Life of Tom Drake

Hazelelponi of the Shattered Tower is the controversial Lepidean Librarian who commissioned the investigation into the life of Tom Drake.

Overview

During the Summer Solstice 386YE, Hazelelponi of the Shattered Tower charged the researchers at the Lepidean Library with investigating the life of Marcher hero, Tom Drake. Particular attention was to be paid to the life, history, and personal values of the first general of the Drakes.

In 377YE, Jonah of Cantiarch's Hold, accompanied by Lazarus of Cantiarch's Hold, experienced a past life vision in which they appeared to be Tom Drake. It related to the planning the final battle against Alderei the Fair, and details are included in volume two of the Echoes of the Labyrinth, but we found that it had comparatively little bearing on the wider events of Tom's life.

The research took a little longer than anticipated to put together, partially due to a desire to be thorough while investigating a figure about whom there are a lot of stories but surprisingly little historical information; and with one eye on the recent controversy around the fictional Vardas. As the research developed it became clear that Tom Drake might prove to be as controversial a figure as that invented by Ivar Olyankavic Nathavolava.

On one final note, it is worth recognising that this investigation of the life of Tom Drake touches on the depression that dogged him throughout his life. Those readers who might find it difficult to read about should bear that in mind, and may wish to skip over the section on Tom's early life and continue reading from the section discussing the Cousins' War

Early Life

Tom Drake was born in Upwold, in the village of Redston (or Redstone), into a yeoman family. Very little is known about him, but according to oral history handed down through the Drake family, he was an unruly child who would spend more time lollygagging and getting into scrapes with his peers than working on the farm. These “scrapes” became more serious as he grew older, and he was several times disciplined for fighting with older kids, sometimes seriously.

It's known that Tom struggled with depression for his entire life. The Tranquil Nostrum helped him manage his periods of doubt and despair, as did a handful of close relationships. There is some evidence that the Marcher song “Tom A Bedlam” was written about the famous general, who would often descend into deep doldrums after a successful military campaign or engagement sometimes for days or weeks at a time. It's not clear whether it was written when he was alive, but a number of Marcher musicians believe the popular version of the song is a reworking of an even older ballad.

Discovering much about the history of his youth is complicated by these bouts, during which he would often disappear for months on end, reappearing exhausted and ragged with signs of rough living and hard fighting on his body. Tom ruefully referred to these periods as “rambling with the black dog” and friends and families both feared he would one day not return from them.

In his late teens, he volunteered as a levy and fought under the steward of the Heath against the Jotun and occasional raids from Dawn. He is known to have been involved in a serious altercation at Brock's Toll in Miaren where he nearly lost a leg to a yeofolk arrow. He distinguished himself against the western orcs in numerous fights, earning commendations and swiftly rising through the ranks to become a commander in the steward's forces. Even at a young age, his combination of battlefield experience and talent for tactics and larger strategic considerations, earned him the respect of soldiers several times his senior.

He married his wife Amanda of Walksend, a practical and well-respected artisan, in his late twenties. By all accounts she helped to “settle” him, and encouraged him to manage his black moods. With her assistance he found that Tranquil Nostrum – also known as Bitterroot Tea – helped to calm the worst of his bouts of depression, although at the cost of leaving him lethargic and perhaps more mellow than is useful in a battlefield commander.

Tom claimed that the tea served as a reminder that even in victory, war is a bitter business. Those who knew him best, including his constant companion, Friar (later Abbot) Agnes of Stockland, knew that his use of the tea arose from a need to subdue and control the black moods that followed after every major engagement he was involved in.

The bitter tea could only do so much, and these moods dogged him throughout his life. Tragically, the more extended and intense the military campaigns he was involved with, the less time he was able to spend managing his demons, and so the worse the outcomes when the stress of battle was eventually removed.

All of this is generally well known. What we must discuss next is a matter of some concern given it upends accepted Imperial scholarship.

