| “ | People expect a certain amount of indolence in a Crown Prince. It was quite winning when you were seven-teen. At twenty-two, it began to become tiresome. At twenty-seven, it looks positively desperate. | ” |
Crown Prince Orso suffers the burden of being the heir apparent to the throne of The Union. He hides behind the persona of a foolish, foppish, lech of a prince. But as his enemies might find out, playing the role, and actually being a fool are completely different things.
Appearance and Personality[]
Crown Prince Orso is a damn good-looking fellow, if tending a little too fat with a paunch. He has sandy hair carefully arranged to give the impression of not having been arranged at all.
Orso is lazy, indolent, hedonistic, and almost everyone considers him an absolute waste of space. He is superficially as much of a useless manchild as the young Jezal was, but at least Orso is fully aware of his shortcomings. On the other side, he has an easy confidence without a shred of pretence, a sharp sarcastic wit, and is genuinely kind to those around him. Orso’s internal monologue shows that he desperately craves to do something, anything, useful. When given the opportunity, he might just rise to the occasion.
History[]
Prince Orso was born shortly after the original trilogy, one of three children to King Jezal and Queen Terez, along with his sisters Carlot and Cathil. He was named for his maternal grandfather, Grand Duke Orso of Talins, probably with the intention of annoying Duchess Monza Murcatto of Talins. Raised in the palace surrounded by all the pleasures that indulgent sycophants could dream up, he has grown into a feckless man who does nothing but disappoint his mother, get high, cavort in brothels, and avoid his responsibilities. It's a common saying that he must have bedded 5,000 prostitutes. This might have been endearing when he was seventeen; at twenty-two, it began to become tiresome. Now at twenty-seven, it looks positively desperate. Unlike Prince Ladisla who surrounded himself with sycophants, Orso’s closest companions are all curiosities: Tunny, a cynical ex-soldier; Yolk, a fellow veteran and Tunny's sidekick as well as the butt of his jokes; and Hildi, a quick-witted waif who used to work laundering soiled sheets in a brothel.
A Little Hatred[]
Crown Prince Orso’s story begins at a public execution. He hates hangings, and vaguely ponders stopping it, but, as with so much else, circumstances conspire to stop him doing the right thing. Bremer dan Gorst arrives with a summons from his mother, Queen Terez is keen for her son to marry and fulfil his dynastic duty. Orso however dismisses each prospective bride one by one with a caustic remark. In the end, Orso wryly suggests Savine dan Glokta, a wealthy investor and celebrated beauty, but not exactly royal pedigree. His mother is not amused, and makes him promise to have nothing to do with the woman. The scene immediately cuts to Orso and Savine having sex; the pair have been secret lovers for some time.
Then news arrives in Adua that King Scale Ironhand and his nephew Stour Nightfall have overrun The Protectorate of Uffrith, Prince Orso finds it impossible to suppress a new and unaccustomed feeling; determination to do something about it. His father gives him permission to raise a military expedition, but Orso quickly learns the difficulty of getting anything done in The Union. In need of funding for his regiment, Orso turns to Savine, who surprises herself by agreeing to lend him the money.
A few weeks later, Prince Orso is inspecting his newly minted army. Savine has supplied the funding, and Colonel Forest provided the discipline, but he still feels rather proud of himself. Then he finds out that his lover has been caught up in the Valbeck insurrection. Without pause, he rides out to save her, and brilliantly negotiates a peaceful resolution like a true ruler; even Superior Pike seems impressed. Reunited with Savine, he finally confesses that that he's useless without her, loves her, and wants to marry her.
Prince Orso’s happiness is short-lived. First, he's horrified to discover that the rebels have all been executed, after he promised them amnesty; the orders came from the Closed Council, with nobody bothering to check with him. Then, Savine breaks up with him in a note, having learned that they share a biological father, but giving him no explanation and leaving him miserable. Next, he has to endure a joint triumph with Leo dan Brock, where the common people heckle him as a mass murderer and a coward, beside the Young Lion, hero of the Battle of Red Hill. He does get a little respite from the misery, in a brief liaison with an intriguing Northwoman called Rikke, But then his father dies, leaving Orso stuck with the crown he never wanted.
