The cheering continued for a long time before gradually subsiding.
Vig unfurled a parchment scroll and began reading the names of those to be enfeoffed.
A specially selected group of loud-voiced civil officials stood below the steps, relaying the Emperor's proclamations to the crowds farther away.
The empire's territory was simply too vast.
As a result, Vig created six dukes at once, assigning them to the southern frontier according to their achievements, abilities, and personal preferences.
From west to east, their domains were arranged roughly as follows.
First came Joren.
The Grand Admiral received Gascony, with responsibility for defending the western half of the Pyrenees.
Torlgar received Toulouse, charged with guarding the eastern half of the mountain range.
Together, these two men were responsible for containing any threat from the Iberian Peninsula and preventing the Visigoths from crossing north over the Pyrenees.
Shrike, whose accomplishments surpassed all others, received Provence, including the major cities of Marseille and Montpellier.
Naturally, his responsibilities were equally demanding.
He would defend the southwestern approaches of the Alps while also combating the rampant Moorish pirates operating throughout the Mediterranean.
Utgard received Burgundy, responsible for the northwestern flank of the Alps.
Viper received Swabia, guarding the central northern approaches.
Douglas received Bavaria, defending the northeastern Alpine frontier as well as threats originating from Moravia and neighboring regions.
These four dukes formed the shield against the Frankish remnants in Italy.
Should the enemy ever gather a major army and attempt a counteroffensive, they were expected to hold for at least six months.
Next came the remaining contributors to the war effort.
A total of eighteen men were elevated to counts, including figures such as Leif and Ingvaren, as well as surrendered Frankish nobles like Jean de Boival.
Nobles who had personally participated in the war and distinguished themselves also received new counties.
Rikard was among them.
The number of promotions among the lesser nobility was enormous.
Vig created:
240 baronial families
2,300 knights
To save time, he omitted most details and merely read the names of those receiving titles.
Even so, the ceremony took an extraordinarily long time before this crucial distribution of honors was finally completed.
Aside from the territories granted away, Vig retained vast lands along the southern coast of the English Channel as imperial crown domains.
These included:
Brittany
Normandy
Île-de-France (the Paris region)
Calais
Flanders
Together they were divided into twenty directly administered counties.
As a result, the Crown now possessed thirty-eight royal counties under direct control.
He also retained the Nantes region, which was expected to become the future domain of the Second Prince.
Ordinary soldiers were rewarded as well.
Every soldier received at least twenty acres of land.
For every additional month served during the campaign, another acre was added.
Those who had fought from the beginning of the war to its conclusion received as much as fifty-three acres.
The remaining lands would be used to repay the war bonds.
During the war, bond prices had fluctuated constantly as news from the front changed.
When Britannia achieved major victories—such as the Battle of Dunwo Manor—bond prices rose naturally.
Whenever bad news emerged, such as Carloman's surprise attack across the Great and Little Belt Straits against the Nordic coalition, people rushed to sell their bonds and prices fell accordingly.
By the latter half of the war, however, prices no longer fluctuated.
Instead, they rose steadily.
When first issued, each bond carried a face value of £1.
By the war's end, its market value had climbed to £2.5.
It had become one of the most profitable investments of the age—
provided the holder had not sold it prematurely.
After the enfeoffment ceremony concluded, Vig convened the Wise Council.
He ordered them to use the old royal legal code as a foundation and compile a new code better suited to the empire's current circumstances.
The task was staggeringly complex.
By April, despite weeks of effort, progress remained below five percent.
Unable to tolerate the stuffy and noisy meetings any longer, Vig gradually shifted his attention elsewhere.
In mid-April, envoys from the Umayyad Emirate arrived.
They invited Vig to join them in a joint campaign against the Visigoths.
He refused outright.
The envoys then suggested coordinating with powers in Tunisia and elsewhere to attack Italy.
They still failed to persuade him.
After this war, Britannia had clearly bitten off more than it could comfortably chew.
