Recent History
In 1665, the High King of Castille was tragically killed while out hunting with his younger son, thirteen-year old Prince Sandoval. The gun barrel was damaged, or else the powder charge was too strong - the king's musket exploded in his hands. Prince Sandoval saw to it that the Master of the Hunt was executed for his negligence as his older brother, Prince Javier, began to hurriedly prepare to take the throne.
The day of the coronation, Prince Javier was nowhere to be found. His sword and his finest jewels were gone from his room. Don Andrés Bejarano de Aldana, a trusted family friend, was sent out with his men to scour the streets for any sign of him. As the sun was setting, Don Andrés returned - Prince Javier had been seen boarding a departing ship!
Of course, everyone was stunned, but the abdication of responsibilty was clear. Prince Sandoval was crowned High King instead. His first act, after a short speech admitting his youth and inexperience, was to appoint Don Andrés as his chief advisor.
Unbelievably, a spate of assassination attempts followed. The dons were astounded - of course, they privately felt the king was too young and needed a regent more than an advisor, but to try and kill the son of the well-liked and respected old king for no apparent reason? Don Andrés suggested, and Sandoval approved, a new guard force directly under the king's command, designed to ferret out threats and protect his person. Since they would be investigating high-ranked noblemen, they needed to feel free from retaliation. So, taking a cue from the Inquisition, they would wear identical uniforms of royal purple and a white mask when performing official duties, to obscure their identities.
Cardinal Verdugo, the Grand High Inquisitor, watched these proceedings with some trepidation. He knew the great power of his own spies and informants, and he knew how tempting that power could be. He had the Hierophant to stay his hand, should he grow too fond of it. Who would stop the king, if things went too far?
In 1666, the obvious Objectionist sympathies of King Leon of Montaigne grew too great to ignore. The Hierophant ordered him to recant the heretical ideas he had been debating in his court and make public penance. King Leon answered that, while he still considered himself a good Vaticine, he did not have anything burdening his conscience for which he should do penance. The Hierophant immediately declared Leon a heretic and sent the Inquisition to march on Charouse.
It was soon clear that the Hierophant had made a bad mistake. Charouse was not taken, and the advance of the Montaigne into Castille in retaliation was more savage than anyone could have expected. (The new general, Montague, was a commoner by birth and did not observe the conventions of gentle, civilized warfare.) At King Sandoval's urging, the Hierophant went to Charouse to attempt to make amends with King Leon.
He did not return. The death was blamed on Leon, who denied it. All that could be known with certainty was that the Hierophant had cried out in his chambers, and the Lightning Guard and the Hierophant's bodyguards had battled there. All the Castillians were killed. Conveniently, King Sandoval sneered.
Hostilities had been suspended while the Hierophant was away, and Sandoval had used the time to bolster his defenses. When the fighting returned, Castille was in a much better position to defend herself.
The new climate offered many, many new opportunities for people to betray king and country. King Sandoval's investigators took to the roads to spy on their own people: "Vagabonds," they were called, drifting anonymously into towns under a variety of guises. Folk only knew they had come when the purple-clad Vagos were suddenly dragging an alcalde or don into the street for summary execution for treason.
It was everything Cardinal Verdugo had feared. If the Hierophant were here, perhaps he could use his status to pressure the young king... but the Hierophant was not here, and young Sandoval had little use for the Council of Reason. He collected the taxes and paid the army; why should he listen to the cardinals? And there would not be a new Hierophant while the war was on; old D'Argeneau simply refused to come to Vaticine City for the vote. He did not think he would leave alive if he did. The Vodacce Five were quick to offer Numa as an alternate site, but the Castillian cardinals would have none of it...
It would be up to him, then, to do something about the King's secret police run amok. But he would have to move carefully, lest he and his Order become their next targets. Luckily, the Inquisition was used to working from the shadows, in secret, and without much support. Outside of the usual ranks of Inquisitors and High Inquisitors, he created "Defenders of the Faith" and "Knight Inquisitors," militarily-minded men and women who could counter the violence of the Vagos. His scholars and spies kept watch on the villages and cities of Castille, on the lookout for the hidden agents of Don Andrés. When they uncovered a scheme, it would be up to these new soldiers of the church to see to it that the unfortunate targets were protected.
