Marcus Boldvar

Marcus Boldvar is a fighter in the rebel force of Rainer Karga in the Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles") campaign. He first appeared at noon before the walls of Sarpyar, a well-dressed crossbowman whom those around him plainly respected; before his duel with the war priest, Rainer gave him his own sword to hold.¹²

The warning

During the siege he watched the fortress from afar by day and by night. One night Ephorus, seeing him, asked the gate guards to cover him and went out to talk. The crossbowman introduced himself as Markus. Some in the rebel camp, he said, had made contact with a relative of one of the guards inside and were planning to kill someone; he had told Rainer, who would not believe him. He wanted to stop it because infiltration and murder would destroy the justice of their cause. Asked why the rebels were waiting for the empire's coming force, he would not answer, keeping their tactics to himself.³⁴⁵

Ephorus told him he fought not for any holy cause or for the glory of the empire, but for his friends; Marcus answered that living on the other side demanded unending faith, and each reminded the other that there was still a way out of the fighting and a chance of pardon. He gave his family name as Boldvar. Ephorus did not know the family's story, and advised him, if he ever had to choose between his life and the cause, to make use of his name. Ephorus searched the gateway for anyone invisible before going in to wake Kemp Corvus and Katherine.⁶⁷⁸

Asked about the name, Baron Vermont said that Marcus's father had been hanged some years before for stealing from the empire again and again. The baron had thought it better to remove him as head of the family and pass the headship to his son, and believed that an old feud with more powerful noble houses had brought about the hanging. He did not remember Rainer ever serving the Boldvars as a guard. The company wondered whether a promise to restore the family's lands and name had drawn Marcus into the rebellion.⁹¹⁰

That night a legionary carrying poison was caught in the fortress. When Marcus came again, he said that Rainer now understood what had happened and thanked them for stopping it, the plot having been laid without his knowledge. Ephorus said that heeding Marcus had served both sides, and Marcus praised Ephorus's loyalty to Kemp.^11121314

Spoiler: The end of the rebellionRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #24 · Say what you have read

After Rainer's death the rising ebbed away, and its remnant fled east. Some three weeks after his death the crown prince marched east with the whole legion, and in time caught up with the weary, ill-equipped rebels camped on a broad plain, outnumbering them about ten to one. Marcus rode out to parley, and the prince sent Kemp to meet him. Marcus asked that those who looked like fighters but had taken no part in the fighting be allowed to leave; those who remained wished to die fighting rather than on the gallows. Kemp and Frederich spoke for mercy, but the prince and his advisers refused.^1516171819

Then a large, disciplined and well-armoured hobgoblin host came down from the wooded heights, a threat to both armies. Kemp proposed that they stand together; Marcus turned his force against the hobgoblins, calling it a chance to redeem their honour and crying that their commanders were waiting in hell. The battle, later remembered as the Battle of Düz Vadi, ended in victory. Marcus and the officer Lamberd survived. When Kemp had the legion drawn back, Marcus sent his men home to their villages, fearing they would be hunted down and hanged one by one, and carried Lamberd off into the forest. The prince ordered no pursuit and declared the rebellion ended.^202122232425