“Excuse me” “Sorry, can I just…” “Excuse me, sorry” “Excuse me” and so forth. With much apologising and resentment the merchant made his way to his seat. Near the back, but in the room which was more than most people. The ambassador’s concubine - dressed in feathers and frankly not even a lot of them – looked at him with mild irritation.
“I thought you weren’t coming”
“I got lost”
“You got lost? It’s the palace. It’s hard to miss.” Whatever else she was about to say was cut off by a fanfare on the shrill Diarchy brass horns. She rolled her eyes at him and took her seat, craning along with the rest of the room to see the huge double doors at the far end of the room, double doors used only by the reigning monarch.
“All hail the Supreme Secular Authority of the Diarchy,” announced the herald to the suddenly quiet hall “ Commander of its Armies, Admiral of its Navies, Joint Most High Authority of its Laws and Finances, heir to the line of Karad and King of the Diarchy Lord Wilhelm the Seventh, Personal Duke of the Summer Islands.” In common with the rest of the room, they both stood.
“He’s a Lord because Lords have certain privileges in law, although he doesn’t control a Lordship” she was talking without moving her lips in a low sotto voce meant only for him “He’s the only Personal Duke in the Diarchy. The Summer Islands are part of the Kingdom but not part of the Diarchy. Legally - the worship of Land is common there obviously. Dukes owe their position to the appropriate Lord but the Summer Islands aren’t part of a Lordship so he doesn’t owe his fealty to anyone. Hence, Personal Duke.”
This was why his distant relative, the Ambassador, had detailed her to sit with him for this investiture. She was an expert on the titles and nobility of the Diarchy and he was interested. Not just in this, though certainly in this. More, sort of, generally interested. A magpie for facts and knowledge, fascinated by everything. As was the way of the City States he had made a large, unsolicited gift out of the pure love of generosity to the Ambassador who had, in a similar frame of mind and with no influence whatsoever from the gift he had just received, arranged for the merchant to be invited to the investiture ceremony and accompanied by a knowledgeable guide.
“Baron Wilhelm of Naverhaven of the line of Karad.” “Eighteen. King's eldest son. Queen Consort Hilga should be before the younger Wilhelm but she’s super pregnant and doesn’t want to be seen waddling”, the herald – loud - and the concubine – quiet - alternated “Baroness Esme” “His wife”. “Baron Kristoff of Hiller of the line of Karad” "Thirteen. King’s youngest son” “Princess Esme of the line of Karad” “Eight. Daughter, rumour is the next one will be a daughter as well”
With the immediate family seated lesser royals began filing in, the King’s uncle and his family, his cousin and hers, and so forth. The concubine occasionally filled in with palace gossip “Bastard, but formally acknowledged.” “Serving girls go into his chambers in twos, I’ve heard. Not safe on their own”, “Notice how she has red hair and neither of her parents do? Wait for...ah, there he is. Apparently that’s the real father.” And so on. These facts were meticulously squirreled away. The City States had no nobility, not in the same way the Diarchy did, and like many of his fellows he viewed them as a curious mixture of glamourous and obsolete.
The king took a few steps forwards and waited for various cries and cheers to die out. “Thank you. My Lords of the Diarchy” his eyes fell on a patch of audience, hidden from the merchant by the intervening bodies “my honoured guests from our neighbours and friends” another patch, similarly hidden “and my loyal subjects” his eyes roamed across the standing room for a moment. “Thank you.”
“My son, Baron Wilhelm of Naverhaven, being a true son of the line of Karad” there were assorted cheers and while they died out the concubine spoke quickly “Being descended from the Karadic kings is important to the, errr, the mythos of the monarchy. I mean, technically they are, but it’s hardly a straight line. There’s people around with a much more direct line back to them.”
“My son, Baron Wilhelm of Naverhaven, being a true son of the line of Karad and having spent eighteen years in service of the Diarchy, stands before you ready to take the seat I once held. My Lords. Your counsel and support to myself and to the Diarchy is without peer and I invite your opinion. What say you?”
