Alexandre Martial Alphonse de Bihain was born in 1894 as the heir of the de Bihain family, minor barons whose influence was slipping away with the social ramifications of the Ragnite Revolution, like the rest of the nobility. His father, Lieven Victor de Bihain, had married his mother, Ada Van Rompaey, for precisely this reason: the daughter of industrialists who had made a fortune in Ragnite mining, Ada brought much-needed wealth and connections to a family previously struggling for both.
Given this, like others of his station, Alexandre was raised with the best schooling available at the time, which meant attending a Yggdist boarding school where he gained a profound respect for the faith. There, he was exposed for the first time to people far above his station and was, in his first years, the recipient of a fair amount of bullying (beyond the usual abuse of power by prefects that one could expect in this period). That drove him into his studies and his books - which only stoked a passion that had burned in him for a while.
The de Bihains, you see, have a long history of equestrianism; the family was originally nobility from the lush plains of north-eastern Valois who fled to Gallia after politics turned against them in the late medieval period, bringing with them the proud tradition of the Valois knights and (just as importantly for the king granting them refuge) fine Valois destriers as breeding stock. Though they had changed their title in the wave of nationalist sentiment that led to the War of Gallian Independence, the de Bihains still had the blood of chevaliers in their veins - and their horses in their stables, and their stories in the manor library. Alexandre took to all of it, drinking in the heroic tales of his ancestors - there was Philip le Brave, who had saved the life of the King of Valois in a daring charge over rough ground; there Rosamund, who took the initiative to lead their household to Gallia after her husband’s execution and rushed at the head of but two dozen knights in a daring charge to cut through an ambush to Gallian reinforcements; and there, greatest of them all, was Roland-Florence, called ‘Tue-Tyran’, an appellation earned for making a daring charge to strike down the corrupt regent of Gallia on the battlefield with his horseman’s axe and end a civil war to restore the rightful heir to the throne, a feat for which he accepted no reward. Armour bearing the same names and weapons matched to each lined the manor’s walls, intimidating and inspiring in equal measure.
Finding a new identity for himself in this, Alexandre became obsessed with chivalry and knightly behaviour. At first, the bullying intensified. Then Alexandre took up fencing, doing so with fanatical fervour, and challenged the leader of his abusers, the son of a count three years his elder, to a match. He humiliated him utterly.
The bullying stopped after that.
After that incident, which earned him a small circle of friends, the delighted laughter of both of his parents when they received a letter from the boy’s father actually thanking Alexandre for giving him a much-needed dressing down and some highly beneficial self-actualisation, Alexandre would continue on at his school for several more years. In that time, two things occurred. Firstly, Alexandre’s interest in chivalric heroism would develop into a broader love of military history, tinged with a sense of national duty. To anyone with an awareness of politics and diplomacy it was clear that the clouds of war were growing on the horizon and Gallia would be exposed to the crossfire; he would be needed, with all of his skill as a fighter, cavalryman and leader that was sharpened by the day. Secondly, he became more sociologically aware; he heard more and more of his mother’s poorly hidden dislike of her family’s treatment of their overwhelmingly Darscen workforce and, reasoning that he was obliged by his Yggdism to help those who the Valkyrur had liberated before him and by chivalry to defend those weaker than himself, he developed a strong pro-Darscen sentiment. Alexandre even went so far as to attempt to set up a ‘Darscen Cultural Appreciation Society’ at his school, though he was rebuked for it by his schoolmaster and the nascent group shut down. This did not ruin his reputation enough to prevent his military talents being recognised, however, and at the age of sixteen he was recommended to a scout from Lanseal and subsequently offered a place at the famed military academy.