Publicly, he denied to the king any knowledge of these ruffians. Well, certainly they dressed something like Inquisitors (although in black, the wrong color), but how difficult was it to construct a robe and a hood, after all? His Order didn't have a militant wing; it had always relied upon the sword of state. Of course he was devoting energy to trying to uncover who these impostors were... He knows Don Andrés suspects him, and he must move carefully.
NPCs
High King Sandoval Bejarano de Castille
Sandoval arranged for his father's gun to be sabotaged, of course, just as he arranged for his brother to disappear. Together with Don Andrés, he arranged for the "assassination attempts" that gave him a pretext for establishing his Vagos. And of course, he made sure that when the Hierophant was away in a hostile, foreign land, his two bodyguards would make sure that he wouldn't ever return.
And all before his sixteenth birthday.
The war is not going according to plan, though. It was the Hierophant's idea, although Sandoval had supported it at first. But the utter destruction that followed Montague through Torres was horrifyingly unexpected. He used the Hierophant's negotiations to fortify the front lines, and he expected that he'd be able to influence the next election to get the Hierophant he wanted (Tomás Balcones). Then the war could end. He didn't expect D'Argeneau's entirely justified fear to prevent the election. King Leon, furious now about the attack on his nation and the frame-up for the Hierophant's murder, does not seem inclined to back off until his losses are more severe.
In the meanwhile, though, the war gives Sandoval an excellent opportunity to indulge his paranoia. The war has made him more unpopular, and now the plots are everywhere. His Vagos must be ever-vigilant to protect him...
Don Andrés Bejarano de Aldana
Don Andrés began as a nearly full partner in Sandoval's coup. He and his men fabricated the testimonies that put Prince Javier leaving voluntarily on a ship; in reality, Andrés betrayed Javier the night before, beating the prince unconscious and tossing him aboard a departing ship of questionable provenance. (Death would have been safer, but Andrés had made certain oaths to the old king, and as a gentleman, he keeps his sworn word.)
Don Andrés is, of course, the leader of the Vagos secret police. This has never been made official, but everyone at court suspects it. The position gives him immense influence, over the courtiers and, increasingly, over the king. Sandoval appears to now be believing their convenient fiction of spies and traitors hiding in each shadow, and Andrés does everything he can to foster that belief.
Cardinal Verdugo is the thorn in Andrés's side. The Grand High Inquisitor is necessarily well-versed in the techniques the Vagos use - they are the same as those employed by the Inquisition. He is playing a game, Andrés knows it, but has yet to make a mistake. Andrés has no evidence, not even the flimsiest, to tie the cardinal to the black-clad, hooded men who have been opposing his Vagos.
Cardinal Ésteban Verdugo
The cardinal would, most sincerely, rather be focusing his efforts on Vodacce strega or Montaigne's slide into heresy. But he cannot ignore the plight of his own Castillian people, and neither Cardinal Balcones nor Cardinal Cristina have the resources to aid as he can.
He has another worry as well. Since boyhood, he has had visions of the end times, of the coming of the Fourth Prophet. Not many, but how many messages from Theus does a man need? He joined the Inquisition as a young man in the hopes of preventing heresy from leading more Vaticines astray, into Legion's embrace. As he grew older, he began to doubt the immediacy of the visions - surely the Fourth Prophet would come, someday. The First Prophet knew of his coming, and here it was almost 1700 years later and he still hadn't arrived. Maybe Theus was just sending another reminder - it was easy to believe as the War of the Cross raged. The Fourth Prophet might not yet come for generations, but Theus's people needed to remain true to him until that time came.
But now, so soon after the War of the Cross ended, King Leon of Montaigne appears to be taking his nation into heresy. Witches rule Vodacce and now Avalon. Montague is bringing with him a form of war that seems to have been learned in Legion's Pit, and the cardinal is wondering if the end times truly are at hand...
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