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Aphonion Tales: The Archducal Council -- Unedited notes; later posts are edited transcripts (posts MWF, update 3/1/23)
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<blockquote data-quote="CPaladin" data-source="post: 8236067" data-attributes="member: 7030144"><p>[Session 35, cont'd]</p><p>Meanwhile, Dame Brionna gathers up a stack of reports from the Privy Secretary’s office.</p><p></p><p>The Master: I didn’t want to ask around, because that could make someone go looking. So I’ve been keeping a watch, and I reassigned some of the least reliable to other warehouses.</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna hands Kit a stack of love poems to the Privy Secretary. They are sappy and swarmy; they are signed, “Davron Crickhollow”; Davron is the younger brother of the squire of Crickhollow (a vassal of the Earl of Quickford, himself a direct vassal of the Archduke); Davron is a moderately successful merchant, not hugely wealthy, mostly an exporter, but of course he carries loads back. Winters and lives in Canberry City. Maintains a permanent suite in one of the residential inns. Recently departed. Alistair suggests having someone burglarize his suite.</p><p></p><p>We’ll have Father Waters function as Privy Secretary until we get a permanent one.</p><p></p><p>We send a regiment of guards to the warehouse.</p><p></p><p>We implement the options plan in the Exchange-- writing lots of call options on salt.</p><p></p><p>Kit puts some people to watch the other senior warehouse people.</p><p></p><p>That afternoon:</p><p></p><p>Several young people who saw the crier have been brought in and Dame Kit is informed.</p><p></p><p>She goes in with detect thoughts up. There are a whole gaggle of twelve-year olds. The criers were crying this at about 9 at night, which is fairly normal-- people are home, but not asleep yet.</p><p></p><p>Criers didn’t give their names, which is normal; they give the best descriptions they can, but the descriptions are lousy. She is seeing dark shapes, clearly correct tabards, top hats, but nobody saw a face. They had the handbells. No suspicious potbellies, but one did have a goose on a leash. He cries all the time. So definitely his regular crier. All of the voices sounded right.</p><p></p><p>The Archduke was calling for calm. Gave his personal guarantee that there would be enough salt to preserve the food of all in the fall. Part of the usual list of announcements. Right after the announcement of someone being elevated in the military, right before the local deaths.</p><p></p><p>We call up the functionary in charge of the announcements. Dame Brionna goes down to his office, in the bowels of the palace. There is a small mousy man with gnomish spectacles, writing away on the evening crying. Any special announcements from the Archduke come with his seal from his office. These days, it gets delivered by a runner from the Archduke. Usually, by two at the latest. Salt announcement was delivered late, by a different runner from normal, but things have been irregular lately. Only other particularly odd one was the one announced 5 or 6 days ago, the announcement of incipient military movements. Sheet of papyrus with the Archducal seal at the bottom, announcing the intent of the Archduchy to transfer several legions in or near the city to the eastern frontier. I gave the boy a message to take back. There was some panic about this-- it would leave us unprotected to the west. Been doing this job for 25 years. What’s the best way to counter this? Would an announcement that the troops are staying help? Yes, it would calm people greatly.</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna makes a plan to grab the messenger when he next delivers a message from the Archduke.</p><p></p><p>Also, we are seeking new recruits for the army and new guards, and welcome those of common birth. Pay will go up by 2 coppers a day.</p><p></p><p>Also gives her the names of the people from the middle and upper. Dame Brionna sends guards to check them out. No false announcements made there.</p><p></p><p>Scribe notes that the handwriting was also matched to the archduke’s normal messages (Marcus’s handwriting). Whoever does this is good. Not perfect, but easily good enough to fool any non-professionals.</p><p></p><p>Scribe looks at the message to Lord Alonzo, which is in Alistair’s personal handwriting. The errors match the same mistakes, reflecting the underlying concealed handwriting. The scribe relaxes when it becomes clear that the topic is not risqué. No similarity to the handwriting in the love notes (or the old Privy Secretary’s handwriting.)</p><p></p><p>Dame Brionna goes through several of the logistical and support requests, which go through several iterations, getting increasingly desperate. The top level stuff has all reached us, but all of the functional stuff has been falling down. Dame Brionna asks her secretary and squire to start answering these, along with Father Waters-- both are competent to answer most of these questions.</p><p></p><p>Next day! Alistair does his marital duties, then spends the night in Kit’s room-- he knocks and does not assume, but does spend the night. [If I recall correctly, in one of the missing sessions we all concluded that the sooner there was an heir on the way, the better. So there was a public ceremony announcing the betrothal and having Kaitlyn baptized into the faith of Glordiadel, followed immediately by a private, basically secret but legally and religiously binding wedding, with the public wedding scheduled for substantially later with an appropriate lag time for a public event of that magnitude. Also, if it hadn't already happened, I think Alistair had Dame Constance dissolve the fertility block his grandmother had placed on him.]