Four hundred years, and some Marchers still remain sceptical of the Empire and whether membership is worth the cost.

The Cousins' War

The accepted history of the Cousins War says that at the Battle of Hepton Bridge Tom Drake headed the pro-Imperial forces alongside Brigit of Dourfen and Henry of Meade. They were opposed by forces led by Gregory of Ashill and Mary Hay. The fighting was bloody, and continued through most of the day. Although they marginally outnumbered their rivals, Tom Drake's strategy was widely credited with carrying the day.

The defeated stewards were forced to accept the outcome to keep their lands, those who refused either fled the Marches or were executed. Some of the defeated households bowed their heads to inevitability, while others refused to capitulate and lost their lands. A few, led by Agnes Tiller's surviving daughter Hazel, quit the Marches with their soldiers and fled north. We now know that another sizable contingent of Marches – the Fishers of Bregasland – fled west into what is now Hordalant, and would eventually return to cause much suffering and discontent in the Dour Fens.

When one delves deeper, however, inconsistencies begin to appear. There is surprisingly little actual evidence surrounding the conflict itself; much of it exists as oral history and documents based on that history. As one continues to investigate, however, the inconsistencies become too obvious to ignore and a very different picture of the war emerges.

Unacceptable History

When Tom Drake spoke of the need for a unified Marches, he was speaking of a Marches unified under Marcher control. He argued passionately against Marcher involvement in the nascent Empire. A letter located in a collection of old correspondence belonging to a historian in Sweetwater contains a crumbling old letter in which Tom Drake wrote to Henry of Meade. It makes very clear what Tom though of the man history records as being his fellow commander at the battle of Hepton Bridge.

“We fought to have no masters,” he wrote. “We bled and sweated and cried on the field of battle to be free of the yoke of nobility. And here you would have us bow our heads and bend our knees to this Queen of Dawn as if the March meant nothing. Fuck that, and fuck you Henry of Meade, for a traitor and a coward.”

When the Cousin's War erupted, Tom was prevailed upon by family and friends to help organise the “defence” of the Marches against those who would "sell Marcher destiny to the Dawnish alliance” that they claimed sought to conquer them. When one looks back over the scattered reports there are hints here and there that the successes the anti-Imperial faction achieve in the war are often down to clever strategy – including several tactics that Tom would go on to employ against the Jotun orcs and Alderei the Fair in his final campaign.

At Hepton Bridge, Tom led the pro-independence side. Although outnumbered, his superior tactics very nearly saw the outcome of the battle go very differently to what we know happened. In the end it was not tactics, but a combination of superior numbers and the battlefield magic employed by the Imperial side, under the auspices of Brigit of Dourfell, that won the day for the Empire.

While the rebels obviously had magical support of their own, Brigit made extensive use of powerful rituals such as Thundering Roar of the Lion-bound Horn and thresher-magicians enchanted with Devastating Scythe of Anguish and Loss to disrupt the enemy forces. She spent mana like water – although where she came by the amount of crystal mana that must have been involved is not clear. While Tom Drake was a recognised genius when it came to fighting and winning battles, Brigit knew more about the tactical use of battlefield magic and in the end it was likely that – coupled with the superior numbers that are often played down by recent historians – that won the day.

Tom Drake surrendered alongside the rest of the anti-Imperial forces. His surrender was accepted by Henry of Meade, and the long discussion about what to do with the rebels began.

Conversion

It is not clear how the Empire persuaded the beaten Drake to accept defeat, but one document, a letter by Viola of Tassato, may shed some light once one better understands Tom's position. Viola was a wealthy merchant-prince with vast estates in Tassato who would later go on to be appointed the first Master of the Imperial Mint by her son, Emperor Giovanni. There is a copy of a letter from Viola in the Mint's records which seems to refer to Tom Drake.

"Naomi - I've met with Thomas. He is every-bit as stiff-necked and stubborn as he ever was. A lesser man would have taken Brigit's beating at Hepton Bridge to heart - but not this one. Her plan has clearly failed.