The Lords of the Diarchy
Two figures moved forwards from the crowd, one incredibly fat and walking with a cane, the other young – probably barely eighteen himself. Both dressed in fineries and jewellery sufficient to buy entire baronies. “OK, so the order of precedence for the Lords is based on when their Lordship joined the Diarchy. Fattie on the left is Lord Bram of Landhome, the kid on the right is Noble Lord Levi of Karadport. They were the original two Lordships formed when the Diarchy was so they come up at the same time. Karadport has a Noble Lord and a Royal Lord – that’s what the prince is becoming today. It’s basically just a way of making him a Lord and getting the legal privileges and a symbolic marker of him being the heir. The Royal Lord doesn’t do any actual Lord-ing.”
The two figures knelt almost as one, Lord Bram struggling to lower himself and so lagging slightly, and held something up to the prince. “Each Lordship is associated with a specific gem…or, stone, or something. At this point they offer him a ring with an empty setting – it’s a promise they’ll acknowledge him as King. When he’s coronated they present him with the appropriate stone to be put in the ring, completing the promise.” The prince did seem to be putting rings on, having a brief chat with each of them. Sharing a laugh with Levi who he had presumably known since childhood.
Spryly and laboriously respectively the two Lords rose and made their way back to their seats as a tall, well built man moved to take their place – as flamboyantly dressed as any City State courtesan. “Lord Milan of Dus a Thanal, Admiral of the Eastern Fleet. The Diarchy’s first conquest. Everyone in Dus a Thanal dresses like that, it confuses the Doppelgangers.” He turned to question that last phrase but Lord Milan was already walking back to his seat and she was already moving on to describe the next man, an elderly man walking with a cane.
As he went to kneel the prince shook his head and held out a hand to him. “Lord Levi of Ruthertown. He lives here at the palace, Ruthertown is a bit too rugged for him. Rumour is he couldn’t reliably point to it on a map. He’s never actually been there. Now this next one’s a bit weird. Mulebridge used to be part of the Lord of Ruthertown’s lands – it was all conquered at the same time - so technically it joined the Diarchy at the same time. But a few years later the king at the time siphoned a bit of it off to make his lover a Lord. So Mulebridge comes after Ruthertown because its Lordship was founded after. Anyway, long story short, that’s Lord Bram of Mulebridge. Their stone is a pebble. Oh, I probably should have said…hang on.”
She craned forwards to watch a woman, skin blotched with the vitiligo common to the City States, approaching the Prince. “The only Lady, though technically she’s still a Lord. Again, making sure they get the legal privileges. Her mum was a khotla” the City States term for what the Diarchy called a courtesan. “Married well. Lord Sesi of Briar Wood. Stone is a piece of pottery. Ever so quick, Karadport is jet, Landhome is diamond, Ruthertown is gold then a smooth pebble and a piece of pottery as I said”
“Pebbles and pottery versus gold and diamonds? Some people are scrimping…” he cut off as their neighbours turned to frown at him. He was nowhere near as good as her at the directed, only-heard-by-one-person side of the mouth speech.
“Mmmm.” The non-committal noise of someone who realises that what was just said was technically a joke. “Anyway. This” this was a middle aged man with the tanned skin of someone who had spent a life outdoors “Is Lord Dietrich of Blue Water. Longest serving Lord, his dad died before he was born.” She paused for a second and parsed that sentence. “Lord Dietrich’s dad died before Lord Dietrich was born, obviously. So he was born a Lord. Their stone is jet. This next one” another middle aged man, dressed in a naval uniform “is a weird one as well. Han was conquered before Blue Water but the Lordship created after, it was originally part of Briar Wood’s lands. So he’s after Blue Water in the order of precedence. Lord Mikhail of Han. Lord of Han is also always Topicarch of Han and Admiral of the Fleet of the West as well. There won’t be a coup or, you know, uprising or anything but if there was it’d be him that led it. Having a church rank, a military rank and a noble rank is unique in the diarchy and kings going back a couple of centuries have been desperate to stop that being the case but there’s always the worry that if they tried to take a title off Han then it’d, just, say no. And…” He nodded. The fortified naval base of Han was key to the Diarchy’s presence in the eastern seas and an impregnable stage point that allowed it to project force to the city states and beyond without worrying about counter attack or leaving its ports unguarded. And, of course, the Lord of Han knew that, knew the vital part his lands played in the Diarchy’s defence and the corresponding amount of power that gave him. “Their stone is a piece of coral.”
