The year was 1637.

The sixteenth century had been the era of the Reformation. The spark Martin Luther struck upon the tinderbox of long-simmering grievances had erupted into a continental conflagration, sweeping through France, Poland, England, Denmark, Scotland, Sweden, and Switzerland. More than half of Europe was consumed by the flames, and the lecture halls of every major university became battlegrounds for the ensuing theological debates.

However, the deepest and most indelible footprints of the Reformation were pressed into the soil of the German territories.

When people imagine Martin Luther, they often picture a severe man draped in somber black—a prickly, fanatical, and chronically irritable thinker. Yet, he was, above all else, a man of letters. He undertook the Herculean task of translating the Bible into a language that did not yet truly exist. He painstakingly gathered words from hundreds of mutually unintelligible dialects, weaving them into a singular, beautiful, and precise prose to deliver the stories of the heavens. In doing so, Martin Luther essentially invented the German language.

At the time, the concept of a “unified German language” was as alien as the idea of a “unified Asian language” would be today. Nevertheless, Luther crafted a written system that was concise enough for the common man to grasp, yet rich and elegant enough to rival the classics. He achieved this in an age when it was believed that Latin was the only tongue worthy of being committed to ink. It was one of the most dramatic fruits of the Reformation.

A century had passed since then—time enough for a new kind of nourishment to be served upon the vessel Luther had forged. The publishing market had expanded significantly over the last hundred years. In the midst of sociopolitical upheaval and power vacuums, publishers no longer feared the censor’s red ink. If a manuscript promised to sell, they set the type without hesitation.

Now, a new set of slogans began to travel the linguistic highway Luther had paved.

“The Germans’ things to the Germans!” “Foreigners, begone!” “Peace for this land!”

The theological hair-splitting of the previous century had served as a mere warm-up for this new era. Intellectuals began to argue the merits of this burgeoning movement, leafing through the works of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and Niccolò Machiavelli. More importantly, however, the common citizens—less concerned with ancient philosophy than with the pamphlets and political caricatures flooding the streets—began to march and shout.

As the cities stirred, the tremors of unrest spread into the rural villages. Even the most oblivious observer could tell that something momentous was looming. Something was happening; something was approaching. Yet, no one could pinpoint exactly what it was.

***

By now, I had lived in this era longer than I had ever lived in twenty-first-century South Korea. I assumed that I would no longer feel a sense of displacement or ignorance regarding the common sense and customs of seventeenth-century Europeans.

“Does holding the title of Baron of Roanoke not technically make you a subject of the King of England?” I asked.

“It does,” Walter Raleigh replied simply.

“And yet, Walter, you are the head of government for the Continental Covenant.”

“That is correct.”

“······.”

“······.”

“And you’re certain this isn’t an issue?”

Raleigh looked at me, a touch of amusement in his eyes. “An issue? Whatever do you mean, Nemo?”

“You are leading the government of one nation while holding a title from another,” I pointed out. “You’ve sworn an oath of loyalty to a foreign monarch. Is that not a conflict of interest?”

“Why should it be?” Raleigh asked. Seeing my confusion, he paused to consider his explanation. “Tell me, Nemo, do you know what King James’s full title is?”

“It’s… something along the lines of ‘By the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, Ireland, and…'” I stopped as the realization hit me. “···and France.”

“Precisely.”

Now that I thought about it, until the end of the Hundred Years’ War, the King of England had been a subject of the King of France in his capacity as the Duke of Normandy, while remaining a sovereign king in his own right. It was a distinction many Asians—myself included—often misunderstood. The medieval Kingdom of England hadn’t been a vassal state of France; rather, its king simply happened to be a subject of the French monarch.

It was still headache-inducingly complex. Perhaps it was easier to think of it in corporate terms: Group A and Group B are separate conglomerates, but the CEO of a subsidiary in Group A becomes the chairman of Group B. Does that make Group B a subsidiary of Group A? Of course not.

The analogy wasn’t perfect, but it helped me grasp the feeling of the era. This was not the age of nationalism or the nation-state. A person’s nationality wasn’t a rigid, singular thing, and loyalty didn’t have to be directed toward a single country or monarch. Such was the custom of Europe in this time.

While the Baron of Roanoke was technically a subject of the King of England, Roanoke Island would always remain the de facto territory of the Continental Covenant. Those who inherited the barony after Raleigh would continue to pledge their primary allegiance to the Covenant. These two facts coexisted with a strange, seamless logic.

I nodded, satisfied for the moment. Raleigh continued, “Even when my son succeeds me, there will be no trouble. Think about it: a minor baron at the edge of the English court, or the descendant of a founding father of the Continental Covenant? Which do you think my children will choose? They would much rather live as respected leaders of a vast continent than crawl before the King of a small island nation they have never even visited.”

“···I see.”

“So, do not worry,” Raleigh said, nodding slowly. “There will be no problems.”

Walter Raleigh, historically born in the 1550s and executed in 1618, was an English politician, explorer, and quintessential Renaissance man. Born into a modest gentry family, he was a staunch Protestant who developed a deep-seated hatred for Catholicism while living as a fugitive during the reign of Queen Mary. As a young man, he had fought in the French Wars of Religion alongside the Huguenots.

