The Holy Crown of Castavar

Succession law

The crown passes in the male line. Castavar remembers that Lasdara ended in 301 when its male line died out. A Grandee's lands pass whole to his eldest son, and younger sons go to the church or the knightly orders. Commoners divide their land among their sons and give their daughters dowries. The Berrode does not undo a marriage; a church court may part a couple, but neither may marry again. The church has decided who rules before now. The Rislo holds a veto over matters of faith, and in 983 Rislo Gronrovo imprisoned King Janedo IV and ruled through the king's twelve-year-old son for eleven years.

The ruling house: Grarañe

text The Twin Crowns of Castavar and Lasdara (before the Reckoning) │ ├── THE LINE OF LASDARA, junior crown; male line ended 301, the kingdom absorbed │ └── HOUSE GRARAÑE ⋮ ├── Clislo II, killed by a thrown spear at the Battle of the Gap, 212 ⋮ ├── Llelilo the Pious, died of thirst on the First Crusade, 701 ⋮ ├── Mairo II, captured at the Salt Pans, 868; ransomed for his weight in silver ⋮ ├── Janedo IV, imprisoned by Rislo Gronrovo, 983 │ └── (his son, unnamed, twelve in 983, through whom the Rislo ruled eleven years) ⋮ └── Randuo V, died 1138 │ └── Dobarmo IV, born c. 1111, crowned 1138 ═══ Rorelle diol Valcroix (1135) │ └── two sons, unnamed; the elder is heir

The Rislon of the chronicles: Cravio of Grarañe, the first, 655; Pueco, 866; Gronrovo, 983; Litoto, in office in 1146.

• Seat: The Palace of the Orange Courts, Grarañe (grarane); the Royal Demesne (royal-demesne-of-grarane).
• Arms: The realm's arms are House Grarañe's quartered with the Berrode: a crown, the cathedral-fortress, the ring of the White Thorn and the ocean fleet, with two lances for supporters. The house's own arms are the first quarter: a gold crown standing on a white cliff above a blue river. Grarañe is the Castavari word for cliff.
• Words: IENO SEMODO · IENA ELLABA, "One God, one crown."
• Head: King Dobarmo IV deso Grarañe (35), who wears a glove over his burned right palm and takes it off to pray.
• Heir: The elder of his two sons by Queen Rorelle, a boy of no more than ten.
• Wealth and power: The crown holds the Royal Demesne, the Royal Mint and its royal fifth of the Grandees' silver, the tuna, which is the crown's alone, and the navy. Against that it owes Farisel 4,800,000 leusores, half its income goes in interest, and the Grandees voted no grant in 1146.
• Allies and feuds: The crown is bound to Caelvenne by the Gilded Pact. The Rislo sits at the king's right hand. The Crownmen of Grarañe name Dobarmo their head, and he has never led them.
• History: Within a generation of Fojo's Hearing in 312 the kings took up the Solitary God and outlawed the older gods. The city says Mairo II's ransom in 868 was weighed on the Royal Mint's great scale. Dobarmo IV was crowned at 27 in 1138, and the Third Crusade burned at Faashab-Talodin the next year.
• Hooks: Brother Talvo has a file on the queen that he has not yet opened. At the last service on Fojiga the king left his glove off all the way to the palace. The coming year will settle who rules Castavar, the crown or the cliff.
• Direction: CONTESTED.

The Line of Lasdara (vanished)

• Seat: The old Lasdara country, now the Berrode's southern diocese (lasdara-country).
• Arms: On gold, a green olive tree with a black bull lying beneath it. The palace hangs this banner beside Castavar's on the fourth Accord Day.
• Words: Lost.
• Head: None since 301.
• History:
• 301 — The male line dies out. The name lives on only in the church's southern diocese.
• Hooks: The olive and the bull on the old banner are two of the gods the Grove of Lasdara still keeps, and the Office of Truth has noticed who looks longest at the banner on Twin Crowns' Day.
• Direction: VANISHED, though the Grove villages may become a people of their own if Castavar breaks.

The Grandees of Puesdro

• Seat: The Silverhead Mines (silverhead-mines), with town houses in Puesdro (puesdro), whose business their stewards run under the crown's governor.
• Arms: On blue, a silver mountain with three black mine-mouths.
• Words: Silver Answers.
• Head: The Grandee of Puesdro, first among the mine-holding Grandees.
• Heir: His eldest son, by law.
• Wealth and power: The Silverhead Mines yield about sixty tons of silver a year, and their Grandees pay the crown a fifth in ingots. The Upland Shepherds pay them a sheep in ten.
• Allies and feuds: The house is the heart of the Old Jevarrie. Rislo Litoto has proposed seizing the mines "for God" to pay for the Fourth Crusade, and the house is looking for friends among the Crownmen. The Gap Wardens say half their number are bastards of the silver country's masesben.
• History:
• 752 — Silver is found above Puesdro.
• 1068 — A Castavari silver venture collapses and takes the House of Tésvol with it.
• Hooks: Binto the Weigher has been summoned to the Rislo three times with the mint's full accounts.
• Direction: CONTESTED.

