Sir Unust mac Cadal

Decantae samhladh tattoo

### Style

easily changed to match the situation, but generally understated and on the darker side to allow his actions to carry his name into the future

## Family

### Father's Class

warrior of the ruling sept of the ruling clan

### Holdings

none in Kingdom of Escoce, Beggarsford and Lovestream in Jagent County

### Relatives

Lady Brigid (wife), Sir Doughall mac Unust mac Cadal (son)

## Position

### Class

warrior of the ruling sept of the ruling clan

### Squire / Handmaiden

Gartnaich mac Oswiu (421-426), Peithan mac Breidei (427-435), Domech mac Talluorh (436-439), Sir Doughall mac Unust mac Cadal (440-447)

### Holdings

none in Kingdom of Escoce, Beggarsford and Lovestream in Jagent County

## Regicide

> So long as Constantine lived the realm had rest and peace; but he died before his time had come, for he reigned but twelve short years. There was a certain Pict of his household, a traitor, a foul felon, who for a great while had been about his person. I cannot tell the reason why he bore the king so mortal a grudge. This Pict took the king aside privily in an orchard, as though he would speak to him of some hidden matter. The king had no thought to keep himself from this false felon, who whilst he made seeming to speak in his master's ear, drew forth a knife and smote him therewith so shrewdly that he died. Then he fled forth from the garden. But many a time have I heard tell that it was Vortigern who caused Constantine to be slain. Great was the sorrow the lords and all honest people made above their king, for the realm had now no prince, save only those children of so tender an age. They laid him in his tomb, but in no wise put him from remembrance.
>
> Wace, Roman de Brut

In the high year 439 era vulgaris. High King Constantin II Rex ap Maximianus, the first High King of Britain, travelled north, beyond first Hadrian's Wall and then finally beyond the Antonine. There he made diplomatic overtures to several of the kingdoms and clans of the Picts. He had a rocky row to plough, for the Cymru in that wild land lust after their independence with all the fierceness of a drunken knight after a handsome one, and the Picts do so even more fiercely. In the halls of Craig Phadraig, he found the easiest audience, but though they feasted him grandly and many among their sept, including one man by the name of Unust mac Cadal, one of the first knights ever knighted in Caledonia, proved intriguing and fast friends with the king, even the rulers of Escoce rebuffed him.

Weary and saddened by the aridity of Caledonian courts ~ and, it should be said, a wee bit drunken himself ~ Constantin sought refuge in the flesh of a lady. No servant lady could smooth a High King's troubled brow, certainly, but there was a beauty among the royal family, one Glenna, to whom he'd been introduced by Unust the night before. She was unmarried and unbedded; Constantin Rex repaired one of these.

Glenna died giving birth to her son Godric in 440 e.v. Despite Godric being given her hastily-wedded husband's name, no one has ever been sure if he was Œngus's or Constantin's. Driven by his own guilt and the geas of his clan's samhladh ~ or something like it, anyway, since vengeance isn't actually the same as protection ~ Unust travelled in secret down to Logres on a murderous mission. Making a great show of his skill and general jollity and of their acquaintance the previous year, he gained the quick trust of Constantin. In time, he took the High King aside, as if to talk in privacy, and with his knife made short work of the man who might have been Godric's father. It was one of Constantin's Atrebates guards who found his cooling body, and a ruckus erupted when he tried, haltlingly, to convey what he had found. To this day, many whisper that a Silchester knight was responsible for Constantin's death. A fiosache gifted Unust with the magic spear Piercer in recognition of this secret deed both treacherous and honorable.

> But alas! that their father might live no longer!--for he had good laws the while that he lived; but he was king here but twelve years, and then was the king dead--hearken now through what chance. He had in his house a Peoht, fair knight and most brave; he fared with the king, and with all his thanes by no other wise but as it were his brother. Then became he so potent, to all his companions unlike; then thought he to betray Constantin the powerful. He came before the king, and fell on his knees, and thus lied the traitor before his lord: "Lord king, come forthright, and speak with [Unust] thy knight, and I will thee tell of strange speeches, such as thou never ere on earth heardest.
>
> Layamon, Brut

## Life in Escoce

While Unust had been on his bloody errand south, a feud had kicked itself up between the Decantae and the Cait and had been simmering ever since. It had remianed a clan feud only because the sept of the Cait that had first raided the Decantae was small, politically weak, and by lineage distant from the ruling sept of Caithness. Despite this, the Decantae found themselves losing fight after fight; this feud quickly swallowed Unust up upon his return, defending key holdings of the Decantae from Cait raids. Unust lost a year and maybe a handful of months to the work of surviving made more complicated by the interminable raiding.

