Chapter 37 - Someone Else's Chair

I read the King's letter without improving it. That took restraint.

There were passages I could have introduced more kindly. Context I could have put in front of the hard sentences. A pause in the right place could have made the proposed oath sound more insulting than the alternative. I did none of it.

Ressa by the kitchen door. Orra at the back. Gerren on an upturned box. People on every bench and under the gallery where they could hear through the window. Edren attended at my request, with the original authority, so nobody had to take my word.

When I got to the question about subjects or homes, somebody behind me shifted. I kept going. Then the alternative. Then I folded the letter.

"The registrar can answer questions about what the crown is offering. I will answer questions about what I have done."

Gerren looked at Edren. "Will the workshop be protected under the charter?"

"Yes, if its site is properly entered and its obligations accepted."

"What obligations?"

Edren opened his case. The meeting began without asking how I felt about it. I sat down.

For an hour they questioned the charter. Plots and inheritance. Whether a married woman could hold land separately. Whether a man who left for work kept his house. Whether the crown could raise dues while fields lay flooded. Road labor could be commuted to money; Ressa asked who set the rate; the district; could it be challenged; yes; how long; Edren wouldn't promise. A man by the window grunted.

"Then we record that as a risk," Ressa said. "It doesn't become smaller because you grunt at it."

Dain asked whether the village could refuse military requisitions.

"Not all lawful requisitions."

"Then they can take the grain."

"Against recorded compensation."

"We have some recorded compensation old enough to vote."

Laughter. Edren glanced at me. I didn't rescue him.

"The charter cannot exempt Rookstead from the law applying elsewhere. It can establish who receives claims and what cannot be demanded merely because a soldier finds it convenient."

Orra nodded. That mattered more to the room than anything I'd have said.

Eventually Baret asked about me.

"Does he have to swear the oath?"

"If he wishes to hold the reeve's office under this charter, he must make the required civil undertaking."

Edren read it. Maintain the charter. Administer the crown's law. Account for dues. Accept the district's jurisdiction. Render no competing sovereign authority within the grant.

Not a commission. Not lifelong allegiance. Enough to make King Solvane of Aurelheim an awkward description for the person taking it.

"Would you?" Baret asked me.

"I haven't decided."

True. Not impressive.

Ressa came to the table.

"Then we decide what we need before we decide who fills it. The reeve needs to be here. Every day. When somebody disputes a wall. When a child breaks a window. When the common water is fouled. Not only when there's a contract or a court."

I knew where she was going. I let her get there.

"Solvane goes away. Usually for reasons I understand. But somebody still has to answer the door."

Gerren scratched his beard. "She's right."

"Yes," I said. Stiffer than I meant it.

Aoi, near the gallery steps, looked at her hands. Kind of her. Not kind enough to escape notice.

It was Ista who said Ressa should be provisional reeve. Ressa objected at once.

"I have children."

"So do most of us."

"I haven't run a village."

"Neither has he."

Ista met my eyes, frightened by her own nerve and not withdrawing it. I inclined my head.

"No. I haven't."

The room got less tense. I wished that hadn't cost me anything.

Ressa asked for time. We gave her till after the midday meal because Dain wouldn't hold the stew for civil government. People ate in clusters. A man asked whether I'd leave if they chose Ressa. No. He looked relieved. Another asked whether I'd planned to charge taxes. Eventually a settlement needs revenue. That isn't no. No, it isn't. He nodded and went away.

I sat under the gallery with my bowl. Aoi joined me.

"How are you doing?"

"Magnificently. My government has survived long enough to contemplate replacing me."

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"You don't have a government."

"Yes. Thank you. I had nearly found a consoling interpretation."

We watched Ressa argue with three people at once while making one of her kids finish lunch.

"She'll be good at it," Aoi said.

"I know."

"That makes it worse?"

"A little."

She nodded like I'd said something entirely ordinary. Maybe I had.

No grand election. The charter needed a household roll and notice and witnesses. Instead the residents nominated interim officers. Ressa, provisional reeve. Dain, common provisions. Gerren, works, after making everyone listen to the limits of that. Pell, clerk. Orra's command stayed separate.

Then Baret said, "What about Solvane?"

I had no answer ready and wanted a good one anyway.

Ressa got there first. "He keeps doing the outside work, if he wants it. Roads. Trade. The army contract."

"With whose authority?" Edren asked.

"The village's. Under an agreement."

"And when he makes a promise we dislike?" said Baret.

"He brings important ones back before signing them."

Gerren nodded hard. Apparently my wagon-repair promise had entered local folklore.

I stood. "I would need defined authority for ordinary contracts. Requiring a meeting to purchase every nail would destroy both the workshop and my remaining affection for public consultation."

A few laughs.

"Can the village appoint an agent without giving him the reeve's office?" Ressa asked Edren.

"Yes. A bonded agent may act under limited commission. He would still submit to local law in matters arising from it."

Not immunity. Not sovereignty. A job.

I asked about the bond. Pell was already writing.

At dusk I carried the chair back to the officers' room. Edren found me there.

"You could have asked them to wait. Until you decided whether to take the undertaking."

"Yes."

"Why didn't you?"

I set the chair against the wall.

"Because Ressa was correct."

He nodded, and looked far too satisfied about it.