A tall, imposing man now rose to pay his respects. Unlike the others he was dressed in full armour – dented from use and clearly functional not ornamental. He was walking slowly and allowing the clang of his armour to ring with every step. “Lord Mikhail of Haverford. General of the Armies of the South. Newest of the Southern Lordships, conquered about three hundred years ago. He’s making a point. Haverford has overwhelmingly born the brunt of the Southern War and he doesn’t feel he’s getting enough support. It’s a tricky one. A substantial part of the Dirachy’s resources are going in that direction – there’ll be famines soon, mark my words. Not to mention the penal legions. But…I don’t know. It’s not really my area, military stuff. He certainly doesn’t think it’s enough. Hence the warrior costume rather than his silks.”
“Stone is Amber” she added as an afterthought.
Mikhail was taking his time walking back to his seat as well, making sure everyone saw his war-damaged armour.
“So that’s the end of the Southern Lords. The last two are the Northern Lords, conquered together forty years ago, north of Rutherford. But they won’t come up. Part of the Treaty of Incorporation that ended the war and brought Tirasin and Kir Farsin into the Diarchy was that no one would have to see their Lords pay obeisance. It’s a big deal in their culture, and their Lords – they call them Netra but legally they’re Lords – wouldn’t really be able to remain in charge if it was known they bowed to someone else. Particularly a southerner. So there’s a little gap here which everyone knows represents them coming up but they don’t come up and everyone’s honour is saved. There’ll be another gap in a moment, when the ambassadors…hang on.”
The interruption was the King rising to speak. “My Lords. My son, and myself, appreciate the trust you have shown in him. Let it be known, then, that Baron Wilhelm of Naverhaven from this day assumes the title of Royal Lord of Karadport with all the privileges and responsibilities attendant. Let his name be added to the rolls, let us all aid him in defending Karadport’s secular laws, let us all support him in his joint stewardship of her finances.” He paused for the cheers.
The Diplomatic Corps
“My son. Friends of ours from other lands have come to witness. Will you meet with them?”
“This is the foreign ambassadors. Order of precedence is pretty variable – we’re currently third, or fourth, you’ll see what I mean - except for the first one. Watch this.”
“I would be honoured if they would” the newly minted Lord replied and then they all just…stood there. For a good few minutes. He looked enquiringly at his companion, but she held up a finger. Wait.
“Our friend, Knight Marshall Conor of the Coast of Gold.” He knew most of these people, and the lands they hailed from, and she, knowing that, didn’t expand on their homelands.
“So, ‘Our friend’ is a standard phrase for foreign dignitaries, kind of a catch-all. But I guess that’s not the interesting bit. The gap there was for the representative of the Necromancer. If she sends one. The Necromancer is always first in the diplomatic pecking list.”
“Does she…”
“No” she cut him off, grinning. “Not once. Never. There’s been well over two hundred versions of this ceremony, it changes slightly each time, and never once has she sent a representative. Or to any other event. In any country. Ever. For thousands of years. But they always leave this gap in case she does send one and then takes offence that someone else has been put in higher importance than her emissary.”
“Wow”. He shook his head “Wow. They really are weird about her aren’t they. Have you noticed, you must have done, have you noticed the little bow whenever they saw her name? My cousin” a general term in the City States “says they should just make it official and declare themselves a Triarchy they let her make so many of their decisions.”
“Without her ever interacting with them or acknowledging their existence in any way”
“Foreigners are weird.”
“True.” They sat and watched the various diplomats and representatives in near silence for a while, her occasionally filling in a piece of tasty gossip before he was struck by a thought:
“The king said his son was Baron of somewhere”
“Naverhaven”
“Naverhaven, sure. Are Barons not here? What do they do actually?”
