“The rote is correct but please keep facetious comments to yourself.” Casuel shot me an indignant glance. “I imagine that’s your interpretation?”
“We had to talk about something as we rode,” I shrugged. We’d used the time to review the previous day’s lessons and to talk about family, friends, life in Kellarin and in Tormalin. With Casuel sitting on his dignity in his coach, we’d reaffirmed our tentative friendship and incidentally smoothed the most jarring archaisms out of Temar’s speech.
“Well, I hope you took note of the insignia of the Imperial Houses as I told you to, Temar.” Casuel reached across the table for a roll of parchments laced together across their top with scarlet ribbon. “You need to study this as well. I’ve asked the Archivist for a copy but he says all the scribes are too busy with the courts sitting, so you’ll have to make your own.” He handed over paper and a charcoal stick in a silver holder.
Temar looked blankly at the tightly drawn columns of names and figures, little heraldic symbols heading each entry. “What is this?”
“Last year’s Land Tax register.” Casuel stared at Temar.
“There was no such thing in the Old Empire,” I reminded the wizard. “Each House and Name pays an annual charge to the Imperial coffer, based on its holdings and assets.” I explained to Temar. “The old system of levies for specific wants was abandoned generations ago.”
Temar shook his head. “I wonder my grandfather’s shade did not return from the Otherworld and kick me awake at such insult to Princes’ privileges.”
He stood up abruptly, pushing himself away from documents, ledgers, leather-bound volumes and screeds folded within sealed ribbons. I watched as Temar turned slowly on his heel, looking grimly at the racks of rolled parchments, shelves of bound tomes, flat cases holding maps, charts, records and plans. The only sound was the susurration of turning paper, broken by the muted rasp of the ladders attached to each set of shelves being pushed along its rails. Every day must bring some new shock to remind the lad just how much life had changed on this side of the ocean, I thought.
“Sit down,” Casuel hissed as curious heads peered down from shelf-lined bays in the galleries above. High windows transmuted golden sunbeams into reds and blues, greens and browns, the alchemy of stained glass spilling blurred jewels across the dun matting.
Temar shook his head as he slowly resumed his seat. “My grandfather kept all deeds of grant and records of tithe in one locked chest. Granted, it was as long as a man and an armspan deep but—”
“Remember just how much time has passed,” Casuel interrupted. “This archive holds the record of twenty-five generations, twenty-five years to each one.”
“I allow I am ignorant of much, Mage D’Evoir, but I know how many years to a generation,” said Temar acidly.
I hid a smile behind my hand as Casuel paled. Temar’s unconscious aristocratic inflexion belatedly reminded the mage of their relative rank.
“I only meant—’ said Casuel hastily, “oh, never mind. Documents became far more important after the Chaos. In the Old Empire everyone knew which House held what lands, whose service was owed to whom. Things had stayed constant for so long, after all. When the rule of law was re-established, rival claimants arose to land and property and written proof of title was invaluable.” Casuel tapped the taxation roll sharply. “Please apply yourself, at least to the first two or three leaves. Names are listed in order of taxes paid, so it’s a good indicator of the wealthiest. The first fifty or so are Houses you’re likely to visit or meet but it wouldn’t hurt to have at least read through the first few hundred.”
Temar ran a thumb over the unbound edge of the stack of parchments. “In my grandfather’s day all the Sieurs of all the Houses sitting together wouldn’t have filled these tables.”
“I’d advise you to get your bearings in Toremal as it is rather than repine for what is past.” Casuel lifted his chin defiantly as I gave him an icy look.
Temar bent over the close-written list. “I do not see why we cannot have ink in here,” he muttered as he smudged his notes.
“Because the Archivists forbid it and quite right too. Who knows what accident or mischief might be done.” I noticed Casuel glance at the floor by his feet as he spoke. He’d done that several times today. “The right document can make or break a family.”
“Half the Names I knew are gone and many of these mean nothing,” said Temar at length, rubbing a hand round the back of his neck. “Where are Tor Correl, Den Parisot? What about Den Muret? Who in Saedrin’s name are D’Estabel, Den Haurient or Den Viorel?”
“Many Houses fell into ruin during the Chaos.” Casuel couldn’t resist another glance at the floor by his chair and I shifted myself to see what he’d got there. “It’s nigh on unheard of for a modern Name to fall extinct in the male line, but when warfare racked the Empire there were many casualties. New grants of nobility were made later, or indeed simply assumed.”
“Nemith has much to answer for,” spat Temar. “Poldrion grant demons drown him yet in rivers of sorrow.”
“Of course—you knew him.” Casuel blinked. “Forgive me, this is merely history to us.” As he leaned forward, a leather satchel resting against his chair slid flat to the floor unnoticed by the fawning mage.
“I knew him, so far as a cadet of a minor House had anything to do with an Emperor,” said Temar grimly. “Enough to learn he was a whorestruck drunkard wasting the gold the Houses sent for troops to defend the Empire on debauchery and enriching his favourites.”
“In all justice, Nemith’s folly wasn’t the only evil blighting the Empire,” countered the wizard.
“True, Raeponin forgive me.” Temar sighed and reached across the table for another of Casuel’s books. “Your man Minrinel, in this so-called Intelligencer, he doesn’t even mention the Crusted Pox.” Temar’s mouth yielded to a brief grimace of grief. “Three other sons of the House of Nemith might have been elected Emperor had they not been ashes in their urns even before their grandfather the Seafarer breathed his last.”
I looked up from trying to reach the strap of Casuel’s satchel with my toe as the wizard scribbled notes eagerly in the margin of his own papers. “Do you know what went on at the Convocation of Princes when the Imperial throne fell vacant? Why did they make such a disastrous choice?”
“I have no notion.” Temar’s eyes were distant with a memory of mourning. “I was not of age and my grandfather didn’t attend, too busy with the affairs of House and tenantry. The Crusted Pox killed all the men of my father’s generation and my own brothers and sisters besides.” Temar bent suddenly over the taxation list, scribbling furiously. I shut my own eyes on an echo of my own remembered grief, the death of my only sister.
“Indeed.” Casuel twisted his fingers together uncertainly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to distress you. But all the weeping in the world won’t uncrack an egg, that’s what my mother always says.” He coloured slightly.
“Just how powerful is D’Olbriot?” Temar asked me suddenly, curt words echoing in the hush.
“Please lower your voice,” Casuel begged in muted entreaty.
I nodded at the list before Temar. “At the last taxation, Messire D’Olbriot was reckoned to control a twentieth part of Tormalin revenues and commerce.”
“Add in about seven or eight other families and those Names are responsible for just less than half the entire commonalty of the Empire?” Temar pursed his lips.
“Which is why you must learn due courtesy,” said Casuel severely.
“Life was very different before your Chaos, Mage D’Evoir, but we were taught a modicum of manners,” Temar said icily.
I wasn’t about to let Casuel get away with that patronising attitude either. “From everything those scholars working with the Archmage said, the last days of the Old Empire probably have more in common with this present age than with any era between.”