In 1577, his career as an explorer began in earnest when he set out with his half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, to find a Northwest Passage to Asia. Although the voyage failed, Raleigh made a name for himself by raiding Spanish ships. He later gained the favor of Queen Elizabeth I after his brutal efficiency in suppressing the Desmond Rebellions in Ireland earned him a forty-thousand-acre estate in Munster.

With his sharp intellect and dashing good looks, Raleigh became a fixture of Elizabeth’s court. In the stark, often dreary English palace, a handsome young man who carried himself with the romantic air of a Frenchman was bound to stir the Queen’s heart. He vied for her favor against rivals like Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, and many historians assumed he was not only her favorite courtier but her actual lover.

As a privateer, Raleigh became a national hero by plundering Spanish treasure fleets. He explored the eastern coast of North America, naming the land “Virginia” in honor of the Virgin Queen, and sponsored the ill-fated Roanoke Colony, the first English attempt at settlement in the New World.

His glory began to fade when he secretly married Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, losing the monarch’s trust. By the time he managed to claw back some degree of favor, Elizabeth had died. Her successor, James I, despised him. After being imprisoned and eventually released on charges of treason, Raleigh was allowed one final expedition to Guiana. When his forces clashed with the Spanish, James used the incident as a pretext to carry out his death sentence. He was executed on October 29, 1618.

But here, in 1637, I watched a frail Raleigh as he sat at his desk, drafting his final will and testament.

The Barony of Roanoke would pass to his eldest son, Damerei Raleigh, following the strict laws of English peerage. The rest of his assets, however, were distributed according to his own will. His vast holdings in the New World, the proceeds from liquidating his small remaining estates in Ireland, and his business interests and residence in England were divided among his three sons. His collection of Queen Elizabeth’s personal effects was to be transferred to the Continental Covenant government for long-term preservation, ensuring no reckless heir could ever sell off such precious relics.

The process was finalized by the three of us—Thomas Harriot, Walter Raleigh, and myself—as we huddled together to finalize the legacy of the Baron of Roanoke, Chairman of the Continental Congress, and Head of Government of the Continental Covenant.

Harriot, his hands trembling with age, folded a copy of the will for the archives while another was placed in the safe. As I prepared to leave, Raleigh tapped my back and handed me a third copy.

“Please… keep this for me,” he requested.

“Mr. Harriot already has a copy, and the notary has another,” I replied. “There’s no legal need for—”

“I am not asking for legal reasons. I simply want you to have it.”

“······.”

It was a cruel gesture, in its own way. I carefully folded the document and tucked it into my robes, the ink-soaked paper feeling heavier than a lead bullet. As Harriot and I stepped out of the room, hearing Raleigh’s faint, rasping cough before we pulled the door shut, a cold shiver ran through me.

It felt as though an entire era was taking its final breath.

How long had it been since Eleanor, the youngest among us, had become unable to walk without a cane? When did Thomas Harriot’s vision become so clouded that I had to fit him for magnifying glasses? When was the party I threw for Manteo after he stepped down as the Chief of the Croatan?

Those moments, too, were now distant memories.

Vicente had passed away only recently, and before him, John White had closed his eyes for the last time. This wasn’t merely a matter of life and death. I understood why Eleanor had retired from the hospital to focus entirely on her writing, and why Manteo now only traveled between his home and the Congress.

They were all preparing.

***

“Which professor did you say arrived?”

“Professor Arnisæus! He and the others have all come specifically to debate ‘The Pamphlet’!”

In Heidelberg, the youth were buzzing with excitement over a single publication. It wasn’t the work of a world-renowned scholar or even a proper academic text; it was a political manifesto.

—“It is common knowledge that we are all descendants of a single pair, a man and a woman; therefore, it is not difficult to deduce that in the beginning, all humans were free, possessing equal rights and liberties.”

—“A kingdom as a community does not belong solely to a single monarch. The people of Israel petitioned the Lord to appoint Saul, son of Kish, as their anointed king, yet when he defied the Lord’s will, the crown passed to David······”

—“Today, the German people find themselves in a state akin to beasts, subjected to the interference of foreign armies and foreign monarchs. To break these chains of servitude, the Germans have no choice but to create a legitimate authority of their own and use that authority to cast out foreign meddling.”

—“In creating such an authority, the Germans have no need for formal rituals like Roman baptism. Every tribe, under the protection of the Lord, possesses the inherent right to have its own king.”

Scores of young men clutched copies of the pamphlet, memorizing every line and shouting the slogans until their voices were hoarse. They debated how to halt the horrific war and discussed how they might end the sectarian strife to seek a lasting reconciliation.

Within the walls of the university, Catholics and Protestants stopped branding each other as heretics. In their small academic enclave, the cycle of killing fueled by fanaticism finally began to slow. Wine and occasionally tobacco from the New World fueled their arguments, which sometimes escalated from words to fists, but the atmosphere remained electric with hope.

Something was fading, and something was approaching. The realization that they themselves were the catalysts for ushering in the new and discarding the old kept them in a feverish state of excitement. They didn’t fully comprehend the magnitude of what they were summoning, but the more pretentious among them were fond of saying the same thing:

The old world was passing away. A new era was dawning.

Another year slipped by.

The year 1638 arrived. It had been fifty years since Kim Lee-sang first set foot upon this earth.