Rolen von Keng
Sleeping Green Bear
- Location
- The Wilderness
[X] Delirious.
Si Deus Nobiscum: A Polish-Lithuanian Scion Quest
- Thread starter Rolman
- Start date
- Mature Historic
[X] Thinking.
Perhaps Poland, with its proto-democracy, its religious freedoms, and its thriving intellectuals isn't so bad after all?
Perhaps Poland, with its proto-democracy, its religious freedoms, and its thriving intellectuals isn't so bad after all?
Rolen von Keng
Sleeping Green Bear
- Location
- The Wilderness
[X] Thinking.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Delirious.
- Location
- United States
I mean, praying because you think you're dying certainly isn't a particularly fanatical response.
What you may or may not be able to do once you get home however…
Radziwiłł Family Tree
- Location
- United States
Sorry if already posted this but..! If anybody smart notices an error please report as I post this in somewhat of a hurry. Zooming necessary!
I realized I'll actually have decent downtime this vacation so hopefully I can get a big sesh or three in by nightfall. Don't wanna get anybody's hopes up but there may be some speedy(ish) updates in our future!
I realized I'll actually have decent downtime this vacation so hopefully I can get a big sesh or three in by nightfall. Don't wanna get anybody's hopes up but there may be some speedy(ish) updates in our future!
Prologue V. Sometime in October, 1572. The Skagerrak.
- Location
- United States
Above your bed is the ceiling and above the ceiling the deck and the masts and sails, into the sky, into the aether where the stars chart their course and beyond that lies God, the Christ seated beside him.
You stare at the lantern swaying over your bed. Deathbed? You're bundled in like a swaddled newborn, a compress on your forehead that was either hot or cold at one point but now just feels sweaty like the rest of you. The mustard poultice on your chest stinks, but it beats the alchemical horror that is oppoteltoch, if you heard the surgeon right. That stuff smelt like tallow candles, camphor, and vinegar. A mix of medicus' spirits and laudanum, while unable to stem the flux or cure the cough, at least eased the stabbing chest pains and grinding headaches. It tended to leave you somehow both sleepy and well-rested.
Your lips start forming words in Polish; your fever-addled brain by now had lost most Latin beyond rote-learned Catechism, and you find yourself singing aloud a vernacular hymn, something left over from your Reformed childhood. Through the haze you manage to wonder why.
"Ach, moj niebie –" too loud, too much strain. You splutter for the better part of a minute.
You try again at a whisper. "Ah, my heavenly Lord, in the oneness of the Trinity forever reigning…"
Ah… "I'll… Run from sin to you, my God, no…" You try the next verse. "You gave me the promise by the scripture of the Prophet that you wish me not to die a sinful man." There we are, probably.
"Almighty God over all things, let your merciful eye fall upon me…" No, no, that's much later on.
You just want to know why. You feel as if you've exhausted a breviary's worth of prayer and been met with nothing, neither sign nor dream or even the gift of a restful mind, as worship usually brings. You close your eyes and breathe a long exhale, just gentle enough to keep your lungs at rest.
You stare into the darkness of your eyelids and note the impressions: the glowing fuzz of the lantern above you, the purple-blue and cadaverine gray of little strings and dots shifting in all directions, blackness washing over blackness in its strange way, top-to-bottom like a waterfall.
I cannot lose faith in you o God and I will not I will not I ask a question rather than question you Father but why why why why –
The Great Enemy tempts us every day. In the abyss you catch yourself and begin a reminiscence of sorts. The flies obviously came before the crows at Moncontour but you reckon it must've been the rats' work in Paris. In the weeks before you left they were especially everywhere, but did little for the stains on walls and streets, and the ones who were hanged from trees and lampposts and even shop signs bloated until someone bothered to cut them down.
Lord, I mean not to ask questions best not answered, or to beg for answers that'll come in time.
Your head felt thick. Did this even really happen? The reverend who replaced Father Janusz. You were eleven, twelve then? You had just watched one of your father's cavalrymen put down a foundering old mare with one of those big German swords. It was the biggest thing you'd ever seen killed. You asked the reverend: how come God let the horse suffer? And I thought you go to Hell if you kill somebody.
And, to the Calvinist's credit, he indulged you with an answer. Most adults bristled at your tough questions, especially on ones of faith. The friendly ones would say something about heavenly rewards or His plan or how-about-when-you're-older and the more severe threaten you with Hell or simply boxed your ears for asking something so smart-assed – only if your father gave permission, of course. But the reverend sat you down in the front row of pews and you both stared at the plain, Christ-less cross adorning the fresh-stripped chapel. He was new to a court position like how you were new to the world.