</p><p></p><p>[cont'd]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="CPaladin, post: 8236067, member: 7030144"] [Session 35, cont'd] Meanwhile, Dame Brionna gathers up a stack of reports from the Privy Secretary’s office. The Master: I didn’t want to ask around, because that could make someone go looking. So I’ve been keeping a watch, and I reassigned some of the least reliable to other warehouses. Dame Brionna hands Kit a stack of love poems to the Privy Secretary. They are sappy and swarmy; they are signed, “Davron Crickhollow”; Davron is the younger brother of the squire of Crickhollow (a vassal of the Earl of Quickford, himself a direct vassal of the Archduke); Davron is a moderately successful merchant, not hugely wealthy, mostly an exporter, but of course he carries loads back. Winters and lives in Canberry City. Maintains a permanent suite in one of the residential inns. Recently departed. Alistair suggests having someone burglarize his suite. We’ll have Father Waters function as Privy Secretary until we get a permanent one. We send a regiment of guards to the warehouse. We implement the options plan in the Exchange-- writing lots of call options on salt. Kit puts some people to watch the other senior warehouse people. That afternoon: Several young people who saw the crier have been brought in and Dame Kit is informed. She goes in with detect thoughts up. There are a whole gaggle of twelve-year olds. The criers were crying this at about 9 at night, which is fairly normal-- people are home, but not asleep yet. Criers didn’t give their names, which is normal; they give the best descriptions they can, but the descriptions are lousy. She is seeing dark shapes, clearly correct tabards, top hats, but nobody saw a face. They had the handbells. No suspicious potbellies, but one did have a goose on a leash. He cries all the time. So definitely his regular crier. All of the voices sounded right. The Archduke was calling for calm. Gave his personal guarantee that there would be enough salt to preserve the food of all in the fall. Part of the usual list of announcements. Right after the announcement of someone being elevated in the military, right before the local deaths. We call up the functionary in charge of the announcements. Dame Brionna goes down to his office, in the bowels of the palace. There is a small mousy man with gnomish spectacles, writing away on the evening crying. Any special announcements from the Archduke come with his seal from his office. These days, it gets delivered by a runner from the Archduke. Usually, by two at the latest. Salt announcement was delivered late, by a different runner from normal, but things have been irregular lately. Only other particularly odd one was the one announced 5 or 6 days ago, the announcement of incipient military movements. Sheet of papyrus with the Archducal seal at the bottom, announcing the intent of the Archduchy to transfer several legions in or near the city to the eastern frontier. I gave the boy a message to take back. There was some panic about this-- it would leave us unprotected to the west. Been doing this job for 25 years. What’s the best way to counter this? Would an announcement that the troops are staying help? Yes, it would calm people greatly. Dame Brionna makes a plan to grab the messenger when he next delivers a message from the Archduke. Also, we are seeking new recruits for the army and new guards, and welcome those of common birth. Pay will go up by 2 coppers a day. Also gives her the names of the people from the middle and upper. Dame Brionna sends guards to check them out. No false announcements made there. Scribe notes that the handwriting was also matched to the archduke’s normal messages (Marcus’s handwriting). Whoever does this is good. Not perfect, but easily good enough to fool any non-professionals. Scribe looks at the message to Lord Alonzo, which is in Alistair’s personal handwriting. The errors match the same mistakes, reflecting the underlying concealed handwriting. The scribe relaxes when it becomes clear that the topic is not risqué. No similarity to the handwriting in the love notes (or the old Privy Secretary’s handwriting.) Dame Brionna goes through several of the logistical and support requests, which go through several iterations, getting increasingly desperate. The top level stuff has all reached us, but all of the functional stuff has been falling down. Dame Brionna asks her secretary and squire to start answering these, along with Father Waters-- both are competent to answer most of these questions. Next day! Alistair does his marital duties, then spends the night in Kit’s room-- he knocks and does not assume, but does spend the night. [If I recall correctly, in one of the missing sessions we all concluded that the sooner there was an heir on the way, the better. So there was a public ceremony announcing the betrothal and having Kaitlyn baptized into the faith of Glordiadel, followed immediately by a private, basically secret but legally and religiously binding wedding, with the public wedding scheduled for substantially later with an appropriate lag time for a public event of that magnitude. Also, if it hadn't already happened, I think Alistair had Dame Constance dissolve the fertility block his grandmother had placed on him.] [cont'd] [/QUOTE]
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Aphonion Tales: The Archducal Council -- Unedited notes; later posts are edited transcripts (posts MWF, update 3/1/23)
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