Lord Marcellus De Damascene
Introduce your Persona:
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My name is Marcellus as was my fathers, father. I was born into a house of a blacksmiths in the service to the Byzantine Court of Emperor Basil II, in the city a Constantinople, the year was 995. Of all boys born into a guild I was taught to hunt and work. Reading and writing came much later and only after my Lord father, the head of his order, saw that I had been taught how to accomplish the daily tasks he set before me. Each day I would rise before the sun and go about the task of lighting the fires in the smithy. When that was done I would rush to fill the slack tubs with water and fetch the day's charcoal. If I had time and before the guild smiths arrived I would find some time to eat.
One morning when I was in my fifteenth year I awoke before dawn and to my surprise, the ringing of hammers on anvil. At first I thought I had overslept but there was no light in the sky, only a glow from the smithies door. I pulled on my tunica and rushed for the door of the smithy. Inside I saw a sight I would not soon forget. All the smiths with bare chests and sweat flowing from there bodies hammering at a billet so bright it was hard to look at. Each hammer, falling stroke after stroke sending sparks through out the shop. From the hearth, my father barking orders at the other apprentices' for more charcoal and more air from the bellows. Two smiths pulled from the fire another piece and held it to the first. They then set about beating the two together. The heat coming from the fires burnt the hair from my arms and face, but my skin was quickly cooled as the sweat pored from my body.
I leapt to my station in a state of confusion! "Why was I not told of this!? What are they building!?", I asked the other apprentices, only they did not answer. We hauled more charcoal and pulled at the bellows until our fingers and hands, bled freely as the callus was torn from them. And still my father called for more iron and more heat. Another piece was pulled from the fire, shaped and welded to the first, and then another.
I do not remember when the sun set, or even if we ate that day. As the last light from the sky faded and with the only light from the forge and the iron being hauled from it, I recognised the shape. An anvil! The smiths strained under its weight as they walked from the smithy door and to the creek bellow the guild hall, the light from the hot iron illuminating their path. Four of them wadded out into the water holding the anvil, suspended from a bar between them and together lowered it into the water to quench. My father put his strong arm around my shoulders and told me I was welcome to stay and work with him now that I had my own anvil. I remember how proud he looked that day. The year was 1011 and my skill was recognised by the guild and I was made a smith in my own right. That was the happiest day of my life.
In the year 1012 our household was contracted into service to arm and armour the Varangian Guard and Emperor Basil himself. My Lord father charged me to repair and keep armed these Royal Servants and the Emperor, and was sent with the guard on campaign. With great honour I travelled to put down local rebellions with the guard and then to fight against the Lombard in 1018 with the Emperor Basil II, father of the army, himself. Our detachment of the Varangian Guard was sent, and in the Battle of Cannae, we achieved a decisive victory. There were also many losses but our Emperor always put us first and even though we lost many companions we grew stronger with each campaign. The following years saw my skill as a smith change from that of a guild smith building pieces for the guild, to that of a seasoned armour and weapon smith. I was only able to work from the wagon I was given by my Lord father in which I had constructed a forge. The hearth was of clay that sat on a large stone resting in the back of the wagon. I would carry only the anvil wrought from my father's forges and the tools I made during my apprenticeship.
When we were not fighting on campaign, I was training with the guardsmen whom I had befriended along the many roads to battle. As I had only worked the steel in my forge, fighting was awkward at first. Though with little else to do when the fires were not lit I soon became a fighter not only able to defend myself, but the brothers that stood beside me.
In the year 1032 my father died and as his only son I was made the Lord of my father's house. That same year I was summoned to the Court of Romanos III Argyros, husband of the empress Zoe, in Constantinople. I was inducted into the Guild of armours in the year 1033. There our guild has had the honour to not only armour for the armies but again for the Emperor himself.
Ydeneye |
Rosalind |
Peter |
Marcellus |
Fergus |
The Quest
