his name. He was building a little flotilla of his own. There was more money to be made selling the whale oil to the southerners than catching them yourself. He became a patriot and changed his profession.

I first saw Auburn on a grain run. Wulfric had usually traded in grease for silver, but salt and grain were looking far more profitable back at home. I had been to the Reich multiple times by that point. The ports of Hoendorf and Lunenburg were familiar anchorages. My provincial sensibilities were astounded when I saw the sheer mass of humanity in Lunenburg. I had expected something like the Reich when I was told that we would be making port at Dusien. My expectations were pleasantly shattered when we sailed along the Auburn coast. There is a reason the province was named Auburn by the Old Empire. It is a gentle land that I have never seen matched in its fecundity. Every field was for the lack of a better word, auburn in hue. Further south than the Reich the air was positively balmy to my northern senses. This was the breadbasket of empires. Dusien was a lively and warm city. It had… culture. Marcus would have better word than me to describe the ineffable. Suffice to say I loved Dusien the moment I set foot on her soil.

One thing I discovered on my travels was that I had a talent for languages. Or I was the only one that tried to pick up more phrases than “where are the cheapest drink served?” or “where are the naughty ladies at?”. The men thought it would be hilarious to buy me a night with one of the afore mentioned naughty ladies. I was fourteen. What was intended to be a jibe turned out to be a happy encounter. I was frog marched into Janie’s room by a giggling escort. The woman took one look at me and knew what I needed. Instead of making me a man that night, we talked and talked into the early hours. The faces of the crew were priceless when notoriously glacial woman affectionately sent me off with freshly cleaned clothes and a hot breakfast.

Whenever I was in Dusien I would always try to find her. She taught me the language and more Auburn high society etiquette than a dockside lady of leisure ought to know. Janie was and still is the grand madame I remembered from childhood. I wax lyrical. She was a wonderful friend and I will leave it at that. I am sure the lady had many secrets, but it is rude for a gentleman to pry

The good times did not last. There was a change in course from the powers that be. House Averntide had become the dominant power in northern trade. Since only we could navigate the Ghost Sea and had the largest local maritime economy, we effectively ran a monopoly in trade. The expanded fishing fleets slowly diminished food imports. Our efficient centralized merchant navy undercut disorganized Reich traders. In a few short years, the relationship had been flipped on its head.

Economic factors aside we were always the unicorn of the continental powers. The unconquered prize that even the Old Empire failed to size. Kaiser Herwarth was into his hundred and twenty something year reign by that point. He was still relatively young for an emperor and had further ambitions. There was the Tzar to his east and the Free Cities to his south, the Blackstone Isles was not another regional power the Reich needed. I am sure there were other reasons that led to our eventual rivalry. Regardless, one thing led to another and conflict became inevitable.

It began with the silver act. Which was a foolish piece of legislature. I believe it was more a product of haste than good sense. The silver act stipulated that all foreign trade was to be done in silver. The exchange of goods was to be done by the exchange of currency. I assume that the Reich thought we had no mint-able precious metals. Which was true, but they did not account for how poor we were. The sterling act was introduced in response by the Lord Protector and Witan. The Witan is our analogue to your Estate General. The sterling act unified our currency based on the penny weight system and sterling silver schilling. We had so very little currency in circulation that we could overhaul the entire system with little trouble. Our domestic trade was largely done in alloyed silver pennies, but the gold pound and sterling schilling would come to bite the Reich in the behind. Our Sterling was far purer than the Reichsmark. Soon business between our merchants was done in Isle currency. Where did we find the silver to pull that off? Well, that is a secret I found out much later in my story.

I will not bore you with this talk of coin. It all came to a head with the continental act. More accurately the continental embargo. We played a game of cat and mouse to seize the advantage without coming to blows. The Reich’s final answer was to starve us into submission. Despite the ongoing trade war, we were all doing quite well for ourselves. I made more money serving with Wulfric than I did on my own as a sword for hire. I eventually ended up working all year round in his growing fleet. If I were to give you my first date in this story it would be 1224 A.I. It was the first time that we were denied anchorage at Dusien. The embargo was in effect and we were caught in the lurch.

