Jalal Jahanbani

Portrait of Jalal Jahanbani as Personal Secretary to Kaiser Ayreon IV, 1662/1663

Jalal Jahanbani (b. 1640 AN, died 1730 AN aged 90 years), known 1664 AN–1672 AN as Jalal Esposito, was an Elwynnese–Shirerithian–Hurmu) civil servant, lawyer, politician (Ayreonist), and author of non-fiction books.

Jahanbani was born into a rich aristocratic family (non-peerage nobility) of lawyers and architects, Jahanbani's life was marked with his mother's, Talra Megadaezj, early death in 1648 AN. His father, Ashraf, was hard upon the young Jalal, forcing him to study more and more, and brought early him to university in Ardashirshahr, where he graduated with a mid-grade degree with law in 1657 AN. Meeting Lady Dragonmoor during his studies, the two began an affair, and she officially designated him her personal secretary and lawyer. Their relationship continued until her death in 1661 AN, whereupon the Jahanbani took up employment as head of the lawyers of the Dragonmoor Foundation. He also inherited half of Dragonmoor's human chattel estate. In 1662 AN, he left the Foundation and became personal secretary to Kaiser Ayreon IV. It had been noted that the Kaiser had found a liking in Jahanbani and enquired of his suitability for employment in the Imperial Court.

In 1663 AN, Jalal was appointed Shireroth's Minister of the Exterior. During his ministry, he oversaw the Batavian negotiations (leading to the establishment of a united Batavian state on the Benacian continent) and the full occupation of Benacia by Benacian states. In mid 1664 AN, however, he announced that he would seek to restore relations with Stormark, that the Auspicious Occasion was unlawful and that reparations ought to be made to the former king Noah and the royal family of Elwynn. He was immediately arrested and removed from the nobility with caste shame (hence the surname Esposito). A subsequent investigation showed that Jalal had offered his sexual services to the Kaiser, and discussed matters of Froyalan, Stormark and the House of Ettlingar Freyu with the Kaiser. Jalal was subsequently arrested by the Shirekeep City Guard after leaving the Landsraad. Prefect Titus Morvayne published an explanatory memorandum connecting Jalal with a Vanic insurgent organisation, the Vanic Web.

Jalal Esposito underwent treatment in Raikoth from 1664 AN until his release in 1672 AN, when he was restored to his surname. A Shirerithian investigation found that Morvayne's investigation into Jahanbani had been fraudulent. Thus Jahanbani was officially rehabilitated in Shirerithian law in 1673 AN, when he was restored to the nobility and the records of his caste shame expunged by a decision of the Imperial Judex. He remained in Elwynn, however, marrying Selri Karovion, a Hyperborean academic and landowner from western Raikoth. He became active in local politics in Hyperborea, sitting on the bailiwick assembly in Hyperborea for the Ayreonist Independence Party (1676 AN–1680 AN), and then received employment as Attorney-General of the Bailiwick 1680 AN. He held that position until the Ayreonist purge in 1681 AN, whereafter he set up an independent lawyer's practice in Thule. In 1684 AN, he published his memoirs, The Kaiser, the Auspicious Occasion and I, in which he discussed his relationship with the Kaiser (indicating that his relationship with the kaiser was non-sexual – though this publication did not dispel the rumours), his relationship to the former royal family of Elwynn (which he called non-existent, labelling also the royal regime of Elwynn as a perverted state engaging in the slow genocide of the native nations of Elwynn), and his views on the legal issues stemming from the Auspicious Occasion (in summary: complicated, but a fait accompli).

He sided with the rebels during the Second Elwynnese Civil War, and began working in the government of Free Elwynn as its minister of justice in 1696 AN (retiring a year later). In common with all other surviving members of the rebel leadership a bounty has been placed upon his head, with the Political Directorate of Benacia Command offering a sum of five million natopos for any information that will lead to his capture or death. In 1705, he and his family relocated to Hurmu, to avoid capture after the implementation of the Benacian Union–Verionist 1705 Final Status Agreement. He published yet another book, The Death of Elwynn, in 1708, as a sequel to The Kaiser, the Auspicious Occasion and I (1684), telling the history of Elwynn, from his point of view, from 1684 and onwards, ending with the Benacian Union annexation of Elwynn and the destruction of the Church of Elwynn. A third book, Babkhan and Elwynnese influences on Hurmu law, was published in 1710, and immediately became a textbook in the Hurmu law schools.

In 1719, he published a biography of Kaiser Ayreon IV, titled Kid Kaiser: An intimate portrait of Kaiser Ayreon IV, in which he hinted to having had sexual relations with the kaiser.

He had one daughter, Yahyanah (b. 1677 AN, aged 54 AN years), named after Juana Beazcoetxea) and one son, Salim (b. 1680 AN, taken from Kaiser Ayreon IV's middle name, aged aged 51 AN years). Yahyanah was elected to the Senate of the Lakes in 1718. In 1720, she was martyred during the Battle of the Palace of the Elenaran.

Jalal died from old age in his country home outside Norton, in 1730.