Bertalan von Bognar

## Sir Bertalan von Bognar

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**Sir Bertalan von Bognar** is the Steward of Craven, governing the county in the absence of his distant cousin Eleanor von Simeon. He is a valiant knight and a hopeless romantic with a poetic streak, very generous, but sometimes a bit rash, speaking before thinking.

## Bakgrund

The von Bognar family decends from simple cartwrights in Transylvania, who have been rescued from Vlad Drakula's tyranny by Dame Aldriona a year before the Battle of Camlan. After the battle, Bertalan's great-grandfather Bálint Bognár returned to Transylvania and married a peasant woman named Jolán; however, Bálint's sister Berta remained in England, married the knight Sir Abel, and their son, Sir Simeon, became the Baron of Craven.

### Early life

Bertalan was born in the year 573 in a village in Transylvania. His father, Botond Bognár, was a cartwright who was fairly wealthy for a simple craftsman. In 574, Botond, his wife Beáta, and their infant son Bertalan left Transylvania and took a long and dangerous journey across Europe, to live in the court of Baroness Jeanette, Botond's second cousin.

Bertalan grew up in the court together with the Baroness's daughter Eleanor. He got excellent education, learned to read and write, ride a horse, use the sword and the bow, and every rule of courtly etiquette, along with basic knowledge of history, politics and agriculture. At the age of 14, he became a squire to Lord Harold of Giggleswick, and at 18, he got knighted by Eleanor, who just got crowned Baroness after her mother's untimely death. Soon, he became the steward and personal bodyguard of Eleanor.

### Year 599

In the fall of the year 599, Bertalan visited Caer Coedwig acting as the bodyguard of Eleanor. Offended by the savage behaviour of the visiting Vikings of the Red Hand, he started negotiating a military alliance with Sir Billy and Prince Dorian Mallister. Shortly after the visit to Coedwig, the news of the famine in Transylvania reached Craven, and Eleanor travelled to Transylvania to solve the crisis, appointing Bertalan as the Steward in her absence.

### Year 600

In the spring of the year 600 in Somerset, Bertalan met Lady Rhonwen, and fell in love with her at first sight. After learning that Rhonwen got a dream from God to seek the Holy Grail, Bertalan gallantly offered her to visit his library. He did his best to make her feel comfortable and spend as much time in her company as he can, yet, she spent most of her time in the library asking for privacy and no distractions, which Bertalan reluctantly respected.

In the fall of the year 600, Bertalan attended the coronation of King Gareth II in Lothian and paid his respects to the new King. At the coronation banquet he hired the bard Ambrosius to play for him as he proposed to Rhonwen, reading a sonnet he wrote to her. Rhonwen rejected Bertalan's proposal, but she gave him a quest to find the ruins of Camelot and the lost Round Table to prove his love. Bertalan was heartbroken, but determined to complete this quest. Later, Bertalan signed a defence treaty with King Gareth and Prince Dorian.

When Bertalan returned to Craven, he met a pregnant peasant woman named Alviva Childe in the town of Arncliffe. Out of kindness, he took her in as a servant. In Settle, he learned that Lord Harold of Giggleswick, the father of Sir Wilkin, passed away. He sent a letter to Wilkin, who at the time was in Orkney with the Sodaliy of the Grail. Rhonwen and Dame Mildred joined Wilkin for the funeral. Lord Beorthelm Thatcher also showed up to the funeral, uninvited. Unfortunately, during an intense discussion with Rhonwen, Mildred, and Wilkin, and under the influence of some strong wine, Bertalan exclaimed "Down with the Childeater!", which offended Beorthelm, who assumed this was a declaration of war on Mercia, and rejected Bertalan's apology afterward. To avoid escalating the conflict further, Wilkin asked Bertalan to leave.

In early December, Bertalan visited Gwynedd once again, to look at the tapestry of Tywyn depicting the Round Table that Llwynoggoch the Bard told him about, and to research the family history of a friend. During his journey he spent a day at Caer Coedwig and talked to Lady Bronwyn, and then encountered Sir Øyvind on the way to Tywyn.

## Påståenden och Rykten

* He has a *very big* library, with lots of documents from the time of King Arthur.
* He is known for his skills in poetry, writing sonnets and ballads. His poems include Sonnet to Rhonwen and Christmas Sonnet.
* He is madly in love with Lady Rhonwen, who does not return his feelings.
* He is rumored to be the father of Alviva Childe's infant, and that he took in Alviva because of this reason.