Novel Title: Inexplicable Incidents
Time Setting: VI1561*
Genre: Fantasy
Minimum Word Goal: 90,000
Timespan: August–December
Locations: Beaudroit, Le Protecterat d’Arbrienne de l’Est; Trempré, Arbrienne
Main Characters: Étienne Beaugenièvre; Aline LaPrairie
Background Information:
In the summer of VI1480 King Didier XIV of Arbrienne injured his back falling from his horse mere days before he was to depart for the kingdom of Anatar Phnungkiri to negotiate a trade deal.
As a result, he sent his eighteen-year-old son, Crown Prince Maxime, in his stead. Maxime did an admirable job on the trade deal but also ended up proposing marriage to Princess Sovanna of Anatar Phnungkiri, having fallen head-over-heels in love with her while he was there.
This proved problematic because Maxime was already betrothed, and had been since he was five, to the Grand-Duchess of Venterre; furthermore, as Crown Prince, Maxime was forbidden to marry a foreign-blooded woman, as if he made her Queen her nation could claim Arbrienne’s land as its own.
Maxime knew little and cared less about the law, and proceeded to marry Princess Sovanna in VI1483 — as events in her family caused their original date of VI1481 to be postponed twice — mere months before he was to marry the Grand-Duchess.
Because the people of Anatar Phnungkiri were active polygamists, Princess Sovanna told Maxime not to worry about cancelling his engagement to the Grand-Duchess, so he didn’t.
Within the year King Didier’s back injury flared up and developed an infection as well, prompting Maxime to be summoned to the royal palace from his residence as Archduke of Mardeaux to take over day-to-day affairs in his father’s stead and brought his wives with him.
His younger brother Édouard, recently returned from studying abroad with plans to become an Ambassador, discovered that Maxime had two wives and told King Didier, who became enraged.
Maxime was immediately stripped of his title of Crown Prince for having married Princess Sovanna, and sentenced to death for having taken two wives — which had been a capital crime in Arbrienne for centuries.
Not seeing anything wrong with what he’d done morally — for morality was much-emphasised in Arbrienne — Maxime protested the condemnations and escaped when his second wife provided him the opportunity to do so, fleeing to Anatar Phnungkiri, where Princess Sovanna had been deported.
Unsurprisingly the trade deal was cancelled and war nearly broke out between Arbrienne and Anatar Phnungkiri, however, King Didier’s infection claimed his life in VI1485, placing Prince Édouard on the throne as King Édouard I.
Maxime learned of his father’s death from his second wife — whom he’d left behind in Arbrienne when he’d escaped because he didn’t really like her — and hurried to Arbrienne to claim the throne, only to be rearrested and find Édouard had already been crowned.
Édouard was loathe to execute his brother as was the punishment for polygamy, however, as he had learned in his foreign studies that rigid morality and good works were not getting anyone anywhere, only mercy from God was, and he wanted Maxime to realise the error of his ways.
Maxime refused, but still Édouard couldn’t kill him, and so had the sentence commuted to a lifetime banishment from Arbrienne and had Maxime escorted to the coast, where he was taken to Anatar Phnungkiri.
Within a month, however, Maxime returned to Arbrienne with soldiers from Anatar Phnungkiri and launched an attack, declaring all land that he conquered property of the kingdom of Mardeaux, which he crowned himself king of in VI1488 — after he’d taken the archduchy of the same name so that he could use the archducal residence therein as his capital.
To make matters worse, Duke Boniface of Sacurré was not impressed with Édouard’s differing beliefs in the character of God and the importance of piety and morality — with Boniface believing that under Édouard Arbrienne was degrading, thus all the problems were occurring — and so refused to allow his men to serve in the armies of Arbrienne in VI1490.
Boniface’s men, however, were not keen on letting Maxime and the troops of Anatar Phnunkiri take their homeland from them — as they were even worse than Édouard — and nearly revolted; but crisis was averted, for Boniface, by his announcing that Sacurré had seceded from Arbrienne and had now become Le Protecterat d’Arbrienne de l’Est.
Following his secession, Boniface not only ordered men to attack the encroaching forces of Mardeaux, but ordered his men to attack the nearby archduchy of Aimaline, home of Prince Léonard, Maxime and Édouard’s brother, the youngest of King Didier’s three sons, as Boniface believed Léonard to be the most pious of all of King Didier’s sons and the best candidate to be King of Arbrienne.
Over the course of time Arbrienne has lost just over half of its land area to the combined forces of Mardeaux and Le Protecterat, but at present just over half of its original territory is under its control, while Mardeaux and Le Protecterat both control a little under a quarter of Arbrienne’s original territory.
After drastic territorial exchanges between Mardeaux and Le Protecterat between VI1490 and VI1520, things have settled into a stalemate as the second generation has taken over the fighting, with Boniface’s son Arsène succeeding him in VI1516; Maxime’s son Valère succeeding him in VI1520, and Édouard’s son Jérémie succeeding him in VI1536 — Arsène has also been succeeded by his son Louis in VI1539 — but with no end in sight, as neither Mardeaux nor Le Protecterat are intent to return under Arbrienne’s authority, nor are they content with the land that they possess.
King Jérémie, however, is favourably disposed to peace, having been born after the beginning of the war, and very burdened that the people are suffering for the greed of their leaders; his efforts have fallen flat, however, with few of the envoys he’s sent to Valère and Louis living to tell the tale, and those who do having been flatly refused.
Being seventy one years old, Jérémie doesn’t know how much time he’ll have left to see peace, but he is hopeful that he will be able to know it, even if only for a day of his life, and that his son, grandson, and great-grandson will be able to know it for the majority of their lives as well.
*not equivalent to 1561AD; also, when spoken, the VI is typically skipped over and only the numbers are said unless one is talking about the Ages prior to the Sixth Age.
Pronunciations:
Beaudroit: bowdwah
Protecterat: prohtehktehrah
d’Arbrienne: dahbreeehn
l’Est: lest
Trempré: trohmpray
Arbrienne: ahbreeehn
Étienne: eht’yeh
Beaugenièvre: bowzhenyehv
Aline: ahleen
LaPrairie: lahprahree
Didier: didyeh
Anatar Phnungkiri: ahnahtahr f’nungkeeree
Maxime: makseem
Sovanna: sowvannah
Venterre: vehntare
Mardeaux: mahrdow
Édouard: ehdwahrd
Sacurré: sahkuhrreh
Aimaline: aymahleen
Léonard: lehohnahrd
Arsène: ahrsehn
Valère: vahlehr
Jérémie: zherehmee
Louis: looee
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