So I've paid the piper myself.

I've convinced him that Brigit really means it when she says we'll cut the whole field or salt the crop. If it was just his neck in the noose, we'd be stringing him up in the morning, but I pointed out that if he goes to the gallows, then the rest of them will be banging pots and shouting to be hanged first. That made his face black as thunder, I can tell you.

I've told him to name his terms to change his tune and got her to lock him up with the others. She's worried they'll be plotting something, I've told her I'm counting on it.

We'll see what happens.

Viola"

Could this "Thomas" be Tom Drake? It may appear to be a long shot, but it would make sense if Tom Drake was fighting on the other side of the Cousin's War. Viola talks of terms - and we know that Tom Drake was absolutely instrumental in securing a Marcher vision of the Imperial Military Council. That has never been in doubt, but it's often been assumed that giving Tom Drake the authority to set the terms of the Council was his reward for winning the battle of Hepton Bridge. But if this "Thomas" that Viola is talking about is Tom Drake, then it's possible that this was part of the terms he and the other rebels negotiated in return for their surrender.

We'll most likely never know for sure, outside perhaps of another past life vision. There's no doubt though that after the defeat at Hepton Bridge, Tom eventually came to see the Empire as the lesser of two evils. And, characteristically, once he had made that decision he threw himself into making the best of that bad situation.

Over time the role Tom Drake played in the Cousins War and the Battle of Hepton Bridge has been misinterpreted and misrecorded. Tom was instrumental in the formation of the Imperial Military Council, and was picked to lead the Imperial forces against Alderei the Fair. There are few historical records from this period but the records laid down during the time of Empress Aenea go to some lengths to make clear that Drake fought for the First Empress at Hepton, not against her.

The modern Military Council still mostly resembles that established during the foundation of the Empire.

Imperial Military Council

Whichever side of the Cousin's War he was on, we know for certain that Drake was instrumental in the formation of the Imperial Military Council. There are multiple different sources that agree on this. It was the insistence of Tom Drake and the other Marchers that each nation control their own armies and appoint their own generals. He played the crucial role in shaping military law, laying down the doctrine by which the Empire has fought ever since.

It was Drake that insisted that only armies raised from and by the people of the Empire's nations could be relied upon to protect those nations. In the light of this research it is clear Drake meant to protect not only from outsiders, but form any threat from within. Drake was determined to ensure that a nation's army would always be in a position to fight in the defence of their folk and their land from any comers.

It was Drake that ensured that the Military Council muster, and similar meetings, would be free of Senatorial oversight. He fought bitterly to reject the Right of Witness, arguing that there was no space for “priests to peer at soldiers” but in the end he lost that argument to the early Synod (and to the Senators who saw their priests as proxy observers for the Senate). There are some records that suggest the surrender on the matter of Witness was made in part to ensure Synod support for his argument that each general must be the final arbiter of what the army they were appointed to lead should do – that nobody would have the right or opportunity to scrutinize, reject, or amend those orders.

Interestingly, it is during this time that his dislike of the Dawnish apparently begins to mellow. In part this likely happened due to experiences fighting alongside Dawnish knights on the battlefield, but also because the Dawnish commanders were no more interested in bowing their heads to the Empire or the Senate than the Marchers He also received vocal support from the leaders of the Brass Coast – whose fight to preserve the culture of individual nations is well documented.

There were initial attempts to appoint a “leader” of the Military Council to dictate the wider strategy, and this was vociferously opposed by Tom and his allies. “Soldiers know soldiers,” he said repeatedly. No one individual could understand the forces that fought under the many different banners, and the idea that there might be a single voice telling the generals what to do would doom the Empire before it began. In Drake's eyes an army was like a farm - the steward decides what crop to plant, and then everyone grafts together to bring the harvest in. Nobody has any business trying to tell their neighbour when to reap and when to sow. Tom Drake worked tirelessly to make sure the Military Council was designed like the Marcher farms; fiercely independent but capable of working together when needed.