We were all caught in the lurch. Lighthouse Keep had an exploding population and industry that was supported by the continent. Even with the expanded fishing fleet, it was Auburn grain that fed us. We had expanded recklessly and now faced food shortages and economic collapse. Perhaps the Reich had planned this all along. There was talk of an invasion fleet being built down south. Uncertainty created all sorts of rumors. Most were false. The Reich had terrible sailors and no maritime tradition so to speak of. They did want to cripple us and in that they almost succeeded.

When trade became embargoed, we carried on as smugglers. When the Lord Protector drafted letters of marque, we became patriotic pirates. For all that we smuggled and raided, it was grain that we bought. I remember seeing more people on the streets than I had ever seen growing up. In 1226 I was a seventeen-year-old young man who had carved a niche for himself in these hard times. As a piratical smuggler I ate well and was paid in what I could take. Though the Isle starved we couriers still had fat on our bones. Even so the writing was on the wall. Two years of embargo had made life difficult. If things continued as they were it would undo all our advances unless we made. A bold change in course was our only solution. That said if it were not for the embargo, I would have been a trade-less freebooter. The very scum of society. If I have given you the impression that I was some kind of warrior adventurer, you are mistaken. I hung with the very lowest kind of thieves and scoundrels. Just one foot across the law divided us from outlaws and oath breakers. As a smuggler and privateer, I was a patriot and breadwinner.

Fate played her hand in 26. I am sure you all remember that year very well. Early in the year I had returned from a failed grain run. Wulfric’s usual business was unloading tin and oil on some quiet beach on the Auburn coast. Some enterprising merchant then would exchange it all for grain and coin. The Red Smile and Bright Lance were perfect vessels for this kind of transaction. Their hulls were light enough to be beached without the need of a harbor or dock. He cut loose his fleet because it far too expensive to keep afloat.

We had done this a hundred times before and thought it would be no different now. We landed our ships where the villagers and farmers knew us well. They knew who we were and what we were doing. Baron Arnulf their feudal lord who should have had us all in chains knew as well. He just had selective perception when a cask of Isle whisky happened to wash up his beach. I’m sorry to disappoint you if you thought all of this was done silently under moonlight. We came in as brazen as brass in the morning and spent the nights ashore with the locals. All this trade war and political rivalry was nonsense to the common people. What did they care for a distant Kaiser who spoke a different language?

Well it turned out that the Kaiser cared a lot more for what the people did than they for him. We approached our usual point of business but refrained from going ashore. Out on the waves we could see thick smoke rising from a village. As we skirted the shore, we saw the silhouettes of mounted men trailing us. We decided it was not a good idea to see who they were and what they wanted. We returned home.

It turned out that that we were not the only ones running into the same problem. Raiding was getting tougher, Reich officials firmer. Wulfric decided that it would be best to lay low and see which way the wind blew. We were all laid off and I was out of a job. I had enough savings to keep me afloat for a while yet, and I could always return to the highlands. But something kept me in Lighthouse Keep. Going back to a freebooter felt like a step backwards. It felt good to be a part of society. Not live off its fringes. The embargo had driven many a “honest” seaman and trades man into smuggling and privateering. In some ways we were heroes.

I lingered in a strange state of indecision. Drifting through the streets I found myself standing on that very same cliffside I played with Winston as a child. Watching the bay, I now knew from where the ships came and where they went. I stood on the edge of the precipice and considered what to do next. Perhaps I would go west to the native islands as a gallowglass. There was a life to be made there. The fresh start and clean slate were all very alluring. As I listened to the cry of the gulls and the crash of waves, I was seized by the notion of ending it all. I had been running ever since I left home all those five years ago. From what I did not know. But I was tired, and the waves were lovely, dark and deep.