The Aborted Civil War

The Aborted Civil War is the umbrella name the Magelaw eventually settled on for Prince Tavard's secret war against Minalan and the magi in the early weeks of Hedgemage. It was, technically, a civil war between Castal and Alshar fought through proxies on a long frontier; it was "aborted" in the sense that it never escalated into the kingdom-wide conflagration it could have become because the Magelaw won the diplomatic and the military pieces faster than Tavard could close his secret declaration window.

Tavard's plan

Prince Tavard, Duke of Castal, declared war on the Magelaw in secret, intending to hold the declaration sealed for two weeks while he marshalled forces. The plan was coordinated proxy attacks along the entire frontier: the Lord of Cleston in the Castali Wilderlands; the Count of Dendra in Gilmora against Astyral; mercenaries quietly added to the garrison at Darkfaller; pro-Castali Gilmoran houses primed to rise. The intention was that by the time anyone in the Magelaw knew the war was on, the Castali line would already be ten miles past it.

The four campaigns that defeated it

The plan failed for four reasons, each a separate event linked from this one:

1. Terleman's Three-Day Conquest. The Lord of Cleston jumped early, captured Terleman's squire Anjak, and gave Terleman both casus belli and a pretext to march. In three days Terleman conquered the Castali border lordship of Cleston, the Castali Wilderlands barony of Walkurjurik, and the Gilmoran barony of Harton. Tavard's secret declaration was no longer a secret.
2. Astyral's Gilmoran War. The Count of Dendra declared on Astyral over an unrelated court case (a Losara bride-fraud appeal that doubled as cover); Astyral responded by raiding Dendra and Almaranda with Pearwood mercenaries he routed through the Alka Alon Ways, pillaging and withdrawing before any Gilmoran force could close. The two Gilmoran counts complained formally to Duke Anguin, who declined to intervene.
3. The Astyral / Gydion Defection. Terleman convinced Baron Astyral of Losara and Baron Gydion of Tantonel (Duke Anguin's bastard half-brother and bodyguard) to formally surrender their baronies to him under right of conquest. He gifted them back under Alshari sovereignty; they swore fealty to Anguin. Two more Castali domains gone overnight.
4. The Benfradine Duel. Baron Maynard of Benfradine, Astyral's future father-in-law and a famously Alshari-loyal Gilmoran lord, "challenged" Terleman to a duel over the disposition of his fief. Three passes, three judges of each type, an outcome agreed in advance. Terleman won; Benfradine joined the Magelaw / Alshar with Maynard still on its throne.

The Gilmoran rising

The defections emboldened pro-Alshari Gilmorans across the province to rise against Tavard's authority. Old aristocratic houses settled old scores. New vendettas opened. Pro-Castali forces gathered to repel Vanador's armies; pro-Alshari forces gathered in Benfradine and Losara. Within weeks Gilmora was in a full-blown civil war of its own, and Tavard's vassals could not answer their prince's muster because they were fighting wars in their own domains.

The Curia settlement

The kingdom-wide war Tavard wanted never materialised because King Rard called a Curia. Minalan offered to return the hostages (the captured barons and their men) and the city of Wilderhall for a token ransom, and to submit the disposition of the conquered territories to royal judgement. Tavard, with no army in the field that could move and his Gilmoran base in revolt, accepted with very poor grace.

The terms Minalan extracted: Losara and Tantonel permanently to the Magelaw and Alshar (Astyral and Gydion as their barons); the remaining conquered territories (Cleston, Walkurjurik with the town of Growar, Harton, Benfradine, plus the smaller domains Terleman had taken after Cleston) to be administered by the Royal Court until a future Curia decided their permanent assignment; Tavard to lift the exile he had imposed; a token ransom for Wilderhall. Princess Rardine's satisfaction at the outcome was undisguised.

Why "aborted"

The war ended before it became the kingdom-rending civil war it could have been. Tavard's plan would have, if executed on his timetable, almost certainly drawn Castal and Alshar into open conflict and split the Five Duchies. Instead the Magelaw consolidated three permanent gains, exposed the secret declaration, humiliated the prince, and put the larger question into a royal-judgement-pending limbo that lasted years.

Pentandra, who had spent the whole campaign begging Terleman to slow down, was for some weeks afterward the only senior figure of the Magelaw who thought the outcome was anything less than triumphant. Her view: a war this short, this asymmetric, and this politically convenient invited bigger trouble later.