The Structure Of The Nobility
“OK. So the general idea for both the Secular and Religious government is that each stage is the same as the one above it…” she frowned and ran that over, apparently deciding that it didn’t make sense. “Imagine a pyramid. King at the top, Lords below, Dukes below, so on down. Kings are to Lords what Lords are to Dukes, and so forth. Except for Han. Han’s weird. So are the big cities.”
“So the King has a bunch of Lords under him managing areas for him, they have a bunch of Dukes under them managing areas for them, they have Barons under them?”
“Yup. Ruthertown calls its Barons Bailiffs for some reason I’m not sure of but basically yes. The King parcels out land to people, the Lords, and charges them rent. They call it ‘dues’ but think of it as rent. Now the Lordships are big areas of land and no one could administer them by themselves, so the Lords split their Lordships into Dukedoms, who pay rent – dues – to the Lord. Dukedoms are still big so they split Dukedoms into Baronies, Bailiwicks in Ruthertown – and Barons pay rent to their Dukes. Barons are the lowest level and they’re the ones who actually collect rent from the commoners, or, I mean, obviously they employ tax collectors to do that but…”
“And that money filters upwards to the King”
“Yeah, each stage takes a slice, so Barons give a proportion of the dues they collect to their Duke and live on the rest, and so on upwards. The stage above you sets your dues, the King says what he wants from the Lords, they say what they want from the Dukes, making sure it’s enough to pay their dues and leave some left over and so on.”
“I’m Lord of wherever and I owe the King five hundred crowns so I make sure I’ve got like six hundred coming in.”
“Yes, although dues don’t have to be money. The stage above you can set whatever they feel like as their dues. Ruthertown supplies iron as the majority of its dues, Han’s naval service is the entirety of theirs. Haverford is saying that its military service should be the entirety of its dues.”
“What, so the King can set whatever dues he wants? That sounds like a tyranny waiting to happen.”
“He can. As can everyone below him. The issue is that they can only charge what they can get away with. If the King sets somewhere’s dues at a million crowns and they say ‘no’ then, well, he has to decide what to do about that.”
“They’re allowed to just refuse to pay?”
“Well, allowed is putting it a bit strongly. But you know how it is, in the real world you’re allowed to do anything that no one can stop you from doing. And as I say, the King or whoever is then a shitty position. If he allows you to refuse then others will refuse as well because it turns out there’s no ramifications to refusing. He could try to force you militarily – changing other Lords’ dues to be military service against the refuser. But that cuts into his income because they’re now paying dues as military service not money. He could apply political pressure, maybe, but that depends on the balance of power. There’s other stuff he could try. It’s easiest just to set a tax rate that is less trouble to pay than to rebel over. And so on down.”
“Everyone promises to pay dues so long as they’re not set too high”
“Well, no one says those exact words but basically yes. And that’s all the way down, Dukes might refuse to pay their Lord, Barons their Dukes, commoners their Baron. It’s this big balancing act of working out how high you can set them without it being more effort than its worth to force people to pay them. Varies year on year, person on person, situation on situation.”
“Does it happen often that someone refuses to pay?”
“Well, I think commoners refuse pretty regularly. Or claim they can’t afford them, truthfully or otherwise. Penal legions for them to work off their service. As you get higher up though, no, its vanishingly rare. Generally someone’s superior will work out with them what they’re going to pay before announcing what they’ll pay if you get me. A quiet backroom chat about what’s a good amount so that they don’t have the embarrassment of saying ‘your dues are whatever’ and being met with a ‘nope’. It has happened, though. Last time was, not coincidentally, before the civil war: the Lord of Ruthertown’s Rebellion. Weak king who wasn’t anywhere near as smart as he thought he was decided he knew better than his advisors. Ruthertown, and others, refused. Sigmund the Weak died in unclear circumstances, his nephew took over. Camiel was a renowned battlefield commander and far more willing to listen to good advice. Dues were re-negotiated, everyone sort of decided not to look too deeply in to how Sigmund died and a hundred years later everything is fine.”