The Grandees of Tinoda

• Seat: The almond orchards around Tinoda (tinoda), with town houses inside its walls. The city itself is the crown's, under a royal governor.
• Arms: On red, a white almond branch in blossom crossed with a lance.
• Words: We Face the Flame.
• Head: The Grandee of Tinoda, first of the orchard Grandees.
• Heir: His eldest son.
• Wealth and power: The house lives on almond orchards and a share of the road through Cluvedo and Daalher, where Castavari silver and wine go into Zarvand.
• Allies and feuds: The house is Ecclesiast by habit. Every crusade marches through or past its land, and it has buried more sons than any house in Castavar.
• History:
• 699–701 — The First Crusade dies in the Sunmaw beyond its border.
• 1139 — Its knights ride with the Third Crusade.
• Hooks: Zarrit the Money-Changer in Mazbaaran has changed more Castavari silver this year than in five, much of it by the Tinoda road.
• Direction: FADING.

The Grandees of Sonvera

• Seat: The rice marshes and salt lagoons of Sonvera province (sonvera-province), with a town house in Sonvera (sonvera), which the crown rules through a governor.
• Arms: Blue and white waves, with a pink flamingo standing on one leg.
• Words: The Sea Keeps Count.
• Head: The Grandee of Sonvera.
• Heir: His eldest son.
• Wealth and power: The house holds Sonvera rice, salt lagoons, and a coast that faces the Shattered Isles across open water.
• Allies and feuds: The house is Vinvelon: Castavar is a sea power, not a desert one. It hates the Salt Brotherhood in public and buys its prizes back in private.
• History:
• 410–415 — The Salt Wars destroy Vexara, off Sonvera's coast.
• Hooks: Lonre of the Long Reach, a Brotherhood captain, is Sonvera-born, and the Grandee's household knows her mother.
• Direction: RISING.

Quedalgo of the Llovo March

• Seat: The Llovo March (llovo-march), with the Craucan stud (the-craucan).
• Arms: On gold, a green cork oak with its trunk stripped red, and a black bull lying beneath it. Quedalgo is the Castavari word for ox.
• Words: Nine Years to the Bark.
• Head: Vaugenco the Bull-Lord, Grandee of the March, a big, pious man of about sixty who has never missed a bull-run.
• Heir: His eldest son.
• Wealth and power: The house lives on cork, black Llovo bulls, cork-hill hams, and the Craucan's destriers. A trained destrier is sold only with a Grandee's letter, and in the March the letter is Quedalgo's.
• Allies and feuds: The house is Old Jevarrie. Half the villages on Quedalgo land keep the Grove at night, and Vaugenco has chosen not to know.
• History:
• 312 — The older gods are outlawed. The March's bull-runs live on under a church calendar.
• Hooks: When the bull-run in a Quedalgo town kills the bishop's nephew and the crowd cheers, the Office of Truth demands the runs be banned, and Vaugenco demands they go on.
• Direction: CONTESTED.

Tirago

• Seat: A tower near the fort of Corendrosa (corendrosa), in the Royal Demesne.
• Arms: On gray, a white hawthorn sprig above a square gray stone.
• Words: Stand Like Stone.
• Head: The Grand Master's elder brother (unnamed), head of a masesben family of the Demesne. Its best-known son is Grand Master Arsoso Tirago of the White Thorn (53), a younger son who went to the orders, as younger sons do.
• Heir: The elder brother's eldest son.
• Wealth and power: The family has little land and great honor. The Grand Master commands the Order of the White Thorn.
• Allies and feuds: The Grand Master is an Ecclesiast by duty, and he calls the Office of Truth cowards with candles.
• History:
• 1139 — Arsoso Tirago fights in the Third Crusade and buries most of his friends in the Sunmaw.
• Hooks: A Dunmorrow wagon under guard carried plate armor and a note into the White Thorn's chapter house.
• Direction: STABLE.

Castavar's nobility is CONTESTED. The Grandees are richer than their king, the church wants their mines, and the Old Jevarrie may find it has a spine after all.

Law

The king makes Castavar's law with the Grandees, who vote him money in the Jevarrie, and the Rislo holds a veto over matters of faith, which he reckons broadly. The king's courts hear property, debt and violence. The church's courts hear sin, marriage, oaths and heresy, and heresy goes to the Office of Truth, which can take a prisoner out of the king's own cells. The Grandees judge their own lands in everything short of death, and the Upland Shepherds cannot be arrested on the drove-road.

The watch is drawn from the ratorlon of the garrisons, who walk in pairs and keep out of the poor quarters after dark. The Office of Truth needs no watch. It pays informers. Punishment follows rank: a laborer who steals is flogged, a lesser noble is fined, and a Grandee is invited to lend the king money.

Unhearing and outlawry. Short of the fire, the church's heaviest sentence is to declare a person unheard. An unheard man may not marry, swear an oath, stand as a witness or be buried in the church's ground, and whoever helps him shares his sentence. The crown outlaws bandits in the Upland, and any man may kill an outlaw found on the king's roads.