"The King will be interested in that answer."

"The King can have the minutes."

His mouth twitched. "Very well."

In the storehouse Pell had left a new document beside the ledger.

Proposed Terms of Appointment: External Agent for the Rookstead Households.

He'd left a generous space for objections. I took up the pen.

The bond was too big. I said so.

"It is proportionate to the value of goods you may commit," Edren said.

"It is disproportionate to the value of goods I possess."

"Then your authority must be smaller."

Elegant, from a man whose authority didn't require him to buy his own pen.

We spent the morning defining how much damage I'd be allowed to do before consulting anyone. The list was not flattering. I could negotiate. Investigate. Enter ordinary depot agreements under a ceiling. I could not pledge homes, residents' labor, medical funds, or the charter. No exclusive trade rights. No borrowing beyond a sum that made Gerren laugh when he heard it. Major commitments needed the provisional council.

"You asked for this," Ressa reminded me.

"I asked for clarity. Apparently it has numerous relatives."

She took the draft from Pell and crossed out a clause. I leaned in. The one allowing termination without paying wages already earned.

"You missed that."

"Yes."

"Don't."

The bond itself got solved by Tamasin, who'd come back for two stored loads and found me arguing sums with a registrar. A merchant can smell constrained commerce from a long way off.

"What does he actually need to sign?"

"Transport and supply agreements," Ressa said.

"Then hold deposits against each contract instead of requiring one standing bond large enough to cover everything he might invent."

Edren considered. "Possible, for specified undertakings."

"Good. He's dangerous enough with specified ones."

I looked at her. She smiled.

Each bigger contract carried its own security. No hidden claim on the village. Cumbersome. Affordable. I signed. Ressa signed. Pell witnessed. Edren acknowledged it as a provisional local commission, effective on restoration. Until then, I was still the depot's acting provisioner.

An expanding collection of temporary titles. None of them King. I didn't bring it up.

That afternoon Edren brought the crown's answer on the summoning accounts. He didn't offer to read this one.

"The King wrote the central statement himself."

Aoi came before I opened it. We'd agreed on that.

The King acknowledged authorizing certified vitality-derived reserves. He had known such reserves could be produced through lawful executions. He had not reviewed the individual cases. He did not claim that made the authorization someone else's decision.

Aoi read over my shoulder with no expression at all.

The explanation was brief. Not enough conventional catalysts to sustain the summoning rate. Limiting the program to other sources would have reduced it substantially. He'd authorized continued use because commanders reported summoned abilities were preventing catastrophic losses.

I believed the lives likely to be preserved justified using a resource already lawfully held. That judgment was mine. You are entitled to reject it.

I stopped reading.

There was no satisfactory anger available. He hadn't lied. He hadn't apologized in a way that asked us to comfort him. He'd said the thing. That left us with the thing.

Aoi took the page. "Already lawfully held." She looked up at Edren. "People. People became something held in a store. And he thinks that's an answer?"

"He presents it as his answer. Not one he expects you to find sufficient."

"I don't."

"I will convey that exactly."

The King had authorized release of the eighteen dispositions, through the district, with witnesses protected. The twenty-four donors would be contacted through the medical administration; no further compelled donor service pending review.

"An end date?" Aoi asked.

"None specified."

"Can the restriction be lifted?"

"By an authority capable of issuing a replacement."

She laughed once without any amusement in it. "I'm learning to hate that kind of answer."

"So am I," I said.

Edren took out a smaller paper. "The King has ordered a review of the certified reserve process."

"Has he suspended its use?"

"No."

There. The edge of the concession.

"Another summoning is being prepared."

"Yes."

"Using what?"

"I do not know the allotted sources."

"Then please ask. Before it happens."

He held my eyes. "I will send the request today."

A promise he could keep. Not the one I wanted.

Afterward Aoi sat on the floor under the open window. There were chairs. I didn't point it out.

"He's still doing it. Even after we asked. I thought knowing we knew would--"

She stopped. I understood. Knowledge exposed. A room forced to face itself. The moment where the truth changes what people are able to do next. I'd been leaning on that instinct since the throne room.

Sometimes the person across from you already knows. Sometimes he continues.

"What do we say?"

"That we reject the justification. That lawful possession does not answer whether the deaths were just. That we want the records he has authorized and answers concerning the next working."

"Will that stop him?"

"Probably not by itself."

She nodded and stood up. "Write that part too."

I did.

No celebration when Edren approved the petition for district processing. Title searches. Boundaries. The election. The guarantee. But the military review no longer meant automatic displacement. If the garrison shrank, the village could still exist beside it. The distinction had legal weight now.

Ressa read the approval out in the yard. People cheered. So much for my assessment of the occasion.

I stood at the back. Aoi nudged my elbow.

"You're allowed to be happy about that."

"I am."

"You look like someone else got your marks."

"An unfortunate defect of my face."

She watched Ressa take questions.

"Would you rather it were you up there?"

"Yes."

She blinked. I kept going.

"I also think this is better."

She smiled. Not indulgently. That would have been unbearable.

"Good."

The cheering ended. Someone asked whether they could move beds into the first repaired houses. Halwen said not until she'd inspected the chimneys. Gerren objected to her lack of confidence. The argument restored a familiar atmosphere. I went to help carry the tables.