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Name
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Karl Josef
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Alias
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Charlie Tapper
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Rank
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Feldweibel
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Previous Occupation
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Born a Landsknecht
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Origin
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Graz, Styria
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Experience
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Guild Founder
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I am Feldweibel Karl-Josef, known as "der Graubart" for my
greying beard among so many youthful faces. Born in the Spring of the
year 1504 or 1505, or so they say, to a soldier in the garrison of the
town of Graz, in Styria. Father was in Imperial service as a
Landsknecht in Carinthia and Carniola, on the border with the Turks and
the Venetian Empire. He married a Wendisch (Slavic) girl from
Carinthia, my mother, and I inherited her Slavic features. And so when
I was young and my beard was but fuzz upon my youthful face, I was
known as Karl-Josef "der Wendischer".
I grew up with soldiers and their craft…and their bad habits as
well! When I was of age, I too followed the Imperial drum like my
Father and offered my services to the Empire. Francis I and Karl Quinto
were in a mighty struggle in Italy, and there was the ever-present
danger of invasion by the Turks. I marched over the Alps and off to
war. I had a lover back then, a pretty, graceful village girl with grey
eyes and light brown hair…I marched away and never saw her again.
I have been a pikemen and doppelsoeldner, a fifer, and even a
noblemen’s guard in Venice, but now I carry the halberd of a
sergeant-major. I have marched and countermarched over all of northern
Italy and seen battle many times…Bicoccia, Pavia, the Sack of
Rome. I have fought the cursed heretic Turk in Africa and on my home
soil. I have lived long and seen far too many bad things...men stabbed
or hacked to death, killed by shot or torn to pieces by canon balls.
Villages pillaged and burned, maidens raped, townsfolk starved or
butchered. Most of my friends lie buried in common graves in foreign
soil, dead of disease or killed in battle. Or worse, some have been
maimed and left to a life of begging for food. I have by my own hand
mercilessly killed men and defiled women. I can only pray to God for
forgiveness of these sins.
Sometimes I wish I had married that grey-eyed village girl and stayed
in Styria. I could be safe at home right now, warm in bed and holding
her naked to me…but money is a curse and but burns a hole in my
purse. I have spent all of mine on drink, gambling and whores; the rest
I just…wasted. So I find myself on yet another campaign. I hear my
companions now, my brothers-in-arms, in the other room. The beer and
wine are flowing, there is women’s laughter and toasts to the
Emperor, somewhere music is playing, and an evil spirit makes them
already cut the cards and toss the dice. Let’s to the wine then!
For who knows where we may be after this campaign? Perhaps dead and
laid in our graves.
Karl-Josef indeed survived this campaign and returned to Graz, in
Styria, as part of the garrison. Danger from the Turks had caused the
Empire to build an armory there and stock it well with troops and
supplies. He married a local village girl, and even though old (over
40!), fathered many children by her. One of these, Karl-Josef "der
Junger", went into Imperial service as a "Kaiserliche
fussknecht", in the Imperial foot, as his Father and Grandfather
before him…but that is another story.
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