"A good question, Your Serene Highness," he said with the smile that would always scrunch up his face. "And I'll answer the second part later. But some of the greatest minds and souls in Christendom have thought about that first why. You're still trying to learn your prayers in Polish, yes?"
"And a lot of them are different, too," you remember saying.
The reverend patted you on the head. "That's alright, you'll get it. It'll eventually make more sense, too. But why is the very question Reverend Kalwin sought to answer alllllll those years ago. And it's what you and I believe in now," he said with a quick little pause. He put a hand to his chin. "He said – and this was after years of reading the Gospel, mind you – he decided that if God is the greatest, the strongest, the smartest, if he knows the beginning and end of all things, then he must already know who will go to Heaven and who will go to Hell. For that is the Gospel's word, and that's all there is to it."
You must've made a face. "But-but-but-but," he said, "that's no cause for sadness. He may know, but we do not. Well, there are suggestions, but technically a bandit could sprout wings and an almsman horns." You remember that the image made you chuckle a bit, probably in spite of yourself. Then the reverend asked: "but that just doesn't quite make sense, does it?"
"Uh-uh," you agreed.
"Because a godly life follows a godly heart with a godly soul behind it, and a godly soul – well, chances sound good, no?" He wrinkle-smiled. "Yet many would say it is better to go from the inside-out. And that's what I say. Calm your pride, Your Serene Highness, pray always, love your brothers – that means everybody – hate sin, forgive sinners." He thought a little more, furrowed his brow. "Like a house there must be cleaning, top to bottom. And as any good servant knows, love and fear work together to get the job done. You've seen a jester walk a tightrope? It's a bit like that…"
You're ripped away from whatever that was by a rolling wave. The autumn sea has been hard, making you vomit on particularly bad headache days. You can't quite make out the difference between dream and memory.
Yes, Lord, you're right. It's both too simple and too complex. And with scarcely any room for Petrus or the Lady or – O God, may…
[] I try to undo it. For you, Lord. The suffering of the world.
[] I never fall into sin, into heresy. Let the waves of vice break against me and pass over me.
[] I spread your word to the astray, to the infidel. Let all nations unite in Holy Communion.
[] I keep my mind clear, calm, always just. May I never lose the sense and senses you blessed me with.
You complete the thought and notice the tears in your eyes, swallowing a lump that isn't phlegm. The lantern shining through your closed eyes goes out. You open your eyes and force your head up to see if anyone's around to re-light it. You suddenly are very afraid of dying in the dark.
Are you ready?
[] Yes.
[] No.
[] I don't know.
Someone is standing in the doorway. You call out as loudly as your body lets you but they don't answer. Probably just a Netherlander or Norman or some crewman who can't…
They're approaching now! Any old commoner wouldn't dare. And as they draw closer your ears ring louder and louder. The child's shoe in the puddle outside of the Louvre, rain on window panes, fly's wings and flower petals magnified and finally your mother's face. Clearer than any memory, more realistic than any portrait or cameo, in her pearl-studded court attire, smiling. It feels like you're falling, your eyelids are drooping.
In, out, in, out. The only sensation you can feel, the only thing you can focus on, everything is quiet, far away –
Your head twists as a spasm courses through you. You arch your back for a split second and then register the lantern flame above you, swinging harder than usual. You watched its shadows dance on the low ceiling and spartan walls and you felt safe for the first time in months. None of your attendants could remember changing out the candle.
Glory to God. By the time the Sound tolls were paid you were on the mend, walking on shaky legs in the days before your arrival at Gdańsk. The more religious of your aides cautiously threw around "miraculous," and all seemed relieved that a young prince avoided being snuffed out at the very dawn of his career.
They coached you on what was to come: nearly all of your kinsmen are at Wawel right now, speaking and being spoken to in the buildup to this rather unprecedented selection of a king. The Archbishop of Gniezno presides as interrex, and (God willing, not literal) battle lines are being drawn. At least one of Czarny's boys may be going to France to court none other than Prince Alexandre, as part of the Commonwealth's answer to earlier French feelers. Understandably, none of you are very happy about this – an imperious Frenchman and friend of the Turk over a Habsburg or even a native candidate – but opinion seems to be swinging strongly in the pro-Walezy direction and so it's good for the family to have a foot in the door.