The empire could barely digest its newly conquered territories.
Further expansion risked undermining the foundations of imperial rule itself.
At present, Britannia's population stood at roughly 2.8 million.
Permanent wartime losses—including deaths, disease, and crippling injuries—exceeded 10,000 people.
Meanwhile, Vig had recently created large numbers of knights and barons.
These newly elevated nobles would naturally bring their families and recruit young men from their hometowns to accompany them to Francia.
An estimated 40,000 to 50,000 people would leave Britannia as a result.
Combined, these factors had created a shortage of reserve manpower.
As for the peoples of the continent—the Franks, Saxons, Frisians, and others—they did not yet identify with imperial rule.
Their likelihood of rebellion remained high.
They were therefore unsuitable recruits for the army.
After the Moorish envoys departed, Vig received the next delegation.
They were representatives of Rurik in Eastern Europe.
Times had changed.
The power gap between the two sides was now immense.
In his letter, Rurik adopted an extremely humble tone, congratulating Vig on building a vast empire and presenting numerous gifts.
Over the previous two years, Rurik had served as a broker for mercenary recruitment and had profited handsomely.
His power had grown steadily.
Even so, he remained insignificant on the grand stage.
Imperial intelligence still classified him as a low-level threat.
If necessary, a single field army division would be enough to destroy his rule in Novgorod.
Vig then offered some good news.
Although the war had ended, the empire still intended to purchase horses and hire steppe mercenaries.
The envoys were delighted.
They readily agreed to continue this highly profitable business.
With peace restored, the four field divisions had been forced to demobilize most of their troops.
In peacetime they would retain only one-quarter of their wartime strength.
Such formations were poorly suited for anti-bandit operations.
Hiring mercenaries was far more cost-effective.
To maintain control over the twenty crown counties south of the Channel, Vig planned to retain:
10 garrison regiments
4 ranger cavalry battalions
A steady stream of Eastern European mercenaries would handle rebellions and unrest.
The remaining territories would be left to the newly appointed dukes and counts.
Suppressing disorder was, after all, one of a lord's fundamental responsibilities.
The following day, Vig attended a cabinet meeting and called for increased investment in healthcare.
Records gathered from monasteries indicated that under peaceful conditions and favorable harvests, Western Europe's natural population growth rate typically ranged between 0.5% and 1%.
Over the past several years, Vig had invested tremendous effort into improving conditions in the crown domains:
Building hospitals in every town
Maintaining low agricultural taxes
Providing inexpensive honeycomb coal during winter
Even so, natural population growth had only reached 2%.
He now intended to invest even more heavily.
By training additional physicians and expanding medical services, he hoped to raise growth rates to 2.5%, thereby increasing future manpower reserves.
The ministers unanimously approved the proposal.
The meeting then moved on to the next issue:
What should be done with the prisoners?
At present, nearly 40,000 prisoners of war were being held on Jersey Island.
The cabinet recommended different treatment depending on the prisoner's background.
Frankish nobles and the most stubborn soldiers would be shipped to the Caribbean Islands as colonial settlers.
There they could struggle against the native peoples—and each other.
Whether they lived or died would depend entirely on their own abilities and luck.
Another 6,000 soldiers who had resisted fiercely would be sentenced to long periods of hard labor.
Their work would include:
Road construction
Draining marshlands
Mining operations
The remaining 30,000 militia, however, had barely fought at all.
Most had been captured without understanding how they had ended up in the war in the first place.
Vig saw little reason to torment them.
Nor did the cabinet possess the funds necessary to launch more massive public works projects.
Rather than feeding them for free, it made more sense to send them home.
Monumental architecture might symbolize power and glory.
Yet Vig had no interest in such vanity.
The empire was burdened with tens of thousands of pounds in war debt.
That debt should be repaid as quickly as possible—
not increased through the construction of grand Roman-style wonders.
—------------------------------
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