The Gepid kingdom ultimately succumbed to an alliance between the Lombards and the Avars. The Avars were relative newcomers on the eastern European scene. Their origins have long been shrouded in mystery, but the prevailing theory proposes that they were refugees from the Rouran Empire of the Mongolian steppe, which had been overthrown by the Göktürks. For over a thousand years, their true origins were a mystery waiting to be solved.
As I prepared to write Rosamund’s story, one of my first tasks was to place her in a political and geographical context.
When the Gepids first appear in the historical record, they reside along the upper reaches of the Tisza River. This would have been a less than ideal environment, pressed up against the mountains and exposed to peoples funneling off the steppes into the Great Hungarian Plain. The bulk of their population probably remained in this area throughout the period of domination under the Huns. They would have served as a sort of buffer nation. Along with the Goths, they were supposedly the Germanic tribe most favored by Attila. The proximity of their settlement area to nucleus of Attila’s empire on the Hungarian plain probably reflects this preferred status.
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A Queen's Cup 