First off, the immediate doubts about the disposition of House Hendrake, and the potential of them relocating to Sarrabann like their Helgram cousins seem to have been well and truly quashed. Field Marshall, the Duchess Lintra would now seem to be Mandor’s girl. Will we be seeing wedding bells in our delightful aunt’s near future. One never knows – stranger things have happened, and it has been a while.
So – where does this leave Hendrake? An impressive showing in a decisive and large scale battle, but there were one or two points worthy of note. For the first time in a recent Hendrake offensive, we saw a heavy reliance on Trump technology, which is clearly not native to that House. Is this the beginning of a new type of rapid deployment warfare? Or perhaps the beginning of a new association between Hendrake and the Earl of Walsingham?
Also there is the question of force depletion. How badly did this victory cost Hendrake? What will be the down time estimate? Could they bounce back tomorrow, should a new aggressor come on the scene?
What of the other major Houses? Helgram remains for the moment firmly committed to Sarrabann, sitting as it does at what has become the isthmus between Thelbane and Sarrabann. Pretty much unmoved by the events of this war, and to all intents and purposes it would seem that the pleas of its daughter Dara fell upon deaf ears. No forces were committed, and no losses incurred.
House Chanicut had formerly been Mandor’s staunchest supporter after his own House of Sawall. Yet Chanicut was strangely absent from this fight. As speculation continues about the upcoming nuptials between Harmon Chanicut and the Queen of Rebma, thoughts turn to the question of whether Harmon has somewhat lost the plot. After all the effort he went to getting Mandor on the throne in the first place, where was he?
And where was the rest of his House? Not lacking in junior members and client houses, the was a singular lack of Chanicut muscle to be found at this battle. What does this mean for the House going forward?
Then there is the King’s own House – Sawall. Sacrificed it would seem in the early stages of the campaign. The first House to fall to Bleys’ marauders, and then flattened completely by the Hendrake counter attack. The new Duke, Jurt Sawall has a lot of work to do before Sawall can be counted great again.
But then at the centre of everything, the most exclusive piece of prime real estate in Thelbane next to the city itself sits currently vacant and under Royal Administration. How the mighty are fallen. With the arrest of Darik, and his ex wife directing the serfs and demons who will be clearing out Darik’s porn collection in amongst all the rest of the rubble and detritus of a House destroyed utterly beneath the treads of the Hendrake behemoth, we look at the list of who might come forward to grovel for this prize.
Darik himself has but one heir – Count Raymond Jesby. Born of a previous and brief liaison between Darik and Moire of Rebma before she disappeared for good, he is pretty much the only Jesby who was still active in Thelbane at start of the Merlin campaign. Is he the man to take Jesby forward and build it back up to Major House status?
His only known children are a junior Chanicut daughter who failed to lift the Headstone when she came of age, and a son who is currently languishing in jail in a far flung realm because he was caught heading a drugs cartel.
If you go back further than Darik, you get to an individual called Duke Giacomo Casanova. His duchy is not a Thelbane one – he never lived long enough to rule the House. Indeed there is little if any evidence that he even visited the House. But the one thing that is known about him is that in the backwater Realm where he did live, he was a busy boy. There are minks and rabbits who can’t manage as much copulation as he achieved.
But the problem for House Jesby is that while Casanova was at it like a randy skunk, none of the results of his labours are here in Thelbane. In fact – in all likelihood, none of them know about Thelbane. So they are not going to be of much use building a strong and prosperous House for the future.
And finally we cannot undertake this review without mentioning the elephant in the realm. Is the recently obtained fragile peace yet to be shattered by the intervention of Swayvanna? Strangely silent throughout the Merlin campaign, speculation mounts as to what her next move is going to be. With her husband, or is it ex husband, Randol Yorke, recently returned from the dead, and rumours abounding that he has let loose his Pack of Thelbane descended, technologically enhanced jackals, is there yet another chapter to come in the saga of the reign of Mandor of Thelbane?
Viscount Charles Wellesley, for the Wellesley Defence Review.