The Drakes remain the best-beloved of the Marcher armies.

Early Battles

Tom Drake quickly distinguished himself as an Imperial battlefield commander, just as he had in his battles against the Jotun in the Marches. He also showed his genius for strategy and tactics, submerging himself in the intricacies of the confused Imperial bureaucracy and logistical support. He had numerous long-night meetings with the civil service, constantly striving to simplify the process of supporting and deploying the Imperial armies – it is during this time that the structures of support and supply that exist to this day were established.

This work and stress took a toll on Tom Drake. It's notable that there are reports his hair began to go grey in his early forties, and that he began to suffer from extended bouts of amnesia. He was often seen supping a cup of Tom Drake's Tea in the morning and evening, sitting by himself away from the crowd, looking exhausted. Reading between the lines, the workload he took on began to erode his self-possession in ways his close confidants (a very small number of people including his wife, his brother, some fellow veterans, and of course his dear friend Abbott Agnes of Stockland) clearly found concerning.

Alderei the Fair

While most Imperial historians treat the end of the Cousins' War and the start against the war with Alderei the Fair as happening in quick succession, its clear that at least a couple of years passed between the two events. The sheer amount of work that must have taken place in creating the Empire, and the number of events that are recorded as happening after the Founding and before the war in the north.

Every historian knows that these inconsistencies exist – it's not even entirely established when exactly Alderei began his anti-Empire campaign. Some records say it was before the First Empress' meeting at Anvil, others say it was shortly afterwards, but the stories around how Varushka became part of the union suggest it may actually have begun shortly after the northern nation agreed to become part of the grand experiment. A discussion of these events is beyond the scope of our current assignment, thank goodness, and at any rate much more likely to fall under the purview of the Department of Historical Research.

There's no question that Tom Drake was an important voice in the war against Alderei and his supporters. Although he apparently disliked the Varushkan commander intensely, he still argued that Alderei was a problem for the Varushkans to sort themselves. It was not a popular stance, but he apparently questioned whether the Empire had any right to involve itself in this disagreement between Varushkans. After all, the Cousins' War could only be settled by Marchers fighting Marchers. Might not the same be true of Varushka? Let them sort it out themselves, he said.

He appears to have changed his stance when news began to spread that Alderei's banner was supported by the volodny. Tom was clear that the magic of the volodny meant they were sorcerers (in the Marcher definition) and that meant the Empire had to "show them the stick". It's impossible to unravel how much of this was motivated by his personal dislike of the tyrant-boyar, but once the decision was made to march, he volunteered to be at the front of the column.

The Marcher armies, with the Drakes at their head, went north without delay to try and deal with the tyrant boyar and his allies. They fought in several engagements, but again it was dark sorcery that proved a major challenge for Drake's strategies. The pall of dread the volodny wove over the armies of Alderei was like nothing the Marchers had encountered before, although some Dawnish and Highborn generals described it as having some similarities with the miasma the orcs of the Mallum draped across their conquered territories.

It's also clear that none of the Imperial armies were prepared for the reality of a campaign in Varushka. The freezing winter they had prepared for, but the awful creatures that lurked in the darkness took many by surprise. In addition to fighting a well-equipped force led by a canny general, with the support of a cadre of consummate magicians, the Imperial armies had to content with the Wolves and in some cases Sovereigns of Varushka.

It is not much discussed, but at the same time the Empire's attention was focused on Alderei the Druj and the Jotun both were still pressing the Empire's borders. The Thule at this time are, apparently, relatively quiet – it's not clear why – and the Grendel (inasmuch as they existed) had their own concerns. But there was a real chance that, with Imperial forces split in a three-way campaign against Alderei, the orcs of the Mallum, and the western barbarians, the Empire was beginning to teeter. Ironically, the very foundation of the Empire might in theory have led to the disastrous collapse it had been created specifically to avoid.