Debt. The Berrode calls lending at interest between believers a sin (talue), so Castavari borrow from Caelvennois, and that is how the crown came to owe Farisel. A peasant owes his Grandee's granary for seed and bread, and the debt passes to his sons. A masesben who cannot pay pawns his land to the lenders of the Mint Ward.

Family

Marriage and divorce. Marriage belongs to the church courts. It is made before a priest in silence, the vows spoken into the quiet the way Fojo heard his God. No weddings are held in Litota, and many are held at the Feast of Grace that ends it. Marriages are arranged on the evening walk, and a noble daughter marries where her father's treaties need her. Queen Rorelle married at seventeen to seal the Gilded Pact. The Berrode does not undo a marriage. A church court may separate a couple for cruelty or heresy, but neither may marry again while the other lives.

Inheritance. A Grandee's lands go whole to the eldest son, and younger sons go to the church or the knightly orders. Commoners divide land among their sons and give their daughters dowries. The crown passes in the male line, and Castavar remembers that Lasdara ended in 301 when its male line died out.

Women. A Castavari woman lives under her father's law and then her husband's, and may not be a priest or sit in the Jevarrie. Women still rise, by the sea, by widowhood and by faith. Captain Modarsa Tandosno commands the navy's best galleon, and the widows of the Third Crusade hold their own property for the first time in their lives.

Who is not free. Castavar holds no one as property, and its peasants are free in law. In truth most owe their Grandee a year's harvest, a son for the ratorlon, and their silence.

Children and schooling. About one Castavari in seven can read, nearly all of them clergy or nobles, taught in the cathedral schools and the orders' colleges. The navy's pilot school at Tandosa teaches boys of twelve from Zarvani star tables bound inside approved covers. Everyone else learns from the pulpit, and pays a Market Hand scribe to write a letter.

Daily life

Food and drink. Castavar eats from the olive, the vine and the pig. In Litota it eats no meat at all.

On the coast the daily meal is sardines, dried octopus and bread, and spring tuna is for feast days.

Dress and houses. Castavari wear dark wool and linen, the pious wear black on Fojiga, and knights of the White Thorn wear Rosemary of the Thorn in the helm. Every Castavari burned in war wears a glove over the scar and takes it off only to pray. Houses are whitewashed stone or adobe under red tile, built around a courtyard with a well or cistern.

Health and hygiene. Castavar had physicians once, and burned or lost most of them. The knightly orders keep infirmaries for their own men. The poor go to herb-women with Upland thyme, rosemary and thyme-hill honey, and the Office of Truth watches the herb-women. Zarvani medicine is smuggled in wine barrels, and the Sunmaw poppy is against the law. A pious Castavari washes his hands at the cistern before prayer. In the Warren of Grarañe the best-known midwife is Randue the Midwife (randue, "safe"). She has delivered half the quarter, and by what she tells the priest, she decides which thorn-shaped birthmarks are worth reporting.

Birth and death. A child is named at the first service of Fojiga after its birth. The priest says nothing, and the family speaks the name into the silence. The dead are buried in the church's ground after a vigil without music. A family whose son never came home from the Sunmaw hangs his empty glove by the door.

Pastimes. Castavar amuses itself with sermons, processions, horse-racing, dice and gossip. In Llusodo the young men run before the black bulls of the Llovo March, and in Litota there is no music on any day.

A day. The bells ring before dawn and business is done by noon. The towns shutter through the heat and wake for the evening walk, when marriages are arranged and informers take notes. The week runs from Ieno to Fojiga, the day of silence.

Where it is going: CONTESTED. Castavar's law has two masters, and in 1146 the church is winning. The Rislo wants the Grandees' mines for the Fourth Crusade, and the Office of Truth can overrule the king's cells. If the Old Jevarrie and the Crownmen join, the king's courts may win back their ground. If they do not, the Office of Truth will be the law.

Makes and sells. Silver, some sixty tons a year, more than every other realm together; olives and oil, Llovo red, cork, merino wool, hams, destriers, almonds, rice, lagoon salt, sardines, octopus and tuna.

Buys. Credit, until this year; Dunmorrow armor; Caelvennois clockwork arbalests; Zarvani star tables, in secret; timber for masts.

Taxes. - The royal fifth: the Grandees who own the mines pay the crown a fifth of their silver in ingots at the Royal Mint, about 96,000 larrama a year. - The mint charge of one part in twenty on all silver struck. - The Mouth duty at Tandosa: one part in fifteen on everything loaded for the sea. - The Jevarrie's grant, the sum the Grandees vote the king when he summons them. In 1146 they have voted none. - The spring tuna, which belongs to the crown alone; a larrama on every destrier sold at the Horse Fair. - The Church takes a tenth of every harvest and shares none of it. The Upland Shepherds pay the Grandees a sheep in ten and the king nothing.

Direction. CONTESTED. Castavar strikes more silver than anyone and keeps less of it than anyone.