“A Khosi situation” A notoriously unpopular City State magistrate who had, the City States had unanimously decided, died when he tragically suffered some sort of delirium and slit his own throat. “Some things never change. What about Han and the cities?”
Han and the cities
“Well, the problem with the cities is us” she said with a grin. “Trade with us, specifically. Take Blue Water as an example. You’ve got your cobblers and your tavern workers who can maybe pull together a crown a year. Then you got the merchants and so on some of whom can rival Dukes or Lords in their wealth. Plus of course cities have a lot more infrastructure, public infrastructure, needs than farming villages. Tax policies developed for farmers and similar rural people just don’t work in situations like that. So a bunch of cities, again Blue Water is the main one, have the Thirteenth Council. Merchants, some merchants, rich ones, have to pay a thirteenth of their income to the city to pay for all of these improvements and infrastructure and stuff, that’s in addition to their dues – I’m honestly not sure if it comes out before or after. But in exchange for paying this extra they get a seat on the council that allocates where the money goes.”
“So our council of magistrates?”
“Our councils of magistrates, yeah, but it’s not elected. The local noble decides who goes on it. They then decide on a mayor and stuff like that from within their ranks. Usually those positions get paid and its possible to turn a profit by being on the council, though its not common. But it does mean you get a say over whether the docks you use or the docks your economic rivals use get prioritised for repairs and things like that. Oh, and not all cities use a thirteenth, some use other numbers. But they’re pretty much all called Thirteenth Councils even if it’s a different fraction.”
“And what about Han?”
“So, the problem with Han is that basically everyone there works for the navy – either as a sailor or as, you know, as a rope maker or something” – she dismissed maritime support industries with a vague wave of her hand – “So generally their dues are their military service. But Han needs money because it doesn’t produce anything like enough food. Now some gets shipped in from other places as part of their dues and the King sends credit notes that they can use to buy some as support for the navy. But it makes Han very very short of actual physical money, coins and the like. People don’t buy food in the same way soldiers don’t, they get fed in the mess halls. Sure there’s brothels and taverns and the like but quite often they’re subsidised as well – a tavern’s dues might be serving sailors and then the get refunded from the central treasury. Which is fine for most of the structure but the Lord and senior Captains and the like – oh, Captain is equivalent to Baron, I should have said, but it’s not hereditary – anyway, they want silks and luxury goods and the like. So every ship that sails the west coast has to pay an additional tax – the Trade Tax – which goes into a coffer in Han. They then have this complicated set of rules called the Captain’s Accord that determines how much of that cash each Captain and similar gets. And then once a year they have a huge argument about how the Accord isn’t fair on them because of whatever reason and they should get more. From what I hear a huge part of the Lord of Han – as Admiral of the Fleet of the West – a huge part of his job is overseeing this vast argument. A few turn pirate every year because they’re so pissed off about some minor point of the rules, then they come back next year when the Accord changes again. Or, not fully pirate. Spare time pirate. Everyone knows it happens but so long as its not too egregious the Lord of Han denies it happens and no one can really challenge him about it. If it gets too bad he sets a bounty on them, same as any other pirate ship, but they know to keep it low enough that that rarely happens.” She shrugged. “Same as dues. It’s a negotiation.”
He nodded. “Most of the time my ships are hit in these waters they say the pirate was a Diarchy warship. We file a protest, they tell us how horrified they are that a few such rogue elements could have done such a thing and they’ll bring them to justice immediately and then nothing happens. Still the safest part of the passage though. My cousin says he treats piracy the same as storms or similar. Happens sometimes, nothing you can do about it.”
“This is it. Avoid the worst bits. Bear in mind everyone knows that if it gets bad enough for someone to do something about it then someone will do something about it and…”
Joint shrugs.
People had started to file out by this time, the interesting part of the investiture completed.
“It’s just going to be minor barons who happen to be in the city now, and then he’ll hear some petitions. Shall we?”
Manoeuvring his way out was easier than manoeuvring in. “Thanks for your input today. Will it be you tomorrow?”
“It will. See you then. Try not to be late.”
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