Master Varsin
(1364 - 1396)
It is not known where Varsin was born, and who had been his father and mother. Rumour has it he was born in Rhauthus in 1364 AFO. In 1381 he went to Altheizar and studied at the Royal Academy of Sciences (now the University of Altheizar). Being one of the best students of his year, he was introduced to the higher social classes and met King Yantuins in 1384.
His contacts with the royal court lead to his job as royal librarian in the palace of Altheizar. In the royal library he found out about the Glass Crown, a discovery that lead to his own death.
Master Varsin -the title he received after his death, when it became clear what his role in the revolution had been- is usually described as a tall and skinny man, with dark reddish hair, a pale complexion, a pointy nose and large, yellow eyes. In his lifetime he has often been mistaken for a Naglan, because he resembled an owl and thus, so people concluded, he was a Naglan that changed into an owl in certain nights... In fact he was an Ainahawair. Most Ainahawair live in De Weslanan, so an Ainahawair in Rhauthus or Altheizar was quite unknown.
From Varsins diary (1380):
I reminded the day I readed thath boock and knowed. I knowed I wanted moor and moor. Moor boocks, moor boocks. I looked a-round in owr tiny hut where there was no boocks or shelfs to putting them boocks on. I knowed I haved to go to Altheizvare and study. I haved to studing. I goed to the school in owr tiny town, and asked about me going to Altheizvare. Master sayed only mans were to go to Altheizvare, not creatures like me. I haved to be a man. I haved to be no longer ainahawair. I leave my garments that reminded of woman behind. I have to go to Altheizvare.
In the Royal Academy of Science, Varsin became known as a quite handsome but rather weird man. People mistook him for a Naglan, and Naglani were rare in fourteenth century Altheizar as well. His reading and writing improved, and he studied Law, Language, Physics and Magic with good notes.
Varsin described his meeting in 1384 with King Yantuins as follows:
On this evening I went to the palace. I was nervous about it, I never had met a king. I do not know if Yantuins is my king for he is not my people. Yet he is the monarch of my country.
Yantuins was a nice man. He was not special or more he was special in not being very special. When I spoke to him, he was interested in my studies and my wellbeing. We talked about the state and the fragile situation of it.
Soon after, Varsin left the Royal Academy of Sciences as a student to become the Royal Librarian at the Overveer court. It is whispered he accepted the job and left a glorious academic life as a scholar because he had fallen in love with Yantuins. His love might explain his downfall.
At the Overveer Court, there was a need for an heir. King Yantuins was under great pressure to get married and make a child that could be heir to the throne. Courtesans took the King to the whores of Altheizar in the hope the taste of female flesh would make him longing for his own wife. And weekly young noble women were presented for Yantuins as a possible wife, queen and mother.
In his diary Varsin wrote (1389):
Yantuins needs a woman. Would he have taken me as an ainahawair? What if he knows? I can bear his heir. What is he looking for? He wants to be my friend, but does he want me to be his wife as well?
Varsin hardly wrote about his relationship to the King. In court he was known as a scholar, someone who loved his books more than anything in the world. There are plenty of rumours his relation to the king was much more than just based on friendship. Some will even tell the king was more or less forced to see the public women of Altheizar. However, these are rumours and no historic evidence whatsoever has been found to prove them.
But it is known Varsin often went out of town to live as an ainahawair among his family and close friends. If he had done that in court or in the city of Altheizar, he would have lost his social position. In his diary, he is quite doubtful about it: he feels good living as an ainahawair, but he deeply misses the presence of his king when he is out of Altheizar. At a certain point he writes:
If only I could tell Yantuins about my true life. I crave for the day that he sees me the way I am. Maybe he shows his human side, I hope he will influence and improve the wellbeing of my people. But sometimes, I just want to leave court and go my own way. Leave the books behind and find my own life. Maybe I should migrate to De Weslanan and live among my people, and forget those Poorters who will never be able to give what I need.
Eventually, in 1393, King Yantuins got married to Crenzia. To Varsin, this was probably a great disappointment. In this year, he joined The Masters. The Masters were a group of guild-masters that aimed at a republic based on trade laws. Because Varsin had his contacts in court and was a trusted servant of the king himself, he soon became a key-person within The Masters.
Historians have tried to figure out why the loyal friend of the king joined a republican organisation. In Varsins diaries, there is no clue to the enigma. He writes:
The M have a leader that is quite attractive to me. His name is Brent. He is no King but he might be something similar when our revolution will work out. I wonder if I will lose my job in the library when I will be a hero.Yantuins can’t let me be at court when he finds out our plans for Overveer. But who knows where he will be going?
Not much later, Varsin discovered the ill-fated history of the Glass Crown. In his diaries he makes his plans very clear: he wants to find the Glass Crown and sell it to finance the revolution with it. He finds a similar minded person in Master Brent. Plans went wrong when the King and his men discovered the crown. Quickly, Brent and Varsin change their plans. Varsin knows his King will come to Altheizar with the crown and on his way, he will be visiting The Kings Inn (Now known as The Stolen Crown), a small inn on the road leading from Hartegard to Altheizar.
Varsin went to The Kings Inn, and steals the Glass Crown out of the kings room. Some say he had slept with the king that night, and after their rituals of love making he left the room with the crown. With it, he fled to Rhauthus where he meets Master Brent and his men at Spychl-Lake.
Meanwhile, Master Brent had made more plans for the revolution. One of his plans involved killing the royal family. After the revolution, he stated that Varsin was too loyal to the King. Even though Varsin was deeply involved in the revolution, he would never accept the plans to kill the king. Master Brent might have read Varsins diary:
Ever since I passed the threshold of the palace, my life has been lead by politics. I am no longer who I was or want to be and maybe the ones I love are playing a role, too. I can not express my love, not my hate and anger. If the Revolution is ours, we might be able to drop our masks and live as people are supposed to live, in love and harmony without state-politics dictating the matters of the heart.
Varsins aim, so it looks like, was to free Yantuins from the bonds of political and strategic love and marriage. Of course, when Yantuins would live in a republic he would be a civilian like everybody else. If he -as Varsin thought- was married to Crenzia because the king needed a socially approved queen and a true heir, the marriage was no longer necessary and Yantuins would be free to marry the person he truly loved.
At Spychl-Lake, Brent betrayed Varsin. He took the crown, but left Varsin with empty hands. Then he ordered his men to rape Varsin. This was an act of pure despise of ainahawair, Master Brent confessed he hated those creatures that were neither male nor female, or probably both at the same time. As soon as it was over, Varsin was strangled and his body was thrown into the lake. When the ainahawair of Rhauthus and elsewhere in Overveer heard about the murder of Varsin, they panicked and left the country during the revolution. Many of them went to De Weslanan.
The first laws and regulations in the republic of Overveer, partly written by Master Brent, made it clear that there was no place for ainahawair in the republic. To this day, it is made clear that only true men -and no women, no ainahawair, and no Naglani that are birds at night- can have a solid position in the Guilds of Overveer.
Because Varsin was involved in the revolution with The Masters, he got the title of Master after his death. However, many people think he has gotten that title when graduating from the Royal Academy of Sciences.
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