Eliza Carstens

Eliza Carstens
File:Eliza Carstens.png
Full name	Eliza Carstens
AKA	Lady of Qasr-e-Qand & Zahhak
Physical information
Species	Human
Gender	Female
Hair color and style	Blonde
Eye color	Blue
Skin color	White
Biographical information
Father	Nahum Carstens
Mother	Anna Allot
Date of birth	1614
Place of birth	Eliria
Residence(s)	The Manors of Qasr-e-Qand & Zahhak in the Bailiwick of Mohamedion
Nationality	Shirerithian
Allegiance(s)	ESB Group (Tarjeisson Trust), Imperial Government
Occupation	Trustee of the Tarjeisson Foundation & the Tarjeisson Complex Marriage Community Trust

Eliza Carstens, acknowledged common-law partner of the late Kaiser Dominus between the years 1635 and 1644. Trusted by Dominus to an unusual extent, she remained after his death aloof from the fractious and deadly power politics of Eliria, Shirekeep, and Teldrin, instead fulfilling her single duty; protecting her former partner's various off-spring. Following the death of the Imperial Mother and the maturing of the charges to adulthood and marriageable age she relented from this policy somewhat and has subsequently been appointed to the board of directors of the ESB Group (1662), made Governor of Lywind (1663) and designated as Chief of Staff to Steward Hartmut Aldric (1666).

Biography

Her father, Nahum Carstens, claimed to be the second cousin of the late Conducător Royston Merrick. This has however been disputed by Royston Merrick the Younger, who has no recollection of such a man. In any event, Nahum earned a living as a mechanic in Fieldburg during the Independence Era. A Verionist, a keen supporter of Charles Froughton, and a convert to the Holy Church of the Divine Icebear, Nahum had grown disillusioned with the so-called Coordinated State and needed little prompting to head out into the countryside and join one of the myriad of small bands of partisans that had sprung up following the Icebear Rebellion in 1609. The rebellion was spectacularly unsuccessful, on the mainland at any rate, and Nahum - along with the majority of the surviving members of the band he was with - was discovered by the Panopticon and swiftly fell into the clutches of the Cudgellers, who, after several days of severe beatings, finally saw fit to haul him before the Court of Star Chamber. Like most of those arraigned before that court, the outcome preordained, the process a mere formality. He was declared to be of unsound mind and dispatched, post haste, to His Serenity's Gaol Dragonsfold. It was in Dragonsfold, amongst the thousands of fellow victims of the medicalised torture favoured by the Coordinated State, that Nahum met his future wife, Anna Allot.

Anna was the distant scion of a notable Elw-Elfinshi family - the Allots. Although born into wealth she had, during her student days, developed a penchant for progressive thinking that saw her gravitate towards fashionable causes, feminism, veganism, Elfinshi-rights, and finally full blown membership of the Democracy Now! party. Not long after she discovered that Democracy Now! was merely another front for the Elwynnese Workers' Party (EWP) which, after defeat in the 1603 Elections had resolved upon adopting an entryist strategy to subvert their rivals in the progressive camp. That they were following a similar strategy against the Nationalist & Humanist Party as well would not become apparent until the events of 1613. In any event, this discovery in no way discouraged Anna, indeed the thought of being part of a secret society and living a double life fired her revolutionary ardour. More importantly, in spite of her parents concern, she continued to receive a generous monthly allowance which contributed towards funding the operations of the cell into which she was embedded. It was however the Coordinated State's ban on money, suddenly announced in 1611, which saw Anna cast into Dragonsfold. Her parents, like so many in the landed gentry, fell foul of the authorities by attempting to circumvent the demonetarisation edict by attempting to cross the border into Goldshire to the purposes of opening a new bank account. Arrested on their return, thanks to an intelligence sharing arrangement between the Panopticon and the Assayers, the Allots were banished to a monastery on Raikoth. Outraged at their treatment, Anna made a foolhardy attempt to exact revenge by attempting to fire bomb the offices of the Islus branch of the N&H Party. For this she was duly brought before the Court of Star Chamber, declared lacking in moral fibre, and dispatched to Dragonsfold.

A working-class libertarian Icebear worshipper and a formerly affluent student radical do not make the most probable of romantic couples; yet one of the consequences of Dragonsfold's notorious prison canteen had been that Anna had discovered that her rigorous veganism was now somewhat lacking in the department of rigour. Moreover, she learned, by a dint of incidental seating arrangements, that Nahum was not above swapping a plate of eggs and bacon in return for a couple of cigarettes. And from such small beginnings, via small acts of barter and later hurried moments of snatched intimacy, a more enduring bond was forged.