This kind of thing only makes you a little nervous now. Though the cur Alexandre's words echo in your head: just a year or two apart, yet so much younger than I.
You stare at the lantern swaying over your bed. Deathbed? You're bundled in like a swaddled newborn, a compress on your forehead that was either hot or cold at one point but now just feels sweaty like the rest of you. The mustard poultice on your chest stinks, but it beats the alchemical horror that is oppoteltoch, if you heard the surgeon right. That stuff smelt like tallow candles, camphor, and vinegar. A mix of medicus' spirits and laudanum, while unable to stem the flux or cure the cough, at least eased the stabbing chest pains and grinding headaches. It tended to leave you somehow both sleepy and well-rested.
Your lips start forming words in Polish; your fever-addled brain by now had lost most Latin beyond rote-learned Catechism, and you find yourself singing aloud a vernacular hymn, something left over from your Reformed childhood. Through the haze you manage to wonder why.
"Ach, moj niebie –" too loud, too much strain. You splutter for the better part of a minute.
You try again at a whisper. "Ah, my heavenly Lord, in the oneness of the Trinity forever reigning…"
Ah… "I'll… Run from sin to you, my God, no…" You try the next verse. "You gave me the promise by the scripture of the Prophet that you wish me not to die a sinful man." There we are, probably.
"Almighty God over all things, let your merciful eye fall upon me…" No, no, that's much later on.
You just want to know why. You feel as if you've exhausted a breviary's worth of prayer and been met with nothing, neither sign nor dream or even the gift of a restful mind, as worship usually brings. You close your eyes and breathe a long exhale, just gentle enough to keep your lungs at rest.
You stare into the darkness of your eyelids and note the impressions: the glowing fuzz of the lantern above you, the purple-blue and cadaverine gray of little strings and dots shifting in all directions, blackness washing over blackness in its strange way, top-to-bottom like a waterfall.
I cannot lose faith in you o God and I will not I will not I ask a question rather than question you Father but why why why why –
The Great Enemy tempts us every day. In the abyss you catch yourself and begin a reminiscence of sorts. The flies obviously came before the crows at Moncontour but you reckon it must've been the rats' work in Paris. In the weeks before you left they were especially everywhere, but did little for the stains on walls and streets, and the ones who were hanged from trees and lampposts and even shop signs bloated until someone bothered to cut them down.
Lord, I mean not to ask questions best not answered, or to beg for answers that'll come in time.
Your head felt thick. Did this even really happen? The reverend who replaced Father Janusz. You were eleven, twelve then? You had just watched one of your father's cavalrymen put down a foundering old mare with one of those big German swords. It was the biggest thing you'd ever seen killed. You asked the reverend: how come God let the horse suffer? And I thought you go to Hell if you kill somebody.
And, to the Calvinist's credit, he indulged you with an answer. Most adults bristled at your tough questions, especially on ones of faith. The friendly ones would say something about heavenly rewards or His plan or how-about-when-you're-older and the more severe threaten you with Hell or simply boxed your ears for asking something so smart-assed – only if your father gave permission, of course. But the reverend sat you down in the front row of pews and you both stared at the plain, Christ-less cross adorning the fresh-stripped chapel. He was new to a court position like how you were new to the world.
"A good question, Your Serene Highness," he said with the smile that would always scrunch up his face. "And I'll answer the second part later. But some of the greatest minds and souls in Christendom have thought about that first why. You're still trying to learn your prayers in Polish, yes?"
"And a lot of them are different, too," you remember saying.
The reverend patted you on the head. "That's alright, you'll get it. It'll eventually make more sense, too. But why is the very question Reverend Kalwin sought to answer alllllll those years ago. And it's what you and I believe in now," he said with a quick little pause. He put a hand to his chin. "He said – and this was after years of reading the Gospel, mind you – he decided that if God is the greatest, the strongest, the smartest, if he knows the beginning and end of all things, then he must already know who will go to Heaven and who will go to Hell. For that is the Gospel's word, and that's all there is to it."
You must've made a face. "But-but-but-but," he said, "that's no cause for sadness. He may know, but we do not. Well, there are suggestions, but technically a bandit could sprout wings and an almsman horns." You remember that the image made you chuckle a bit, probably in spite of yourself. Then the reverend asked: "but that just doesn't quite make sense, does it?"