Alexandre entered Lanseal with profound hope of his own continued development as a soldier for the Principality. His actual experiences were more mixed. As an equestrian, the whispers he heard of the obsolescence of the cavalry charge in modern warfare from some of the staff and students were concerning and, indeed, a little offensive to him; his response was to obstinately push cavalry forces into a dominant role in every tactical scenario and war game that the academy’s students were presented with. That aside, he was considered well by most of his peers, if a little old-fashioned, and looked set to graduate into a high placement in the Gallian Armed Forces.
The war prevented that. With skirmishes at the border growing more threatening and invasion expected any day, Alexandre made the difficult decision to leave his studies before graduation to enlist in the cavalry arm of a military that was rapidly expanding. Being a noble from a farming region with horses to spare and having some theoretical understanding of command, he was placed as a 2nd Lieutenant at the head of a platoon of the 4th Lancers Regiment, a force that contained a good deal of the men and women of Bihain itself. For Alexandre, this was his chance to put everything that he had learned into practice. Alongside his standard-issue weaponry he took Tue-Tyran, the famed axe of Roland-Florence that bore the same name as his epithet; such a symbol at the head of Gallian cavalry, he hoped, would strike fear into those before him and be an inspiration and strengthen morale for those behind him. With his favourite horse, a gelding called Lambert, as his mount, he began working to form his platoon into a proper fighting force.
He did well. Between a fair but nonetheless encouraging and supportive approach to command, his action on the principle that a commander should lead by example and share in the tasks of a common soldier and perhaps one too many knights’ tales told in the mess hall, and despite (perhaps because of) his youth, the troops became thoroughly endeared to him; in the other direction, Alexandre’s concern for each and every one of his lancers was obvious to all and his belief in them and the values that he espoused was contagious. Fairly soon, the platoon had nicknamed themselves the ‘Chevaliers d’Arlem’ and had a community spirit that outshone any other in the 4th Lancers.
It was in that same spirit that Alexandre introduced Alex Schäfer to the Chevaliers. When he heard that a military attaché from Vinland was joining the 4th, and especially after hearing that he was Darscen, Alexandre was quick to request that he be assigned to his own unit as the platoon sergeant. Making clear from the start that he was one of their own, Alexandre encouraged Alex to share some stories from his home and culture with the rest of the platoon. The latter needed little of it and soon the two men had become fast friends.
That friendship would be tested, for the Europan War had finally arrived in Gallia and the 4th were to be among the first thrown against the onrushing imperial forces. The theatre was the Naggiar Plains, a sweeping landscape in Gallia’s North-East - which suited Alexandre down to the ground, being both ideal cavalry terrain and a place that he’d studied for years as one of Gallia’s most frequent battle sites. Pitching camp a few miles from the Imperial position with the river to their back, the lancers rested; tomorrow, they were to break through the enemy vanguard, carving a path for the 6th and 17th Regiments of the Line and associated militia units to advance, break up and cut apart the remnants and stall their advance. It was a task reminiscent and worthy of the knights of old, forging forth before any others to protect their home, and the Chevaliers relished the anticipation of the coming fight, telling stories around the campfires and charging each other’s spirits. Alexandre slept with his Valkyrur spiral clutched in his hand and Tue-Tyran beside him that night, awaiting the moment that the axe would meet with glory once again on the coming day.
