Aymar the Black

Aymar II, also called Aymar the Black, was a Breton nobleman and statesman. He was the Duke of Esgair – a vassal of the Kingdom of Morfil – from 3E 263.

Ancestry
Aymar's paternal grandfather, Duke Aubry III of Esgair, married Maud, the bastard daughter of King Seguin IX of Morfil. Aymar was thus the second cousin once removed of King Seguin XII, boasting a closer (albeit illegitimate) proximity of blood to their common ancestor.

Appearance and Character
Aymar the Black was a Breton of middling height and sturdy build, with broad shoulders and chest. Contrasting his pale skin was black hair and a thick beard, which by his fifties showed flecks of silver. Aymar's beady eyes were onyx – said to be windows into his dark soul. His epithet derived as much from these dark features as from his egregious reputation.

Terse and humourless, the duke was capable of unnerving others with silence, and terrified them with outbursts of rage. His voice was raspy.

Despite his noble status, Aymar was adverse to finery and ornament. At all times (even, some japed, to bed) he wore a mail hauberk beneath a black leather gambeson. In battle the duke donned a heavy suit of battered plate armour, wielding a mace atop an ill-tempered destrier. The duke's court was stark and sombre, Aymar having banished all entertainers from his halls (a far cry from the pageantry of his cousin's royal court).

The Duke of Esgair was shrewd, ruthless, haughty, and suspicious. Unlike many of his peers the duke did not disguise his unscrupulous nature under the façade of Bretic chivalry, the hypocrisy of which he disdained. Nevertheless, he awarded his servants with knighthoods. The duke's alleged misdeeds ranged from murder to necromancy.

Such a fearsome reputation proved useful to Aymar. In four decades the vassals and subjects of the duke – out of dread rather than love – never openly rebelled against his rule. This dread was felt beyond the heights of Esgair. King Seguin XII was said to be so terrified of his cousin that he was rendered dumbstruck in his presence; some even suggested that the king resumed his captivity in [Realm] to escape the duke.

   

Aymar was neither trusted nor trusting, and therefore had few friends. The reclusive duke's only true confidante was his  'plain and pious' wife, Duchess Mahaut. After an initial frosty relationship (the marriage being one of convenience rather than love), the duchess earned her husband's trust and even affection. A great many were spared the duke's wrath through the intercession of the gentle Mahaut. On several occasions Aymar nominated the duchess as his regent during his absences from Esgair. The duke did not, however, embrace his wife's religiosity.

 

Duke of Esgair
The weeks following Aymar the Black's accession to the Duchy of Esgair – culminating in the inadvertent murder of his brother – tarnished the remainder of his rule. Many supposed that such a bloody beginning anticipated a bloody reign, and tyrant was among the duke's many appellations. Yet under Aymar's rule the duchy experienced peace, order and prosperity.

Avarice was not among the duke's manifold sins. His subjects were therefore unburdened by heavy and punitive taxation. Aymar had no tolerance for criminality (except his own) and rigorously upheld the law in his lands. The duke was unflinching when meting out punishments from his throne: murderers were hanged, thieves had their hands cut off, slanderers and perjurers had their tongues torn out, rapists were castrated, and a melange of torment and mutilation awaited those found guilty of treason. Whilst the duke's justice was brutal, it was an effective deterrent for would-be lawbreakers. Few crimes were worth incurring the wrath of Aymar the Black.

Whilst the vassals and subjects of Esgair never loved their duke, they respected his rule. The common man had no cause to fear the iniquity of their lord or the criminality of their neighbours: the true threat to life and livelihood were the Orcs and Reachmen who dwelt in the Wrothgarian Mountains. Unchecked, these savages frequently pillaged the duchy throughout its history. Each spring, Duke Aymar personally led his warband on pre-emptive raids into the mountains, razing any encampments deemed too close to the ducal frontier. Any Orcs or Reachmen, regardless of age or sex, who did not flee were slaughter. A great many chieftains vowed vengeance against the 'Black Wolf'.

Paradoxically, the scourge of Orc-kind held greater respect for the 'Pariah Folk' than most citizens of the Empire. This was an admiration earned in battle; Aymar commended the Orcs' brutality and simplicity. His campaigns against them were not motivated by hatred, but necessity. In one such raid Aymar spared the life of the young Marog gro-Uzmakh, a captive who would become the duke's trusted captain of the guard. Murog was later awarded a knighthood in the Bretic fashion, demonstrating Aymar's favour towards the Orc and his facetious disdain for knighthood.

        

Biography
        Aymar of the House of Montaigu was born on 19th Second Seed 3E 246, under the sign of the Shadow. He was the eldest child of Aubry IV, Duke of Esgair, and his first wife Duchess Blanche. In 3E 248, the duchess died in childbirth of Aymar's sister Alice. After the appropriate period of mourning Duke Aubry married his mistress Catherine Rozier, the daughter of a knight, whom Aymar would later describe as  'one rung above a whore'. The new duchess reciprocated her step-son's disdain, after the birth of her son Aubry in 3E 252. Her efforts to favour her own offspring in the line of succession were barely disguised, and in 3E 253 she arranged for Aymar to serve as a page in the royal court – an honour which nevertheless sent the boy far away from the duchess's  'perfect family.'          

[Will add some more detail about Aymar's education]

In 3E 263 Duke Aubry died unexpectedly. Aymar remained convinced that his stepmother had poisoned her husband in the culmination of her scheme to place her son on the ducal throne. If this were true then her efforts came to naught, since the seventeen year old Aymar was proclaimed Duke Aymar II without dispute. The new duke remained suspicious (if not paranoid) of plots to depose or assassinate him, resorting to entrapment to draw out the conspirators.

 

At Aymar's command letters were forged in the hand and seal of Sir Geoffroy Malzieu, the captain of the duke's household guard whose honour and integrity was beyond reproach. These letters alleged that the young Aubry was the rightful Duke of Esgair, alluding to the bastardy of Aymar. Copies of this letter were sent to the duke's counsellors and retainers, inviting them to come in secret to the wine cellars beneath the castle on the night of 12th Sun's Dusk to further  'this most noble and necessary cause'. Those who reported this treachery to the duke proved their loyalty, but were sworn to silence until the trap was sprung.

Those who answered "Sir Geoffrey"'s summons were instead greeted by Duke Aymar and his guards. The seventeen year old duke was deaf to their pleas and reasoning: one by one the would-be conspirators were hanged from the rafters of the cellar. Aymar, seated with a cup of wine, looked on during this gruesome spectacle. Eight servants of the late Duke Aubry, including members of his council, were executed that night. Though contrived, this "conspiracy" confirmed Duke Aymar's fear: his half-brother posed a threat to his life and rule. On the same night, the duke ordered his knavish henchman Jean Tremel to blind the young Aubry. The mutilation was readily executed, but the eleven year old died from his wounds after four agonising days. News of this fratricide spread throughout the realm and beyond: for the first time the duke was nicknamed the Black.

The fate of Duchess Catherine is unknown. After the events of 12th Sun's Dusk, she was seemingly subjected to a damnatio memoriae, and the duke only mentioned her when in his cups. It is doubtful that Aymar, who mutilated a brother he claimed to love, showed clemency to his hated stepmother.