High Mage: Book Five Of The Spellmonger Series (43 page)

Included in the townlands was a new parcel on the other side of the Ketta which would become the new commons and listfield.  That was a generous gift, but one outside of the Snowstone circle.  Also included was a stretch behind the Spires, north of town.  That was Jurlor’s property, and he retained title, but its inclusion made it much more valuable now.  It also gave Jurlor more of a say in Sevendor Town’s affairs, and as my Yeoman he would help represent my interests.

I reserved some of the land in the neighborhood of the listfield for baronial use.  If I had to be responsible for housing Ducal tax collectors and liquor inspectors, they could live out there.  Having a few parcels of my own within town also suited me.

The town would run its affairs on the collection of two major assessments, a landgable on all properties of a silver penny per plot, and a head tax to be collected at Yule and Midsummer.  It was effectively a membership due in the town, allowing a man to be considered a burgess of Sevendor.  The assessments were not steep – I had heard the landgable in Sendaria Port was three pennies, and the head tax significant.  But the benefits of membership were usually far in excess to the cost.  Town courts tended to be more lenient than manorial courts, and burgesses were usually exempt from tolls within the domain.

The town would be organized by quarter, with six wards designated.  Each would be organized into hundred-person (or twenty families or hearths) districts for assessment and organization.  A man would be legally responsible to his district, and each district would designate a representative to the town’s reeves. 

Specifically forbidden in the town’s charter was permission to encircle it with a wall, though a hedge was permitted.  A wall would have helped defend the place, in case of an attack, but it would also eat up valuable real estate and cost like the dickens to maintain.  Sevendor Vale was as secure as the townsfolk could ask.  Besides, towns with walls had a disturbing habit of acting independently.

Included in the charter was the right to hold the gates, that is, to establish a watch on the entrances to the town to monitor – and collect fees from – travelers and tradesmen wishing to do business in town.

I scribbled a note to the lawbrother to have them propose a schedule of reasonable fees for my approval, even though I wasn’t asking for a cut.  That would be valuable revenue for the town, and while I could get greedy about it, letting Banamor and his people have that revenue in its entirety made good business sense.  I just wanted to keep them from getting greedy about it by keeping entrance fees artificially high.  The four gatewardens would collect an annual salary of ten ounces of silver, plus one percent of their monthly take.

The constitution of the proposed City Watch was included.  It accounted for a Captain of the Watch, paid twenty ounces of silver per year, and six watchmen who would pocket twelve ounces every year.  It also accounted for the hiring of up to a dozen temporary deputies during the Magic Fair and other celebrations at two silver per use.  That was reasonable, but I penned a note to increase the number to sixteen, if needed.

The matter of jurisdiction was important.  The town wanted the right to appoint a magistrate over civil matters, including trade regulations.  While I had no problem with that – I disliked hearing such cases myself – I wasn’t happy with Banamor having the right to pick his own judge.  I whispered to Brother Chervis, and we made a counter-proposal.  An independent lawbrother would be hired to run the court for a three-year contact, nonrenewable.  Banamor or any of the council could propose a candidate, but they had to meet with my approval.

Mandated in the fourth page of the document was a section regulating the building of any future temples and shrines, hastily appended to the rest of the document.  As a baron, I had the power to authorize such institutions and it was widely anticipated that I would be doing so.  Banamor had designated a strip of land outside of the Old Commons – soon to be Sevendor Square – as Temple Street to that end. 

He wasn’t wrong.  And having all the houses of worship congregated in one quarter wasn’t a bad idea, necessarily.  It was a choice section of real estate, along the entire southern side of the new market square he envisioned.  The proposal required each new house of worship so constructed to undertake to celebrate appropriate feast days in conjunction with craft guilds, the town council, and the baronial representative.

“As to the nature and person of that office,” Banamor began, “we would pray that Your Excellency choose a man who can best exercise the interests of all the people of Sevendor, not just those outside of the town limits.  The charter provides for a ceremonial representative, designated by Your Excellency as a token of your authority and grace.”

“But I don’t like some of the provisions,” I pointed out.  “This representative is not entitled to be present during the council’s meetings or vote in the council.  What use is it to have a representative, when they are not present to represent your interests?”

“Yet to have Your Excellency have a vote in town matters is precisely why we wish this charter,” he reminded me.  “Need your representative have to vote on every cobble and street sign?”

“I don’t think it’s necessary for my representative to have a vote at all,” I countered.  “Just a presence.  I dislike being left uninformed about the tidings in my domain.  While this charter sets you apart from the rest of it, the town remains within my domain.”

“So a nonvoting representative?” he asked, eyeing Sire Cei appraisingly.  No doubt he suspected that I would have my Castellan act in that capacity.

“Yes, but a nonvoting representative with the right to be heard at council,” I added.  “I hereby name Her Excellency, Lady Alya, to that post.”

There was a bit of a gasp in the room.  “Lady Alya?” Banamor asked, curiously.

“You object to her representing the barony?” I asked. 

“Not at all, Your Excellency,” he said, with a shrug.  “She is a woman of rare wisdom and clearly holds the welfare of all Sevendori sacred.  Of course she would be welcome at council.”  Well, that proved Banamor was at least a wily diplomat.  That was about the best thing he could have said.

The rest of the council would be made up of twelve burghers elected from the burgesses, to serve for a two-year term.  From the council the mayor would be elected as chief executive.  I could tell Banamor had his eye set on that office already. 

Duties of the council included regulating the markets, the Watch, keeping the roads and public spaces in good repair, appointing reeves and inspectors, maintaining and ensuring the water supply and the removal of refuse, and undertaking to light the town after dark.

