Lady Alexia Basileon, the Green Lady, is the eldest legitimate daughter of Iskander Basileon, Lord Burdock, archon of the Burdock Valley. Without an archontic title of her own, she restores the Azure Keep, builds her own court and is buying back, one by one, the regalia of the archons of Ardis Vala to claim her father’s seat.
| Type | Character |
| Father | Lord Burdock (Iskander Basileon) |
| Mother | A Thorcin woman |
| Seat | Azure Keep, near Gosterwick |
| Order | Knights of the Azure Shield (her own sept) |
| Era | From about 2987 AEP |
| Spanish entry | Lady Alexia Basileon — la Dama Verde |
Description
Her epithet comes from her constant preference for emerald in dress (robes, mantles, buckles, gems set in silver) and from her piercing green eyes. Green carries three meanings in her world: it is the color of archontic regalia in Archontean heraldry, the color of dynastic renewal in Decadian doctrine (the tone the Decadian uses for legitimate continuity through lateral houses), and the color of poison in the northern Thorcin dialect.
Mixed blood
Her official filiation is through her father alone. The archive also records that her mother was Thorcin, a non-Archontean people of the valley’s northern slopes, subordinate in the imperial order. Her parents’ union was not a full Decadian marriage: there was an Archontean civil rite and also a Thorcin rite in the hut of the maternal clan’s thegns, which the Orthodoxy does not recognize and the northern thegns still privately do.
Alexia secretly keeps excellent terms with many local Thorcin thegns. Her visits to the northern huts, at unofficial hours, without imperial retinue and with a small escort of personally loyal Knights, are known to the Basileon family, tolerated and kept out of the imperial records.
The question of inheritance
Alexia felt that the legitimate inheritance of the valley was taken from her by her father’s delegation of power: Argus to the barony, Glastum to a wardenship, and Alexia to the center of the valley without an active archontic title. She governs from Gosterwick, operates in lesser Ritornello and restores the Azure Keep, but the archontic office remains, nominally, with her father. As eldest legitimate child she should inherit it; she is working so that the succession becomes unavoidable.
The regalia
Alexia is recovering the regalia of the archons of Ardis Vala, an archontic house older than the Empire whose office the valley keeps as an available historical dignity. Known pieces:
- an obsidian scepter that belonged to the first archon;
- a green mantle with Thorcin gold braid;
- a low archontic crown with no large stones;
- an archontic seal bearing the valley’s mark;
- a book of fueros, a doctrinal codex of the valley older than the Decadian;
- a ring, held privately by her father by family custom.
Each piece, bought or recovered from antiquarians, is kept in some hall of Gosterwick or the Azure Keep. No single piece declares an archontic claim; together they do.
The Azure Keep
The Azure Keep (Fortaleza Azur; Cetatea Albastră in the valley’s language, the name she prefers) is an imperial citadel away from the cascade, between Ritornello and Gosterwick. Repaired and modernized on her initiative since about 2987 AEP, it houses the sept of the Knights of the Azure Shield that she leads personally. The order is a minor, recently founded imperial knighthood, symbolically tied to the azure pact of the imperial sky. Her sept is medium cavalry supported by theurgist mages and its own battalion of scouts recruited among the Thorcin thegns.
Recruitment in Gosterwick
Gosterwick, the largest imperial town of the valley, is her recruiting center: merchants, artisans, adventurers who passed through Ritornello or Glastumville, Theosophist military engineers rejected by the Orthodoxy, and well-connected Thorcin scouts. She recruits selectively and pays regularly. Argus recruits frontier soldiers and dungeon adventurers; Glastum tolerates a lax town; Alexia builds a court.
Reputation
In the administrative corridors of Narsileon, the southern provincial capital, she is called a “loose cannon”. The Archontean aristocracy there considers her well connected and intelligent but unpredictable: she gathers regalia that are not hers, keeps Thorcin contacts, restores a keep in an ambiguous position and funds a court with money the census cannot account for.
Relationships
- Lord Burdock: father, nominal archon of the valley.
- Lord Argus: legitimate brother, baron of Ritornello.
- Sir Glastum: unofficial half-brother, warden (alcaide) of the Azure Fortress.
- Juliana X Bellatrix: imperial great-aunt, half-sister of her father.
- Basileus Drusus IX: imperial authority.
- Archontean people; public Decadian devotion to the Imperial Church.
Chronology
- Childhood: public Archontean education and private Thorcin initiation.
- c. 2987 AEP: takes the Azure Keep, begins its restoration and founds the sept under her command.
- Systematic purchases of regalia through valley antiquarians and agents in Narsileon.
- 2993 AEP: the valley’s records list her as an active, untitled figure of the house of Basileon.
- Fall of Ritornello and the Hiatus: her court in Gosterwick kept operating and the regalia kept accumulating.
- Present cycle: her dynastic arc remains open.
Conflicting accounts
- Imperial reading: Burdock’s arrangement is sound (Argus in the barony, Glastum in the wardenship, Alexia at court) and holds the valley together.
- Arkos’s reading: the arrangement serves Burdock, not the valley; Argus and Glastum are the two frontier points and Alexia is the piece preparing the real succession, which she would claim with Thorcin as well as imperial support.
Open questions
- Her role during the Hiatus has not been transcribed.