A Secret Account of the Last Years of the Reign of King Alexander the Mad of Scotland.

Our Kingdom is reputed to be the most advanced in the world, which confirms that my rule of Scotland is approved by God and best for all concerned. Despite this my brother in law, Donnchadh, is displeased and feels unappreciated while our eldest brother, Malcom, stirs up trouble and commissions a suit of armor for himself, as though to prepare for a battle. Both of them need direction in their lives, and I shall have to find it. Meanwhile my envoy has finally reached Hamburg and contacted the Danes to arrange a ceasefire. They are taxed accordingly for the privelege, and surrender far off Helsinki in addition to a small sum of coin. Perhaps Donnachadh would like to oversee the great work of converting this rather minor castle into a city and trade hub for Scotland?

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The French crusader army is spotted north of Milan. When word of this reaches David at the walls of Gaza he launches an immediate assault there.

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The Egyptians have no infantry at Gaza, so the initial assault is unresisted and the outer walls fall quickly.



When David rides up to the inner walls to oversee the erection of the ladders and the placement of his highland archers the enemy general sallies out of the gate against him. David's guard is outnumbered and his archers are busy with the enemy Mamluks, so he calls for aid from the rest of the army, still holding at the outer wall.



The arrival of his swordsmen in force signals the end of Egyptian resistance as their general, al Ikhshid, lays down his sword and surrenders. Egypt pays his ransom and the fortress is occupied peacefully, earning David the Mad the new title 'the Saint.'



East of Gaza David's son, Mac Bethad the Saint, destroys a small army of Egyptians before riding back to Jerusalem, and sends some highland archers to destroy another small force nearby.

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Ships are still being prepared to carry the crusaders across the sea at every available port, so the army must wait at Gaza for two years. Economic reforms are proceeding very well across the empire, though tax income from the Holy Lands is still below expectations.

Around the time his father boards the ships and sails west Comgell Canmore takes a wife at Antioch. The power vacuum left behind by the departure of David means that I can treat the Levant as three distinct regions and play their needs against each other. Mac Bethad in Jerusalem is the eldest, but his reputation as a living saint leaves him often at odds with his more practical brothers. With David out of the way the priests, merchants, and castles answer to me, while all construction in the cities is sustained by the flow of coin I direct. Truly now all of Scotland is in my hands, and David the Mad Saint is so oblivious he fells blessed to be going on Crusade.

Meanwhile Farquar Canmore, Eion's son, comes of age at Caernarvon and Gille Coimded Canmore comes of age at Edinburgh. Farquar shares his father's political isolation, though the boy is more flexible, and so he may be of some use. Gille is just a head to hang a hat on. If I cannot convince Donnchadh to go east to Helsinki perhaps this one will sail. The Hungarians are excommunicated. An army under a trusted captain slowly marches west to besiege Alexandria, where the Egyptians are thin. With David at sea my plans proceed easily for the next two years.

Milan and Portugal sign an alliance. Since neither of them are affiliated with our allies they present a potential rival, especially if David can capture Palermo. Both will have to be watched. At last, though, I have discovered a cause to sweep my dear brother Malcom out of my hair. He is to take the mass of the soldiers at Antwerp south to join the Crusade on Palermo. The poor fool, he was actually overjoyed when the letter reached him, and prevailed upon me to give his most profuse thanks to the King, to whom he feels immense loyalty.

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North of Jerusalem Mac Bethad wipes out an Egyptian army to few losses. Ransom on the prisoners is refused.

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West of Gaza a few Muslims have risen in rebellion against our rule. The local captain, left behind from David's crusade army, takes the field against them. Losses are significant, but the border is still well held given what we know of the Egyptian armies.

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Two more years pass in peace and prosperity. So long as David is on crusade there is no one in the realm who can effectively defray my control of the empire. The Sicilians send a princess to beg Prince Cennedig for a truce. We ask only for Durazzo and Ajaccio, lands we mean to take anyway, in return but Princess Elizabeth refuses, as expected. At Caernarvon Eion establishes a Theives' Guild without my explicit permission, but the treasury will stand the expense and so he is allowed to proceed without seeing the bit that might have drawn him short. Diplomatic contact is established with the Mongols. We provide them copies of our maps including notes on what information we have of Turkish troop deployments. Let us hope those two bleed each other dry and are weakened for the inevitable conflict with us and the rest of Christendom.

