Realm Divide

Blunt and proud. His soldiers love him and he is clumsy with courtiers. He is honest enough to believe his own excuses, slow to anger and slower to forgive.

Ludolf's cousin, with a blood claim of his own. He held the western frontier for years until Wierach's chancery quietly stopped paying his army and he was called home in disgrace. Now he sits on his own lands with veterans who remember who let them go hungry. He talks of marching on the capital to free the Emperor from evil counsel.

Practical, wary and quietly ambitious. He knows what grain, horses and men cost, and he's loyal to whoever is in the room until they leave it.

A charcoal burner's son, he joined a lord's garrison because it beat breathing smoke, and rose to sergeant of a small frontier castle. When his lord rides out to meet Walram and never comes back, Lutz shuts the gates and offers the castle to whoever pays most. He sees the war from the bottom, where it's mostly hunger, mud and waiting.

Patient, sober and tireless. He takes no pleasure in cruelty but uses it without hesitation. He believes in the Empire more than anyone born into it.

His great-grandfather was a clerk in the Imperial chancery. Three generations of careful service brought the family close to the top, and Anselm finished the climb. As Arch-Steward he holds the seals, the treasury keys, the door to Ludolf's sickroom and custody of Prince Ottokar. He controls three electoral votes and needs one more.

Cool and observant, more patient than her age suggests. She hides her ambition behind piety and would rather settle a legal question with soldiers than with lawyers.

Twenty-nine. Her father, a southern prince, married her to Ludolf for an alliance he now regrets. Her son Lambert is the Emperor's son, while Ottokar is only his grandson, and the law has no clean answer about which counts for more. Half the court whispers that Lambert isn't Ludolf's at all. She means to settle the question by force.

Cold, methodical and almost without vanity. He sizes up men the way he measures fields. He doesn't boast, doesn't hurry, and never forgets a debt or an insult.

Ten years ago he took over a poor frontier march and started registering every household and measuring every field. He gave out rank for heads taken in battle instead of by birth. The nobles who objected are gone. The western princes mock his country as "the Ledger." He has no claim to the throne and wants none, but he keeps swallowing his neighbours.

Shrewd, dry and unsentimental. She is polite to everyone and loyal only to the balance sheet, and she fears disorder more than she fears any prince.

She took over her husband's banking house when he died and built it larger than he ever did. She now holds the Empire's debt, and half the princes' silver plate sits in her vaults as pawn. She lends to every side in the coming war, because war is the best market there is and she intends to be owed money by whoever is left.

Brilliant, glib, restless and short on scruples. He loves an idea more than any patron and talks his way into halls and out again before anyone checks his math.

The son of a failed notary, he grew up copying other men's contracts and learned that the people who draft the terms rarely benefit from them. Now he travels between courts selling strategies. In one hall he sells an alliance against Jaromir, and in the next he sells the plan for breaking it. He may see the whole board better than anyone, but he owns none of the pieces.

Eleven, bright, watchful and lonely. He has learned that adults answer the questions they want to, and he's starting to notice what they leave out.

He is the son of Ludolf's heir, who died four years ago in a hunting accident few believe was an accident. Since then he has been raised in the palace at Selbrun under Wierach's care as the Arch-Steward's candidate for the throne. Lately his grandfather has stopped sending for him, and nobody will tell him straight why.

A small child who is frightened of crowds and calmed by his nurse. Everyone else's ambitions are poured into him.

He is the Emperor's son, while Ottokar is only a grandson. Whether a son outranks the son of the elder line is a legal question with no clean answer

Learned and vain, and truly devout on his good days. He would rather be courted than bought, though he accepts both. He fears ending up on the losing side more than he fears sin.

The Charter was signed at Ammerau, and its archbishops have long claimed the right to speak first at an election. Hartwig has spent twenty years rebuilding his cathedral, and he owes much of the cost to the Oelhaf bank. He has never promised his vote to anyone. He tells every visitor he will follow conscience and precedent, and each visitor leaves sure that conscience and precedent are on his side. Hartwig knows his vote is worth more the longer he keeps it.

Careful, frightened and very good at his work. He keeps an exact journal of everything he does. It could protect him or get him killed, and he hasn't decided which.

Fleck is a burgher's son who trained in the south. He has attended Ludolf for eleven years and knows the old man's body better than the Empress does. He writes the daily reports on the Emperor's health, and lately they speak of small signs of recovery. Apart from the Arch-Steward, he is the only man allowed into the sickroom regularly. Wierach pays him well and keeps a close eye on his wife and sons. Fleck has noticed both.

Loyal and practical, with no illusions about lords. He loves Walram the way a man loves a good horse he paid for, and he keeps a running count of what he's owed.

A tanner's son from Seyne, Gerd has followed Walram through twelve years of frontier war. He rose from file leader to captain of the duke's best foot soldiers. When the chancery stopped paying them, he held the companies together for months with Walram's promises and some of his own savings. His men trust him more than they trust the duke. He wants his back pay, a pension and a house with a stone floor. He is starting to wonder which master is most likely to give him those things.

Gruff, discreet, and devoted to Adelais in a way he would never say out loud. He isn't clever, but he's hard to fool and harder to frighten.

Ortwin is a southern knight who came north with Adelais when she was sixteen. Her father sent him to keep her safe and report back, and Ortwin has since stopped sending reports. He runs her household, her small guard and her accounts. He knows every gate, stable and servants' stair in the palace at Selbrun. Wierach thinks of him as a dull old soldier, and Ortwin has taken care to keep it that way.

Eager and proud, out of his depth and desperate to prove himself. He badly wants to be taken seriously, so he's easy to flatter and quick to take offence.

Friedel is nineteen. His father, an old ally of the Ebering dynasty, died last winter and left him a county, its debts and one of the seven electoral votes. Every faction sees him as a vote that can be bought cheaply, and they send him gifts, advisers and marriage offers. He is an easy target to please. But recently he has begun to notice that the men who smile at him most think least of him. He has not yet learned what holding a vote can cost a man.

Stubborn, quick to go to law, and braver than her neighbours expected. She has no army, so she fights with charters, relatives and patience. She never forgets what belongs to her.

She married Sir Eberhard of Kaltenbrunn for his lands, and the match suited them better than most. By right, the castle Lutz commands is part of her dower. Since her husband rode out against the Duke of Seyne and didn't return, she has lived with her two daughters at a manor down the valley. From there she writes to anyone who might enforce her claim. She sees Lutz as a servant who has forgotten his place, and he sees her as a problem that won't go away.