Chapter Text
In Crowley’s opinion, the only word to adequately describe the 14th Century was ‘shit’. It had been an absolute mess. He’d been appointed to create trouble in the English monarchy. That could have been nice; comfortable rooms with fires blazing (in-house fires were a wonderful invention in Crowley’s opinion, probably because entire houses catching fire was something that miraculously never happened to him), better food than the over boiled slop most of the country was eating (not that he ate much), and unlimited access to wine (which he definitely drank).
But even with all that potential to be pleasant, it wasn’t. England was a damp, marshy wasteland as far as Crowley was concerned. Why had the Vikings liked it so much? And he was beginning to suspect that he had been forced to stay there as a punishment for not ruining King Arthur’s peace.
This particular job had started with Edward III. That wasn’t so bad, he was very easy to tempt. For 50 years all Crowley had needed to do was point out how very claimable France looked, and that if you looked far enough back, French royalty could look like his birth right. What Crowley didn’t say was that the royal houses of ‘Christendom’ – as they called themselves – were all so intermarried that just about anyone could claim anything. And boom, a war that was predicted to last quite a while was well underway.
“Come on,” he’d whispered in Edward’s ear, “You have as strong a claim to France as you do England, really.” He’d said, hoping he could pop down there on one of the campaigns, especially if it was Summer, that would be excellent. But even if it didn’t lead there, he had other plans. Plans on top of plans.
And if tempting the king to war was easy, then tempting him with women was even easier. Edward III had managed to have more children than was good for anyone, and all of them were potential troublemakers in their own right. After all, you couldn’t be born to power and not have the ability to tip the scales in anyone’s favour.
The reports he’d sent back about Edward III had given him some shred of hope, that maybe he was just doing well enough to be appointed to something cushier next time. Maybe they needed someone to ruin some lives in Southern France? Or Egypt? What was Egypt up to these days anyway? Israel had been nice, maybe they could bring the Crusades back? No, that wasn’t original at all. You’d have to be running out of ideas pretty badly to suggest another crusade.
But then Edward III had died, of a pretty nasty abscess, causing a stroke. His doctors were promptly fired by means of removing their heads from their bodies, and suddenly Richard II was king at the ripe old age of 10. At first, Crowley had thought this would be easy, after all, Richard’s father, the Black Prince, had been a wonderful warmonger himself, he could just sort of continue the tradition. Richard, however, was not having it. At 14, he’d done away with a peasants’ revolt (that Crowley had privately thought was a very reasonable response to his governing) and seemed to be determined to cement himself as the worst ruler of anywhere since Caligula (Crowley did not have fond memories of Caligula).
When even his lords had revolted, Richard had somehow managed to scrape enough power back to make sure they were painfully aware of who was really in charge. And that was when the games began.
Crowley may have taken responsibility for these as far as Hell was concerned, but frankly, they were disgusting. The worst was the game where Richard would assemble the entire court in a grand hall and stare at them in silence. If the King looked at you, you had to immediately bow and declare your loyalty. Fail to do so, or hesitate, and you were next on the chopping block.
Richard II had also insisted on new forms of address. “Your highness” just wasn’t good enough for him, it had to be “your royal highness” or “your high majesty” if you wanted to live. Crowley was sick of it all. Richard II was like Hastur in one of his moods, and Crowley took so many jobs on Earth specifically to avoid those. Well, that was one reason anyway. All he could say about Richard ‘s court was that everything sucked.
Perhaps, if someone were to ask Crowley why he hated this all so much, and he had downed several tankards of mead and wine. He might have said something along the lines of, “this is not what I rebelled for,” before immediately realising he had said too much and refusing to talk to that person for the rest of the evening. In Crowley’s mind, he had fallen for demanding a ‘why’. For wanting reasons for the things they did, for why humans got free will but were mortal, and why angels (some were now demons) had no free will but immortality. And while She was at it, maybe some explanation for why She was so determined to test humans, as though life were a pub quiz they had signed up for rather than something they had no choice about.
It had not been to watch this happen.