David's crusade is near Palermo, but he wishes to establish a base in the region first. Palermo is held by two large Sicilian armies, and if it should be necessary to fall back and resupply his armies Tripoli will make an excellent spot for it. Additionally the castle is held by the Egyptians, so capturing it will weaken his old enemies and strengthen his position. Arriving in the area he discovers a small group of the enemy camped outside the walls and immediately assaults them. When the tiny garrison rushes out to reinforce them both are destroyed and the castle is sacked.

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One company of highland archers is left to secure the place while David takes the four thousand florins captured in the sack and sails on for Palermo.

The siege cannot begin yet as David calls on every would be Crusader in the area (Author's note: including two companies of mercenary crossbowmen violating the rules before I thought. I disbanded them afterward and they were useless in the battle anwyay, serving only to soak up a charge. They weren't even necessary as the Sicilians had about 400 peasants in their army. If not for the peasants this battle would have been the crowning achievement of my reign. I was too disgusted by the rout of those fine Norman knights because a few peasants ran through their ranks to take screenshots of the end of the battle.) to join his cause against the vile Sicilians. Alas, their King is not here, but the mass of the soldiers are. The coming battle will cripple them.

David remains in camp long enough to assess the strength of the Sicilians carefully. As before at Tripoli he attacks the smaller army encamped outside the walls in a bid to force the garrison out from behind their walls. Bernardo the Honest takes the bait.

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Captain Deo bravely leads a charge against our much large army as we are repositioning to the high ground to cover our reinforcements moving onto the field. A volley of bolts from the crossbowmen does nothing to deter his charge from crashing into their ranks with him at the very head of it.



Immediately our swarm of infantry envelopes Deo's entire line and our cavalry rides back from their forward position to strike him from behind.



We lose a great many crossbowmen and pilgrims, but captain Deo loses his life and his entire army.



Bernardo the Honest has used this opportunity to move into range with his knight heavy force. Alas for Bernardo and his knights their sole reinforcements are nigh on five hundred peasants. The first taste of the lance sends the peasantry scurrying for the hills. When our reinforcements arrive behind his struggling mass of Norman knights they lose heart and follow the peasants leaving their general lying on the field, the last of his army still fighting.



Having reviewed the documents David sent me I can only conclude that if the Sicilians had sent every one of their peasants home to the farm and instead pulled Captain Deo's spearmen and cavalry into the citadel at Palermo the siege would have lasted twenty years or more, or at least until one of our ally's crusader armies came to join the siege. As it is enough Normans escaped the battlefield to draw the siege out for some time. In addition I have sent David orders to allow Malcom to reach Palermo before he proceeds with the attack. Malcom is so vacantly unaware of the true situation that he again sent a letter of gratitude to the King for asking David to wait. I was wrong about the threat he might've presented, all I had to find was the right scent to lead him by the nose.

In any case the Sicilians refused to pay ransom on the prisoners from the battle and so David the Mad Saint put nearly five hundred of them to the sword, including over a hundred and fifty Norman foot knights. The power of Sicily in the world is utterly broken. At Gaza an Egyptian general named Saladin launches a siege with three hundred soldiers. Captain Aed leads the garrison in a sally while Mac Bethad sends reinforcements from Jerusalem under captain Gawain to aid him.

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As the garrison advances slowly into range for an arrow duel against the enemy horse archers their reinforcements arrive. When losses begin to mount among the mounted archers Saladin withdraws them behind the farm west of the Gaza road. This is just the advantage captain Aed has been looking for, and he surges forward with the farm's stone wall to secure his flank. Unfortunately he mistimes his attack such that his highland noble contigent is ahead of the main body and subject to a charge from the Egyptian heavy cavalry.



The Highlanders are ill suited to this type of combat and take heavy losses before reinforcements reach them, but Saladin has made a dramatic mistake. All of his cavalry are commited here, including his own bodyguard, and captain Aed surrounds them before his Highlanders break. Soon Saladin is dragged from his horse and dismembered, breaking the remnant of his cavalry's will to fight and leaving his spearmen leaderless.