Tom Drake must have been aware that the survival of the Empire might depend on the fight against Alderei being brought to an end as quickly as possible. The Empire needed to establish a peace treaty, so that the armies forced to fight in Varushka could turn their attention to the barbarians.

The campaign was especially vicious – the majority of the Varushkan fighting force was on the side of the tyrant, leaving the bulk of the fighting to the forces from the other Imperial nations (albeit heavily supported by the southern Varushkans). There was also a certain amount of bad feeling about the fact that there were warriors and warbands from several now-Imperial nations fighting under Alderei's banner – the Tillers for example, or the Dawnish forces under Ser Eric Capettin and Lord Gilmyn de Licorne (among others). The Marchers as a whole weathered this difficulty better than some of their allies, but it tore open wounds that were still fresh after the end of the Cousins' War.

The late intervention of the Urizen surely turned the tide against Alderei, providing respite from the dark clouds of the Volodny. Tom Drake was known to be bitter about their decision to become involved at such a late stage, after so many people had died, and there was a marked atmosphere of tension during military council meetings involving the Urizen. Indeed Drake is known to have objected to the presence of the “foreign magicians” at first arguing that they had no place in the deliberations of the generals no matter what magic they might be bringing to bear.

Tom's Death

There is no doubt that Tom died in personal battle with Alderei the Fair and struck the killing blow against the tyrant Boyar. Unlike the Varushkan, whose body is believed to have been spirited away by his Volodny servants, Tom's body was recovered from the fatal battlefield and transported with an honour guard back to his beloved Redston. Those who saw his body were shaken by how old and tired he looked, even in death, like a man in his seventh decade rather than one in his early forties. He was buried alongside his ancestors (and, in time, most of his descendants) in the orchard that now bears his name.

His sword, with which he apparently slew Alderei the Fair, was passed own child to child to his descendants, and currently hangs on the wall of William Drake's farmhouse.

Personal Beliefs

It is hard to speak with confidence about the personal beliefs of a man nearly four hundred years dead. We have a figure of a man prepared to compromise his own Pride to get the job done. A man with a fierce love for the Marches, and especially for its soldiers. A man who swallowed his dislike of the Dawnish, and later the Urizen, to create the most effective battle plans he could in service of a greater clause. A man who never stopped working to ensure the sovereignty of the Marches – not only to protect it from the Jotun but to make sure it was not subsumed by the Empire. It is almost a second thought that this stubbornness led to the other nations of the Empire enjoying that same sovereignty.

One of the concerns of the Heirs of Lepidus is that this man is inspirational not only to those who celebrate the virtues he demonstrated – and indeed an argument could be made for any of the true virtues save perhaps only Pride. At the pivotal moment in his life he swallowed his Pride to save the Marchers who had fought and lost by his side. It is this Loyalty, that many people believe made Drake the greatest general of his age. He was a Wise, Ambitious, Courageous, Prosperous general - renowned for his daring, brilliance and fearlessness and noted for never shirking from the job no matter how much work was needed.

But it was the Loyalty he showed towards the people he led that made him such a crucial figure. Tom Drake never wavered in his Loyalty to the Marches, and much of his life was given to ensuring that the Empire could never exerts too much control over the lives of the people and the lands he loved.

Addendum

This research has been published in accordance with the general guidelines relating to this kind of document, and is available across the Empire. The Department of Historical Research has confirmed that they will be incorporating its findings into their own work, and will be adjusting the general understanding of Tom Drake and especially his role in the Cousins' War in the coming months.

Further Reading

• The Marches history
• Tom A'Bedlam's song
• Alderei the Fair
• Imperial Military Council
• Tranquil Nostrum - also known as Bitteroot Tea

• Pride of the Marches - 385YE Winter wind of fortune relating to the descendants of Tom Drake and his sword