Marseille, 1104

It was a late sunny afternoon in Marseille like so many others in this most pleasant of places… The sweetness of life in Provence had taken its toll on Lothar. Never would he imagine himself returning to his horse, lance and sword. He was better with a quill and bottle of ink than with a sword and buckler in hand. One reason why he didn’t join in the Rebellion. His lands had suffered as much neglect from the Emperor as those of the Rebels but they were far removed and so he had chosen to wait and see which way the wind would turn.

He had watched from afar as the Secession faltered, its leader Magnus von Saxony betrayed and killed in dubious circumstances in some forsaken city of the North. Watched also as the Reich bit more than he could chew, starting wars on all fronts : against the French, Danes, Poles, Hungarians, Milanese… Half the world was already at war with the Reich and those that weren’t were so only because they were perhaps too distant. The Reich was even on the brink of excommunication… A truly God-forsaken land.

 And while all this happened, Lothar had chosen the only sane course of action : declaring the independence of Provence and hope that the Reich would find enough on its plate and stay away from Provence long enough for him to build up his forces and enrich the region by implementing reforms he had long envisioned to propose for the whole Reich. Instead the Electors had given way to their constant bickering, refusing to hear the pleas of their people.

 That state of affair left Lothar undecided. He hated to know that the German people suffered at the hands of foreign sovereigns raiding and pillaging the villages and cities of his youth. But at the same time, he smiled at the lesson taught to those arrogant nobles who had chosen to follow that fool Heinrich instead.

But now he stood at the crossroads of History : he had never been arrogant enough to think that he would leave more than a footnote but again he would like to be remembered as a man of the people and not as a coward who stood by the sidelines while his people disappeared from the face of the Earth.

 Still, he was torn. He was living a good life, prospering and making his people prosper, living true to his ideals of chivalry and had views to enlarge his possessions at the expense of his neighbors. The other course of action meant putting himself at risk in the defense of a man for whom he felt something close to hatred, but at the same time, saving the lives of countless Germans…

 Watching the sun set over the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, drinking a chilled glass of Côte de Provence, Lothar considered where his fate would take him.