"...the Beast, a chimera in gilt bronze whose saddle he bestrode."
-Poul Anderson, "The Trouble Twisters" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 77-208 AT p. 116.
"At the entrance to the throne room, four Ershoka stood guard, as gaudily outfitted as the men before the Iron House. They weren't at attention. That hadn't been invented here and the humans had been smart enough not to suggest the idea. But they and their gleaming halberds scarcely moved." (ibid.)
Ershoka are human beings incorporated into Ikranankan society as soldiers. The Iron House is their phratry barracks. The Ershoka guards are flanked by Tirut archers. Tiruts are another warrior phratry. Anderson/Falkayn refers to the Ershoka as the Emperor's "...Sickerheitsdienst." (ibid.)
For earlier blog references to periods before standing to attention had been invented, see:
On Ikrananka
Then And Now
Phoenician Inventions
12 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I recall how, in "Brave To Be A King," the guards of Cyrus the Great also did not stand to attention but were more than amply alert and watchful.
Sean
Incidentally, the "Iron House" is what the barracks of the Varangian Guard in Constantinople were called. IIRC.
Mr Stirling,
Anderson's texts resonate in ways that we do not realize.
Paul.
Dear Mr. Stirling and Paul,
And I did think of the Varangian Guards and their Iron House when I read about the Ershoka and THEIR Iron House.
I don't think our Varangians were into making and unmaking Emperors. Unlike, say, the Praetorian Guards of Rome or the two Guards regiments founded by Peter the Great in Russia. For nearly a century it mattered who they would swear allegiance to as Tsar or Empress.
Sean
Byzantium had succession disputes, but foreigners rarely got involved, even if they were in the armed forces. As Poul notes once (In THE GOLDEN HORN, I think, when a Byzantine courtier mentions how the Praetorians had kicked up their heels in Old Rome, to Harald Hardrada) ) the Byzantine emperor had to be a citizen and an Orthodox Christian. No foreigner or heretic could seize the crown, because he would be loathed and nobody would obey him -- note how unstable the "Latin" Empire was after the 4th Crusade.
PA also went into that in his essay, "On Thud and Blunder," mentioning how unrealistic it was for a Conan-type to just decide, "Oh, well, I'll seize the throne and...."
Depends on the situation. An old-established kingdom is usually not vulnerable to outsiders. Neither is a setup where there's a strong belief in say, dynastic legitimacy. OTOH, adventurers did carve out kingdoms for themselves in the ruins of the Roman empire in the Volkerwanderung period; Temujin, the disinherited son of a minor chief with at one time 2 followers (both members of his family) became Kha Khan of the Mongols trough, essentially, a mixture of politicking and slaughter.
Conan takes over the equivalent of medieval France, and that -is- sort of unrealistic.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
Oh, I certainly agree a Byzantine Emperor had to be at least am Imperial citizen and belong to the Orthodox Church before he could aspire to the throne. What puzzled me a bit was that the Varangians didn't at least back rival aspirants for the crown. Or make deals to do so.
Yes, the short lived Latin Empire was loathed by the Byzantines precisely for the reasons you cited. AND for the ghastly crime of 1204, the Sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade and the Venetians.
Sean
One reason medieval Europe gradually codified succession by primogeniture was precisely to avoid irregular successions.
Under ancient Germanic law, you had to have royal blood to take a particular throne, but all descendants of a king in the direct line were equally eligible -- and you had to be "hailed" by the various "Things" (popular assemblies of all free heads of household) in a district to be recognized as a legitimate monarch. (Though the Things were subject to intimidation.
This could lead to situations where, eg., a bastard son of Harald Fairhair, the first King of all Norway, raised at the English court as a hostage, could return to Norway and end up King.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
Exactly! The need for a stable and orderly succession was why succession strictly by primogeniture came to be so stringently emphasized.
And I recall how Poul Anderson discussed precisely that problem in HROLF KRAKI'S SAGA: all the sons of a Scandinavian king had an equal claim to succeed their father, younger as the eldest, bastards as well as those born of a queen, etc. Unsurprisingly, this frequently successions, with rival claimants having no trouble obtaining support from ambitious chieftains or powerful yeomen.
Sean
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