From: wsb1@dolphin.upenn.edu (Bill Brickman)
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 1995 13:24:16 -0400 (EDT)
I finally worked out Giovanni's name, history, and Dark Secret (which I'll let Mike in on, and let him put Giovanni in situations so he has to hide it.). I naturally expect that Mike will edit this to his liking. Without further ado:
Fra Giovanni's Divers Life and Times, in the form of a timeline for the Covenant Annuals.
1302-- Marco di Philippi is born to the Conte di Ragusa's younger brother, Iago, his only child. However, in order to insure safe succession of his lands, Aristecchio insists that Iago dedicate the child to the Hospitaller Order, who saved their grandfather in St. Louis' crusade in Egypt. Iago insures that his heir will get something, by agreeing to send off his first son to the Hospitallers *if* Aristecchio agrees to make a similar donation of land at the time of Marco's dedication. The Conte, despite his greed for land, figures that losing his choice of his lands now rather than embroiling all his land in succession fighting, agrees. The Church, always happy to help settle issues such as these, draws up the necessary papers, and assures Iago that Marco will administer the hospice founded on those lands.
1304-- Iago is killed by Montenegrans when helping escort a convoy of the Conte's to other Venetian holdings. Marco becomes a ward of the Conte until such time as he can be shipped off to Cyprus, the temporary headquarters of the Hopsitallers since the lost of Outremer. The Conte's men mount a punitive raid, and a troubled period of fighting begins for the Conte, who finds his troops ill-equipped for battle in the mountains. Marco grows up in his uncle's court, learning the art of fighting with these men.
1314-5-- The Conte attempts to seize the lands of the Allodantes, but the Rector supports Lidija's claim in the Council of Ragusa. When the Conte attempts to settle the issue by marriage, proposing that he marry off his nephew, Marco, to Lidija, the Rector gently reminds the Conte of his promise to dedicate Marco to the Hospitallers and that the time for that had past three years ago. Embarrassed in front of the Council, he promises to send off Marco the next year to Rhodes, and that he hadn't felt it safe to send him off until the Hospitallers were cleared of any involvement with the heretic Templars.
1316-- The Trial of the Templars ends, an event which profitted almost no one involved. The King of France receives only some of the lands and wealth he wished to seize, as the Pope turns over their lands to the Hospitallers. Grand Master Jacques de Molay is burned at the stake, and the few surviving Templars go as far underground as they can, with rumors of them fleeing to the Court of Scotland and the Freemasons there. The Hospitallers, having moved to Rhodes as their new headquarters in 1306, gain much from their former brothers (read: enemies). Marco, at age 14, is send off to Rhodes, and as was required of all initiates, spends his first two years learning to man and captain the galleys in the Eastern Mediterrean and Aegean sea.
1320- At age 18, Marco di Philippe is initiated into Knighthood in the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, as a Knight of Justice in the Langue di Italia. He choses the name Giovanni after the patron saint of the Order. He is returned to Ragusa, to run the lands donated in his name by the Conte. He takes over the running of the lands, nigh on the the Rock, from the Deacon Antonio di Serra, who had been running them "for the Church" (and the Conte) until his return. He immediate builds a hospice for travelers on the Dalmatian coast, and begins a policy of taking in anyone-- even wounded Serbians. Befriending Lidija again, as his neighbor, Giovanni eventually even gets used to the magi, who he mostly leaves alone.
1321- Giovanni confronts his uncle for the first time regarding the apparent reduction of the lands promised for the hospice. The lands originally marked out as to be donated have been reduced to a small slice of land right next to the Allodanti's lands, while the vast majority of the donation is still in the hands of Deacon di Serra. The Conte refuses to answer, saying that the lands Giovanni has are the lands donated, and that the young lad shouldn't try to cheat him out of more. Giovanni, refusing the bait, humbly retreats. A few months later, when the hospice is faced with a food shortage, and di Serra offers to sell grain from his lands to the Hospitallers, rather than to donate, Giovanni is outraged, and goes again to his uncle, this time trying the nepotism argument: How can you let your dead brother's only heir be treated this way. Again, the Conte rebuffs him, saying that since Giovanni renounced his family, as shown by his continuing to take in rebels despite the Conte's displeasure, he has no claim to call on his uncle. Finally, a month later, when Giovanni takes in a Christian Serbian, and his "neighbor" the Deacon tries to break sanctuary to drag the man to trial as a rebel, Giovanni confronts the Deacon with arms when he comes to the hospice. di Serra returns to the Conte empty-handed, and the Conte has the Bishop turn over the prison to him. The Conte at this point stops speaking to his former nephew.
1322- In the middle of the night, "Montenegran" raiders attack the hospice, burn the grange/village attached, and kill all the families and farms in the lands held by the Hospitallers. Giovanni and the few brothers at the hospice fight against the party as best they can, but the raiders are heavily armed and well trained. The brothers are slaughtered to the man. Giovanni, still fighting, screams in the heat of battle that he will die defending this land, which is the holy Church and his family's. As he calls out his father's and father's father's name, one of the raiders recognizes Giovanni, and drops his sword, shouting "Marco, Marco!" The rest of the "raiders" are held off by this, as the man reveals himself as Petro, a vetern fighter of the Conte. Giovanni, recognizing the "raiders" as the Conte's men, calls them all traitors and heretics. Petro pleads with the Ferali to spare Giovanni, who no matter what was still their master's heir by blood, but the Ferali, all younger in the Conte's service than Petro refuse to listen to the "old man," seeing Petro (and Giovanni) as an outsider. Loyal to the Conte, they turn on Petro, and the elder man gives the argument of his life to keep himself from being killed. Petro makes Giovanni swear on his Vow as a Hospitaller than he will never reveal their identities, or they will cut him down. Giovanni, seeing no way out alive, yet wishing to live for revenge, so swears. Petro then convinces the Ferali that he's been around a long time, and that because he knows to save the Conte from his own mistakes-- which killing Giovanni would be, later, when the Conte needs an heir. Petro and the "raiders" run off into the night, and Giovanni travels to the Bishop in town to tell them of the horror.
However, when he arrives, he finds that the Conte's hand has already reached their before him. The Bishop puts Giovanni to the canonical courts, for desertion of his post and cowardice. With no witnesses, and finding to his horror that he cannot exact his revenge now without breaking his oath, Giovanni loses his case. However, the Hospitallers who come to the trial mysteriously reduce Giovanni's sentence from death to an extreme penance. They demote him from Knighthood in the Order, returning him to the status of an Initiate, and give him the penance of aiding all those in the area of Ragusa *alone*, with no help from his Brethern of the Order. It is deemed fitting by the Bishop that he pay for his sin so fittingly, and so Giovanni is spared. However, the Deacon's arguments convince the Bishop to add to the penance a stipulation that Giovanni be publically humiliated and give confession that he alone was responsible for the destruction of the hospice. Feeling this clever, the Bishop hears Giovanni's confession in the cathedral, and gives back control of the "deserted" lands of the hospice to Deacon di Serra. After Giovanni's public confession that he is a coward, the Conte publically renounced any familial ties with Giovanni until he should prove himself again.
True always to his vows, Giovanni begins his penance, and yet despite his vows, he swears revenge against Deacon di Serra, who he feels is utterly responsible, despite his uncle's clear actions of attack.