That day, that moment, would define Alexandre for years to come. The Chevaliers d’Arlem were drawn up beside their fellows, towards the left of the formation - plains before them, a thick copse far off in the distance, the river running to their right… The cavalrymen of the 4th Lancers trotted, then cantered, then galloped at full tilt against their foe. That foe had seemingly had foreknowledge of their arrival; horses and men fell as they met with peppering rifle-fire, biting wire and caltrops. Still they came on, still they charged, surmounting the enemy’s line and spearing men left and right to silence the crackling barrage…
Still it came - three hundred metres up the plains, more rifles cracked. Each and every officer among the 4th paled at once - a defence in depth, designed to take apart a charge and destroy it just as they had planned to do to their foe. Still, with the infantry behind them, a retreat would only cause panic and let their foes take advantage of their disorder, or at best leave them depleted and vulnerable to counterattack; they had to press on. And at that moment, Alexandre recalled something. These plains, those woods, more familiar than they should be… A spark of inspiration running through him, Alexandre left Alex to command the Chevaliers and pushed Lambert on, passing quickly to the front of the formation. There, he told the colonel that he knew those woods - he’d studied them before, knew of an ancient battle where cavalry had rushed through a path less crowded with trees than the rest to strike at an enemy who had believed their flank was secure against them, collapsing their line and putting them to rout. A daring charge from those trees now, he pleaded, could win them the battle. The somewhat distracted and irritable colonel nonetheless hurriedly agreed to the plan, needing every advantage that he could take. So it was that Alexandre rode back to his platoon, shouting that they would save lives and be honoured that day if only they would follow, and led them away from the rest of the 4th Lancers.
Through the copse they rushed, moving at a quick trot to avoid stumbling. The woods had changed little in the two thousand years since the battle that Alexandre remembered; the ancient glades and clearings allowed the Chevaliers passage like they had their ancestors, hooves rumbling quietly against the dew-sodden ground. As the eighty-four well-governed horses wove between tree and bush and their riders caught sight of the treeline before them, Alexandre looked back at Alex, giving him a nod and a smile, of respect for him and reassurance for himself. Then he took Tue-Tyran in hand, raised the axe high above his head, and called for the charge.
So rode the Chevaliers, bursting from trees shaking with the thunder of hooves and voices raised in righteous hope and fury.
Straight into the company of Imperial machine gunners supporting their last line of defence.
To the cavalry platoon’s credit, the Chevaliers had taken their enemy by surprise and it did take a moment for them to wheel to face the new threat. Once they did, however, the result was a massacre. Bullets lashed at every man and horse among them, striking them down as they came. Alexandre was among the first, Lambert cut away beneath him and he then knocked out by a stray kick to the head as he fell.
Alexandre remembers being surrounded by the dead when he awoke - remembers the smell of iron rich in the air, the call of carrion birds, faces all around - so many faces. He remembers crawling, stumbling forward - to where, he knows not. He remembers collapsing again, falling in and out of consciousness any number of times. The rest is far from clear in his own mind, but seemingly he awoke far from the battlefield, in a bed in a small farmhouse, with a kindly couple tending to his wounds and his axe, sabre and carbine on a bedside table.
That gave him time to think - perhaps too much time. All the people he had known among the Chevaliers, all those he had come to think of as comrades, even family… They were being - would have been butchered, almost to a man, and he was at fault. How would he face the families back in Bihain; how could he even bear that title now, with what he had led so many of its people into? And even if he could… His ideals were shattered. There was no honour in the knightly charge any longer, not against machines that cut down mounted soldiers as a plow broke poppies, uncaring, unaffected. If he were to return now, he might be called on again - might be commanded once more to turn the flower of Gallian youth into brave knights, to send against the Imperial guns and be cut down just as before. No - he would not. Better that he be thought dead.
And so, once he was close enough to healed, Alexandre stole away in the middle of the night from that kindly couple with only the clothes they had lent him, his officer’s uniform in a case that they had been readying for him, that he might not forget his failure, his Valkyrur spiral chained around his neck and his weapons in his belts and scabbards. For a while, he wandered, purposeless, living from day to day as best he could as a noble who had never had to do so before in his life and trying to figure out what to do next. All the while, he fell further into misery. Despite it all, though, he did realise one thing: that Gallia would still need to fight and that he still had a duty to his nation. He could not follow that duty in the way that he had always dreamed of, not any longer; nor could he return to the Gallian Armed Forces in some other capacity, for somebody would be bound to recognise him at some point. Perhaps, though…
In 1914, Alexandre signed on to fight with the 15th Atlantic Rifles, under a false name that he would soon eschew, with a Gallian carbine at his side and, on the other, a sabre and an axe.