The revolution of 1613 and the formation of the Democratic People's Republic saw the inmates of Dragonsfold gain a sudden and immediate release - their places being exchanged with new arrivals from the former regime who had not managed to turn their coats or flee in time. Somewhat less committed to ideology and more interested in their own survival than they had been before their incarceration, the pair trimmed their sails before the prevailing wind and were more than content to sign on as members of the EWP for all the rewards that came with the toil of being at the vanguard of the workers state. Anna, by virtue of her earlier revolutionary service, was especially favoured by the party cadre and was rewarded with her own flat, even if she did have to share it with her newly released parents, as well as the janitor for the apartment block. It was in part to improve her accommodation options that in the final month of 1613 she and Nahum finally wed, in a civil service officiated over the area commissar. Eight and a half months later, Eliza, named after Nahum's late mother, was born into the world.

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Francisco Solano Burnside, an Alexandrian aide to the Arandur of Alalehzamin and Utasia, fell for the flattery of the politically astute Kapten Eliza Carstens, who now became his foremost accomplice. fed Burnside's vanity, filling his mind with ideas of military greatness. Henceforth she was always at his side urging him onwards and it is widely presumed that she became his mistress after that first evening.

It was probably at her suggestion that a state banquet and formal ball was organised in Xahazerke, a town that had, in all likelihood, never previously witnessed such a spectacle. Eliza certainly was at the fore when it came to managing the event. All the burghers of the city were instructed, on the pain of deliberately unspecified consequences, to appear in their richest clothes and the ladies to year all their jewels. An oil painting of King Noah was placed upon an empty throne and everyone obediently bowed to his likeness throughout the evening during the six course banquet. No sooner had the orchestra finished its uncertain recital of the National Anthem and struck up the first chords of the first dance, which Francisco's waddling form had the dubious privilege of leading, when a motorcycle courier arrived bringing Burnside news of the 101st's surrender to the coup plotters. Burnside lost what little self-control he normally possessed, shrieking the foulest imaginable curses against the name of Mankell. The Brigadier-General, wisely as it happened, elected not to return with news of his humiliation and instead travelled south to Shirekeep as an honoured prisoner, to make his submission to the Mango Throne. In his absence Mankell's family was subjected to a vindictive and vicious 'writ of cudgelling' instead. In the absence of the normal peacetime rules and procedures, the punishment beating was appallingly brutal and the Brigadier-General's nine-year old son subsequently died from internal bleeding on the brain caused by a fractured skull.

Eliza Carstens had Azardokht sat on her knee, and no doubt burbling happily, back in the Palace of One Thousand Columns in Ardashirshahr, Thorgils could be confident that Tokaray would continue to play his allotted role to perfection. Leverage was a wonderful thing – so difficult to acquire, yet such a pleasure to employ.

After leaving the Bailiwick of Dragonskeep the Kaiser's entourage swelled to enormous proportions all day and every day, like a river fed by incoming torrents. Eliza Carstens, his mistress whom he had met in the aftermath of the River War, and Azardokht al-Osman, the daughter of Dr Tokaray al-Osman and a ward of the Kaiser's, came out to meet the Kaiser at Saarreoonu, and they all took great pleasure and comfort in greeting and talking to each other - marred only slightly when the Kaiser introduced the latest additions to his household.

the Kaiser retired into Port Illumination, contracted four pillow marriages and a complex marriage household and there spent the rest of the week.

The Kaiser then retired to his chambers, wherein Eliza Carstens attended to his immediate requirements before setting out the details of the forty-four course endurance banquet that awaited them in Duke Harald's Hall later on. It was only with a slight note of exasperation that Eliza explained to the Kaiser what a 'jongleur' was for the third time before refilling the jewel encrusted wine goblet that he'd seemingly picked up whilst wandering around the tower. The subject then turned, inexplicably but perhaps not unpredictably into an inquisition concerning the Kaiser's behaviour back up in Port Illumination; to which Thorgils had shamefacedly answered with a variation of same response that he'd given on the previous night when she'd torn a few stripes off him. Unlike the yesterday she was calm now in her questioning, a fact which worried him not a little. This time, as he explained the rationale behind the the 'complex household arrangement', she had nodded silently along to the words before smiling coquettishly and remarking "How very Kezanite."

However, just as the Kaiser thought he was going to be spared another savage mauling she added on as an afterthought: "But none of that explains the 'pillow wives'." The Kaiser blanched in terror as the colour drained from his face. He had gone out of his way to avoid mentioning those...

Hours later, a suitably chastised Kaiser, his beard savagely trimmed, stood at the head of his entourage awaiting entrance into the banqueting hall as the trumpets began to blare in announcement of his arrival. Beside him stood Eliza, her left arm intertwined with his right and a smile of beatific contentment upon her face, dressed in a jade green sari embroidered with intricate patterns of gold thread and cloth of gold. The Kaiser on the other hand was dressed in the manner of a Stratioti, the taste for which he had acquired during the putting down of the revolt in Angularis, five years previously.

I request that the Manor of Qasr-e-Qand in the Bailiwick of Mohamedion be granted to Aqa Eliza Carstens as a private residence and that the adjacent Manor of Zahhak be granted to the Tarjeisson Complex Marriage Community Trust for the purpose of providing facilities for that organisation.