The chancellor is used to this sound, of course.

And it is distinctly uncomfortable to listen to.

What sort of news?

Crude photoshop of the “man looking at a woman in a red dress while his girlfriend looks angrily at him” meme, in which the man is a giant duke, the red dress woman is a blank-faced queen, and the girlfriend is France.

asks the Duke, in a gelid, patrician drawl.

Emperor LinkedIn has seen fit to grant your lordship with two new counts, to serve as thine vassals.

There is another grunt, of dismissal this time, and the thumping behind the door resumes.

Cover image for YouTube video

But the resumed shagging is lacklustre, and soon peters out, as the Dukes mind works.

asks his lordship, in a tone rigid with suspicion.

Not… quite, my liege, admits the chancellor, fingers wiggling nervously in his oversized sleeves.

A message pop-up informing me that I am now the vassal of King Sausage & Chips.

There is one loud, final thump then, and a brutal silence.

There is a much longer silence, now.

Fuck, says Duke Dukeroonie, and absent-mindedly kicks the privy door off its hinges.

A map of Europe’s conflicting powers, with about as much coherence and order as a spilled bag of skittles.

Thats not ideal, is it?.

It is the year 981AD.

He was extremely powerful.

A battle playing out in Crusader Kings 3 - the huge and frightening form of King Bloodmaster dwarfs his opponent on the combat UI.

Hes the ruler of Anjou, an independent duchy in the middle of the kingdom once called France.

Dukeroonie, however, managed to stay out of this carnage.

And there was a lot of beef.

A very disgruntled-looking medieval man against the backdrop of a feast hall, with flavour text explaining the drunken letting-slip of a terrible secret,

Dozens of meaningless alliances had been forged.

And following the Big Mans death, his geopolitical chickens were coming in to roost at last.

Dukeroonie didnt care, so long as he got to participate in a war.

The death of King Sausage & Chips, by poisoning.

Maybe he took a wagon full of sex-havers, to keep him busy on the trip.

Or maybe he just got down to it with the yokels.

Either way, at some point he had a son, who he absent-mindedly named FIST KNIGHT.

Duke Dukeroonie, who looks like a sort of gargantuan Ben Stiller, looks awed as he discovers, like Harry Potter from Star Wars, that he is a witch.

Meanwhile, things were just getting more awkward with King Sausage & Chips.

The lad must have seemed like a safe (and enormous) pair of hands, I suppose.

And then, of course, the inevitable happened.

In the end, it would be the emperors forgiveness.

But by then it would not matter - because something else arrived first.

It was a letter from King Sausage & Chips.

But not even a rude one.

Sausage & Chips had apparently thought this a great idea, because of the Dukes extraordinary talent for scheming.

The King found out about the Dukes betrayal, not long after that.

It was the last mistake he ever made.

As a reward for this heinous act, Duke Dukeroonie was recruited into Witch Squad.

There were no further consequences.