Late in the 441st year of the era vulgaris, men from the south came again to the Kingdom of Escoce. Constantin, of course, was not with them; they had been sent by Dux Vortigern, advisor to Constantin's heir, the bookish and monastic King Constans. They spoke of a land freshly abandoned by war, unclaimed and freely available, with an abundance of forests full of good hunting and fertile soil, at least compared to Caledonia. The envoys, whether of Vortigern or of Constans, offered these lands to the Decantae. In return, they would have to defend their new lands against any invaders, particularly the Irish. King Drest heard their tales and looked upon the ravages of his feud with the Cait. He chose to use this opportunity to compensate for the losses suffered by one of the more minor septs of his clan, the Holly-Wearing Decantae, as well as their allies among the Ce, the Ap Gilgedi sept, sending them to Jagent with a few members of his own sept to oversee and guard them. Sir Unust mac Cadal was one such, chosen for his previous experience in the south.

## Coming to Cornwall

After a long debate, the Supreme Collegium elected Constans the second High King of Britain the next year. Relying on his uncle, Dux Vortigern, for advice, he makes one of his first decrees the movement of the Holly-Wearing Decantae and the Ce Ap Gilgedi from Caledonia to now abandoned Jagent. In addition, some Caledonian Picts are hired to be the High King’s bodyguards. Sir Unust, a few other members of the ruling sept of Escoce, and the two tribes finally travel to Cornwall, finding the country of Jagent much to their liking. Unust himself contributes heavily to their efforts to settle in this new land, his luck in hunting alleviating any worries his fellows might have had about food Dux Vortigern proves himself to be a good friend to the Picts, providing them with tools, grain and livestock as gifts, to replace whatever they may have left behind and to help them raise crops in Jagent.

Vortigern continued to wine and dine the Picts, and as one of the highest-status among them, Unust mac Cadal was there for every feast and every celebration. Unust was, however, not there when the High King's Pictish bodyguards murdered him and were nigh-immediately beheaded by Dux Vortigern himself. Word came back to Jagent that Vortigern, who had been selected King of Logres, had promised to lead retaliatory raids into Caledonian Pictland. Amidst heavy Irish raids, attacking Cymri and Picts alike, the Cymri sent raiding parties of their own against the Picts in a racist attempt to avenge the bodyguards' treachery. Many of the Picts who had lost family among the bodyguards are angry and feeling betrayed by the Cymri, especially Vortigern, but Sir Unust and others counsel patience, whether because the facts of the case unclear or because the surrounding Cymri, if given a good reason to, might wipe out the Picts. Despite or because of this counsel, Unust served his people well, defending against the vengeful Cymri, relying on a strategy of withdrawing into the woods numerous times and only counterattacking when necessary. Unust was not a nice person, the wagtongues came to say this year, but good to have at your back.

The Irish raided Cornwall again the next year, while the rest of Britain defended against a furiously vengeful Pictish invasion. Small bands of Caledonian Picts even penetrate into Cornwall as shown by the aftermath of some of the raids; some of these are in fact carefully staged raids by vengeful Jagent Picts. Unust served garrison against the Irish raids and defended well. The Irish had spent much of their battle-lust by 445 e.v., but fey monsters made themselves known in the woods of Jagent, hunted by Unust and not a few other Picts. Sadly, Unust never found a consistent enough trail to try the strength of his arm against the power of their bestial magics. Nor did the Cymric raids he feared so much appear before the hungry Piercer.

## The End of His Life

The furious Caledonian Picts had been invading the south in vengeance for King Vortigern's attacks upon them for almost three years, occupying much of the north and raiding all the way into Logres. Realizing that he needed assistance to repel them, King Vortigern, in good Roman fashion, hired new barbarians to fight the old barbarians. He notified the Collegium that he was giving the Isle of Thanet in Kent to a tribe of Saxons in exchange for military assistance as foederates and then encouraged the Saxons to send for more reinforcements. Thus reinforced, the British army, including many Picts loyal to Vortigern either enthusiastically or more diffidently, marched north against the Caledonians. Sir Unust mac Cadal was among them. Battle was met near the city of Linden Pool, and it was a great victory for the British. Though Unust survived the Battle of Linden Pool, his descendants have often opined that it was the original cause of his death the next year from a lingering pneumonia.