Our advance traps the two spear companies unformed and unable to support one another. They rout quickly and are chased from the field alongisde their remaining ranged support. Only the last few of the Egyptian heavy cavalry have rallied and returned to the battle.



Unfortunately they very cleverly slip behind our lines by racing around the farm house to catch our peasant archers exposed and unprotected. Their charge kills dozens of the peasants, but as soon as the spearmen reinforce them the enemy cavalry surrenders.



Captain Aed's garrison force is substantially reduced, but can be brought back to full strength in reasonable time. Again the Egyptians decline to pay ransom on their soldiers, who then join Saladin's corpse in the desert.



Two more years see the second decade of my rule come and go as Malcom marches south across Europe and uses David's fleet to sail to Ajaccio to lay siege. The Scottish Empire runs smoothly and well. Many impressive new structures are built across the realm. The Venetian Doge is excommunicated. This current Danish Pope is not only young, he is vengeful and unforgiving. We are fortunate to be on his good side, and I intend to keep us there. Aod of Clair comes of age, another useless young noble that I must find some purposeful task for, and, alas, our senior Cardinal passes away. Colin the Peaceful served his nation well and will be mourned.

East of Gaza yet more Muslim rebels spring up and must be dealt with. Captain Gawain, Aed's second at Gaza, is sent out to bring them to battle.

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Under a blood red sky doughty Scottish militia form a wall to absorb arrows during a ranged duel. In the end the enemy's horse archers retreat and his infantry advance uphill against us.



Moments after they engage with the spearmen highland nobles crash their flanks and set them fleeing. These filthy Muslim rebels have no heart for battle.



As his army disintegrates around him a Border Horseman spits the rebel captain through the back. In abject panic his men begin a general rout. The battle is soon over.





At Tripoli, however, there is more trouble with Muslim rebels. Captain Donnchadh leads the small garrison force out to battle.

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Using the light tree cover our Border Horsemen creep near the rebel formation. As soon as they are noticed they charge the Nubian archers and scatter them, but spearmen quickly reinforce the archers and kill no few of the cavalry.



As the cavalry retreat the spearmen attempt to follow. Meanwhile the swordsmen and the remaining archers advance on our highland archer company. They suffer heavy losses at range before attempting to make a direct assault lead by their captain. Hearing our border horse charging his rear the rebel captain turns, perhaps just to look, perhaps to try to give orders. In any case no words leave his lips as a Highlander staves in his head at precisely that moment. The swordsmen rout and take the archers with them, what few can escape our fast cavalry.



The spearmen, having just managed to make their way back to the main battle, engage the highland archers before they can get off more than a single volley of arrows. Despite having superior numbers they too flee, however, when the border horse return and charge their rear. Few of the enemy escape.



At Alexandria captain Gordon proceeds with his assault on the city. A general named Al-Assel and his bodyguard are the only armed force within, though a few more are camping beyond the range of our siege lines. The battle is absurdly uneventful as Al-Assel surrenders and goes into exile rather than fight for his countrymen. The Egyptians outside the walls retreat and flee to Cairo.

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Six thousand Egyptian citizens die in Al-Assel's place when captain Gordon releases his men to sack Alexandria. Eighteen thousand florins are taken. Mac Bethad the Saint lodges a protest from Jerusalem over the slaughter, and 'King Alexander' sends him a letter assuring him that Gordon acted without orders and will be relieved of command. The poor fool is satisfied with that just as I am satisfied with the gold we took and the almost completely intact new city, though races must be held there to keep the remaining peasants happy.

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So ends the second part of my accounting. I have been greatly pleased with progress so far, and I am increasingly able to turn the most hideous tasks of caring for King Alexander over to trusted, and well payed, servants. Since I control essentially all communication traffic in the northern empire I can be quite certain that no rebellion is being fomented here, and western Europe as a whole is remarkably peaceful, largely as a consequence of my own personal efforts. I struggle to guard against arrogance, but quite frankly I am one of the most powerful men in the world even though few outside my family have ever heard my name.