The Trouble With Peace[]
Several months have passed since High King Orso the First ascended the throne, but the embers of the recent war and uprising continue to smoulder. At home, the Breakers and Burners have become more extreme, while overseas, Styrian machinations have stirred a secession movement in Westport. Then there is the delicate matter of Fedor dan Wetterlant, an over-boisterous nobleman who committed rape and murder before witnesses. The Open Council would view a conviction as an attack on one of their own, while the public would see an acquittal as unjust. High Justice Bruckel favours tying-up the trial in legal procedure until Wetterlant dies in prison, a non-solution that satisfies the Closed Council but not the king himself. Orso visits Wetterlant in his cell, finding him entirely loathsome and guilty as the plague.
Then Lord Isher approaches the king with what seems a perfect solution. Wetterlant will give a full and contrite confession before the Open Council, allowing Orso to commute his sentence to life imprisonment; thus leaving the noblemen mollified, the commoners satisfied, and the king seeming stern but fair. In the Lord's Round, the trail does not go to plan. Isher has taken a decidedly different tone with the other nobles, portraying Wetterlant as an ill-used victim of the corrupt Closed Council. Wetterlant himself puts on quite a performance, having transformed himself from a pampered fop into a tortured innocent. The Open Council erupts in tumult, and Leo dan Brock leaps to his feet to denounces the trial as a travesty. Finally, King Orso finds some iron within himself. He orders Lord Brock forcibly removed from chamber, and then finds Wetterlant guilty, sentencing him to death by hanging. Orso can't even make a clean job of that, and it's quite the ugly scene.
Orso, still reeling from Savine refusing his own proposal, is sent into deep self-pity at the news of her wedding to Leo. He leaves the wedding early to play card with his friends, but Corporal Tunny pulls him out of his funk with a few home truths: Then the Burners orchestrate an assassination attempt against him at the demonstration of Honrig Curnsbick's steam engine. It was actually quite cleverly, if ruthlessly, planned and might have succeeded, but for the unanticipated presence of Yoru Sulfur, an Eater, who ended up slaughtering all of them.
On receiving a warning from an anonymous friend of a plot to overthrow the government, Orso rises to the occasion. He travels to Styria for a face-to-face meeting with King Jappo, and, with skilled diplomacy, persuades him to stay out of it. He then springs a trap to expose the spy on his Closed Council, by dramatically announcing his knowledge of the plot, and having Inquisitor Teufel follow the member who goes to warn the other conspirators; it proves to be Lord Marshal Brint.
Orso carefully prepares to confront the armed rebellion in the little town of Stoffenbeck. Before the battle, he invites the Young Lion to a parley, in part to buy time for reinforcements to arrive, and in part to carefully tearing down Leo’s supposedly righteous cause. The confrontation begins well for the royalist: the Open Council's forces are mauled by cannon on the left, while the Northmen on the right and Anglanders in the centre are held back in fierce fighting. When Orso's centre begins to buckle, he remains an oasis of good-natured calm, snapping-out coherent orders to withdraw into the centre of the town to form another perimeter, but to leave his standard in the clock tower. Lord Marshal Rucksted arrives just in time with a great many reinforcements, prompting Leo to make a last heroic charge for the king's standard. Reaching the town square, he finds the position oddly abandoned, except for the ambush laid by Orso. His cannons open fire causing carnage.
Orso surveys the harvest of his victory with little relish. He can only feel sadness at seeing Leo dan Brock, a man once so enviable, now so ruined. He visits Savine in her cell, and shocks her with his only question; why she chose Leo over him. She finally reveals the truth; that she is his half-sister, the illegitimate daughter of King Jezal. At the execution of leaders of the rebellion, Orso stares at Savine, and then commutes her husband's sentence to life imprisonment.
The Wisdom of Crowds[]
To be fully added:
High King Orso returns to Adua with his army after a victorious battle at Stoffenbeck. He feels pleased with himself and expects a triumphant reception. However, upon his arrival, he finds Adua engulfed in chaos. There's a Breakers strike-turned-riot on the outskirts of the city, with burned factories, barricades, and angry mobs. Even Leo dan Brock, one of Orso's companions, is broken and scarred from the battle.
Savine dan Brock, Orso's lover, is also imprisoned and wonders where everything went wrong. As they make their way through the chaos towards the Agriont, the royal column faces challenges and confusion. Instead of receiving congratulations for his victory, Orso is met with news of turmoil spreading across Midderland. Valbeck has fallen to an uprising, and Breakers are converging on the capital. The sense of triumph quickly dissipates, replaced by the harsh reality of the situation.