"Uh-uh," you agreed.
"Because a godly life follows a godly heart with a godly soul behind it, and a godly soul – well, chances sound good, no?" He wrinkle-smiled. "Yet many would say it is better to go from the inside-out. And that's what I say. Calm your pride, Your Serene Highness, pray always, love your brothers – that means everybody – hate sin, forgive sinners." He thought a little more, furrowed his brow. "Like a house there must be cleaning, top to bottom. And as any good servant knows, love and fear work together to get the job done. You've seen a jester walk a tightrope? It's a bit like that…"
You're ripped away from whatever that was by a rolling wave. The autumn sea has been hard, making you vomit on particularly bad headache days. You can't quite make out the difference between dream and memory.
Yes, Lord, you're right. It's both too simple and too complex. And with scarcely any room for Petrus or the Lady or – O God, may…
[] I try to undo it. For you, Lord. The suffering of the world.
[] I never fall into sin, into heresy. Let the waves of vice break against me and pass over me.
[] I spread your word to the astray, to the infidel. Let all nations unite in Holy Communion.
[] I keep my mind clear, calm, always just. May I never lose the sense and senses you blessed me with.
You complete the thought and notice the tears in your eyes, swallowing a lump that isn't phlegm. The lantern shining through your closed eyes goes out. You open your eyes and force your head up to see if anyone's around to re-light it. You suddenly are very afraid of dying in the dark.
Are you ready?
[] Yes.
[] No.
[] I don't know.
Someone is standing in the doorway. You call out as loudly as your body lets you but they don't answer. Probably just a Netherlander or Norman or some crewman who can't…
They're approaching now! Any old commoner wouldn't dare. And as they draw closer your ears ring louder and louder. The child's shoe in the puddle outside of the Louvre, rain on window panes, fly's wings and flower petals magnified and finally your mother's face. Clearer than any memory, more realistic than any portrait or cameo, in her pearl-studded court attire, smiling. It feels like you're falling, your eyelids are drooping.
In, out, in, out. The only sensation you can feel, the only thing you can focus on, everything is quiet, far away –
Your head twists as a spasm courses through you. You arch your back for a split second and then register the lantern flame above you, swinging harder than usual. You watched its shadows dance on the low ceiling and spartan walls and you felt safe for the first time in months. None of your attendants could remember changing out the candle.
Glory to God. By the time the Sound tolls were paid you were on the mend, walking on shaky legs in the days before your arrival at Gdańsk. The more religious of your aides cautiously threw around "miraculous," and all seemed relieved that a young prince avoided being snuffed out at the very dawn of his career.
They coached you on what was to come: nearly all of your kinsmen are at Wawel right now, speaking and being spoken to in the buildup to this rather unprecedented selection of a king. The Archbishop of Gniezno presides as interrex, and (God willing, not literal) battle lines are being drawn. At least one of Czarny's boys may be going to France to court none other than Prince Alexandre, as part of the Commonwealth's answer to earlier French feelers. Understandably, none of you are very happy about this – an imperious Frenchman and friend of the Turk over a Habsburg or even a native candidate – but opinion seems to be swinging strongly in the pro-Walezy direction and so it's good for the family to have a foot in the door.
This kind of thing only makes you a little nervous now. Though the cur Alexandre's words echo in your head: just a year or two apart, yet so much younger than I.
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- Location
- Your pantry
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] I try to undo it. For you, Lord. The suffering of the world
[X] I don't know.
Ambitious? Foolish? Perhaps. Nothing worth doing has ever been easy, however.
[X] I don't know.
Ambitious? Foolish? Perhaps. Nothing worth doing has ever been easy, however.
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Theaxofwar
Definitely not a Bunny Cat in disguise.
- Location
- Standing right behind you
[X] I try to undo it. For you, Lord. The suffering of the world
[X] No.
We're gonna be so weird
[X] No.
We're gonna be so weird
[X] I keep my mind clear, calm, always just. May I never lose the sense and senses you blessed me with.
[X] I don't know.
[X] I don't know.
Rolen von Keng
Sleeping Green Bear
- Location
- The Wilderness
[X] I keep my mind clear, calm, always just. May I never lose the sense and senses you blessed me with.
[X] Yes.
Whatever comes, comes with the hand and voice of God. May the Lord above bless our way, wherever we may go.
[X] Yes.
Whatever comes, comes with the hand and voice of God. May the Lord above bless our way, wherever we may go.