That last part would be what set Sevendor apart from other towns.  Instead of torches or lamps posted at crossroads and corners, Sevendor Town would use magelights.  There were already four along the nascent High Street, semi-permanent enchantments that deployed after dusk, bathing the street in a cool but helpful glow.  They were the remnants of various warmagi demonstrating their skills or one of my apprentices showing off.  There were two more at the current market, but the town wanted to commission them all over town.  That would give Sevendor Town a beautiful unearthly glow at night.

It would also keep costs down.  Lamp oil is a regular expense, while magelights are a one-time cost.  They also don’t catch buildings on fire.  The new buildings in town were required to use slate or wooden shingles as roofs, but there were still scores of houses with thatch.

The duties of merchet and heriot were suspended in the charter.  From now on, a burgess of Sevendor Town would not have to pay a fee to me to get married, just a civil registration fee to the town.  Only if a burgess married a villein would merchet apply.  Nor would they have to give me the best pick of their inherited herd or lands, as heriot demanded.  Instead a flat inheritance tax, assessed by the town’s reeve, would be paid. 

I didn’t mind that one.  I’d always found the practice of heriot a little ghoulish, particularly in the cases of the very poor.  I’d refused my heriot dues several times, among the folk of Brestal and the ridgetop cottages.  A peasant family in grief over losing a revered member of the household did not need one of my agents showing up and taking away their best goat.  Most of those folk were villeins, already entangled in an oppressive web of fees and services due. 

That brought up the dangerous matter of freedom.  In the legal sense.  By custom and common law, a chartered town was “free” – that’s what the charter was purchasing.  The burgesses were all freemen, entitled to full protection of the law and support of their town.  As long as they paid their taxes, they were beholden to no man. 

But also by custom and law, any villein who left the manor and managed to live in a town as a burgess for a year and a day was considered free.  There were a number of ways this could be established, but the result was the same.  The manor lost a valuable resource in terms of owed service, rents and dues.

Of course, any villein enterprising enough to elude capture and establish himself as a free burgess was likely well worth the price of petty rebellion.  Such men often became highly successful in business or a trade.  But such defections played havoc with the smooth and efficient running of a manor farm.

Banamor had cagily considered this dilemma.  In the charter he specified that a man had to pay his head tax, enroll as a provisional burgess,
and if he could find three neighbors to swear an oath to his character then any demands of a lord would be referred to the town’s sitting reeve for judgment.  That wasn’t a bad system, I decided.  Any man who could convince his neighbors to vouch for him was likely more valuable as a burgess than a villein.

When Banamor’s presentation came to a close, Brother Chervis stood and addressed the three townsmen with a list of duties we had decided were to be included in the charter. 

By losing the castle village, the castle was also losing a lot of extremely valuable services normally provided by the village, particularly service dues owed for work on the place.  Many of those were covered by the annual fee paid to the castle.  Many were not.  I wanted the charter to include some particular exceptions and make the town responsible for certain things.

For one thing, I wanted to be able to draft work parties from the town in times of emergency.  I had Chervis add a duty for the town to provide servers and attendants for various Castle entertainments and events.  The town was required to provide porters to and from the Gatetower to unload military wares.  Further, just to be a pain in the ass, the town was required to provide porters and attendants should I or any of the gentlemen of the castle decided to go hunting.  I was not a fan of the sport, but Sire Cei occasionally led the hounds across the wooded ridge that separated Brestal Vale from Sevendor Vale, and it was nice to have a few folks at the edge of the wood, warning away wanderers.

I insisted on the right to inspect the ale tasters, who would be in charge of ensuring the quality of the brew in town and regulating other vice.  Corrupt ale tasters were a bane on a town, I knew, and I didn’t need that sort of thing thriving in Sevendor.  That also gave me the right to free drinks pretty much anywhere in town.  That was a perquisite I relished.

More seriously, I had Chervis insist on the right to quarter up to two hundred troops in town, at the town’s expense, in the event of an emergency, and I reserved the right to quarter up to four guests at one of the town’s inns at the town’s expense.  I didn’t plan on using those rights often, but it made me feel better that they were there.  The town was also to stable up to twenty horses for the castle’s needs, speed my riders and messengers, and store feed and fodder for a hundred days for the beasts. 

I did my part, however.  I paid for the building of a new belltower
in the new market square, and the casting of a great bronze bell.  It would serve to ring the time of day, summon the town for meeting, indicate when the market opened and closed, and bear the arms of Sevendor, in token of my sovereignty.  Sure, the castle looming in the background certainly reminded the townsfolk who was ultimately in charge, but if I could get them to associate thinking of my rule every time they heard the bell, that had to help.  I would personally enchant a large magelight to appear over the thing at twilight.

I also brought along baronial grants approving the construction of three temples in the town, with the stipulation that one of them be to Briga, and six smaller shrines.  There were monks and nuns breathing down my neck about wanting to build in Sevendor as it rose to power, and that would go a long way toward establishing decent civil services in the town.  The various sects each brought different skills and knowledge with them, from birthing babies to teaching the young to healing the sick to burying the dead, and a hundred other functions that enriched a domain.  They were an essential element in the success of larger towns, everyone knew.  Besides, a good clerical class often served to keep the avarice of the burghers in check.

Included in my negotiation were new charters for local branches of guilds, specifically traders, smiths, woodwrights, and ostlers.  But especially the potters.  In the last year, the journeymen I had recruited in Gilmora had opened up the seam of snowstruck clay near the pond and had constructed a kiln.  I had high hopes that the resulting trade in magical pottery would be strong, and I wanted to ensure there was some control over it.  Besides, a guild would ensure a higher quality product than a commoner’s turn at the trade.